Shaheed - Bhagat Singh

The Freedom we enjoy today is the result of lot of Sacrifices. Everyone of us should remember and respect all those people who fought for the nations freedom, sacrificing their personal life and put their lives on the line for the freedom of our nation.

How can we forget that 24 year Old young man who sacrificed his life for the freedom of the nation and inspired the youths to come forward to fight against the British. He and his Friends will always be remembered and respected by every Indian as Shaheeds.

Bhagat Singh was born  on September 28, 1907 to Sardar Kishan Singh Sandhu and Sardarni Vidyavati Kaur in a village in the Lyallpur district of Punjab. 

Bhagth Singh

He, with his eldest brother, Jagat Singh, joined the Primary School at Banga, district Lyallpur , which was his birth place. Jagat Singh died at the age of 11. After this Sardar Kishen Singh shifted to Nawankot near Lahore where he had some land. His father enrolled him in Dayanand Anglo Vedic High School, an Arya Samajist school.  

At age 13, Singh began to follow Mahatma Gandhi's Non-Cooperation Movement. After the failure of the non-cooperation movement in 1921, many impatient young men sought to resort to other methods than those advocated by Mahatma Gandhi for the realization of their ideal. In the Punjab a sect had arose known as Babbar Akalis.

They advocated the use of violent methods for the emancipation of the country.  It should also be remembered that Bhagat's father, Sardar Kishen Singh also, was actively helping the revolutionary organizations of 1914-15. Young Bhagat Singh drifted towards the violent revolutionary path of the Babbar Akalis.

It was partly to avoid police scrutiny, partly to find out a new field of activity that Bhagat Singh left Punjab and went to reside at Kanpur. Here he came into touch with Sj. Ganesh Shanker Vidyarthi, and the two formed a life-long friendship.

In his teenage years, Bhagat Singh started studying at the National College in Lahore, became a member of the organisation - Naujawan Bharat Sabha ("Youth Society of India"). In the Naujawan Bharat Sabha, Singh and his fellow revolutionaries grew popular amongst the youth.

He also joined the Hindustan Republican Association through introduction by history teacher, Professor Vidyalankar, which had prominent leaders like Ram Prasad Bismil, Chandrashekhar Azad and Ashfaqulla Khan.

It is believed that he went to Kanpur to attempt free Kakori train robbery prisoners from the jail, but returned to Lahore for unknown reasons. On the day of Dasara in October 1926, a bomb was blasted in Lahore, and Bhagat Singh was arrested for his alleged involvement in this Dasara Bomb Case in 29 May 1927, and was released on a bail of Rs.60,000 after about five weeks of his arrest.

At this time the party was scattered into groups in different cities with no definite program or scheme of work before them. Such groups were in existence at Lahore, Delhi , kanpur, Banaras and Allahabad in U. P and at a few places in Bihar.  Sometimes in July, 1928 a preliminary meeting was held at Kanpur and it was decided there that  important representative members were to be called together to form a Central Committee.

According to this decision, Bhagat Singh and Bijoy Kumar Sinha began to tour about the country, and in September 1928, an important meeting was held at Purana Qila, Delhi. Two or three representatives each from Bihar, U. P., Punjab and Rajputana were called to­gether, and the meeting continued for two days.

Bhagat Singh also urged for changing the name of the party from Hindustan Republican Association to Hindustan Socialist Republican Association. The proposal was at first stoutly opposed by representatives from U. P. who declared that the name adopted by such well-known revolutionary leaders as Ram Prasad Bismil, Sachin Sanyal and Jogesh Chatterjee has acquired a good deal of prestige, and it should not be changed. But ultimately Bhagat Singh's proposal was accepted.

At this meeting it was further decided that the organization should be broadly divided into two groups, the active group and the sympathizers. The active group would be engaged in collecting arms and ammunition, in carrying out plans of terrorism, and would try to develop group actions into mass actions.

This group-would be known as Hindustan Socialist Republican Army. It would be the work of the sympathizers to collect money by personal contribution and by public subs­cription, to arrange for the shelter of  the members of the active group and to carry on propaganda.

When the Simon commission visited Lahore on 30 October 1928, Lala Lajpat Rai led the protest against Simon Commission in a silent non-violent march, but the police responded with violence, Lala Lajpat Rai were beaten by the police. Sometime afterwards, Lala Lajpat Rai died on 17th November. The people believed that Lalaji's death was due to the beating he had received.

Bhagat Singh, who was an eyewitness to this event, vowed to take revenge. He joined with other revolutionaries, Shivaram Rajguru, Sukhdev Thapar, Jai Gopal and Chandrashekhar Azad, in a plot to kill the Superintendent of police, J. A. Scott.

