Bhagat Singh was a pivotal revolutionary in the Indian Nationalist Movement. Bhagat Singh was born on September 28, 1907, in Banga, Lyallpur District, to Kishan Singh and Vidyavati (now Pakistan).
His uncles Ajit and Swaran Singh, as well as his father, Kishan Singh, were all imprisoned when he was born for opposing the 1906 Colonization Bill. Growing up in a politically conscious family that supported the Ghadar party, young Bhagat Singh developed a sense of patriotism.
At a young age, Bhagat Singh began to support Mahatma Gandhi’s Non-Cooperation Movement.
Bhagat Singh openly resisted the British and carried out Gandhi’s request by setting fire to government-sponsored publications.
In fact, he dropped out of school entirely to attend Lahore’s National College. When he was a teenager, he witnessed the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh Massacre and the 1921 murder of unarmed Akali demonstrators at the Nankana Sahib. Both events influenced his patriotic viewpoint.
Bhagat Singh’s family adhered to the Gandhian philosophy of using non-violence to achieve Swaraj, and for a while, he also backed the Indian National Congress and the objectives of the Non-Cooperation Movement.
After the Chauri Chaura Incident, Gandhi demanded that the movement against non-cooperation be abandoned.
Bhagat Singh disassociated himself from Gandhi’s nonviolent effort because of the choice and joined the Young Revolutionary Movement instead. Thus began his career as the most well-known proponent of a bloody uprising against the British Raj.
The Naujawan Bharat Sabha was established in March 1925, with Bhagat Singh serving as its secretary, and was motivated by nationalist movements in Europe.
In addition, Bhagat Singh joined the radical Hindustan Republican Association (HRA), which he eventually renamed the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) with fellow revolutionaries Chandrashekhar Azad and Sukhdev.
Bhagat Singh Revolutionary Activities
Bhagat Singh’s early actions primarily consisted of writing critical articles about the British government and printing and distributing leaflets that explained the fundamentals of a violent insurgency with the goal of overthrowing the government.
On October 30, 1928, Lala Lajpat Rai led an all-party parade towards the Lahore train station to protest the arrival of the Simon Commission.
To stop the protesters from moving forward, the police used a violent lathi charge. The revolutionaries were not able to recognize J.P. Saunders who was Assistant Superintendent of Police, they thought that he was a Scott and killed him instead.
Bhagat Singh quickly left Lahore in order to avoid getting caught. To avoid being recognized, he shaved his beard and cut his hair, violating the core values of Sikhism.
Central Assembly Bombing Case
Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt exploded a bomb in Delhi’s Central Assembly on April 8, 1929, from the Visitors’ Gallery.
They also raised pro-revolutionary banners and threw leaflets. Because they planned to utilize the trial as a platform to propagate their message of revolution and anti-imperialism, neither revolutionary resisted being taken into custody.
Throughout the entire arrest, they screamed “Inquilab Zindabad” slogans. The phrase gained a lot of traction with young people and many liberation warriors.
They never intended to hurt anyone physically; thus, there were no casualties in the incident. Their claimed objective was “to make the deaf hear”.
Auguste Valliant, a French anarchist who was hanged by France for a similar incident in Paris, served as inspiration for Bhagat Singh, the incident’s mastermind. Both Singh and Dutt received life sentences in jail after being found guilty in the incident’s trial.
At this point, Bhagat Singh had also been connected to the JP Saunders murder case. He was charged with the murder of Saunders together with Rajguru and Sukhdev.
Bhagat Singh 1929 Assembly Incident Trial
The violent protest was met with harsh criticism from the political body. In response, Singh said, “Force, when used violently, is ‘violence’ and is, thus, morally indefensible, but when it is used in support of a righteous cause, it has its moral legitimacy.”
Trial proceedings began in May, with Singh attempting to represent himself and Batukeshwar Dutt being represented by Afsar Ali. The explosions’ malevolent and illegal motive was cited by the court in its decision in favour of a life sentence.
Bhagat Singh Lahore Conspiracy Case & Trial
Three people, Hans Raj Vohra, Jai Gopal, and Phanindra Nath Ghosh, became government approvers, resulting in 21 arrests, including Sukhdev, Jatindra Nath Das, and Rajguru.
Shortly after the sentencing, police raided the HSRA bomb factories in Lahore, arresting several well-known revolutionaries. Bhagat Singh was arrested again for the murder of Assistant Superintendent Saunders, the making of bombs, and the Lahore Conspiracy case.
Due to the sluggishness of the legal proceedings, the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, established a special tribunal made up of Justices J. Coldstream, Agha Hyder, and G. C. Hilton on May 1st, 1930.
The tribunal had the authority to conduct the trial without the presence of the defendant, and it was a biased trial that rarely followed the standard legal rights principles.
On the orders of the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, a special tribunal made up of Justices J. Coldstream, Agha Hyder, and G. C. Hilton was established on May 1st, 1930 due to the sluggishness of the legal proceedings.
The tribunal had the authority to conduct the trial without the presence of the defendant, and it was a biased trial that rarely followed the standard legal rights principles.
On the orders of the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, a special tribunal made up of Justices J. Coldstream, Agha Hyder, and G. C. Hilton was established on May 1st, 1930 due to the sluggishness of the legal proceedings.
The tribunal had the authority to conduct the trial without the presence of the defendant, and it was a biased trial that rarely followed the standard legal rights principles.
Bhagat Singh Thoughts & Opinions
Bhagat Singh’s patriotism had been instilled in him from a young age. He was raised to value nationalism and dreams of a free India free of British rule.
After reading a lot of European literature and developing a strong desire for a democratic future for his beloved country, he developed a socialist outlook.
Bhagat Singh was raised as a Sikh, but after witnessing numerous Hindu-Muslim riots and other religious upheavals, he began to lean towards atheism.
Bhagat Singh thought that in order to attain something as precious as Independence, imperialism’s exploitative aspect needed to be completely eradicated.
According to his opinion, only an armed revolution along the lines of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia could bring about such transformation.
He coined the phrase “Inquilab Zindabad”, which eventually became the war cry of the campaign for Indian independence.
Death
On March 23, 1931, at 7:30 in the morning, Bhagat Singh and his friends Rajguru and Sukhdev were hanged at the Lahore Jail. They allegedly shouted their favourite slogans, such as “Inquilab Zindabad” and “Down with British Imperialism”, as they marched joyfully to the execution location. On the bank of the Sutlej River.
