HOT AND COLD VERDICT BEFORE AND WITHOUT TRIAL - I

V.SUNDARAM

HON'BLE JUSTICE FELIX FRANKFURTER (1882-1965)

I have derived my inspiration for writing this article from the following observations of Hon’ble Justice Felix Frankfurter (1882-1965) one of the greatest of American Judges and makers of American Law: “A colleague of mine at the Harvard Law School with whom I got into a tangle about some question of Law once chided me, indeed, closed a contentious argument between us by saying, ’You Take Law awfully seriously’. I said, ‘That is one accusation against which I plead guilty without any reservation’. I am bound to say hardly another member of the Harvard Law School would have thought of making such an accusation. I do take law very seriously, deeply seriously, because fragile as REASON is and limited as LAW is as the expression of the institutionalized medium of REASON, that is all we have standing between us and the TYRANNY OF MERE WILL AND THE CRUELTY OF UNBRIDLED, UNDISCIPLINED FEELING.” (Source:Felix Frankfurter Reminisces, New York: Reynal and Company, 1960; page 189)
The charge-sheet has not yet been filed by the police in Karnataka against Swami Nityananda. God only knows how long it will take for this essential Due Process to be completed. But for the last one month or more, the PSEUDO-SECULAR MAFIA OF MASS MEDIA HAS CARRIED ON AN UNAUTHORIZED AND TOTALLY ILLEGAL CRIMINAL TRIAL against this Hindu Swamiji with venom and spite which passeth all understanding.

I am firmly of the view that Mob Law does not become Due Process of Law by securing the assent of a terrorized and ill-informed segment of society.

Due Process is not a mechanical yardstick. It does not afford mechanical answers. Hon’ble Justice Felix Frankfurter himself has stated this for all time: “There is no table of weights and measures for ascertaining what constitutes the Due Process.” [Source 346 US. 137, 149 (1953)].

Hon’ble Justice Jackson laid down this inflexible, immutable and inexorable general principle of Law: “Procedural fairness if not all that originally was meant by Due Process of Law, is at least what it most uncompromisingly requires. Procedural Due Process is more elemental and less flexible than substantive Due Process. It yields less to the times, varies less with conditions, and defers much less to legislative judgment. In so far as PROCEDURAL LAW is technical Law, it must be a specialized responsibility within the competence of the Judiciary on which they do not bend before political branches of the Government, as they should on matters of Policy which comprise SUBSTANTIVE LAW.” [Source Schaughnessy vs Mezei, 345 US. 206, 224 (1953)]  

The incontrovertible views of Hon’ble Justice Jackson cited above are totally relevant to the current ongoing irregular, illegal and ‘immoral’ (no less!!) Mob and Media (both print and electronic, apart from web media) Trial of Swami Nityananda. The media cats seem to be using the lingua franca of Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin, to lay down the basis of not only the Procedural Due Process and Substantive Due Process for conducting their one-sided media trial of Swami Nityananda but also to give their preconceived verdict against him in the most imperious manner.

In this context I have drawn my salutary lessons from a brilliant article by Vijayan, an exemplary and fearless journalist (a nishkamya karma journalist wholly committed to the cause of Hindutva and Hinduism as I see it as well) titled “Nityananda has set the Cats among the pigeons”. I found it hilariously funny (notwithstanding whatever may be the arrogantly learned views of the Aryan and Dravidian Cats of India on the one hand and the Dravidian Channels like Sun TV on the other which revel in attacking Hinduism in general and Hindu Swamijis in particular!!) like the following poem of Lewis Carrol (1832-1898) in his Alice in Wonderland:

“In my youth”, said his father, “I took to the Law,
And argued each case with my wife,
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life” (the emphasis and the added emphasis wholly mine!!)

In this context, I am reminded of a hilarious play titled ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ by Tennessee Williams (1911-1983). This play is one of Williams's best-known works and it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1955. I am only applying the expressive  words of Teneese Williams to the Cats in the Indian Media who are hell-bent on chasing Swami Nityananda in the same manner as Hitler chased the Jews in Nazi Germany!

Why do so many cats in our media find themselves like ‘Cats on a Hot Tin Roof’ today on the Nityanada Affair? I do not know. I do not want to make any distinction between Aryan Cats and Dravidian Cats because I am fully aware of the fact that the British Colonial Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) has been discredited for ever!

T.S.ELLIOT (1888-1965)

In this context, I cannot help lapsing into poetic levity. I have to refer to the following poems by T.S Eliot (1888-1965). One of them is titled ‘The Naming Of Cats’ and the other ‘Macavity -The Mystery Cat’.

The Naming Of Cats
The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey--
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter--
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum-
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover--
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

Macavity  - The Mystery Cat
Macavity's a Mystery Cat: he's called the Hidden Paw--
For he's the master criminal who can defy the Law.
He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime--Macavity's not there!
Macavity, Macavity, there's no on like Macavity,
He's broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity.
His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare,
And when you reach the scene of crime--Macavity's not there!
You may seek him in the basement, you may look up in the air--
But I tell you once and once again, Macavity's not there!
Macavity's a ginger cat, he's very tall and thin;
You would know him if you saw him, for his eyes are sunken in.
His brow is deeply lined with thought, his head is highly doomed;
His coat is dusty from neglect, his whiskers are uncombed.
He sways his head from side to side, with movements like a snake;
And when you think he's half asleep, he's always wide awake.

Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,
For he's a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity.
You may meet him in a by-street, you may see him in the square--
But when a crime's discovered, then Macavity's not there!

He's outwardly respectable. (They say he cheats at cards.)
And his footprints are not found in any file of Scotland Yard's.
And when the larder's looted, or the jewel-case is rifled,
Or when the milk is missing, or another Peke's been stifled,
Or the greenhouse glass is broken, and the trellis past repair--
Ay, there's the wonder of the thing! Macavity's not there!


And when the Foreign Office finds a Treaty's gone astray,
Or the Admiralty lose some plans and drawings by the way,
There may be a scrap of paper in the hall or on the stair--
But it's useless of investigate--Macavity's not there!
And when the loss has been disclosed, the Secret Service say:
"It must have been Macavity!"--but he's a mile away.
You'll be sure to find him resting, or a-licking of his thumbs,
Or engaged in doing complicated long division sums.


Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,
There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity.
He always has an alibit, or one or two to spare:
And whatever time the deed took place--MACAVITY WASN'T THERE!
And they say that all the Cats whose wicked deeds are widely known
(I might mention Mungojerrie, I might mention Griddlebone)
Are nothing more than agents for the Cat who all the time
Just controls their operations: the Napoleon of Crime!

The media cats pronouncing an arrogant verdict of death without any trial against Swami Nityananda today would not hesitate to pass an equally virulent verdict against T.S Eliot for his blatant poetic lapse of using the term the Napoleon of Crime Instead of Nityananda of Crime! My alliteration is just incidental but the point I am trying to emphasize is both fundamental and elemental. Regardless of our status in life, there is a lot to be learnt by all of us from the Biblical injunction: ‘Judge not for ye shall be judged’. (Source: St Luke 6-37)

I do not know the facts of the case. I would not arrogate to myself the role of an investigating police officer or a judge trying to adjudicate the case. At any rate, unlike the media cats of India, I would not rush to give any judgment against Swami Nityananda wholly based upon the loaded or the prejudiced presentation made by the well known mafia of anti-Hindu media in India.