Jai Gopal was supposed to identify the chief and signal for Singh to shoot. However, in a case of mistaken identity, Gopal signalled Singh on the appearance of John P. Saunders, an Assistant Superintendent of Police was mistaken as Scott and shot by Rajguru and Bhagat Singh on December 17, 1928 . Head Constable Chanan Singh was also killed when he came to his help.

 In the face of actions by the revolutionaries, the British government enacted the Defence of India Act to give more power to the police. The purpose of the Act was to combat revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh. However, the Act was then passed under the ordinance that claimed that it was in the best interest of the public. In response to this act, the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association planned to explode a bomb in the Central Legislative Assembly where the ordinance was going to be passed.

 On 8 April 1929, Singh and Dutt threw a bomb onto the corridors of the assembly and shouted "Inquilab Zindabad! Each of them had a fully loaded revolver, and if they so wished, they could have utilized these to kill many Government Officials who were running helter skelter in different directions. But they did nothing of the sort. They took out their revolvers, and before the eyes of the police sergeants who had hurried to the spot, put them down on the adjoining chairs. Then they shouted out, both together : "Long Live the Revolution," "Down with Imperialism," cries which were uttered for the first time in India by them and which soon became the universal cry of the youths of India. Simultaneously with these shouts they began to throw out bundles of a red leaf­let with the title, "The Hindusthan Socialist Republican Army" and a spirited appeal typewritten on the red letter-head

On 15 April 1929, the 'Lahore Bomb Factory' was discovered by the Lahore police, and the other members of HSRA were arrested, out of which 7 turned informants, helping the police to connect Bhagat Singh in the murder of J. P. Saunders. Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and Sukhdev were charged with the murder. Bhagat Singh decided to use the court as a tool to publicise his cause for the independence of India.

Bhagat Singh was charged with attempt to murder under section 307 of the Indian Penal Code. Asaf Ali, a member of the Congress Party was his lawyer. The Trial started on 7 May 1929. The Crown was represented by the public prosecutor Rai Bahadur Suryanarayan and the trial magistrate was a British Judge, P.B Pool. The magistrate committed both of them to the Sessions Court of Judge Leonard Middleton.

Judge Middleton ruled that he had no doubt that the defendant’s acts were ‘deliberate’ and rejected the plea that the bombs were deliberately low-intensity bombs since the impact of the explosion had shattered the wood of one and a half inch thickness in the Assembly. The two were persuaded to file an appeal which was rejected and they were sentenced to transportation for life (fourteen years).

The police had gathered ‘substantial evidence’ against Bhagat Singh and he was charged with involvement in the killings of Saunders and Head Constable Chanan Singh. The authorities had collected nearly 600 witnesses to establish their charges, which included his colleagues, Jai Gopal and Hans Raj Vohra turning government approvers. Singh was re-arrested for the murder of Saunders and the life imprisonment sentence was kept in abeyance till the outcome of the murder trial.

While in jail, Bhagat Singh and other prisoners launched a hunger strike advocating for the rights of prisoners and those facing trial. He demanded decent food, books and newspapers to read. He also demanded that political prisoners should not be forced to do any labour or undignified work.

When the Government realized that this fast had riveted the attention of the people throughout the country, it decided to hurry up the trial, which came to known as the Lahore Conspiracy Case. This trial started in Borstal Jail, Lahore, on 10 July 1929.

A handcuffed Bhagat Singh, still on hunger strike, had to be brought to the court in a stretcher and his weight had fallen by 14 pounds. By then, the condition of Jatindra Nath Das, who was lodged in the same jail and was also on a hunger strike, had deteriorated considerably. Jatin died on September 13, 1929. His fast lasted 63 days.

The Jail Committee requested him to give up his hunger strike and finally it was his father who had his way, armed with a resolution from the Congress party urging them to give up their strike; and it was on the 116th day of their fast, on October 5, 1929 that Bhagat Singh and Dutt gave up their strike.

Bhagat Singh started refocusing on his trial. On 1 May 1930, by declaring an emergency, the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, promulgated an Ordinance to set up a tribunal to try this case. This Special Tribunal was given the power to proceed with the case in the absence of the accused and accept death of the persons giving evidence as a benefit to the defence.

On 7 October 1930, about three weeks before the expiry of its term, the tribunal delivered its judgement, sentencing Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru to death by hanging.  Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were sentenced to death in the Lahore conspiracy case and ordered to be hanged on March 24, 1931.

On 23 March 1931 at 7:30 pm, Bhagat Singh was hanged in Lahore Jail with his fellow comrades Rajguru and Sukhdev. His supporters, who had been protesting against the hanging, immediately declared him as a shaheed or martyr.

The Jail authorities broke the rear wall of the Jail and secretly cremated the three martyrs under cover of darkness on the banks of Sutlej, about 10 km from Ferozepore.

Inquilab Zindabad.
Bhagat Singh Zindabad.  
Sab Shaheeds Zindabad.

                                                                                           Source : Internet