The
Idea Of Bhagat Singh
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
22 March, 2007
Countercurrents.org
On
23rd March 1931 the British government hanged three Indian revolutionaries
namely Bhagat Singh,
Rajguru and Sukhdev. All of them embraced death in an entirely heroic
way and therefore became legend for the common Indian masses. None of
the youth leaders of India's independence movement inspired a whole
lot of generation as Bhagat Singh. Unfortunately, the ruling elite of
the country reduced Bhagat Singh into a 'terrorist'. The result was
that these revolutionaries who were non violent in their thought and
process and wanted to change India remain outside the purview of college
students, many of them liked Bhagat Singh for being 'violent' and Gandhi
for being 'non violent'. However, in the absence of idealism and understanding
of Indian situation, revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh are grossly under
evaluated and misrepresented.
Therefore, it is important
to understand the idea of Bhagat Singh in these hours of communalization
where crony capitalist of Indian caste order continue to use God and
religion for their nefarious purposes. Religion is the biggest market
in India and other south Asian countries. Your religion is important
to realize your love for nation. Hence being a Hindu in Pakistan and
Bangladesh is a crime as being a Muslim in India or being a Tamil in
Sri Lanka. Being a Dalit is a crime everywhere though constitutional
provisions in India make it relatively better than its neighbors.
Bhagat Singh wanted a radical
change in our system and would not have been satisfied with a mere transfer
of power. It is absolutely demeaning when Bhagat Singh is referred as
a terrorist and some of the commentators from our neighboring countries
made comparison of attack on the Parliament with that on the Lahore
Assembly. Our younger generation must know what Bhagat Singh stood for
and therefore need to challenge such malicious writings which club a
revolutionary with religious fanatics. It would be the travesty of truth
if people like Bhagat Singh are bracketed with the religious fundamentalist.
The shocking attack on Indian
parliament by the terrorists has been equated with the issue of bombing
at the Central Legislative Assembly, Lahore, in 1929, where Bhagat Singh
and his colleagues were involved. A question was asked by a Pakistani
commentator as why is Bhagat Singh a nationalist and kashmiri Mujahidin
as terrorists. After September 11 th events the Pakistani ruling elite
is under tremendous pressure to curb on the Islamic terrorists operating
in Kashmir, which the Pakistanis continue to term as 'Mujahidin'despite
the fact that most of them are not Kashmiris and have sneaked into the
valley in the name of Islamic Jihad and are particularly targeting the
people who dissent with them. Democracy has been the biggest casualty
in the aftermath of the Islamisation process in Pakistan and Bangladesh.
It is in the interest of
us to know that the Congress particularly Gandhi did very little to
save the lives of Bhagat Singh and his friends yet the founder of Pakistan
Mohammad Ali Jinnah termed them nationalists and tried to get support
for them in Lahore's political and legal circle. To understand the revolutionary
zeal of Bhagat Singh one should study his writings in which he talks
of humanity and brotherhood. It is equally important to understand as
why Bhagat Singh became an atheist so that those who equate him with
terrorism are exposed to his rational views which are not tainted in
the garb of religion which the so-called Mujahidins are involved in.
Bhagat Singh became an icon of Indian youth fighting against the British
Imperialism and was hanged at the young age of 23 years when a large
number of our political leaders were either at the primary stages of
their career or enjoying their life abroad. Bhagat Singh never justified
violence as he could have easily killed numerous political leaders present
in the Lahore Assembly including Moti Lal Nehru, Madan Mohan Malviya
and Mohammad Ali Jinnah, if he had wanted that. The aim was just to
awaken the ruling establishment about India's long pending freedom.
He said: "It is famous that I am a terrorist but I am not that.
I am a revolutionary who has certain ideology, defined ideals and a
long programme and if people think that after living in for a long period
in the jail, there is any change in my ideologies then they are wrong.
It is my firm belief that we cannot get any benefit from either bombs
or pistols. Throwing bomb is not only dangerous but also harmful. It
is required in certain specific conditions. Our main aim is the organization
of laborers and farmers."
