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Knowledge Nugget: Bhagat Singh
Subject: History
(Relevance: Prominent historical personalities are an important part of the UPSC CSE syllabus. From time to time, UPSC has asked questions about various personalities at different stages of the exam. Therefore, knowing about these figures and the important events associated with them is essential.)
Why in the news?
Every year, March 23 is observed as Shaheed Diwas, or Martyr’s Day, in India. This day commemorates the execution of Bhagat Singh, along with his fellow revolutionaries Sukhdev Thapar and Shivaram Rajguru, who were hanged to death in Lahore Central Jail in 1931 for the murder of British police officer John Saunders. In this context, let’s know about the Bhagat Singh and Lahore conspiracy case.
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Key Takeaways :
1. Bhagat Singh was born on September 28, 1907, in the village of Banga in the Lyallpur district, which is now part of Faisalabad, Pakistan. He was a charismatic revolutionary who was executed at the age of 23 for the murder of British police officer John Saunders in 1931. His martyrdom and the extensive coverage of his trial turned him into a folk hero, particularly in northern India. Bhagat Singh continues to inspire patriots across the country.
2. Bhagat Singh is often remembered as a man of action, but he was equally a scholar and revolutionary. In the 1920s, he wrote for both Urdu and Punjabi newspapers in Amritsar and contributed to pamphlets and other “seditious” literature that criticised British colonial rule. Additionally, he wrote for Kirti, the journal of the Kirti Kisan Party, and briefly for the Veer Arjun newspaper published in Delhi. Singh frequently used pseudonyms, including Balwant, Ranjit, and Vidhrohi.
Only four authentic photos of Bhagat Singh exist. All other depictions are likenesses based on paintings done later.
3. He was an atheist and a Marxist with an anarchist tilt. Criticising religion, Bhagat Singh wrote in ‘Why I am an Atheist’ (1930), “All faiths differ on many fundamental questions, but each of them claims to be the only true religion. This is the root of evil.”
4. He drew inspiration from Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, and Bakunin. In his final testament, ‘To Young Political Workers’ (1931), he declares his ideal as the “social reconstruction on new, i.e., Marxist, basis”. However, he also disagreed with several orthodox Marxist positions, including those related to authoritarianism, which were quite popular at the time.
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Lahore Conspiracy Case & Bhagat Singh’s trial
1. Bhagat Singh was initially arrested for bombing the Indian Parliament. “It takes a loud voice to make the deaf hear,” pamphlets thrown by Singh and his accomplice, Batukeshwar Dutt, said. The idea was not to kill or hurt anyone. It was simply to make a point about the “sham” that was, at the time, the Indian Parliament. Both Singh and Dutt courted arrest, and were sentenced to life in prison for their actions.
2. However, Bhagat Singh would also be later re-arrested in relation to the Lahore Conspiracy case. In December 1928, Singh and Rajguru had shot dead a 21-year-old British officer, John P Saunders, in Lahore, in what was a case of mistaken identity. The plan was to kill senior British superintendent James Scott for his role in the death of Lala Lajpat Rai, a month earlier, during a protest against the Simon Commission.
3. Viceroy Irwin set up a special tribunal to expedite the trial in the Lahore conspiracy case—a trial that was decried as unjust in both India and Britain. Nonetheless, on October 7, 1930, the tribunal delivered a 300-page judgement sentencing three Hindustan Socialist Republican Army (HSRA) members — Bhagat Singh, Shivaram Rajguru, and Sukhdev Thapar — to death by hanging. The execution was carried out on March 23, 1931.
BEYOND THE NUGGET: ‘Mere faith and blind faith is dangerous: It dulls the brain and makes a man reactionary’-Bhagat Singh. What this Quote Means?
(FYI: Quotes from famous historical figures are an important component of the syllabus for the UPSC CSE Essay paper. Additionally, themes related to faith, religion, spirituality, and wisdom frequently appear in various forms in the UPSC examination, particularly within a philosophical context. Questions have been asked about spirituality and scientific temper and ‘new cults and godmen: a threat to traditional religion’.)
Arjun Sengupta writes-
“The quote
The full passage goes like this:
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“Any man who stands for progress has to criticise, disbelieve and challenge every item of the old faith. Item by item he has to reason out every nook and corner of the prevailing faith. If after considerable reasoning one is led to believe in any theory or philosophy, his faith is welcomed. His reasoning can be mistaken, wrong, misled, and sometimes fallacious. But he is liable to correction because reason is the guiding star of his life. But mere faith and blind faith is dangerous: it dulls the brain and makes a man reactionary.”
In this passage, Bhagat Singh outlines why reason, rather than blind faith, should drive anyone who believes in progress. Singh uses the term ‘faith’ in two different ways in the above passage. First, as a synonym for religious beliefs (‘old faiths’) and second, simply as faith (complete trust or confidence in someone or something) itself.
Singh writes that as long as reason is one’s ‘guiding star’, faith is welcome, even if it may be misplaced. This is because being reasonable presupposes being questioning and open to change one’s views. Our knowledge is fundamentally incomplete – there will always be ‘more to know’ than what is known at present. This means that our ‘faith’ has to reflect this.
For instance, for the longest time, it was believed that the earth was at the centre of the universe. In fact people like Galileo who said otherwise were ridiculed and sometimes, even persecuted. Today, we know without a doubt that our planet is but a tiny, insignificant speck in the vast nothingness of the universe. This change in our ‘belief’ came with advancements in science and humankind’s collective gathering of knowledge. Mere faith in Earth’s uniqueness amidst overwhelming evidence otherwise would be dishonest and nonsensical.
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Similarly, ‘mere faith and blind faith’ in any fact, any religious teaching, in any god, is also ‘dangerous’. “Criticism and independent thinking are the two indispensable qualities of a revolutionary”, Bhagat Singh writes later in the essay. This is the larger point that the quote being discussed makes. By no means is believing in something itself bad. But when it is blind, and unquestioning, this belief can be dangerous.”
Post Read Question
According to the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) pamphlet, why was the murder of John Saunders, a British police officer in Lahore, planned?
(a) As a retaliation of arresting Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt for throwing bombs at the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi.
(b) As a revenge to the assassination of Lala Lajpat Rai
(c) As a response to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre
(d) None of the above
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(Sources: Five things you did not know about Bhagat Singh,Could Gandhi have done more to save Bhagat Singh?,Shaheed Diwas, This Quote Means | Bhagat Singh: ‘Mere faith and blind faith is dangerous: It dulls the brain and makes a man reactionary’)
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8 min read
Only four authentic photos of Bhagat Singh exist. All other depictions are likenesses based on paintings done later.
