Lenin in his
seminal work State and Revolution (1917) unequivocally stated:
"What is now happening to Marx's theory has, in the course of
history, happened repeatedly to the theories of revolutionary thinkers and
leaders of oppressed classes fighting for emancipation. During the lifetime of
great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received
their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the
most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts
are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and
to hallow their names to a certain extent for the ‘consolation’ of the oppressed classes
and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the
revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge
and vulgarizing it.”
Lenin stated
this fact in context of Marxism but has universal connotation. It has been the
similar fate of the ideas, contribution and sacrifices of Indian revolutionary
Bhagat Singh. The latest contributor to this venture is a renegade liberal,
Bhagwan Josh. He contributed ‘Why Bhagat Singh was not a Marxist thinker’ (The
Tribune, March 23, 2026).[1]
He ended his derogatory piece with the words: “The fact remains that Bhagat
Singh was hanged not for his revolutionary ideas but for committing a murder of
a British officer.” It is notable that The Tribune chose to publish it
on the 95th anniversary of the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh and his
comrades, Rajguru and Sukhdev. It brazenly shows what has happened to an
esteemed paper which remained supportive of the revolutionaries when they were
alive.
Bhagwan, not confident
of his current take on Bhagat Singh, goes hunting for names like Antonio
Gramsci, Bipin Chandra and Harish Puri to add weight to his diatribe. Gramsci
and Bipin Chandra are not alive to clarify but Professor Harish Puri needs to
share with his fans like me whether he too believes that Bhagat Singh was not a
revolutionary. Thanks to Harish Jain who responded by penning ‘Why Bhagat Singh defies easy labels’ (The
Tribune, 26-03-2026) in which Bhagwan in one of his earlier Punjabi work (Bhagat Singh da Markasvad) located “Bhagat
Singh within the distinct Leninist current that was emerging in Punjab between
1928 and 1931 an intellectual formation grounded in study, debate and
ideological seriousness and set apart from what he saw as the more pragmatic
and often anti-intellectual strands within Indian communism”.[2]
A serious problem with armchair Professors is
that they live in ivory towers but believe that only they are authorized to
explain the ground realities. Bhagat Singh was not a thinker because he was
unable to produce in his writings, "the perfunctory references to the
sources or books from which these notes and quotes were taken have left a
rather perplexing question mark with regard to the authentic source. That is,
from which editions of which books, by which particular authors, were these
taken?" They do not know that Bhagat Singh was not a doctoral candidate
in some university but chose to work to liberate motherland from the colonial
subjugation. According to British official documents he was in jail for 716
days, consulted/read approximately 302 books and was well-versed in English,
Urdu, Hindi, and Punjabi. When he was not in jail he was a researcher and a
journalist. He followed Gramscian dictum (without reading him) that "It is
necessary to think and study even under the most difficult conditions…to keep
the risk of intellectual degradation at bay".
Bhagat Singh was not reading books for writing
a doctoral proposal for enrolling at Oxford or Cambridge but for understanding
the world and India so that he could challenge the mightiest imperial power and
replace with a system in India where ‘men does not exploit men’. This is what a
thinker does. I am sure if Bhagat Singh had come in contact with Professors
like Bhagwan Josh there would have been no need commemorating his martyrdom day,
he would have retired as a teacher receiving pension from the British masters!
Bhagwan makes
another obnoxious claim: “But what sort of Marxism did Bhagat Singh imbibe
from his readings? Did this Marxism help him in any way to get some insight
into the contemporary politics of Indian nationalism, working class movements
and the immediate historical social reality around him? A mastery of Marxism
that is merely an exercise in the appropriation of textual discourse must
remain a ‘Brahmanical Marxism’…”
A Professor who
we are told to have taught at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) can be so
ignorant of written words, so oblivious of facts in public domain, does not
bode well for future of JNU. Bhagat Singh who died at the age of 23 wrote
following major documents, Universal Love (Hindi 1924), Youth (Hindi 1925),
Religious riots and their solution (Punjabi 1927), Religion and our freedom
struggle (Punjabi 1928), The issue of Untouchability (Punjabi 1928), Satyagrah
and strikes (Punjabi 1928), Students and politics (Punjabi 1928), New leaders
and their duties (Punjabi 1928), Lala Lajpat Rai and youth (Punjabi 1928), What
is anarchism part 1, 2, 3(Punjabi 1928), The Revolutionary Nihilist of Russia
(Punjabi 1928), Ideal of Indian revolution (English 1930), Why I am an Atheist
(English 1930), The first rise of Punjab in the freedom struggle (Urdu 1931),
Introduction to Dreamland (English 1931), and the young political workers (English
1931).
Manifesto of
Naujawan Bharat Sabha and Manifesto of Hindustan Socialist republican Army were
written by Bhagwati Charan Vohra and finalized after consultation with Bhagat
Singh.
Shame on those
who call it ‘Brahmanical Marxism’. Bhagat Singh developed Marxism in context of
Indian realities. Marx said that future generations would come and prove us
wrong, this is how Marxism as a science survives.
Bhagwan
declares Ghadar movement as a failed movement and declares that Bhagat singh “instead
of learning a lesson from its tragic failure, he blindly followed the example
of the Ghadarites”. This fatwa shows on whose side Professor stands while
evaluating two greatest milestones in the glorious anti-colonial history of
Indian freedom struggle in the 20th century. Failure does not mean
that any resistance was faulty or not required. To hail the victor is a typical
Brahmanical characteristic. Bhagwan must be glad to know that he is not alone
in holding such a debased idea. The most prominent ideologue of RSS, MS
Golwalkar while denigrating the tradition of martyrdom shamelessly stated:
“There is no doubt
that such man who embrace martyrdom are great heroes and their philosophy too
is pre-eminently manly. They are far above the average men who meekly submit to
fate and remain in fear and inaction. All the same, such persons are not held
up as ideals in our society. We have not looked upon their martyrdom as the
highest point of greatness to which men should aspire. For, after all, they
failed in achieving their ideal, and failure implies some fatal flaw in them.”
[‘Martyr, great but not ideal’, Bunch Of Thoughts, the collection of
writings of MS Golwalkar.]
Last but not the least Bhagwan indulges in another lie when
states that 1857 Mutiny (which in fact was a nation-wide liberation war which
continued for more than 3 years), was defeated by British forces and Sikh
troops. There are abundant contemporary documents which conclusively prove that
Punjab and Sikhs played significant role in 1857 liberation war. These were not
only Sikh ruling families in Punjab who supported the British but also
well-known rich families amongst Hindus and Muslims who joined the British
campaign against the 1857 rebellion. This reality was no different from the
rest of India, where rulers of Gwalior, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kota,
Bhopal, Dhar and many more native states joined hands with the British in
crushing the great War of Independence.
If Bhagat Singh is simply a murderer, Professor Bhagwan why
you bother about him. The fact is that he with his comrades continue to be
synonymous with Indian revolution, the lackeys of imperialism come out of rat
holes to denigrate them. Marxism survives so will Bhagat Singh’s heritage.
Shamsul Islam
27-03-2026
http://du-in.academia.edu/ShamsulIslam
Facebook:
https://facebook.com/shamsul.islam.332
Twitter: @shamsforjustice
http://shamsforpeace.blogspot.com/
Email: notoinjustice@gmail.com
Link for procuring Shamsul Islam’s books in English, Hindi & Urdu:
https://tinyurl.com/shams-books
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