Comments can be free (including powerful and sacred comments by media cats!) provided the facts are treated as sacred and sacrosanct. Media cats cannot be granted dictatorial powers to ignore with supreme contempt the paramount need for even ascertaining the most elementary facts. What is even more tragic and reprehensible is that media cats are treating their unverified prejudiced and jaundiced comments relating to Swami Nityananda as sacred revelations.

I would like to present the following quotations to bring out the overriding importance of assiduous gathering of facts in a judicial case:

1:- “State the facts first and let the characterizations suggest themselves.” - Justice Brandeis

2:- “A patient pursuit of facts, and cautious combination and comparison of them, is the drudgery to which Man is subjected by his maker, if he wishes to attain sure knowledge of anything.”—Thomas Jefferson

3:- “An impartial and reliable research substitutes facts for hunches.” - Robert Kratovil

4:- “To know the Law of a Case—given industry and intelligence—is relatively simple, but to know the FACTS of a case is indeed a life sentence to hard labour.” - Justice Arthur Vanderbilt.

5:- “The Supreme Court of the United States has frequently reminded the Bar that painstaking examination of the FACT SITUATION is more important than the LAW involved. Mr. Justice Miller was one of the Court’s great judges. He said, after 25 years on the Bench, that as a result of his own experience in the Conference Room of the US Supreme Court, it surprised him how quickly Judges could agree on the LAW and how frequently they disagreed on the FACTS.” - Eugene C Gerhart

6:- “I must say that in my experience in the Conference Room of the US Supreme Court, which consists of nine Judges, I have often been surprised to find how readily these Judges come to an agreement on questions of LAW, and how often they disagree in regard to questions of FACT.” – Justice Samuel F. Miller

7:- “Discrimination so subtle is a feat beyond the compass of ordinary minds. The reverberating clang of unproven accusatory words would drown all weaker sounds.” - Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo in Shepard vs United States, 290 US. 96, 104 (1933).

I am deliberately quoting from the judgments of great judges because I do not want to arrogate to myself the transcendental legal wisdom claimed in an assertive manner as absolute hereditary rights by some of the media cats in India! Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes has reiterated several times in his judicial career spanning nearly 4 decades and more that if justice requires the fact to be ascertained, the difficulty of doing so is or can be no ground for refusing to try. The media cats seem to have ignored this injunction of Justice Holmes with unconcealed journalistic contempt bordering on contempt of law and justice.

The best protection against these catty tendencies is to cultivate an intellectual habit of subordinating one’s opinion and wishes to objective evidence and a reverence for things as they really are, and to keep constantly in mind that their hypothesis is only a supposition. Here the words of the great scientist T.E Huxley come to my mind, “My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try to make facts harmonize with my aspirations. Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion following humbly wherever nature leads, or you will learn nothing.” But our cheeky media cats want the basic facts relating to the Nityananda case to creep and crawl before them as their bonded labourers so that they can violate their fundamental humanitarian rights with arrogant impunity.

I have dealt with the vanity and overweening autocracy of the media cats towards a young Hindu Swamiji with millions of highly educated followers in all parts of the world. All of them are capable of taking their own decisions on their chosen, venerable, profound and irrepressible guru without the superincumbent guidance of the media cats. I have consistently held the view that grave injustice has been done to Swami Nityananda by the anti-Hindu mafia of mass media.

LORD DENNING (1899-1999)

Now it can be asked as to what I would define or constitute as JUSTICE. I would answer this question in the irreplaceable words of Lord Denning (1899-1999), formerly Lord Chancellor of England: “Thence I ask the question, what is Justice? That question has been asked by many men far wiser than you or me and no one has yet found a satisfactory answer. All I would suggest is that Justice is not something you can see. It is not temporal but eternal. How does man know what is justice? It is not a product of his intellect but of his spirit. The nearest we can get to defining justice is to say that it is what the right-minded members of the community – those who have the right spirit within them – believe to be fair.”

Judged by Lord Denning’s yard stick, I would repeat once again that blatant injustice has been dished out to the Hindu Swami Nityananda by the media in general and media cats in particular.The loud and dictatorial proclamation of the Media Cats is this: "Treat our personal  prejudiced opinions as sacred and sacrosant facts."

TRIBUTE TO 3 UNSUNG MARTYRS AND REVOLUTIONARIES-II

V.SUNDARAM I.A.S.

                                   Sukhdev Thapar (1907-1931)

Sukhdev Thapar was an extraordinary Indian freedom fighter who lived for less than 24 years from 15 May 1907 to March 23, 1931. He is best known as one who along with Bhagat Singh and Shivaram Rajguru participated with unsurpassed courage in the assassination of a British police officer J.P. Saunders in Lahore in December 1928 in order to take revenge against him for having caused the death of veteran national leader Lala Lajpat Rai following a brutal police lathi charge in Lahore in November 1928.

All the three young revolutionary heroes --- Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev Thapar and Shivaram Rajguru --- were hanged in Lahore Central Jail on March 23, 1931 in the evening at 7.33 PM against all known civilized norms of execution by hanging. The dead bodies were secretly taken away by breaking the back-side walls of the jail and were secretly burnt on the banks of River Satluj at Hussainiwala about 50 miles away from Lahore. The bodies were barbarously cut into pieces to accelerate the pace of completion of funeral formalities.

HOUSE OF SUKHADEV THAPAR AT NAU GHARA MOHALLA, LUDHIANA

Sukhdev Thapar was born on May 15, 1907 in Naughara in Ludhiana. Ever since his childhood days, he had witnessed the brutal behaviour of British authorities towards the native Indians and grew up with a firm resolve and an earnest desire to set India free from British colonial domination. His ancestral house was in Naughara Mohalla of Ludhiana city, Punjab, India. His father's name was Ram Lal.

Early in his youth, Sukhdev became an active member of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association, and soon became one of its most senior leaders. He is known to have started study circles at National College, (Lahore) in order to delve deep into India's past as well as to scrutinize the finer aspects of the history of the world with focus on revolutionary freedom movements. Along with Bhagat Singh, Comrade Ram Chandra and Bhagwati Charan Vohra, he started the Naujawan Bharat Sabha at Lahore. The main aims of this organization were to attract and organize youth so as to make them fit for participation in our freedom struggle, by inculcating a rational scientific attitude.

Sukhdev was deeply and radically influenced by Pandit Ram Prasad Bismil (1897-1927, also hanged),

                        CHANDRASEKHAR AZAD    PANDIT RAM PRASAD BISMIL

and Chandrashekhar Azad (1906-1931, shot dead while fighting) who were great revolutionaries. Sukhdev himself took an active part in several revolutionary activities like the 'Prison hunger strike' in Lahore Jail in 1929.

