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Garma
Garam More |
A Saga of Sacrifice & Struggle |
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By Bipan Chandra Bhagat
Singh was not only one of India's greatest freedom fighters and revolutionary
socialists, but also one of its early Marxist thinkers and ideologues.
Unfortunately, this last aspect is relatively unknown with the result that all
sorts of reactionaries, obscurantist and communalists have been wrongly and
dishonestly trying to utilize for their own politics and ideologies the name of
Bhagat Singh and his comrades such as Chandra Shekhar Azad. Bhagat
Singh died young at the age of 23. His political thought and practice started
evolving very early when he made a quick transition from Gandhian nationalism
to revolutionary terrorism. But already by 1927-28 he began to move from
revolutionary terrorism to Marxism. During the year s 1925 to 1928, Bhagat Singh
read voraciously, devouring in particular books on the Russian Revolution and
the Soviet Union, even though getting hold of such books was in itself at the
time a revolutionary and difficult task. In the 1920s, Bhagat Singh was one of
the most well-read persons in India on revolutionary movements, anarchism and
Marxism. He also tried to inculcate the reading and thinking habit among his
fellow revolutionaries and younger comrades. He asserted during his trial before
the Lahore High Court that "the sword of revolution is sharpened at the
whetstone of thought". Already by the end of 1928, he and his comrades had
accepted socialism as the final object of their activities and changed the name
of their organization from the Hindustan Republican Association to Hindustan
Socialist Republican Association. From
now on, before his arrest in June 1929 and after, Bhagat Singh's furious march
towards the acquisition and mastery of Marxism continued unabated. In the
process, he brought under critical scrutiny all contemporary views, including
his own, regarding the nationalist movement, the
character of the contemporary worldwide revolutionary process, anarchism,
socialism, violence and non-violence, revolutionary terrorism, religion,
communalism, older revolutionaries and contemporary nationalists, etc. It
is one of the greatest tragedies of our people that this giant of a brain was
brought to a stop so early by the colonial authorities. In this small pamphlet*
are brought before the reader two relatively unknown articles written by Bhagat
Singh in jail during 1930-31, while he was awaiting the action of the gallows.
In these articles, as in numerous other letters, statements and articles, he
clearly emerges as a revolutionary fully committed to Marxism and capable of
applying it with the full complexity of its method. In
the first article, Bhagat Singh deals with religion and atheism. He traces his
own path to atheism though influenced in early childhood by religion and later
by the early revolutionary terrorists such as Sachindra Nath Sanyal, whose book
Bandi Jivan was a basic textbook for all revolutionaries during the 1920s. These
early revolutionaries relied upon religion and mysticism to acquire the
spiritual strength they revealed in their immensely courageous activities. In
this article, as also in the second, Bhagat Singh shows full understanding of
the approach and viewpoint of the early revolutionaries and traces the source of
their religiosity. He points out that in the absence of a scientific
understanding of their own political activity, they needed irrational religious
beliefs and mysticism to sustain themselves spiritually, to struggle against
personal temptation, to overcome depression, to be able to sacrifice their
physical comforts, families and even life. When one is constantly willing to
risk one's life and make all other sacrifices, a person requires deep sources of
inspiration. This necessary need was, in the case of early revolutionary
terrorists, met by mysticism and religion.1 But these were no longer
necessary as sources of inspiration for those who
understood the nature of their activity, who had advanced to a revolutionary
ideology, who could struggle against oppression without artificial spiritual
crutches, who could confidently and without fear mount the gallows without
requiring the consolation and comfort of `eternal' salvation, who fought for
freedom and emancipation of the oppressed because they "could not do
otherwise". Bhagat
Singh was himself at the time waiting for the noose to fall around his neck. He
knew that at such a moment it was easy to take recourse to God. "In God man
can W d very strong consolation and support". On the other hand, to depend
on one's own inner strength was not easy. As he put it: "To stand upon
one's own legs amid storms and hurricanes is not a child's play". He also
knew that the task required immense moral strength and that the modern revolutionaries
