Bhagat Singh - WikiHQ

Bhagat Singh (27 September 1907 who participated in the mistaken murder of a junior British police officer in December 1928 in what was intended to be retaliation for the death of an Indian nationalist. He later took part in a largely symbolic bombing of the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi and a hunger strike in jail, which—on the back of sympathetic coverage in Indian-owned newspapers—turned him into a household name in the Punjab region, and, after his execution at age 23, a martyr and folk hero in Northern India. Borrowing ideas from Bolshevism and anarchism, the charismatic Bhagat Singh electrified a growing militancy in India in the 1930s and prompted urgent introspection within the Indian National Congress's nonviolent, and eventually successful, campaign for India's independence.

In December 1928, Bhagat Singh and an associate, Shivaram Rajguru, both members of a small revolutionary group, the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (also Army, or HSRA), shot dead a 21-year-old British police officer, John P. Saunders, in Lahore, Punjab, in what is today Pakistan, mistaking Saunders, who was still on probation, for the British senior police superintendent, James Scott, whom they had intended to assassinate. They held Scott responsible for the death of a popular Indian nationalist leader Lala Lajpat Rai for having ordered a lathi (baton) charge in which Rai was injured and two weeks thereafter died of a heart attack. As Saunders exited a police station on a motorcycle, he was felled by a single bullet fired from across the street by Rajguru, a marksman. As he lay injured, he was shot at close range several times by Singh, the postmortem report showing eight bullet wounds. Another associate of Singh, Chandra Shekhar Azad, shot dead an Indian police head constable, Channan Singh, who attempted to give chase as Singh and Rajguru fled.

After having escaped, Bhagat Singh and his associates used pseudonyms to publicly announce avenging Lajpat Rai's death, putting up prepared posters that they had altered to show John Saunders as their intended target instead of James Scott. Singh was thereafter on the run for many months, and no convictions resulted at the time. Surfacing again in April 1929, he and another associate, Batukeshwar Dutt, set off two low-intensity homemade bombs among some unoccupied benches of the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi. They showered leaflets from the gallery on the legislators below, shouted slogans, and allowed the authorities to arrest them. The arrest, and the resulting publicity, brought to light Singh's complicity in the John Saunders case. Awaiting trial, Singh gained public sympathy after he joined fellow defendant Jatin Das in a hunger strike, demanding better prison conditions for Indian prisoners, the strike ending in Das's death from starvation in September 1929.

Bhagat Singh was convicted of the murder of John Saunders and Channan Singh, and hanged in March 1931, aged 23. He became a popular folk hero after his death. Jawaharlal Nehru wrote about him: "Bhagat Singh did not become popular because of his act of terrorism but because he seemed to vindicate, for the moment, the honour of Lala Lajpat Rai, and through him of the nation. He became a symbol; the act was forgotten, the symbol remained, and within a few months each town and village of the Punjab, and to a lesser extent in the rest of northern India, resounded with his name." In still later years, Singh, an atheist and socialist in adulthood, won admirers in India from among a political spectrum that included both communists and right-wing Hindu nationalists. Although many of Singh's associates, as well as many Indian anti-colonial revolutionaries, were also involved in daring acts and were either executed or died violent deaths, few came to be lionised in popular art and literature as did Singh, who is sometimes referred to as the Shaheed-e-Azam ("Great martyr" in Urdu and Punjabi).

Early life

Bhagat Singh was born into a Punjabi Jat Sikh family on 27 September 1907, Bhagat Singh's father and his uncle Ajit Singh, were active in progressive politics, taking part in the agitation around the Canal Colonization Bill in 1907, and later, the Ghadar Movement of 1914–1915. and also contributed to low-priced pamphlets published by the Naujawan Bharat Sabha that excoriated the British. He also wrote for Kirti, the journal of the Kirti Kisan Party ("Workers and Peasants Party") and briefly for the Veer Arjun newspaper, published in Delhi. He often used pseudonyms, including names such as Balwant, Ranjit and Vidhrohi.

Revolutionary activities

Killing of John Saunders

In 1928, the British government set up the Simon Commission to report on the political situation in India. Some Indian political parties boycotted the Commission because there were no Indians in its membership, and there were protests across the country. When the Commission visited Lahore on 30 October 1928, Lala Lajpat Rai led a march in protest against it. Police attempts to disperse the large crowd resulted in violence. The superintendent of police, James A. Scott, ordered the police to lathi charge (use batons against) the protesters and personally assaulted Rai, who was injured. Rai died of a heart attack on 17 November 1928. Doctors thought that his death might have been hastened by the injuries he had received. When the matter was raised in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the British Government denied any role in Rai's death. The smoke from the bombs filled the Assembly so that Singh and Dutt could probably have escaped in the confusion had they wished. Instead, they stayed shouting the slogan "Inquilab Zindabad!" ("Long Live the Revolution") and threw leaflets. The two men were arrested and subsequently moved through a series of jails in Delhi.