SITE OF THE KILLING: J.P. SAUNDERS WAS SHOT IN FRONT OF THE SSP’S OFFICE IN LAHORE ON DECEMBER 17, 1928

Sukhdev would always be remembered in the history of the Indian Freedom Movement for his daring and courageous attack on the British Police officer J.P. Saunders, at Lahore on 17th December, 1928. J.P Saunders was killed by Sukhdev and his colleagues on the same day. They mistook him for J A Scott, the Superintendent of Police who had ordered the savage lathicharge against Lala Lajpat Rai when he was leading the procession against the Simon Commission in November 1928.

I have presented above a copy of the historically very interesting notice issued by the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army, belonging to the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA), on 18 December 1928.

Thanks to the Congress Party after independence and its advocacy of nervous and stupid non-violence only for the Hindus of India (Muslims of India alone have a separate Shariat Civil Code as per law, and a separate Informal Charter of Minority Civil Rights granting full State freedom to the Muslims to let loose unabashed violence against the Hindus of India), most people may not even be aware of the role played by the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) in the history of India’s freedom movement!!!

Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA), known as the Hindustan Republican Association until 1928, was a revolutionary Indian organization which was committed to the philosophy of armed struggle in order to throw the British out of India.

The Non-cooperation movement of 1920 had resulted in the large scale mobilization of Indian population against the British rule. Though Gandhi intended it as a nonviolent resistance movement, it soon turned violent. After the Chauri Chaura incident on 22 February 1922, Gandhi “The Great Dictator” of the Congress suspended the Non-Cooperation Movement in protest against what he viewed essentially as an act of Hindu violence against the alien usurpers.

Gandhi always expected the Hindus to be cowards and wanted to see them behave that way in a meek and submissive manner, not responding effectively to any violation of their fundamental human rights by their alien British Colonial oppressors. Any behaviour to the contrary earned the wrath of the ever-moralizing Gandhi . Starting from the Khilafat Movement onwards from 1921, Gandhi extended this savage right of blatant violation of fundemental Hindu Human Rights to the Muslims of India as well for nearly 26 years till 1947! The suspension of the Non-Co-operation Movement in 1922 disillusioned the Hindu Nationalists who felt the suspension was premature and totally unwarranted and self-defeating. The political vacuum created by the suspension of the Non-Co-operation Movement led to the formation of revolutionary movements by the more radical elements amongst those who sought to overthrow British rule.

The Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) was established at a meeting in 1924, in the village of Bholachang, Brahamabaria subdivision, East Bengal. Present at the founding meeting were Pratul Ganguly, Narendra Mohan Sen and Sachindra Nath Sanyal. It emerged as an offshoot of the Anushilan Samiti. The name was suggestive of the violent Irish Republican Army. Sanyal, the leading light of the new movement, wrote the organisation's manifesto titled The Revolutionary.

The stated objective of the HRA was establishment of a “Federated Republic of the United States of India by an organised and armed revolution”. Armed struggle, terrorism and retaliatory strikes were the favored tactics in the attempt to defeat the British Empire. Its Manifesto declared

“The Official terrorism is surely to be met by counter terrorism. A spirit of utter helplessness pervades every strata of our society and terrorism is an effective means of restoring the proper spirits in the society...this revolutionary party has deliberately abstained itself from entering into this terrorist campaign at the present moment...because the party is waiting to deliver the final blow. But when expediency will demand it the Party will unhesitatingly enter into a desperate campaign of terrorism, when the life of every officer and individual helping the foreign government will be made intolerable ... The Indian revolutionaries are neither terrorists nor anarchists ... They do not believe terrorism alone can bring independence and do not want terrorism for terrorism's sake.”

We have to contrast the above words with the ever wicked words of Gandhi that Hindus are cowards and their revolutionary leaders are nothing short of terrorists! By the same token he held consistently that the Moplah marauders--murderers, armed dacoits, rapists--were all brave and fearless freedom fighters, apart from being exemplary men of Islamic compassion radiating the message of Islamic brotherhood.

From 1924 to 1925, the HRA grew in numbers with the influx of new members like Bhagat Singh, Chandrasekhar Azad, Sukhdev and Ram Prasad Bismil. The Kakori train robbery was the first well known armed action against the State. On 9 August, 1925 the members of the group looted government money that was being transferred in a train. The Kakori conspiracy case led to the hanging of Ashfaqullah Khan, Ramprasad Bismil, Roshan Singh and Rajendra Lahiri. Sanyal and Jogesh Chandra Chatterjee were sentenced to life imprisonment. The Kakori arrests decimated the leadership of the HRA and dealt a major blow to its activities. Of the original conspirators, only Azad and Kundan Lal Gupta escaped. During this period the HRA splintered into various factions based in Kanpur, Lahore and Bengal. In 1927 a new group of revolutionaries like Jatindra nath Sanyal (brother of Sachindra), Phanindra Nath Ghosh and Bhirendra Nath Bhattacharjee emerged as active members. Ghosh was behind the attempted assassination of Rao Bahadur JN Banerjee in Benares in 1928. BN Bhattacharjee was the prime accused in the Deogarh Conspiracy Case.

In September 1928, the Lahore faction (Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev) and Kanpur faction (Azad, Kundan Lal Gugta) of the HRA merged with the Bengali revolutionary faction led by Phanindra Nath Ghosh to form the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association(HSRA). This amalgamation came into existence at a meeting of the various factions at Feroz Shah Kotla grounds in Delhi. Chandrashekhar Azad was appointed as the Commander-in-chief and Bhagat Singh placed in charge of ideology. The HSRA's Manifesto titled ‘Philosophy of the Bomb’ was written by Bhagawathi Charan Vohra.

Bhagawathi Charan Vohra

Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev Thapar and Shivaram Rajguru were all whole time activists of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA). The killing of J.P Saunders in December 1928 shook the very foundations of the British Government in India. As we have noted earlier above, Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev Thapar and Shivaram Rajguru were sentenced to death and later hanged in Lahore Jail on 23rd March 1931.

     

           STATUES OF BHAGAT SINGH, RAJGURU, SUKHDEV AT LUDHIANA

Sukhdev’s letter to Gandhi written just prior to his hanging, protesting against the latter's disapproval of revolutionary tactics, throws light on the vast differences in ideological perceptions between the political philosophy of Gandhi and that of the armed revolutionaries sacrificing their lives and fighting for the freedom of the people of India.

One traitor to the national cause called Hansraj Vohra --- the man who gave the clinching testimony that resulted in the hanging of the revolutionary trio --- later had the temerity to make a false claim that Sukhdev himself had turned an approver. If Sukhdev had indeed turned approver then why was he hanged at all? The traitor Vohra rats on the freedom fighter and martyr Sukhdev leading to the latter’s judicial murder and then calls him names! If only this traitor Hansraj Vohra were alive today, he would be an automatic choice for the Union Cabinet Ministership in the evangelical and anti-National Sonia Congress Government headed by a doormat Prime Minister!!!

