Bhagat Singh's real legacy

Inquilab

Bhagat Singh on Religion and Revolution

S.Irfan Habib (Editor) 

Sage Publications

220 pages; Rs 295

Bhagat Singh has been one of India’s most misunderstood freedom fighters, not only by the tyrannical and prejudiced colonial rulers but also by his contemporary nationalists, including the tallest among them, Mahatma Gandhi. The editor of this slim volume of 21 essays and articles written by Bhagat Singh has done yeoman’s service in correcting stereotyped notions about the revolutionary’s philosophy, apart from offering Singh’s thoughts to a wider, English-speaking audience. 

Set against the context of the 1920s, when communal politics had become a serious divisive issue, Bhagat Singh’s progressive ideas on religion deserve careful study. He talked of secularism as early as 1924. “All of us being one and none is the other,” he wrote, and spoke of a campaign for equality and equity. International politics certainly influenced him, especially the Russian revolution of 1917, but so did the ideas of the French Revolution of 1789. As a young man under the yoke of the British, he felt the need for action and was attracted to the Leftist revolutionary ideal.  Indeed, his views were radical enough for Singh and Lala Lajpat Rai to develop fundamental differences of outlook, especially after Rai joined the Hindu Mahasabha, an ironical development given that Singh was later implicated for participating in a (mistaken) revenge killing of a British police officer who was thought to have caused Rai’s death . In an article dated August 1928, Singh responded to Rai’s allegation that he (Singh) was a “Russian agent”. “Yes, we accept that the Russian Revolution has presented an altogether new set of ideas to the world,” he wrote, which is why he admired Lenin, the Russian leader, and then went on to add: “Lalaji says that because of our communist ideas, the rich would align with the government? Very good! Which party is he in?” 

Singh was projected as a believer and practitioner of violence because he bombed the Central Legislative Assembly on April 8, 1929, in protest against anti-people laws, such as the Public Safety Bills, the Trade Union Disputes and so on. Allowing himself to be arrested, he was tried and hanged on March 23, 1931, at the age of 23. Singh was certainly attracted to anarchist ideology, but it is worthwhile to understand his was a much more nuanced approach. He made a semantic distinction between “the use of force” and “violence”. If “repressed people react and use ‘force’, it cannot be called ‘violence’,” he argued. “If we could understand that repression of poor people is called violence and to prevent it is deemed good deed then all misconceptions would vanish,” he wrote, adding that, “To consider this enemy as motivating an armed revolution is completely wrong and useless." 

When he was arrested in May 1927 in Lahore, this highly evolved progressive young man’s ideas were misrepresented by the British. He clearly stated that the “use of force [was] justifiable when resorted to as a matter of terrible necessity; [but] Non-violence as policy [is] indispensable for all mass movements”. Singh’s statement in the Session Court on June 9, 1929, is significant. “We hold human life sacred beyond words,” he said, and the “bomb was necessary to awaken England…” .

In his statement before his execution, Singh referred to the irony of General Dyer, who was “rewarded” in spite of the fact that he had massacred innocents at Jallianwala Bagh. The high court did not, however, pay any heed to Singh’s defence when he pointed out that “no one died when the bomb was thrown in the Legislative Assembly ... (because) we gave the warning in the manner we thought proper”. 

Is Bhagat Singh a terrorist, as the British thought to project him? In his Manifesto of April 1928, he talked of mobilising of youth, workers and peasants, of secularism and fashioned the slogan “Inquilab Zindabad (long live revolution)". Along with his statements before the judges, excerpts from his jail notebook from pages 134 to 192 provide a mine of information about his thinking on multiple issues, including social reforms, the problem of untouchability and so on. Singh supported the mass mobilisation of the oppressed against the colonisers and sought to rely on youth power. His Hindustan Socialist Republican Association and other activities clearly show that he was a republican, a socialist and a committed freedom fighter above caste or community prejudices. 

His essay, “Why I am an Atheist,” reproduced in chapter nine, shows that he was fundamentally opposed to the mainstream politico-religious and religio-social ideas and ideologies of his times. “By the end of 1926, I was convinced about the baselessness of the theory of [the] existence of an almighty supreme being who created, guided and controlled the universe. I became open about this disbelief of mine.”

The message of this edited volume is that an individual who is not in tune with the mainstream ideas of his own society is liable to be punished, and Bhagat Singh was no exception. But seven decades after the coloniser s left India, Indian leaders who pay an annual ceremonial tribute to Bhagat Singh as a martyr would do better to read and absorb his ideas instead of reducing him to the status of an idol.