Assembly case trial

According to Neeti Nair, "public criticism of this terrorist action was unequivocal." Gandhi, once again, issued strong words of disapproval of their deed. Nonetheless, the jailed Bhagat was reported to be elated, and referred to the subsequent legal proceedings as a "drama". Singh and Dutt eventually responded to the criticism by writing the Assembly Bomb Statement:

The trial began in the first week of June, following a preliminary hearing in May. On 12 June, both men were sentenced to life imprisonment for: "causing explosions of a nature likely to endanger life, unlawfully and maliciously." Dutt had been defended by Asaf Ali, while Singh defended himself.

The government tried to break the strike by placing different food items in the prison cells to test the prisoners' resolve. Water pitchers were filled with milk so that either the prisoners remained thirsty or broke their strike; nobody faltered and the impasse continued. The authorities then attempted force-feeding the prisoners but this was resisted. With the matter still unresolved, the Indian Viceroy, Lord Irwin, cut short his vacation in Simla to discuss the situation with jail authorities. Since the activities of the hunger strikers had gained popularity and attention nationwide, the government decided to advance the start of the Saunders murder trial, which was henceforth called the Lahore Conspiracy Case. Singh was transported to Borstal Jail, Lahore, and the trial began there on 10 July 1929. In addition to charging them with the murder of Saunders, Singh and the 27 other prisoners were charged with plotting a conspiracy to murder Scott, and waging a war against the King. The magistrate ordered the trial to proceed without the accused or members of the HSRA. This was a setback for Singh as he could no longer use the trial as a forum to publicise his views.

Special Tribunal

To speed up the slow trial, the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, declared an emergency on 1 May 1930 and introduced an ordinance to set up a special tribunal composed of three high court judges for the case. This decision cut short the normal process of justice as the only appeal after the tribunal was to the Privy Council located in England.

Execution

right|180px|Death certificate of Bhagat Singh|thumb

Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were sentenced to death in the Lahore conspiracy case and ordered to be hanged on 24 March 1931. The schedule was moved forward by 11 hours and the three were hanged on 23 March 1931 at 7:30 pm in the Lahore jail. It is reported that no magistrate at the time was willing to supervise Singh's hanging as was required by law. The execution was supervised instead by an honorary judge named Nawab Muhammad Ahmed Khan Kasuri, who also signed the three death warrants, as their original warrants had expired.

After their bodies were hastily removed from the gallows, they were chopped into pieces, and stuffed into sacks. These sacks were then secretly taken out of the jail compound and were cremated under cover of darkness outside Ganda Singh Wala village, and then the ashes were thrown into the Sutlej river, about from Ferozepore.

Criticism of the tribunal trial

Singh's trial has been described by the Supreme Court as "contrary to the fundamental doctrine of criminal jurisprudence" because there was no opportunity for the accused to defend themselves. The Special Tribunal was a departure from the normal procedure adopted for a trial and its decision could only be appealed to the Privy Council located in Britain.

Reactions to the executions

thumb|[[The Tribune (Chandigarh)|The Tribune news report of Sardar Bhagat Singh's execution,1931.]]

The executions were reported widely by the press, especially as they took place on the eve of the annual convention of the Congress party at Karachi. Gandhi faced black flag demonstrations by angry youths who shouted "Down with Gandhi". The New York Times reported:

Hartals and strikes of mourning were called. The Congress party, during the Karachi session, declared:

In the issue of Young India of 29 March 1931, Gandhi wrote:

Gandhi's role

On 23 March, Mahatama Gandhi had written a letter to viceroy appealing for commutation for the death sentences against Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru. While there have been unfounded claims that Gandhi had an opportunity to stop Singh's execution, it is held that Gandhi did not have enough influence with the British to stop the execution, much less arrange it, but that he did his best to save Singh's life. Gandhi supporters assert that Singh's role in the independence movement was no threat to Gandhi's role as its leader, so he would have no reason to want him dead. Gandhi had managed to have 90,000 political prisoners, who were not members of his Satyagraha movement, released under the Gandhi–Irwin Pact. Singh was attracted to anarchism and communism. Singh did not believe in the Gandhian ideology – which advocated Satyagraha and other forms of non-violent resistance, and felt that such politics would replace one set of exploiters with another.

From May to September 1928, Singh published a series of articles on anarchism in Kirti. He was concerned that the public misunderstood the concept of anarchism, writing that: "The people are scared of the word anarchism. The word anarchism has been abused so much that even in India revolutionaries have been called anarchist to make them unpopular." He clarified that anarchism refers to the absence of a ruler and abolition of the state, not the absence of order. He went on to say: "I think in India the idea of universal brotherhood, the Sanskrit sentence Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam etc., has the same meaning." He believed that:

The Governments formed by Hindu nationalist BJP has attempted to appropriate Bhagat Singh from his communist, atheistic roots and recast him as a Hindu icon.

