Bhagat Singh - True Martyr: The Humanitarian Even With Bombs

In another article, “Communal riots and the way out” In June 1928, Bhagat Singh wrote, “If we search the root of communal riots we find economic reason. We further see the hand of section of press and the communal leaders behind that”. It sounds as if this is written today after the Ayodhya episode. Referring to Russian history Bhagat Singh pointed out in the same article, “in the period of the tsar, the situation there was as is now in India. After the rule of working class was established the whole picture got changed”.

Tracing the root of communalism to capitalism and offering the political leadership of the working class as the way out, Bhagat Singh maintained that class-consciousness was a correct way to combat communal riots. This thinking has been proved correct gain with the return of communal and ethnic strife in Russia after the fall of socialism there and a sudden spurt in communalism and terrorism in India after the decontrolling of cap8talism in the nineties.

Communalism and communism

Bhagat Singh believed in separating religion from politics and state. In his article referring to the Gadr movement, Bhagat Singh wrote: “the martyrs of 1941-15 kept religion outside politics. Their conception was that religion was the private matter of individuals. Other should not interfere in that nor should it be injected into politics.” So the movement of the Gadr party remained united both in mind and heat where the Sikh took the lead in making sacrifices and the Hindu and Muslims did not lag behind. Today after, mixing religion with politics we get Khalistan in Canada in place of the Gadr party.

In the country secularists are defensive and communalist are aggressive. This is because only class struggle can resist communal riots which even the communists have abandoned long ago, except for a symbolic exercise before wage and bonus negotiations. There was a time when Congress, the party of the ruling bourgeoisie, had to talk of socialistic pattern of society but now even the Marxists are shy of mentioning socialism in their election manifesto and name their youth organization “democratic”.

Bhagat Singh was very forthright in his views. Unlike the apologetic secularists Bhagat Singh was aggressive in accusing the exploitative system and declared: “Producers and Laborers are robbed by the exploiter of the fruits of their labour and deprived of their elementary sights. Radical change, therefore, is needed and it is the duty of those who realize this to reorganize society on a socialist basis in accordance with the principle of Karl Marx”. Bhagat Singh dropped a bomb when the Delhi Assembly was discussing the Trade Dispute Bill to chain the working class in the British days. In these days of WTO many bills are waiting in Parliament to facilitate the “exit policy” for the workers and to liquidate the public sector but there is no Bhagat Singh to thunder.

Atheist to the last

The martyrdom of Bhagat Singh, Raj Guru and Sukhdev was a moving issue from the beginning. Netaji Subhas Bose has recorded his reactions in his book The Indian Struggle after he received that shocking news while in a train proceeding to Karachi congress, Anger and emotion swept through the country, Bose referred to his insistence on Gandhi ji that he should not sign the pact with the then Viceory, Lord Irwin, withdrawing the civil disobedience movement till the death sentence on Bhagat Singh and his colleagues was commuted. The pact was signed on 18 March 1931 only five days before the hanging. It should be recalled that Bhagat Singh and Batu Keshwar Datta were arrested after dropping the bomb in the Delhi Assembly on 4 April 1929. It was a grim decision, which was taken not suddenly at the spur of the moment but after a long debate. Dropping the bomb in the Assembly meant sure arrest and arrest meant death for Bhagat Singh who had already been named the accused in the Saunders murder case. The expected happened. Bhagat Singh and Batu Keshwar Datta were awarded life imprisonment for dropping bomb in the Assembly and the death sentence on Bhagat Singh was pronounced in the Lahore conspiracy case.

What was astounding was even in such condition Bhagat Singh did not forget the problems of communalism in the country and the complicated question of religion and politics. Whereas many staunch atheists became believers of God before death, Bhagat Singh wrote his last and perhaps his best article, “why I am an Atheist?” on 6 October 1930 ie, hardly five months before his hanging. His last article was a unique comination of politics, theology and science, which referred even to Darwain’s Origin of species, which can educate many social scientists even today. This was written not in a cool library room but in a condemned cell of a jail.

From the Volga to the Ganga

In sharp contrast to the terrorist of these days causing death to hundreds, including women and children, to serve the design of the communal and imperialist forces, Bhagat Singh and his colleagues were extremely humanitarian eve with bombs. The blast he caused in the assembly spread his message but did not hurt anybody. After the killing of Saunders, a poster written in red ink was pasted on the walls of Lahore, which read: “We consider human life sacred. We believe in a bright future where each man will enjoy freedom to all and to end exploitation of man by man, sometimes it becomes inevitable to shed some blood”.

Then came that fateful day; 23 March 1931,Hanging of Bhagat Singh, Raj Guru and Sukhdev was suddenly decided ahead of schedule to avoid agitation, When the sentry appeared unexpectedly in the cell to take them to the gallows, recalls Mr. KPS Menon, the celebrated ICS of those days and the ambassador to Moscow afterwards, Bhagat Singh was found reading Lenin’s state and revolution. It is said that Bhagat Singh asked the sentry to stop for a moment as one revolutionary was in “communication” with another. The sentry did not stop. But history has stopped today to look back. Time and tide wait for none. The Volga and the Ganga also have changed their course with socialism destroyed and swadeshi perished leaving a wild world around. But that “communication”, that message of Bhagat Singh, still resonates from the Ravi to Cauvery, from the Jamuna to Ganga, reminding one of the goal and the pledge. We have “miles to go before we sleep” as the way out of the present mess. So from the Sabarmati to Ayodhya there is hectic search of Bhagat Singh.

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