were following a moral path of a unique nature. This path led one to devote
oneself to " the service of mankind and emancipation of the suffering
humanity". This was the path followed by men and women who dared "to
challenge the oppressors, exploiters, and tyrants" and who, opposing
"mental stagnation", insisted on thinking for themselves. As Bhagat
Singh further put it: "Criticism and independent thinking are the two
indispensable qualities of a revolutionary". Bhagat
Singh points out that it is not easy to live the life of a reasoning person. It
is easy to take consolation or relief from blind faith. But it is our duty to
try ceaselessly to live the life of reason. And that is why Bhagat Singh asserts
at the end of the essay that by proclaiming himself an atheist and a realist
(materialist) he was "trying to stand like a man with an erect head to the
last; even on the gallows". II In
Bhagat Singh's analysis of religion and its basic causation, we get a glimpse of
his powerful intellect, his revolutionary commitment and his capacity to think
in a historical, materialist and scientific manner. Religion,
he notes, is not merely created by the ruling and exploiting classes to decieve
the people, to legitimize their class privileges and power, and to keep the
people socially quiet, though it also serves that purpose in real life and
therefore it becomes an ally and instrument of these classes. But religion is
much more the consequence of the inability of the primitive man to fully
understand his natural environment, to understand his own social activity and
social organization, and to control his own life and overcome its limitations.
God then becomes a useful myth. This myth was "useful to the society in the
primitive age". Moreover,
"the idea of God is helpful to man in distress". God and religion
enabled the helpless individual to face life with courage. "God was brought
into imaginary existence to encourage man to face boldl all the trying
circumstances, to meet all dangers manfully and to check and restrain his
outbursts in prosperity and affluence". "Belief softens the hardships,
even can make them pleasant. In God man can find very strong consolation and
support". Thus, to the distressed, the betrayed and the helpless, God
serves as "a father mother, sister and brother, friend and helper" 2 But,
says Bhagat Singh, when science has grown and when the oppressed begin to
struggle for their self-emancipation, when " man tries to stand on his own
legs and become a realist (Bhagat Singh uses this word in place of rationalist
and materialist)", the need for God ,
this artificial crutch, this imaginary saviour comes to an end. In this struggle
for self-emancipation, it becomes necessary to fight against "the narrow
conception of religion" as also against the belief in God. "Any man
who stands for progress", says Bhagat Singh, "has to criticise,
disbelieve and challenge every item of the old faith. Item by item he has to
reason out every nook and corner of the prevailing faith.... A man who claims to
be a realist has to challenge the whole of the ancient faith .... the first
thing for him is to shatter the whole down and clear a space for the erection of
a new philosophy" . III Bhagat
Singh's sympathetic though critical understanding of his predecessors, his
capacity to place philosophic and political approaches and ideas in a
historical setting, and his basic Marxist reasoning also emerge clearly in his
discussion of several other issues. In
the second essay, An Introduction to The Dreamland, the poetical work of
the old revolutionary Lala Ram Saran Das, sentenced to transportation for life
in 1915, Bhagat Singh indirectly traces the change from the earlier `pure'
nationalism, based on the single idea of overthrowing foreign domination, to a
nationalism that was simultaneously committed to the total reconstitution of the
existing social order. Writing more like a poet than a political-philosophical
commentator, Bhagat Singh first establishes his own generation's continuity with
the old revolutionaries from whom it imbibed the spirit of nationalism, love of
the people and the capacity to sacrifice. He then brings out his philosophical,
political and ideological differences with them. In
the very beginning of the essay, he brings out, as already discussed in an
earlier section of this introduction, the difference between their reliance on
mysticism and religiosity for inspiration and his own firm commitment to
materialism, reason and science. He
also deals with the contemporary and complex and vexed question of violence and
non-violence. Going to the heart of the matter, he describes how the
revolutionaries want to build a social order from which violence in all its
forms will be eliminated, in which reason and justice will prevail and all
questions will be settled by argument and education.
