Apoorvanand - Why Bhagat Singh was not the ultimate militant nationalist he's made out to be
For nearly 90 years,
India has been living in nostalgia of an iconic youth – Bhagat Singh. A sense
of loss informs our discourse on Bhagat Singh. We keep turning to him and
Subhas Chandra Bose again and again as sources of deliverance from the ills
that India has been suffering. It’s too heavy a burden considering that Singh
was just 23 years old when he was hanged.
Bhagat Singh is seen
as the ultimate militant nationalist. Nationalism cannot do without militancy.
It is believed that Mahatma Gandhi and his heir, the effeminate Jawaharlal
Nehru, emasculated us and also conspired to remove two “real men” from the
scene in Bhagat Singh and then Subhas Chandra Bose. It is quite a
different matter that Bhagat Singh did not want youth to emulate Bose. In the
young Singh’s eyes, Bose was an emotional nationalist with a parochial outlook.
He considered Bose dangerous for the youth as his rhetoric could arouse
nationalistic passions easily.
Bhagat Singh is seen
as the quintessential nationalist who paid with his life for avenging the death
of another “Hindu” nationalist, Lala Lajpat Rai. Singh and his comrade Chandra
Shekhar Azad formed part of the core of the Hindustan Socialist Republican
Army. He threw bombs in the Central Legislative Assembly and courted arrest. He
refused to seek pardon when sentenced to death. He emerges as a figure who is
nothing if not a militant nationalist.
The revolutionary: And yet, Bhagat Singh is not the militant
nationalist in the sense popular culture has constructed him. His final act of
throwing bombs in the assembly was not only for some “nationalist” cause, but
mainly to protest the Public Safety Bill and the Trade Disputes Bill – the
latter sought to strip workers of their rights and crush their protests. It’s
crucial to keep in mind the content of protest, especially in these times when
governments are introducing new laws to deprive workers of their rights and
outlaw attempts to even protest such curtailment, apart from using laws like
The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act to suppress all popular movements. The
legacy of Bhagat Singh’s protest would be honoured only if we oppose
governments and the State, which stand on the side of capital at the cost of
the well-being of the working masses.
His slogan was
“Inquilab Zindabad”. “Inquilab”, which means revolution, is not a word from the
nationalist lexicon. In a letter to the editor of theModern Review, who
had criticised the slogan “Inquilab Zindabad”, Bhagat Singh and fellow
revolutionary Batukeshwar Dutt explained that the cry of “Long Live the
Revolution” never meant a ceaseless armed battle or a permanent state of
anarchy, that bombs or pistols cannot be a synonym of revolution, even if in
certain conditions they might be an important means to a desirable end.
Revolution is a desire
for transformation to achieve progress. Very often, people tend to get stuck in
ordinary, secure traditions and the mere thought of change frightens them. It
develops into an inertia which shackles the movement of society and becomes an
obstruction. Revolution is, therefore, essential to the growth of humanity. It
is a call for constant renewal. Old must give way to the new.
Another facet of
Bhagat Singh's ideology was that he was an internationalist, unlike other
revolutionaries whose concerns remained essentially Indian. It is not
surprising that he felt drawn to Nehru, who in his view had an internationalist
approach. And so it would be more appropriate to call Bhagat Singh’s struggle
anti-colonial and anti-imperialist, rather than nationalist.
Deep thinker: Bhagat Singh’s writings bring out a person who
is seeking to evolve a method of thinking. He does not believe in merely making
assertions which should be accepted simply because they come from a man who has
sacrificed everything for the nation. He not only argues with people like
Gandhi who are outside his fold and with whom he enters into a polemical battle
in his famous pamphlet “Philosophy of the Bomb” – initially authored by
Bhagwati Charan Vohra – but also his fellows in the revolutionary movement on
issues such as love and atheism.
Most of the
revolutionaries were religious, with many of them devotees of Kali or Shakti.