The HSRA's methods were diametrically opposite to that of Gandhi's Nonviolent resistance movement. The revolutionaries and their methods were severely criticized by Gandhi. Responding to the attack on Lord Irwin's train on 23 December 1929, Gandhi wrote a harsh critique of the HSRA titled “The Cult of the Bomb” (Young India, 2 January 1930). In it he declared that bomb throwing was nothing but froth coming to the surface in an agitated liquid. He condemned the HSRA and it's actions as "cowards" and "dastardly". According to Gandhi, the HSRA's violent struggle had its hazards. Based on a wholly twisted and convoluted logic, Gandhi concluded that this kind of violence only led to more reprisals and suffering and it would turn inward as it was an easy natural step from violence done to the foreign ruler to violence to our own people. As an article of faith, Gandhi earnestly believed that only the British Government and the Muslims of India had all the authority and moral sanction in the world to let loose any kind of violence against the Hindus of India, whom he considered to be listless cowards! The HSRA responded to Gandhi’s criticism of violent methods to win freedom with its own Manifesto, ‘The Philosophy of the Bomb’, in which they defended their violent methods as being complementary to Gandhi's non violent methods. To conclude, Gandhi’s foolish and dictatorial insistence on undiluted non-violence had an emasculating impact upon the Hindu masses of India.

Let me now come to Shivaram Hari Rajguru (1908 - 1931) who was also hanged with Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev in Lahore Jail on 23 March 1931. It is a matter of deep anguish for me that I have not been successful in locating the photograph of Shivaram Hari Rajguru, a very great martyr.

Rajguru is best known as a revolutionary colleague of Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev in the act of revenge killing of a British police officer J.P. Saunders at Lahore on December 17, 1928. He was also a sharp and accurate shooter and was regarded as the gunman of HSRA.

When the police were looking for him after the killing of Saunders in December 1928, Rajguru escaped to Nagpur. There he was hiding in the house of a RSS worker where he met Dr. K. B. Hedgewar, the founder of RSS. But after some days he went to Pune and there he was arrested by the Police. He totally believed that violence against oppression of British Rule would be far more effective than the nonviolent ways of Mahatma Gandhi.

Shiv Ram Hari Rajguru was born in an average middle-class Hindu Brahmin family at Khed in Poona district on August 24, 1908. Khed was later renamed as Rajgurunagar in his honor. Rajguru came to Varanasi at a very early age where he learnt Sanskrit and read the Hindu religious scriptures. He had a good memory and learnt by heart the Laghu Siddhant Kaumudi. He had great admiration for Shivaji and his guerilla tactics.

At Varanasi, he came into contact with revolutionaries. He joined the movement and became an active member of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army (H.S.R.A). He was known in the party under the pseudonym of Raghunath. Rajguru was a man of fearless spirit and indomitable courage. The only object of his adoration and worship was his motherland for whose liberation he considered no sacrifice too great. He was a close associate of Chandra Shekhar Azad, Sardar Bhagat Singh and Jatin Das and his field of activity was U.P and Punjab, with Kanpur, Agra and Lahore as his headquarters.

After the murder of police officer Saunders in December 1928, Bhagat Singh was arrested in 1929 with the help of approvers Jai Gopal, Phanindra Nath and Hansraj Vohra. Rajguru was arrested at Poona on 30 September 1929 and a revolver with fourteen cartridges was recovered from him. The Government prosecuted him along with Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and 16 others and this case is known as the Lahore Conspiracy Case. Judgment was delivered in this case on 7 October 1930. Sardar Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru were sentenced to death and the other accused were awarded various terms of imprisonment. The whole nation was awakened by this inhuman judicial verdict and the names of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev became as popular as that of Mahatma Gandhi. Meetings, processions and representations were made with out any success for the commutation of their death sentence. Rajguru was hanged in Lahore Jail on 23 March 1931. At the time of his martyrdom, Rajguru was hardly twenty- three years of age.

I am presenting below a statement which would serve as a ready reckoner for those who are interested to know more about these selfless and fearless revolutionaries:

Sachindra Nath Sanyal Kakori train robbery (1926) Sentenced to life in Andaman Cellular Jail; Died in prison (1942)


Bhagat Singh JP Saunders assassination (1928),


Central Assembly bombing (1929) Sentenced to Life in Assembly Bomb Case; Sentenced to death in Second Lahore Conspiracy Case; Hanged in 1931


Chandrashekar Azad Kakori train robbery(1926),


JP Saunders assassination (1928) Killed himself with his last bullet instead of surrendering in a shootout with police(1931)


Ram Prasad Bismil Kakori train robbery(1926) Sentenced to Death in Kakori Case, Hanged in 1927


Ashfaqullah Khan Kakori train robbery(1926) Sentenced to Death in Kakori Case, Hanged in 1927


Rajendra Lahiri Kakori train robbery(1926) Sentenced to Death in Kakori Case, Hanged in 1927


Roshan Singh Kakori train robbery(1926) Sentenced to Death in Kakori Case, Hanged in 1927


Shachindra Nath Bakshi Kakori train robbery(1926) Sentenced to Life in Kakori Case; Released in 1937


Jogesh Chandra Chatterjee


Kakori train robbery(1926)


Sentenced to Life in Kakori Case; Became a Member of Parliament after independence


Manmath Nath Gupta


Kakori train robbery(1926)


Sentenced to Life in Kakori Case; Became a journalist after independence


Govind Charan Kar


Kakori train robbery(1926)


Sentenced to Life in Kakori Case


Sukhdev Thapar


JP Saunders assassination (1928) Sentenced to death in Second Lahore Conspiracy Case; Hanged in 1931


Batukeshwar Dutt


Central Assembly bombing (1929) Sentenced to Life in Central Assembly Bomb Case; Released in 1937


Bhagavathi Charan Vohra


Central Assembly bombing (1929) Killed in bomb blast (1930)


Kailash Pati


Gadodia Store Robbery (1929) Arrested in 1930. Turned Approver


Phanindra Nath Ghosh


Leader of Bengali faction Arrested in 1930. Turned Approver; Killed in retaliation (1931)


Yashpal


Viceroy train bombing (1929) Arrested in 1932. Sentenced to seven years rigorous imprisonment; Became a Award winning novelist


Jaidev Kapur


Central Assembly bombing (1929) Sentenced to life in Second Lahore Conspiracy Case;


Sheo Varma


Central Assembly bombing (1929) Sentenced to life in Second Lahore Conspiracy Case;


Bejoy Kumar Sinha


Central Assembly bombing (1929) Sentenced to life in Second Lahore Conspiracy Case;


Gaya Prasad


Central Assembly bombing (1929) Sentenced to life in Second Lahore Conspiracy Case;

Lala Har Dayal (1884-1939)

These great revolutionaries had an unshakeable and indivisible faith in the moral power of the bomb. All of them derived their inspiration from the following immortal message of another great revolutionary Lala Har Dayal (1884-1939): “Who can describe the moral power of the bomb? It is concentrated moral dynamite. When the strong and cunning in the pride of their power parade their glory before their helpless victims, when the rich and naughty set themselves on a pedestal and ask their slaves to fall down before them and worship them, when the wicked ones on the Earth seem exalted to the sky and nothing appears to withstand their might, then in that dark hour, for the glory of humanity comes the bomb, which lays the tyrant in the dust. It tells all the cowering slaves that he who sits enthroned as God, is a mere man like them. Then, in that hour of shame, a bomb preaches the eternal truth of human equality and sends proud superiors and Viceroys from the palace and the howdah to the grave and the hospital. Then, in that tense moment, when human nature is ashamed of itself, the bomb declares the vanity of power and pomp and redeems us from our own baseness. HOW GREAT WE FEEL WHEN SOMEONE DOES THE HEROIC DEED? WE SHARE IN HIS MORAL POWER. WE REJOICE IN HIS ASSERTION OF HUMAN EQUALITY AND DIGNITY. (In his Yugantar Circular).”