Not only was Bhagat Singh
against the communal parties and ideas but also his views on caste are
equally inspiring. He mocked at India's caste system and questioned
the legitimacy of a system, which make people untouchable on the basis
of their birth in a particular caste. He was equally aware of the capitalist
class, which was compromising with the British imperial class. And certainly
his conviction that this system based on exploitation can not be eliminated
with just transfer of power from the British to 'Indian British'. It
needs revolution he said. As far as India was concerned, we can easily
correlate the upper caste feudal power forces with that of the capitalist
class in India who gained everything from the British occupation in
India.
In fact, Bhagat Singh has
become more relevant today when the state is abdicating its responsibility
and private goons are being legitimized by it in the name of obstacles
free capital while ignoring the same demand of the labor. It was this
fact, which had disturbed Bhagat Singh and his comrades. April 8 th,
1929, the Lahore Assembly was to pass a bill, which could have nullified
the rights of the trade unions and labors. And this was the occasion,
he felt, best, to convey his anger to those in powers. Bhagat Singh
and his friends became immortal, the de-facto voice of the common man,
labors and farmers of the country. While the bomb was not really meant
to destroy the assembly and kill political leaders as they had made
their intentions very clear. They became revolutionaries who inspired
an entire nation cutting across caste and communal lines. In fact, it
is heartening that Bhagat Singh is still an icon today for the youths
all over the country.
On 6th June 1929 Bhagat Singh
and Batukeshwar Dutt said in a statement, ' To change the system based
on injustice, we need revolution. Is it not a constructed injustice
that the labors and producers, despite being the part of mainstream,
are victim of exploitation and have been denied basic human rights?
Farmers, who produces die of hunger. The weaver who weaves cloths for
others cannot do so for his own family and children. Meson, Carpenters,
Ironsmiths build huge palaces die living in huts and slums. On the other
side, capitalist exploiters, anti social elements, spend crores of rupees
on their fashion and enjoyment. Those who enjoy at the cost of hardworking
and hungry people should understand that they are sitting on such a
volcano which is about to erupt.'
The above statement clearly
indicates the direction of Bhagat Singh's thought. How worried he was
about the caste and class structure in India. That he narrated the plight
of the Dalits who he called as working classes is a remarkable and unparallel
for a young man who was in his early twenties. It is rare for a person
of that age to understand the caste prejudices and its dynamics not
in terms of social and cultural but economical basis. Bhagat Singh that
way was far ahead of his contemporaries. Not only he was worried about
the capitalist class sucking the blood of common Indian with the blessing
its imperialist masters but he clearly understood the caste dynamics
and questioned the very legacy of the brahanical legacy when he wrote
his famous essay ' The question of untouchable'.
But the powerful forces of
the Raj hanged him so that the legitimate voices of the marginalized
are silent but it was not to be. Bhagat Singh and his ideas have become
doubly relevant in todays world where exploitation is legitimized. When
the tribal are dying of hunger, when the farmers are committing suicide
and when the Dalits have to face the brunt of assertion, ideas of Bhagat
Singh reverberates in the air. Here was a man who unapologetically sacrificed
his life for the cause of the people and country. That the country's
ruler's are today creating ' Special Exploitative Zones', to rebuild
the Zamindari system which they proudly claim to have destroyed.
Tragically, while the Bhagat
Singh rarely got appreciation by the Congress's brand of historians
who always belittled his contribution by arguing that a few people could
not have fought with the might of British empire. The other ruling party
which claim to inherit the legacy of Bhagat Singh does not feel shame
in slaughtering people fighting for their rights in Nandigram. Is not
ironical that the people who shed their lives for the country in the
hope of an India where every person would have right over natural resources,
where there would be no caste victimization and no oppression of the
farmers, today we are witnessing the very antithesis of those ideas
championed by Bhagat Singh.