On 15 August 2008, an 18-foot tall bronze statue of Singh was installed in the Parliament of India, next to the statues of Indira Gandhi and Subhas Chandra Bose. A portrait of Singh and Dutt also adorns the walls of the Parliament House.

thumb|The National Martyrs Memorial, built at Hussainiwala in memory of Bhagat Singh, [[Sukhdev Thapar|Sukhdev, and Rajguru ]]

Batukeshwar Dutt was cremated at Hussainiwala on 19 July 1965 in accordance with his last wishes, as was Singh's mother, Vidyawati. and has memorials of Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev. During the 1971 India–Pakistan war, the memorial was damaged and the statues of the martyrs were removed by the Pakistani Army. They have not been returned but the memorial was rebuilt in 1973.
The Shaheedi Mela (Punjabi: Martyrdom Fair) is an event held annually on 23 March when people pay homage at the National Martyrs Memorial. The day is also observed across the Indian state of Punjab.
The Shaheed-e-Azam Sardar Bhagat Singh Museum opened on the 50th anniversary of his death at his ancestral village, Khatkar Kalan. Exhibits include Singh's ashes, the blood-soaked sand, and the blood-stained newspaper in which the ashes were wrapped. A page of the first Lahore Conspiracy Case's judgement in which Kartar Singh Sarabha was sentenced to death and on which Singh put some notes is also displayed,
The Bhagat Singh Memorial was built in 2009 in Khatkar Kalan at a cost of .
The Supreme Court of India established a museum to display landmarks in the history of India's judicial system, displaying records of some historic trials. The first exhibition that was organised was the Trial of Bhagat Singh, which opened on 28 September 2007, on the centenary celebrations of Singh's birth. He was voted the "Greatest Indian" in a poll by the Indian magazine India Today in 2008, ahead of Bose and Gandhi. During the centenary of his birth, a group of intellectuals set up an institution named Bhagat Singh Sansthan to commemorate him and his ideals. The Parliament of India paid tributes and observed silence as a mark of respect in memory of Singh on 23 March 2001 and 2005. In Pakistan, after a long-standing demand by activists from the Bhagat Singh Memorial Foundation of Pakistan, the Shadman Chowk square in Lahore, where he was hanged, was renamed as Bhagat Singh Chowk. This change was successfully challenged in a Pakistani court. On 6 September 2015, the Bhagat Singh Memorial Foundation filed a petition in the Lahore high court and again demanded the renaming of the Chowk to Bhagat Singh Chowk.

Films and television

Several films have been made portraying the life and times of Singh.

1954: The first film based on his life was Shaheed-e-Azad Bhagat Singh, in which Prem Adeeb played the role of Singh.
1963: Shammi Kapoor starred as Bhagat Singh in Shaheed Bhagat Singh.
1965: Manoj Kumar portrayed Bhagat Singh in Shaheed.
1974: Som Dutt portrayed Singh in Amar Shaheed Bhagat Singh (1974).
1999: Gurdas Mann played the role of Singh in Shaheed Udham Singh, a film based on life of Udham Singh.
2002: Three films about Singh were released – Shaheed-E-Azam; 23rd March 1931: Shaheed; and The Legend of Bhagat Singh – in which Singh was portrayed by Sonu Sood, Bobby Deol and Ajay Devgn respectively.
2002: Bhagat Singh, a drama film directed by Anand Sagar and written/produced Ramanand Sagar was aired on DD National. It featured Deepak Dutta in the titular role.
2006: Siddharth played the role of Bhagat Singh in the film Rang De Basanti, a film drawing parallels between revolutionaries of Bhagat Singh's era and modern Indian youth.
2008: Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) and Act Now for Harmony and Democracy (ANHAD), a non-profit organisation, co-produced a 40-minute documentary on Bhagat Singh entitled Inqilab, directed by Gauhar Raza.
2018: In the independent film Shaheed-E-Aazam about freedom fighter Kamal Nath Tiwari, Singh is played by Rahul Pathak.
2018: Karam Rajpal portrayed Bhagat Singh in Star Bharat's television series Chandrashekhar, which is based on life of Indian revolutionary and freedom fighter Chandra Shekhar Azad.
2020: Rishabh Raj portrays Singh in Shaheed Chandrashekhar Azaad, another film about Azad.
2021: Amol Parashar portrayed Singh in Sardar Udham, another film based on Udham Singh's life.
2022: Vivek Mishra plays Singh in the film Hero of Nation Chandra Shekhar Azad about Azad.

Theatre

Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru have been the inspiration for a number of plays in India and Pakistan, that continue to attract crowds.

Songs

Although not written by Singh, the patriotic Hindustani songs, "Sarfaroshi Ki Tamanna" ("The desire to sacrifice") created by Bismil Azimabadi, and "Mera Rang De Basanti Chola" ("O Mother! Dye my robe the colour of spring") created by Ram Prasad Bismil, are largely associated with him and have been used in a number of related films.

Other

In 1968, a postage stamp was issued in India commemorating the 61st birth anniversary of Singh. A ₹5 coin commemorating him was released for circulation in 2012.

Books

References

Notes

Citations

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Works cited and bibliography

External links

Bhagat Singh biography, and letters written by Bhagat Singh
His Violence Wasn't Just About Killing, Outlook
The indomitable courage and sacrifice of Bhagat Singh and his comrades will continue to inspire people, The Tribune
Tracing the Martyr's Footsteps in Lahore, The Quint