TRIBUTE TO 3 UNSUNG MARTYRS AND REVOLUTIONARIES-I

V.SUNDARAM I.A.S.

                                                                     24-3-2010

Yesterday (23-3-2010) happened to be the 78th Anniversary of the Martyrdom of 3 great revolutionaries and freedom fighters Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Shaheed Sukhdev and Shaheed Rajguru. On 23rd of March 1931, the British colonial Government hanged these 3 young heroes at Lahore Jail, now in Pakistan. The 3 heroes cheerfully walked into the gallows with the fiery nationalistic song of Bande Mataram on their lips. It has to be noted that the singing of Bande Mataram was considered as an act of sedition by the British Government at that time.

When I think of the supremely corrupt, effete, supine, and spiritless Union Cabinet Ministers in the UPA Government reporting to a doormat Prime Minister, cast in the same disgusting mould, also bowing his head in nervous reverential supplication before a 'White skinned’ Catholic woman who has usurped transitory power without a coup d 'e tat, the only civilized option open to me today is to derive my inspiration from the lives of great martyrs and revolutionaries in the cause of India's freedom like Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekar Azad, Sukhdev, Rajaguru, Jatin Das and many others. All of them heroically gave their lives so that the nation can live in freedom. Victor Hugo (1802-1885) said it for all times when he said: “Revolution is the lava of civilization.”

I would be first be dealing with the martyrdom of Shaheed Bhagat Singh followed by the stories relating to the martyrdom of Shaheed Sukhdev and Shaheed Rajguru.

BHAGAT SINGH (1907-1931) WAS HANGED IN LAHORE JAIL ON 23 MARCH 1931. His martyrdom shook the entire nation. He became a symbol; though the act was forgotten, the symbol remained, and within a few months each town and village in Punjab and to a lesser extent in the rest of northern India, resounded with his name. Innumerable songs and legends grew up about him and the popularity that the man achieved was amazing.

The basic facts relating to the life and times of Shaheed Bhagat Singh which I am presenting below have been drawn from an inspiring book titled SAGA OF PATRIOTISM, ‘Revolutionaries in India's Freedom Struggle’ by Sadhu Prof.V Rangarajan and R.Vivekanandan. Bhagat Singh was born on September 28, 1907, in a family of patriots and freedom fighters belonging to Banga village in Layalpur District of the then undivided Punjab and now in Pakistan. At the time of his birth, his father Kishen Singh was in jail. To quote the words of Sadhu Prof V Rangarajan and R Vivekanandan: “Even as he was in the womb of his mother, like the great hero of Mahabharata Veer Abhimanyu, Bhagat Singh imbibed the spirit of patriotism and revolution from the songs of freedom fighters who used to assemble at Kranti Niketan, the house of Kishen Singh. No wonder that the child was a born revolutionary.”

                                     Bhagat Singh (1907-1931)

  

One day, when the little Bhagat Singh was playing in his father's farm, 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 in 1908. 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 in November 1928 during the Simon Commission ‘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 Delhi 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 on 23 March 1931, Bhagat Singh's popularity all over India rivalled 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 on 23 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 on 23 March 1931, the day on which Bhagat Singh was hanged under pressure, he made a very feeble plea for commutation of his death sentence. Gandhiji wrote with a forked-tongue and a twisted pen: “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 railway station, fifteen miles from Karachi to avoid the angry demonstrators. Some of them had even reached Malir.

Gandhi’s unrequited infatuation for Muslims –-- and more particularly Muslim terrorists with a proven record of murder of Hindu men and rape of Hindu women --- was total and absolute. His contempt for the Hindus of India was also total and absolute. When Swami Shraddhananda, a spiritual leader of Arya Samaj, was on his sick-bed, he was brutally murdered by a Muslim terrorist called Muhammad Rashid on 16-November 1926. Muhammad Rashid was tried and sentenced to death. Gandhi tried his best to influence the Viceroy to commute the death sentence of the Islamic terrorist Muhammad Rashid and failed. In the Congress session in Guwahati, 1926, Gandhi himself said in a manner totally insensitive to Hindu religious feelings, emotions and sentiments, “I have called Abdul Rashid a brother and I repeat it. I do not even regard him as guilty of Swami's murder. Guilty indeed are those who excited feeling of hatred against one another.” (History of Congress, page 516, by Pattabhi Sitaramayya, a prominent Congress leader.) For Gandhi, Mohammad Rashid was a hero and a ‘brother’. Bhagat Singh was viewed as a misguided terrorist by Gandhi. Gandhi’s diabolic double standards were authoritarian and dictatorial!

In spite of Gandhiji's un-called-for and most unpatriotic warning that, “The Bhagat Singh worship has done and is doing incalculable harm to the country”, the saga of Bhagat Singh --- man, martyr, myth and legend --- continues even today and will do so for ages to come. No one can dispute the fact that all the Gods in Heaven gave to Bhagat Singh a more glorious death than Mahatma Gandhi.

Another stark irony enacted by Madame Time completely falsifying the assessment of ‘Bhagat Singh Worship’ made by Mahatma Gandhi in 1931 is this: The Gandhi-Nehru worship has done a Himalayan harm to the country for the past 70 years and is continuing to do so even today with no immediate hope for National Redemption.

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.

I have just finished reading 'Bhagat Singh - The Jail Notebook and other Writings', compiled with an introduction by Chaman Lal, Professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and Editor of ‘Bhagat Singh Aur Unke Sathiyon ke Dastavez’, the collected works of Bhagat Singh and his comrades. The Jail Notebook has been annotated by Bhupinder Hooja (1922-2006) who was a student activist in the Revolutionary Movement in the 1940s and who later had a distinguished career as a journalist, broadcaster and administrator. The other writings of Bhagat Singh included in this book are from 'Selected Writings of Shaheed Bhagat Singh', edited with an introduction by Shiv Verma and published in 1986.

Bhagat Singh was executed in Lahore Jail on 23 March, 1931. Bhagat Singh was in jail for nearly two years from 8 April, 1929 to 23 March, 1931. During this period, Bhagat Singh and his comrades fought one of the most celebrated court battles in the annals of struggles for national liberation and freedom. What is most inspiring to note is that they very ingeniously converted the court into a convenient vehicle for the propagation of their revolutionary message. They also launched a strike against the inhuman conditions in the Colonial Jail in Lahore and were subjected to torture and pain by the Police in British India. The saga of the heroism and fearless self-sacrifice of Bhagat Singh and his comrades has made them icons and idols of inspiration for all time to come.

