Author Topic: Analysis of Bhagat Singh's written work (Read 7471 times)

Grenade Singh · « **on:** March 25, 2009, 05:47:00 PM »

Stamp of the martyr

Bhagat Singh’s private and public correspondence throws light on his role in the freedom struggle. On the eve of the martyr’s 77th death anniversary,
Chaman Lal looks at some of the less-known notices and telegrams issued by the valiant freedom fighter in the late 1920s

Site of the Killing: J.P. Saunders was shot in front of the SSP’s office in Lahore on December 17, 1928

As many as 107
documents on the life of Bhagat Singh have come to light. Out of
these, 45 documents fall in the category of correspondence —
letters, telegrams and notices/leaflets. Bhagat Singh’s
correspondence is available from 1918, when he had not even
turned 11. There are four notices and three telegrams in the 45
documents.

Out of the 38
letters, 15 are personal in nature, and 23 fall in the political
category. The first five available letters of Bhagat Singh were
written between 1918 and 1921, when he was 11 to 14 years old.
Another set of 10 personal letters was written from jail during
1930-31.

In 1923, when
Bhagat Singh was 16, he wrote his first ‘political’ letter
to his father. Between 1927 and 1931, more than 20 letters were
written, including one written just a day before his execution.
This period in Bhagat Singh’s life impacted him the most,
turning him into a mature freedom fighter.

The notices,
though just four in number, have great significance. The first
notice was pasted on the walls of Lahore, in the intervening
night of December 18 and 19, 1928. The notice was drafted on
December 18 by Bhagat Singh, but issued in the name of Balraj,
commander-in-chief of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army (HSRA),
the military wing of the Hindustan Socialist Republican
Association (HSRA). Balraj was the pseudonym name of
Chandrashekhar Azad. Both wings of the Hindustan Republican
Association (HRA) were rechristened HSRA on September 8
and 9, 1928, at Ferozeshah Kotla grounds in Delhi.

Lajpat Rai’s
death avenged

This notice was
pasted after the killing of J. P. Saunders, Deputy
Superintendent of Police, Lahore, on December 17 in broad
daylight, in front of the SSP’s office in the city. Saunders
had ordered his men to hit Lala Lajpat Rai with lathis on
October 30, 1928, when the latter was leading a large procession
against the Simon Commission. Lala Lajpat Rai died on November
17 and the HSRA decided to avenge this ‘national humiliation’.

Exactly a month
later, Saunders was killed and this notice appeared on the walls
of Lahore. The notice was handwritten by Bhagat Singh and
was later produced as an exhibit in the court. The notice
declares in bold letters —"J.P. Saunders is killed; Lala
Lajpat Rai’s (death) is avenged." The text of notice
says: "Really it is horrible to imagine that so lowly and
violent hand of an ordinary police official, J. P. Saunders,
could ever dare to touch in such an insulting way the body of
our (leader) so old, so revered and so loved by 300 million
people of Hindustan and thus cause his death. The youth and
manhood of India was challenged by blows hurled on the head of
India’s nationhood."

The subhead of
notice reads: "Beware ye tyrants; beware." The notice
warns the British not to "injure the feelings of a
downtrodden and oppressed country. Think twice before
perpetuating such a diabolic deed."

The third subhead
says: "Long live revolution." This section states:
"Sorry for the death of a man. But in this man has died the
representative of an institution, which is so cruel, lowly and
so base that it must be abolished. In this man has died an agent
of the British authority in India — the most tyrannical of
government of governments in the world." The last paragraph
of the notice reads: "Sorry for the bloodshed of a human
being; but the sacrifice of individuals at the altar of the
revolution, which will bring freedom to all and make the
exploitation of man by man impossible, is inevitable."

Then twice
comes "Inquilab zindabad."

The socialist
thought of the HSRA seems evident in this notice. The colonial
government has been perceived as the most tyrannical government
of the world and Saunders identified not as an individual, but
as ‘representative of an institution’ — the institution of
colonialism and exploitation. The ‘death of a man’ has been
regretted, but in the death of this man, the death of the
colonial system had been wished.

Saunders’
killing justified

The second notice
on the same incident was issued on December 23. It again carried
the name of Balraj but was actually written by Bhagat Singh. The
killing of Saunders was justified. "This was a revenge for
the biggest national insult" that came in the form of an
attack on the grand old man of India, Lala Lajpat Rai. The
killing was also justified as per "the rule (10-b&c) of
the HSRA".

