PaRCha - JNU - AISA material - 2006 ID-17416
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Bhagat Singh, in a sense, was a continuation and development of the great tradition of 1857, our first War of Independence its tradition of uncompromising battle against imperialism and its domestic allies; its recognition of the potential of the peasantry; its grounding in a rich tradition of composite culture. 2007 marks the 150 th anniversary of 1857, too. Let us resolve, on the occasion of this historic confluence, to carry forward the heroic legacy of 1857 and Bhagat Singh to its fulfilment. .
-Lal Bahadur Singh .
Bhagat Singh .
The Lighthouse of the Revolutionary .
Mindset of Indian Youth .
.
[Below we reproduce the introduction written by Comrade Vinod Mishra to a publication by Radical Youth Association (RYA) on Bhagat Singh.] .
Fiftieth year is to pass since we became independent. Casting a glance over our surroundings, we find a putrefying scene around. Particularly, the all-round degeneration of the Congress party, that claims to have led the country in the freedom struggle, raises some basic questions. During the freedom struggle, revolutionaries had raised their fingers at the ideology and working methods of Gandhi and Congress. They even had apprehensions that independence might prove to be mere transfer of power from white sahibs to coloured ones. Today, that apprehension has come true. The most resolute representative of this revolutionary stream was Bhagat Singh, whose ideals and ideology have become quite relevant in the present phase. In 1825, at the age of 18, Bhagat Singh became the General Secretary of Naujawan Bharat Sabha, formed in Lahore in 1925 and on March 23, 1931 , after spending two years in prison, was hanged to death along with his comrades-in-arms Rajguru and Sukhdev. At the time of his martyrdom, he was only 23 years old. In such a short tenure of office and in such a tender age he organised so many revolutionary activities on the national level and studied and wrote on almost all subjects on such a vast scale that one is bound to feel astonished. The ruthless British rulers thought it better to silence this brilliant brain, overwhelmingly popular those days. And history bears testimony to the well-known fact that rejecting the public opinion, Gandhi refused to pose cancellation of death sentence to Bhagat Singh as a precondition to the Gandhi-Irwin Pact. Bhagat Singh's popularity was fast becoming one of the greatest challenges to the Gandhian leadership. The authentic history of the Congress party itself says, It would not be an exaggeration to say that those days Bhagat Singh was known all over India and his name was no less popular than that of Gandhiji. Still more important was Bhagat Singh's transformation from a revolutionary terrorist to a Marxist. It formed the main basis of the tacit agreement between British rulers and the Congress leadership to send Bhagat Singh to the gallows. Gandhi himself admitted that he dismissed the idea to make revocation of death sentence to Bhagat Singh a precondition to the agreement he entered with Irwin; rather, he stressed that the death sentence must be executed before the Karachi session of his party and it was what exactly followed. .
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PaRCha - JNU - AISA material - 2006 ID-17416
.
Bhagat Singh, in a sense, was a continuation and development of the great tradition of 1857, our first War of Independence its tradition of uncompromising battle against imperialism and its domestic allies; its recognition of the potential of the peasantry; its grounding in a rich tradition of composite culture. 2007 marks the 150 th anniversary of 1857, too. Let us resolve, on the occasion of this historic confluence, to carry forward the heroic legacy of 1857 and Bhagat Singh to its fulfilment. .
-Lal Bahadur Singh .
Bhagat Singh .
The Lighthouse of the Revolutionary .
Mindset of Indian Youth .
.
[Below we reproduce the introduction written by Comrade Vinod Mishra to a publication by Radical Youth Association (RYA) on Bhagat Singh.] .
Fiftieth year is to pass since we became independent. Casting a glance over our surroundings, we find a putrefying scene around. Particularly, the all-round degeneration of the Congress party, that claims to have led the country in the freedom struggle, raises some basic questions. During the freedom struggle, revolutionaries had raised their fingers at the ideology and working methods of Gandhi and Congress. They even had apprehensions that independence might prove to be mere transfer of power from white sahibs to coloured ones. Today, that apprehension has come true. The most resolute representative of this revolutionary stream was Bhagat Singh, whose ideals and ideology have become quite relevant in the present phase. In 1825, at the age of 18, Bhagat Singh became the General Secretary of Naujawan Bharat Sabha, formed in Lahore in 1925 and on March 23, 1931 , after spending two years in prison, was hanged to death along with his comrades-in-arms Rajguru and Sukhdev. At the time of his martyrdom, he was only 23 years old. In such a short tenure of office and in such a tender age he organised so many revolutionary activities on the national level and studied and wrote on almost all subjects on such a vast scale that one is bound to feel astonished. The ruthless British rulers thought it better to silence this brilliant brain, overwhelmingly popular those days. And history bears testimony to the well-known fact that rejecting the public opinion, Gandhi refused to pose cancellation of death sentence to Bhagat Singh as a precondition to the Gandhi-Irwin Pact. Bhagat Singh's popularity was fast becoming one of the greatest challenges to the Gandhian leadership. The authentic history of the Congress party itself says, It would not be an exaggeration to say that those days Bhagat Singh was known all over India and his name was no less popular than that of Gandhiji. Still more important was Bhagat Singh's transformation from a revolutionary terrorist to a Marxist. It formed the main basis of the tacit agreement between British rulers and the Congress leadership to send Bhagat Singh to the gallows. Gandhi himself admitted that he dismissed the idea to make revocation of death sentence to Bhagat Singh a precondition to the agreement he entered with Irwin; rather, he stressed that the death sentence must be executed before the Karachi session of his party and it was what exactly followed. .
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