                                 Bhagat Singh (1907-1931)

While all this is known, what is not so well-known is that in a very short life span of less than 24 years, Bhagat Singh wrote four books and they were all written in Lahore Jail in the last two years of his life. Unfortunately for posterity, though those books were smuggled out, yet they were subsequently destroyed and thus lost for ever.

What has survived is a JAIL NOTEBOOK that Bhagat Singh kept as a young martyr which is full of notes and occasional jottings from what he was reading in jail. THE CONGRESS PARTY HAS CONSIDERED ONLY THE JAIL WRITINGS OF NEHRU AND GANDHI AND OF NO OTHER PATRIOT OR PATRIOTS AS RELEVANT OR SACRED TO THE NATION. Thus sixty three years after August 15 1947, we are A NATION WITHOUT A SOUL, A MERE NOTION WITHOUT AN IDENTITY!

The anecdotes and stories associated with Bhagat Singh's childhood have become a part of song, legend and popular story in Punjab and several other parts of India. As a child of four, he told the well-known freedom fighter Mehta Anand Kishore that 'he would sow riffles in the fields, so that trees would yield weapons with which the British could be driven away'. As a boy of 12, he visited the Jallianwalabagh a few days later after the massacre in April 1919 and brought back as sacred souvenir a pack of blood soaked earth. His grandfather S. Arjun Singh was a staunch Arya Samajist and under his inspiration Bhagat Singh learnt Sanskrit, in addition to Urdu, English and Hindi.

The front cover of Bhagat Singh’s Jail Notebook (See Bhagat Singh’s Signature And The Facsimile Of His Handwriting)

It is amazing to note that even as a young boy of 15, Bhagat Singh was hotly debating with his father, Mahatma Gandhi's knee-jerk decision to withdraw the Non-Cooperation Movement following the Chauri Chaura massacre in the United Provinces (UP) in 1922. The withdrawal of Non-Cooperation Movement had the immediate effect of radicalizing the youth of India. There is no doubt that great revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh, Chadrashekar Azad, Sukhdev, Rajaguru and many others chose the path of armed revolution only because of Mahatma Gandhi's tepid decision to call off the Non-Cooperation Movement. Thus many sections of the youth were attracted to the revolutionary groups of Anushilan and Yugantar in Bengal or the Hindustan Republican Association in the United Provinces (UP). Bhagat Singh went to Kanpur in 1923 after writing to his father that he would not marry since he was determined to dedicate his whole life to the cause of the nation. In Kanpur he joined Pratap, a newspaper whose Editor at that time was Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi, one of the front rank Congress leaders in UP. Bhagat Singh started writing in the Pratap under the pen name Balwant. When six Babbar Akali Revolutionaries were executed in 1926, Bhagat Singh wrote a fiery article ‘Blood Drops on Holi Day’ ('Holi ke Din Rakt ke Chhinte') was published in the Pratap with the byline 'A Punjabi Youth'.

Simultaneously Bhagat Singh was also writing for a Punjabi journal run by the Ghadarite Revolutionaries of Punjab called Kirti(Punjabi). He wrote on leading contemporary issues of the time on public subjects as varied as Communalism and its Solution, Problem of Untouchability, Religion and Our Freedom Struggle etc. Through his seminal articles in Kirti journal, Bhagat Singh clearly demonstrated his versatile ability as a fearless journalist and freedom fighter.

Anyone can see from this Jail Notebook that Bhagat Singh was a great scholar and voracious reader. An economist, a political scientist, a historian, a sociologist, an agitator, a freedom fighter and above all a martyr in the cause of India's freedom Bhagat Singh was all this and more. We can also see that as a student, his friends remembered him as being fond of films, especially Charlie Chaplin's Films. As a good singer and actor, he took part in college plays.

(Please see that Bhagat Singh has noted on 12 September 1929 that there are 404 pages in the Notebook kept by him in Lahore Jail)

The historic trial of Bhagat Singh and his revolutionary comrades resulted in the cry Inquilab Zindabad (Long Live Revolution) throughout the country. When Bhagat Singh and B.K. Dutta threw bombs in the Central Legislative Assembly and threw the copies of the historic pamphlet ‘TO MAKE THE DEAF HEAR’ on April 8, 1929, the Assembly erupted and dissolved in commotion and consternation. Members ran helter-skelter. Only a very few amongst them, Pundit Motilal Nehru, Madan Mohan Malviya and Jinnah remained cool. On Bhagat Singh's specific directions, it had been earlier decided that after actually throwing the bombs, they would not try to escape, but would get arrested. As planned, Bhagat Singh and B.K. Dutta heroically surrendered to the Police. The Hindustan Times in New Delhi brought out a special evening edition on 8 April, 1929, publishing the full text of the statement of Bhagat Singh and others contained in the historic pamphlet. They proclaimed:

“IT TAKES A LOUD VOICE TO MAKE THE DEAF HEAR, with these immortal words uttered on a similar occasion by Auguste Valliant (1861 - 1894), a French anarchist martyr, do we strongly justify this action of ours. Inquilab Zindabad!”

To come back to Bhagat Singh's Jail Notebook and other writings, we should note that Bhagat Singh had three main agendas in jail from 8 April, 1929 till his execution on 23 March, 1931:

a) To use the trial and the publicity he and his comrades were getting to spread the ideas of the great revolutionaries and propagate their message;

b) To fully expose to the world the inhumanity and brutality of the British Colonial State by resorting to protests, including hunger strikes, inside the Jail;

c) To equip and advance himself politically and ideologically by subjecting himself to the academic discipline of a rigorous and structured programme of extensive and intensive reading.

While the whole of India knows that Bhagat Singh succeeded magnificently in achieving his first two agendas, yet it is unfortunate that the country as a whole is completely unaware of the fact that he was a great intellectual with extraordinary ideals and convictions who buried himself in a programme of unremitting intellectual toil and exertions during the last two years of his incarceration.

On page 37 of the Jail Notebook, Bhagat Singh has written the following famous lines of James Russel Lowell (1819-1891), American poet and editor of ‘Atlantic Monthly’:

They are slaves who fear to speak

For the fallen and the weak;

They are slaves who will not choose

Hatred, scoffing and abuse,

Rather than in silence shrink

From the truth they needs must think;

They are slaves who dare not be

In the right with two or three.

Given the disastrous political conditions in Sonia's India (and all her slaves in the UPA), I have no doubt that even if Bhagat Singh were given the option by God of coming back to life today, he would rather vote for instantaneous death with greater fervour, passion and anger than he did on 23 March 1931.

THE JAIL NOTEBOOK of Bhagat Singh is a document of great historical significance. Bhagat Singh's Jail Notebook is not a Diary at all in the conventional sense, in that it does not record his daily life in the Prison, nor his thoughts and emotions. Bhagat Singh's Jail Notebook is a record of his study and reading in the Prison prior to his execution. It helps us to understand the roots and trajectory of his political and philosophical role and development. It also reflects his esthetic taste and sensibilities, as it contains a large number of quotations from literary classics from across the world.

