One day, when the little kid was playing in his father's form, his father approached him and asked him what he was doing. At once came the reply: 'I am sowing bombs, father!!� After completing his primary education in the Village School, Bhagat Singh joined the D.A.V High School at Lahore where he passed the 9th class. In 1921, when the Non-Cooperation Movement started and patriots were shifting their wards from Government aided schools, Kishen Singh got his son admitted to the National College run by the �Punjab Kesari�, Lala Lajpat Rai (1865 � 1928).
The renowned revolutionary, Bhai Paramanand (1876 - 1947), who was the Principal of the institution at that time, instantly recognized the genius of the young boy Bhagat Singh and straightaway admitted him to FA Course. It was in this institution that Bhagat Singh came across Sukhdev and Bhagavati Charan Varma who became his life long associates in the revolutionary movement.
Under the inspiring guidance of Lala Lajpat Rai and Bhai Paramanand, these fiery youths were drawn into the vortex of the national movement and all them took a vow to fight for the emancipation of the motherland. As a powerful orator and forceful writer, Bhagat Singh was in the forefront of the propagandists of that revolution in the 1920's. Naturally he came to the adverse notice of the British police who started shadowing him.
In 1924, Bhagat Singh founded the NAUJAVAN BHARAT SABHA in Lahore, a secret revolutionary organisation and its branches soon started spreading to other parts of Punjab and even outside that Province. The Sabha organized virulent and hectic propaganda against the British Government in India, hailing the heroic martyrs who sacrificed their lives and calling upon the people to revolt against the Government. When the police laid a net to trap Bhagat Singh in Lahore, he secretly left for Kanpur in the United Provinces. He attended the Belgaum Session of the Indian National Congress in 1924. Later he returned to Punjab and started working as Editor of �Akali�, published from Amritsar.
The disillusionment caused by the suspension of the Non-Cooperation Movement by Mahatma Gandhi in 1922 following the Chauri Chaura Massacre, led to a renewal of revolutionary activities. Jogesh Chatterjee and Sachin Sanyal founded the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) in 1923. A leaflet, 'REVOLUTIONARY', issued by it proclaimed its aim to establish the 'FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF UNITED STATES OF INDIA' by an armed revolution. To raise funds for the HRA, there was a train hold-up, to loot Government money, near Kakori Station on the Lucknow-Saharanpur Railway line in August 1925. Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqullah and others organized the hold-up. Soon, many important members of the HRA were arrested and tried in the Kakori Conspiracy Case. Four of them were awarded capital punishment. Chandrasekar Azad escaped and reorganized the HRA which joined hands with the Naujawan Bharat Sabha organized by Bhagat Singh in 1925.
8 September, 1928 is indeed a red-letter day in the history of Indian Revolutionary Movement which was initiated by Khudiram Bose in Bengal. The young revolutionaries all over the country, including Bhagat Singh and Rajguru, met at Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi and established the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army (HSRA) to coordinate the violent Revolutionary Movement throughout the country. Though Chandrasekar Azad was not present at that time, he had already offered his full support to the move and he himself was elected as President of the Army whose declared aim was to bring about a revolution in the country. It was with this objective in mind that Bhagat Singh arranged to reprint and distribute copies of the proscribed book, �The Indian War of Independence (1857)� by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883-1966).
In December 1928, Saunders, a Police Officer in Lahore City who had ordered the physical assault on Lala Lajpat Rai during the �Simon Go Back� demonstration, was assassinated. In April 1929, Bhagat Singh and B K Datt through threw bombs and 'Red Pamphlets' in the Central Legislative Assembly in protest against the repressive Trade Dispute and Public Safety Bills and the arrest of labour leaders earlier in March. They were arrested and tried in the Assembly Bomb Case and, later, along with others, in the Lahore Conspiracy Case for the murder of Saunders and an Indian Constable. In jail Bhagat Singh and others went on a historic group hunger-strike for securing better conditions for political prisoners, which ended in the martyrdom of Jatin Das on the 64th day of his hunger-strike.
Of the 15 accused, Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were sentenced to death and seven to transportation for life. Bhagat Singh and his comrades became legends in their life-time. At the time of his execution in March 1931, Bhagat Singh's popularity all over India rivaled that of Mahatma Gandhi. An attempt was made to blow up the Viceroy's train in December 1929. The 'ever elusive Azad' who had escaped arrest earlier fell in a shootout with the police in Allahabad.
When Bhagat Singh was hanged in March 1931, there was a widespread general belief that Gandhiji did not do enough to save the lives of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev while negotiating with Viceroy Irwin. When Gandhiji wrote a letter to Lord Irwin in March 1931�the day on which Bhagat Singh was hanged�under pressure, it was a very feeble plea for commutation of his sentence. Gandhiji wrote: 'Popular opinion rightly or wrongly demands commutation.
When there is not a principle at stake, it is often a duty to respect it'. There were anti-Gandhi demonstrations throughout the country. When Gandhiji travelled by train to attend the Karachi Session of the Congress he got down at Malir station, fifteen miles from Karachi to avoid the angry demonstrators. Some of them had even reached Malir. In spite of Gandhiji's uncalled for warning that, 'The Bhagat Singh worship has done and is doing incalculable harm to the country', the legend of Bhagat Singh still continues and will do so for ages to come.
I have been inspired to write this story on Bhagat Singh by the disgraceful attempt being made by the anti-national and soul-destroying UPA Government in New Delhi to run down freedom fighters and martyrs who laid down their lives for the cause of our national freedom as misdirected terrorists. Of late, in many school textbooks approved by the Government of India, heroes like Bhagat Singh, Chandrasekar Azad, Sukhdev and Rajguri have been labeled as violent terrorists. No wretched Government can ever confiscate sacred public thoughts and memories. The last words uttered by Bhagat Singh to the Magistrate who sentenced him to death in March 1931 will ring across centuries: 'Well, Mr Magistrate, you are fortunate to be able to see how Indian Revolutionaries can embrace death with pleasure for the sake of their Supreme Ideals'.
These great martyrs walked into death for the sake of our motherland. The words of the poet Laurence Binyon (1869-1943) are wholly applicable to such heroes:
'They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow,
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn,
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.'
(To be contd...)
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