The slogan "Inquilab
zindabad" was repeated in this notice as well. It seems the
HSRA had given a serious thought to the adoption of this slogan
as well as "Samrajyavad murdabad" (death to
imperialism), which reverberated in the Central Assembly in
Delhi, four months later. For Bhagat Singh, the political
purpose of the slogans was to arouse people’s emotions.
Earlier the slogan "Vande Mataram" was used. The
freedom fighters thought that a new slogan was necessary to
arouse people. That is why all the three notices issued by the
HSRA prominently focused on these slogans. The two slogans,
drawn from the Bolshevik Revolution of Russia in 1917, suited
Indian conditions perfectly and caught the imagination of the
people in no time.

The third and more
elaborate political notice/leaflet was printed and thrown in
Central Assembly on April 8, 1929, by Bhagat Singh and B K Dutt,
after harmless bombs were exploded in the Assembly. They quoted
French revolutionary Edouard-Marie Vaillant — "It
takes a loud voice to make the deaf hear" — to justify
their action. The leaflet refers to the repressive measures
adopted by the British regime, particularly the Public Safety
Bill and the Trade Disputes Bill. The leaflet refers to the
Hindustan Socialist Republican Association as a serious and
responsible body which had decided to stop "this
humiliating farce" and not let "the alien bureaucratic
exploiters" do what they wished. Instead, the HSRA wanted
them to "come before the public eye in their naked
form".

Inquilab
zindabad

The leaflet again
refers to "the callous murder of Lala Lajpat Rai" and
declares that "it is easy to kill individuals but you
cannot kill ideas. Great empires crumbled but the ideas
survived. Bourbons and czars fell while the revolution marched
ahead triumphantly".

This is a clear
reference to the French Revolution of 1789 and the Bolshevik
Revolution of 1917. By far this is the most definitive political
statement by Bhagat Singh and his associates about the power of
ideas to arouse people. It is a clear break from the earlier
quasi-religious approach of Indian revolutionaries to arouse
people in the name of nation or religion against ‘foreign
rulers’. Emphasis on "the sanctity of human life"

has been asserted in the concluding paragraph of the leaflet,
but the necessity of sacrifice of individuals has also been
underlined. "The sacrifice of individuals at the altar of
the great revolution`85 is inevitable." The leaflet
concludes with the slogan "Inquilab zindabad". In
fact, all three notices issued by the HSRA and drafted by Bhagat
Singh, show that the revolutionary movement in India had taken a
clear ideological position, akin to Lenin’s anti-imperialism
stance.

Demands of
political prisoner

The fourth notice
had been issued by Bhagat Singh on June 17, 1929, as life
convict No 117 of Mianwali Jail. Addressed to the Inspector
General, Jails, Lahore, it announced that he was on hunger
strike from June 15 and had lost six pounds. By asserting
himself as a "political prisoner", Bhagat Singh had
enlisted his demands for better food, bathing facilities,
availability of books/newspapers, etc. This notice shows how
Bhagat Singh had matured as a political personality.

Three brief
telegrams also confirm the ideological positions adopted by the
HSRA in these notices.

On January 24,
1930, Bhagat Singh and other convicts of Lahore Conspiracy Case
greeted Third International, an international Communist
organisation founded in Moscow in 1919, on Lenin Day. They
came to the court wearing a red scarf around their neck and
shouted slogans like "Socialism zindabad", "Samrajyavad
murdabad" and gave telegrams to the Magistrate, which was
published in The Tribune of January 26, 1930.

They sent another
telegram to Hindustani Samiti in Berlin on April 5, 1930,
condoling the passing away of Indian revolutionary Shyamji
Krishan Verma. The third telegram was sent to the convicted in
the Kakori case, who were on hunger strike in Bareilly jail.
Sachinder Nath Bakhshi, Rajkumar Sinha, Mukundi lal and Manmath
Nath Gupt were requested to end their hunger strike in view of
the notification issued for classification of convicts in jail.

There was another
telegram sent by Bhagat Singh to the Home Secretary, Government
of India, on January 24, 1930, drawing his attention to the fact
that though the inmates had ended their hunger strike yet
Congress leaders of the jail reform committee were not being
allowed to meet them. It is also stated that undertrials in the
Lahore conspiracy case were badly beaten up by orders of police
officials on October 23 and 24, 1929.

Bhagat Singh’s
correspondence makes for an interesting, unexplored and
significant area of research in context of the Indian
revolutionary movement.

ref: http://www.tribuneindia.com/2008/20080322/saturday/main1.htm

Author Topic: Analysis of Bhagat Singh's written work (Read 7471 times)

Grenade Singh

Analysis of Bhagat Singh's written work

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