Bhagat Singh’s atheism did not make him very popular in this crowd. He tried to
explain his atheism in the pamphlet headlined Why I am an atheist by first
responding to the charge of his colleagues that it was his arrogance that made
him a non-believer. He argued that it was not his arrogance, but his realism
and rationality that led him to doubt the existence of god. He believes in nature
and thinks that it would be more useful to this reality, not as creation of
some supernatural force, but as a result of the dynamic forces of nature and
society.
Knowledge is power:
We know from the reminiscences
of his friends and colleagues that Bhagat Singh was not a puritan. He valued
the gift of life and did not want to smother the feelings of love and beauty
for the cause of revolution. In short, he was not a renouncer. At one point of
time, his co-travellers saw him as weak and so to dispel this notion, Singh
volunteered to be part of the action which finally led him to the gallows.
What is most striking
about Bhagat Singh is his passion for reading and writing. His wanderings as an
underground militant could not keep him away from books. For him, reading was
essential for growing as a human being. Even when faced with imminent death, he
kept reading and taking notes. It was as if he was reading not only for
himself, but for posterity as well. He was also a regular writer, contributing
to magazines like Matwala and Pratap.
What distinguishes
Bhagat Singh from other revolutionaries is his passion for thinking. He
disliked rhetorical statements and stressed on the need to develop
understanding through a process of argumentation. His careful reading of the
history of the revolutions led him to conclude that revolutions were not made
by bombs and pistols – the most important thing was to mobilise people, a far
more difficult prospect. The real battle was the battle of hearts and minds.
Bhagat Singh remains an
eternal youth. But he is a difficult act to follow. Becoming a youth like
Bhagat Singh involves first moving away from the beaten path, to look for new
ideas, to be courageous enough to be a loner, not believe in any deity, and to
keep questioning the power of the day.
see also
Chanderpal Singh: What Mahatma Gandhi did to save Bhagat Singh
Remembering Gehal Singh, who gave his life for communal harmony
Remembering Gehal Singh, who gave his life for communal harmony
“I as a German prefer much more to see India under British Government than under any other...I must not connect the fate of the German people with these so-called ‘oppressed nations’ who are clearly of racial inferiority” Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, German ed. p. 747)
THE ROOTS OF ANTIGYPSYISM: TO THE HOLOCAUST AND AFTER
Hitler's Assault on the Golden Rule : by Claudia Koontz
Gypsies' fate haunts Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's favourite film-maker
The law of killing - a brief history of Indian fascism
Meenakshi Lekhi links Sonia with Mussolini. Will the RSS/BJP clarify their stance on fascism?
Imperial Japanese Army ate Indian PoWs, used them as live targets in WW2 in Papua New Guinea
THE ROOTS OF ANTIGYPSYISM: TO THE HOLOCAUST AND AFTER
Hitler's Assault on the Golden Rule : by Claudia Koontz
Gypsies' fate haunts Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's favourite film-maker
The law of killing - a brief history of Indian fascism
Meenakshi Lekhi links Sonia with Mussolini. Will the RSS/BJP clarify their stance on fascism?
Imperial Japanese Army ate Indian PoWs, used them as live targets in WW2 in Papua New Guinea
Pakistan or the Partition of India (B.R. Ambedkar, Bombay, 1940, republished 1945)
Sris Chandra Chattopadhya on the Objectives Resolution, Constituent Assembly of Pakistan March 12, 1949
Communist Party of India Report (1950) - Imperialist aggression in Kashmir
CPI's Dhanwantri report: Bleeding Punjab Warns
Pakistan's Law Minister, Jogendra Nath Mandal's Resignation Letter, October 1950
Sris Chandra Chattopadhya on the Objectives Resolution, Constituent Assembly of Pakistan March 12, 1949
Communist Party of India Report (1950) - Imperialist aggression in Kashmir
CPI's Dhanwantri report: Bleeding Punjab Warns
Pakistan's Law Minister, Jogendra Nath Mandal's Resignation Letter, October 1950