Priyanka Saurabh
Bhagat Singh had said in court, “Revolution need not neessarily involve bloody struggle, nor does it have any place for personal vendetta. It is not a cult of bombs and pistols. By revolution we mean the present order of things, which is based on blatant injustice, it has to be changed.” Bhagat fully accepted Marxism and the class view of the society- “The peasants must free themselves not only from the foreign yoke but also from the yoke of landlords and capitalists.” He also said, “The struggle in India will continue as long as a handful of exploiters continue to exploit the labor of the common people to further their interests.”
Bhagat Singh, a distinguished revolutionary, thinker, voracious reader, and one of the most educated political leaders of the time, was an intellectual. Despite fighting violently against the British, he continued to indulge his passion for reading and writing. He studied to arm himself with arguments in favor of his creed of patriotism and to enable himself to counter the arguments offered by the opposition. He was revered by the youth, hated the British Raj, and was opposed to none other than Mahatma Gandhi, like other revolutionaries he dreamed of freedom for the motherland. As much as they were involved in violence against the government, they used their discretion and used non-violence and fasting as a tool to break the hegemony of British power. He always advocated for human dignity and rights transcending the communal divide. A real breakthrough was achieved by Bhagat Singh and his comrades in terms of revolutionary ideology, forms of revolutionary struggle, and the goals of the revolution. The Hindustan Republican Association Manifesto (1925) declared that it stood for the abolition of all systems which made possible the exploitation of man by man. Its founding council had decided to propagate social revolutionary and communist principles. The HRA also decided to start workers’ and peasants’ organizations and work for an organized and armed revolution. Emphasizing the role of ideas in the making of revolution, Bhagat Singh declared that the sword of revolution gets sharpened on the hone of ideas. This environment of wide reading and deep thinking permeated the ranks of the HSRA leadership. Bhagat Singh had turned to Marxism and was convinced that a successful revolution could only be achieved through popular broad-based mass movements. That is why Bhagat Singh helped establish the Punjab Naujawan Bharat Sabha in 1926 as an open wing of the revolutionaries. The Sabha was to do open political work among the youth, farmers, and workers. Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev also organized the Lahore Students’ Union for open, legal work among students. The patient intellectual and political work appealed to the very slow pace and Congress style of politics that the revolutionaries sought to transcend. Effective acquisition of new ideology is a long and historical process whereas the quick change in the way of thinking was the need of the hour. These young intellectuals faced the classic dilemma of how to mobilize and recruit people. Here, he decided to opt for propaganda by deed, i.e. through personal heroic action and using the courts as a platform for revolutionary propaganda. Revolution no longer equated to militancy and violence. Its aim was national liberation-the overthrow of imperialism but beyond that achieving a new socialist order ending the “exploitation of man by man”. As Bhagat Singh said in court, “Revolution does not necessarily involve bloody struggle, nor does it have any place for personal vendetta. It is not a cult of bombs and pistols. By revolution we mean the present order of things, which is based on blatant injustice, has to be changed. Bhagat fully accepted Marxism and the class view of society- ‘The peasants must free themselves not only from the foreign yoke but also from the yoke of landlords and capitalists.’ He also said, “The struggle in India will continue so long as a handful of exploiters continue to exploit the labor of the common people to further their interests. It matters little that these exploiters are British capitalists, British and Indian capitalists in alliance, or purely Indian.” He defined socialism scientifically as the abolition of capitalism and class supremacy. Bhagat was thoroughly and consciously secular – by Bhagat for Punjab Naujawan Bharat Sabha Two of the six rules formulated were that its members would have nothing to do with communal bodies and that they would propagate a general spirit of tolerance among people professing religion. A matter of personal belief, Bhagat Singh urged people to He also saw the importance of breaking free from the mental shackles of religion and superstition – “To be a revolutionary, one needs immense moral strength, but also requires critical and independent thinking”. Bhagat Singh and his comrades made a lasting contribution to the national freedom movement. His deep patriotism, courage and determination, and spirit of sacrifice stirred the Indian people. He helped spread nationalist consciousness in the country. At an early age, he realized the larger goals of life rather than being bound to fulfill personal goals. He transformed the revolution into a socialist movement. He was a great innovator in two fields of politics and raised serious issues and dangers of communalism.
(The author is a Research Scholar
in Political Science).