BHAGAT SINGH WRITING HIS JAIL NOTE BOOK

Bhagat Singh was a keen student of world history. He firmly believed that world history is nothing but philosophy teaching by example. History is but the unrolled scroll of prophecy. In the last two years of his life in Jail, unmindful of the sure prospect of death by hanging, inspired and sustained by nothing but his soaring and deathless idealism, Bhagat Singh immersed himself in books on history political, economic, social, religious and cultural and literature and law. His immortal message to us on every page of his Jail Notebook can be paraphrased by me in this manner: Books are bred by men, men by life and life by books through a constant interrelation and cross-fertilization, so that an element of political, social, economic, and cultural history can scarcely be dispensed with in any account of literary phenomena and forces.

The only inference we can draw from the quotations in his Jail Notebook is that Bhagat Singh was greatly inspired by the political writings of John Locke (1632--1704), particularly by his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), the Two Treatises of Civil Government (1680 -1690) and A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689). It is an accepted fact that John Locke had a tremendous intellectual and political influence on men like Thomas Jefferson (1743 -1826), George Washington (1732--1799), Benjamin Franklin (1706 -1790) and John Adams (1735 --1826) and many others who created the American State in the last two decades of the 18th century.

On page 23 of the Jail Notebook, Bhagat Singh, under the heading Tree of Liberty has recorded the following quotation of Thomas Jefferson with approval: “The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”

                                  Bhagat Singh’s writing in The Jail Notebook

On page 24 of the Jail Notebook, we see the following inspiring message from the Will of Fanscisco Ferrer (1859--1909), a Spanish Catalan free-thinker and anarchist:

“I also wish my friends to speak little or not at all about me, because idols are created when men are praised, and this is very bad for the future of the human race.... Acts alone, no matter by whom committed, ought to be studied, praised or blamed. Let them be praised in order that they may be initiated when they see to contribute to the common weal; let them be censured when they are regarded as injurious to the well-being, so that they may not be repeated. I desire that on no occasion, whether near or remote, nor for any reason whatsoever, shall demonstrations of a political or religious character be made before my remains, as I consider the time devoted to the dead would be better employed in improving the conditions of the living, most of whom stand in great need of this.”

On page 21, Bhagat Singh quotes the following poem of Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892) on LIBERTY:

Those corpses of young men,

Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets-

Those hearts pierced by the grey lead,

Cold and motionless as they seem, live elsewhere

With unslaughtered vitality.

They live in other young men, O Kings!

They live in other brothers again ready to defy you!

They were purified by death-

They were taught and exalted!

On page 25 of the Jail Notebook, Bhagat Singh has quoted the famous poem of FIGHT FOR FREEDOM by William Wordsworth (1770-1850).

On page 26, we see him recording in his own hand-writing the immortal poem THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE by Lord Tennyson (1809-1892). He has also translated a few of the lines from this poem into Urdu.

Bhagat Singh thought deeply about Law, Justice and Jurisprudence and their impact on society and politics through the ages. Bhagat Singh was convinced that Law without Justice resulted in only an arid formation. Here are some of his observations in his Jail Notebook (pages 105-106):

Historical Jurisprudence: Deals with the general principles governing the origin and development of Law; legal conceptions. It is the history.

Ethical Jurisprudence: Is concerned with the theory of justice in its relation to Law.

Law and Justice: The total disregard of the ethical implications of the Law tends to reduce analytical jurisprudence to a system which is only in the nature of an arid formation.

According to Bhagat Singh, in England, two different words 'Law' and 'Justice', are a constant reminder that these are two different things and not the same thing. And their use tends to hide from view the real and intimate relation which exists between them. In the European Continent, Bhagat Singh says that Continental Speech conceals the difference between Law and Right, whereas the English Speech conceals the connection between them.

On Page 107, Bhagat Singh has quoted Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780), English jurist, whose Commentaries on the Laws of England, 4 vol. (1765--69), is the best-known description of the doctrines of English law. The work became the basis of university legal education in England and North America. He was knighted in 1770. Here is the quotation given by Bhagat Singh from Blackstone: “Law in its most general sense signifies a rule of action and is indiscriminate to all kinds of action, whether rational or irrational, animate or inanimate. Thus we say, the Laws of Motion, of Gravitation, of Optics, of Nature, and of Nations.”

On page 104 of his Jail Notebook, it is fascinating to note that Bhagat Singh, under the title 'All Legislators Defined as Criminals', has quoted Feodor Mikhailovach Dostoevski (1821-1881), one of the greatest Russian novelists in world literature. In his famous novel 'Crime and Punishment', he wrote as follows: “All Legislators and Rulers of men commencing with the earliest down to LYCURGUS, SOLON, MAHOMED, NAPOLEON, etc. etc., have, one and all, been criminals, for, while giving new laws, they have naturally broken through older ones which had been faithfully observed by society and transmitted by its progenitors.”

On page 107, Bhagat Singh defines the pernicious nature of ‘Foreign Subjugation’ in the words of Prof. A.E. Ross: “Subjugation to foreign yoke is one of the most potent causes of the decay of nations.”

There are brilliant quotations under the headings and themes like ‘Life and Education', 'Truth', 'Desire vs. contentment', 'Aims of Life', 'Science of the State', 'Kinds of Governments', 'Sovereignty of the People', 'French Revolution', 'Hindu Civilization', and many other interesting subjects.

On page 278, under the title ‘No Indian Parliament Conceivable!’, Bhagat Singh has noted: “The Indian National Congress assumed unto itself, almost from the beginning, the function of a Parliament. There was and is no room for a Parliament in India, because, so long as British Rule remains a reality, the Government of India, as Lord Morley (1838-1923) has plainly stated, must be an autocracy benevolent and full of sympathy with Indian ideas, but still an autocracy.”

I have very carefully read all the pages of Bhagat Singh's Jail Notebook. If I am permitted to speak on his behalf, I would summarize the letter and spirit of his broad message to us in the following words:

a) The best and noblest lives are those which are set toward high ideals.

b) Your circumstances may be uncongenial, but they shall not long remain so if you but perceive an ideal and strive to reach it. You cannot travel within and stand still without.

c) The ideal life is in our blood and never will be lost.

d) An ideal is the only thing that has any real force. We have lost sight of our own ideal and its tremendous force and vigour. Somehow, that must be recaptured.

e) Expedients are for an hour, but principles are for the Ages. Just because the rains descend, and the winds blow, we cannot afford to build on the shifting sands.

f) All politicians, regardless of caste, colour, creed or race are fraternal companions in hypocrisy and fraud.

g) To live in the presence of great truths and eternal laws, to be led by permanent ideals that is what keeps a man patient when the world ignores him, and calm and unspoiled when the world praises him.

h) Better be poisoned in one's blood, than to be poisoned in one's principles. Blessed is the Man who carries within himself a God, an ideal, and who obeys it.

When I went through some of the remarkable entries in the Bhagat Singh's Jail Notebook. I was reminded of the following words of George Santayana (1863--1952) in his Little Essays published in 1920: “The vital straining towards an ideal, definite but latent, when it dominates a whole life, may express that ideal more fully than could the best-chosen words”.