But this is precisely what imperialists, capitalists and other exploiters will
not permit. Instead, they mercilessly suppress any effort to evolve socialism
through education of the people and by peaceful methods. Hence, revolutionaries
have to adopt violence as " a necessary item of their programme". The
entire question is brilliantly summed up when Bhagat Singh says that the
revolutionaries "have to resort to violent means as a terrible
necessity". Once socialist power is established, methods of education and
persuasion would be employed to develop society; force would be used only to
remove the obstacles. In
his essay on Atheism also he had put the issue in the same way. The new
generation of revolutionaries had replaced "the Romance of the violent
methods alone which was so prominent amongst our predecessors", and had
come to believe that the "use of force (was) justifiable when resorted to
as a matter of terrible necessity", while "non-violence as policy
(was) indispensable for all mass movements". Thus the revolutionaries do
not glorify violence; revolution is not based on the cult of violence. At the
same time, revolutionaries do not shun the necessary violence. Where history and
the ruling classes force upon them, they take recourse to it as a "terrible
necessity" in order to overthrow the existing social order. IV Bhagat
Singh simultaneously sees the utopian character of much of early revolutionary
thinking, the positive historic role that utopians play in certain stages of
social movements and social development, and the inevitable decline of utopias
once the revolutionary movement starts acquiring a scientific outlook and
philosophy on the basis of "scientific Marxian Socialism": Bhagat Singh deals at length with one aspect of utopian thought: How to combine mental and physical labour? He accepts that elimination of the gap between the two is basic to the building of a socialist society. But this elimination, he feels, cannot be brought about by mechanical and utopian means suggested by Ram Saran Das such as making all mental workers do physical and mental labour for 4 hours a day: The nature of physical and mental labour is different. The root of the problem lies in the existing inequality between the two. The answer lies in treating both as productive labour and opposing the notion that mental workers are superior to manual workers. V Lastly, Bhagat Singh was a critical revolutionary in the best traditions of Marx, Engels and Lenin. Asking young men to read The Dreamland, he warns: "Do not read it to follow blindly and take for granted what is written in it. Read it, criticise it, think over it, and try to formulate your own ideas with its help". *Bhagat
Singh, Why I am an Atheist and An Introduction to the Dreamland, Delhi, 1979. 1Though
not directly brought out by Bhagat Singh in these essays, they help clarify one
other important aspect-that of the difference between religion as a source of
nationalist inspiration and communalism. The early revolutionaries took to
religion and mysticism for inspiration and ideology, but they were not
communalists. To them, religion was a source of inner
strength and not the basis of their politics. It inspired them to become
fighters for national liberation of all Indian people and not organisers of
communal politics spouting hate against other sections of Indian people. While
their religious and mystical beliefs led them to fight against imperialism, the
communalists were often pro-imperialism subjectively and invariably served
imperialism objectively by dividing the united Indian people and turning the
edge of their politics against other Indians and not against imperialism. 2How
close is young Bhagat Singh to the thinking of young Marx. This is what Marx
wrote in 1844: "Religion is the general theory of that world, its
encyclopedic compendium, its logic in a popular form, its spiritualistic point d'honneur,
its enthusiasm, its moral sanctions its solemn complement, its universal source
of consolation and justification.... Religious distress is at the same time
the expression of real distress and also the protest against real distress.
Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world,
just as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the
people. To abolish religion as the illusory happiness of the people is to demand
their real happiness". Collected Works, Vol. III, 1975, pp. 175-6. Even
though Bhagat Singh could not have read this passage, he understood better than
most others what Marx meant when he described religion as "the opium of the
people". Source:
Excerpted from the book Ideology and politics in Modern India,
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