It was the outstanding popularity
of Bhagat Singh, his differences with Gandhi and other members of the
Congress party, made the Sangh ideologues to assimilate Bhagat Singh
as the hero of Hindutva. Like other icons such as Ambedkar who gave
an inspiration to millions of oppressed world over to fight against
status quo of the Varnashram dharma, they must realize that it is not
an easy project for Hindutva, for, both Ambedkar and Bhagat Singh had
rejected the Varna system, condemned the Hindu caste order and proudly
embraced modernity. Both of them not only rejected but also questioned
the so-called 'glorious' culture and heritage. Bhagat Singh became a
staunch non-believer and remained so till his death even when his family
people and colleagues tried to push him to believing God and God's word
at the last moment. That was the strength of his character that he was
now cowed down. Ambedkar, for record, questioned and exposed the myths
of the Hindu Social Order.
Bhagat Singh knew the dangers
of religious fanaticism and capitalists legitimization of religion.
Therefore it is ironical that Pakistani elite equated Bhagat Singh and
Lahore assembly case with that of attack on Indian Parliament. It is
blasphemous to put Bhagat Singh with religiously intolerant Islamic
Jehadis or Hindutva fanatics who want to take their respective societies
to backwardness and hand them over to priestly class, which had exploited
them over the years. One can only laugh at the explanation and analysis
of those who make such insinuation. Those who want to cleanse Kashmir
or Gujarat from the ethnic minorities must understand that world is
a global village and by spreading hatred in the name of religion will
not work. Bhagat Singh has become immortal because of his outstanding
ideas. His sacrifice for a progressive India where each of us could
focus on human development. Where caste discrimination remain a thing
of past and where all the ethic, religious, non religious minorities
live together in extraordinary brotherhood.
As people continue to fight
for their legimate rights which the Indian state has failed to provide
them despite a working democracy. The democracy has turned to be a sham
democracy as it turned out to be a representative democracy rather than
a participatory one, youth of the country, the farmers, the Dalits,
the tribal continue to live in utter marginalisation. The Muslims, the
second majority of India remains clueless without any effective participation
in power structure. The religious fanatics are raising their head. The
affirmative actions remains failed because of our sincerity always remained
doubtful. The farmers are struggling and getting fired. The country's
invited chaos today gives doubt of ' growth rate'. The political class
has enjoyed the benefit of freedom and independence. Today, they lord
over the state without any accountability. Every sector is infected
with the virus of corruption. The caste prejudices have increased and
God is completely hijacked by the priestly class while those oppressed
are unable to ' reject' the 'love' of God and therefore remain exploited.
India remains a failed society. It remained a failed society because
it was fearful of powerful ideas, as it did not want to debate openly
those ideas. Bhagat Singh like Ambedkar and other humanist, rationalists
are not just national icons because of their sacrifices or drafting
of constitution of India. Yes, much bigger than the said 'nationalism'
are their 'ideas'. The ideas which shook the Indian ruling elite as
well as the British empire and since their fight was not only against
the British regime but also for an equitable society, a society based
on modernity and science rejecting caste system, India unfortunately
did not embrace their ideas. We went to the same elite class which enjoyed
the fruits of power whether political or social and in return got superstition
and rituals in the name of culture. Today, the market has ridiculously
been using this 'Indian' culture for its own purposes therefore completely
destroying our thinking capabilities and our sense of responsibility
for the nation and other human beings.
Bhagat Singh's ideas and
sacrifice have the strength to bring hope in the lives of millions of
struggling masses. Let us salute to this towering icon of our freedom
movement for his indomitable spirit. Like Che Guevara, Bhagat Singh
will always remain a hope for all those who believe in secular socialist
values and reject the caste based hierarchical system. His legacy continue
to inspire all of us who are still waiting for a modern India, an India
with modern ideas and not what the crony corporate would make us believe.
Yes, an India where 2% of the rogues are not smiling and shining at
the cost of crying 98% oppressed who have lost their houses, forest,
water, and land and whose tears do not reach the India shining media.
Therefore, Bhagat Singh and his ideas have become more relevant today
for the youths to stand up and challenge an entire system, which has
become corrupted, dysfunctional and captive to parochial religious thugs.
Vidya Bhushan Rawat
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