Born 110 years ago in a small
village in Lyallpur district (now Faislabad in Pakistan) of undivided
pre-independence India’s Punjab Province, Bhagat Singh went on to etch his name
in the history books for his invaluable contribution to the Indian Freedom
struggle. On this 110th birth anniversary, let’s revisit few facts
of the iconic freedom fighter, who was executed on March 23, 1931, when he was
just 23 years old.
Bhagat Singh left home for Kanpur
when his parents tried to get him married, saying that if he married in Slave
India, “my bride shall only be death” and joined Hindustan Socialist Republic
Association. Bhagat Singh along with Sukhdev planned to avenge the death of
Lala Lajpat Rai and plotted to kill the Superintendent of Police James Scott in
Lahore. However in case of mistaken identity, John Saunders, the Assistant
Superintendent of Police was shot.
Although a Sikh by birth, he shaved
his beard and cut his hair to avoid being recognized and arrested for the
killing. He managed to escape from Lahore to Calcutta. On April 8, 1929, Bhagat
Singh, along with freedom fighter Batukeshwar Dutt, hurled two bombs inside the
Central Legislative Assembly in New Delhi to protest against an unfavorable
bill. Interestingly, their actual intentions behind this defiant act were to
get arrested and to use the subsequent court appearances to further the cause
of their organization Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) for
India’s Independence.
Along with the bombs, Singh also
threw in copies of a leaflet in the assembly that quoted a French anarchist as
saying, “It takes a loud noise to make the deaf hear”, and signs off with the
now epochal statement, ‘Inquilab Zindabad!’ or ‘Long Live the revolution’. He
did not resist his arrest at this point. At the time of his trial, he didn’t
offer any defence, rather used the occasion to propagate the idea of India’s
Freedom.
In his famous article titled “Why I
am an atheist?” written in jail in early October 1930, he wrote he found
fulfillment through serving humanity and liberating it from sufferings and
distress. Apart from Freedom from the British, his goal was to build an India
where poverty, socio-economic disparity and exploitation did not exist.
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