But after reading the gleaming and glowing words of Bhagat Singh issuing out of the gloom of the condemned prisoners' cell in Lahore Central Jail between September 1929 and March 1931, I can say with a certain degree of self assurance that Santayana was only partially right. In the case of Bhagat Singh, his great ideals not only were expressed magnificently through his very short and heroic martyr's life but also through his ever living words recorded in his Jail Notebook.

As a revolutionary freedom fighter, who believed passionately in the supreme efficacy of deliberately calculated, planned, and launched campaign of organized violence against the British enemy, Bhagat Singh's daily message to his revolutionary friends and comrades was: “Words without actions are the assassins of fearless and selfless idealism. Never look down to test the ground before taking your next step: only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find his right road..... our bodies can be mobilized by law, police and men with guns, if necessary but we should all strive to find that which will make us believe in what we must do, so that we can fight through to the finish to our final victory.”

Contemporary history comes alive in Bhagat Singh's Jail Notebook. His understanding of contemporary politics, political and social trends was very sensitive and all-pervasive.

On page 13 of this Notebook, we find the following entries under the titles Benevolent Despotism, Government of India, British Rule in India and Liberty and English People.

A rare historical photograph of students and staff of National College, Lahore, which was started by Lala Lajpat Rai for education of students participating in the non-cooperation movement. Shaheed Bhagat Singh can be seen standing fourth from the right.

Montague-Chelmsford called the British Government a 'benevolent despotism' and according to Ramsay Macdonald, the imperialist leader of the British Labour Party, 'in all attempts to govern a country by a benevolent despotism, the governed are crushed down. They become subjects who obey, not citizens who act or react. Their literature, their art, their spiritual expression go'.

Rt Hon'ble Edwin S. Montague, Secretary of State for India, said in the House of Commons in 1917: 'The Government of India is too wooden, too iron, too antediluvian, to be of any use for modern purposes. The Indian Government is indefensible'

British Rule in India

Dr. Ruthford's words: ' British rule as it is carried out in India is the lowest and most immoral system of Government in the world the exploitation of one nation by another

A painting of Bhagat Singh in chains in Lahore central jail in 1928. Bhagat Singh was 21 at that time.

Bhagat Singh wrote thus on the ‘Liberty and English People’: “The English people love liberty for themselves. They hate all acts of injustice except those which they themselves commit. They are such liberty-loving people that they interfere in the Congo and cry, 'Shame' to the Belgians. But they forget their heels are on the neck of India.”

Bhagat Singh was convinced that the British monarch was getting a fat salary at the expense of the common poor people of India for doing nothing excepting to support a Government in India which was only looting the nation and sucking the blood of the toiling millions. On page 16, Bhagat Singh observed as follows under the title King's Salary:

“It is inhuman to talk of a million sterling a year, paid out of the public taxes of any country, for the support of an individual, whilst thousands who are forced to contribute thereto, are pining with want and struggling with misery. Government does not consist in a contract between prisons and palaces, between poverty and pomp; it is not instituted to rob the needy of his mite and increase the worthlessness of the wretched.”

On page 16, under the title Give me Liberty or Death, Bhagat Singh has quoted extensively from the most famous speech of Patrick Henry (1736--1799). Patrick Henry was a prominent figure in the American Revolution. Henry is perhaps best known for the speech he made in the House of Burgesses in Virginia on March 23, 1775, urging legislature to take military action against the encroaching British military force. He ended his speech with his most famous words: “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” The crowd jumped up and shouted: “To Arms! To Arms!” These great words have been quoted with acclaim by Bhagat Singh.

On page 124 of the Jail Notebook, under the caption Aim of Life, Bhagat Singh wrote as follows : The aim of life is no more to control mind, but to develop it harmoniously, not to achieve salvation hereafter, but to make the best use of it here below, and not to realize truth, beauty and good only in contemplation, but also in the actual experience of daily life ; social progress depends not upon the ennoblement of the few but on the enrichment of the many; and spiritual democracy or universal brotherhood can be achieved only when there is an equality of opportunity in the social, political and industrial life.” Unlike Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru, Bhagat Singh did not quibble with words.

We find Bhagat Singh quoting extensively from the writings of Socrates (470 BC--399 B.C), Aristotle (384 B.C--322 B.C), Plato (427 B.C--347 B.C), Zeno (490 B.C--430 B.C), Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121 A.D--180 A.D), Epicurus (341-270 B.C) and Seneca (4 B.C-65 A.D).

On page 165, Bhagat Singh has referred to Aristotle in these words: “He was the first to disentangle politics from ethics, though he was careful not to sever them.” 'The majority of men' Aristotle argued, 'are ruled by their passions rather than by reason, and the State must therefore, train them to virtue by a life-long course of discipline, as in SPARTA. Until political society is instituted, there is no administration of justice..... but it is necessary to enquire into the best constitution and best system of legislation'. On the same page, Bhagat Singh has said this about Plato. He traces the origin of society and the State to mutual need, for men as isolated beings are incapable of satisfying their manifold wants. Plato while depicting a kind of idealized Sparta says, 'In an ideal State, philosophers should rule, and to this aristocracy (government of the best), the body of citizens would owe implicit obedience'. Bhagat Singh emphasized the careful training and education of citizens.

As a revolutionary leader, committed to the supreme cause of political and socio-economic emancipation and liberation of the oppressed and suppressed toiling masses, Bhagat Singh was greatly influenced by Victor Hugo's great novel Les Miserables. Bhagat Singh has quoted the following words of Victor Hugo from his preface to Les Miserables: “So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, a social damnation artificially creating hells in the midst of civilization, and complicating the destiny which is divine with a fatality which is human; so long as three problems of the age the degradation of man through poverty, the ruin of woman through hunger, the crippling of children through ignorance are not solved; so long as in certain regions, social asphyxia is possible in other words, and from a still wider point of view, so long as ignorance and wretchedness exist on the earth, books like this cannot be useless.”

As a keen student of all the Social Sciences, Bhagat Singh understood that he who learns but does not think is lost and he who thinks but does not learn is in danger. For him learning consisted of ideas, and not of the noise that is made by the mouth. He was of the view that learning and liberty should march hand in hand, or they do not march at all: the one is the condition of the other.

In November 1930, after he was sentenced to death, Bhagat Singh wrote to his comrade B.K. Dutta who had been sentenced to transportation for life: “The Judgment has been delivered. I am condemned to death. In these cells, besides myself there are many other prisoners who are waiting to be hanged. The only priority of these people is that somehow or other they may escape the noose. Perhaps I am the only man amongst them who is anxiously waiting for the day when I'll be fortunate enough to embrace the gallows for my ideals. I will climb the gallows gladly and show to the world as to how bravely the Indian revolutionaries can sacrifice for the cause of National freedom.”

Bhagat Singh was a great admirer of Thomas Paine (1737-1809), who influenced the French Revolution and later the American Revolution in many ways. Bhagat Singh often quoted the following words of Thomas Paine with passion and fervour: “I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles to death”.

BHAGAT SINGH DID JUST THAT AND SO HE BELONGS TO THE AGES.