Atheism of a Visionary Martyr:
Bhagat Singh and his Select Writings
Roopali Khanna
The judgement has been delivered. I am condemned to
death … perhaps I am the only man amongst them who is anxiously waiting ... when
I will be fortunate enough to embrace the gallows for my ideal (Bhagat Singh, 2017:
214).
At such a young age, if anyone could be seen smiling just
before being hanged to death, it was Shaheed Bhagat Singh. He was the one who
led the greatest and the most powerful revolution embracing death for his
ideals. With the greatest roar ever, he declared: “I will climb the gallows
gladly and show to the world as to how bravely the re-volutionaries can
sacrifice themselves for the cause” (Virender Singh 214). Even today his roar
resonates in our ears. Not only India but the whole world remembers
Bhagat Singh as one of the greatest revolutionaries whose life, work, struggle
and the way he kissed and embraced death put him in the league of the world’s
great re-volutionaries such as Socrates, Bruno, Joan of Arc and Che Guevara.
Born on September 28, 1907, Bhagat Singh was sentenced to
death in the Lahore conspiracy case, along with other freedom fighters, Rajguru
and Sukhdev. Bhagat Singh grew up in a patriotic atmosphere where his uncle,
Sardar Ajit Singh, as well as his father were great freedom fighters. Early
signs of valour were quite evident in him since his childhood when he thought
of 'growing guns in the fields', so that he could fight against the British.
Just hours after the 1919 massacre, the 12-year-old Bhagat Singh visited
Jallianwala Bagh, kissing the earth sanctified by the martyrs' blood and
bringing back home a little of the soaked soil to keep the flame of revolution
ignited in his heart.
The Ghadar movement was another incident that left a deep
imprint on his mind. Kartar Singh Sarabha, hanged at the age of 19, became his
hero whose picture he always carried in his pocket and whom he quoted often in
his revolutionary meetings. At the tender age of 17, he could even write an
article on “Universal Brotherhood,” playing a historic role in shaping the
destiny of Indian nation and the world. He asked people: “If you truly desire
to propagate the ideal of peace and happiness in the entire world, then first
learn to react to the insults thrown at you. Be ready to die in order to cut
loose the shackles of your motherland.” The article was published in two issues
(13-14, 1924) of Calcutta’s weekly, Matwala. Chronologically, the dates
of these issues are: 15th of November, 1924 and 22nd of November, 1924 (Bhagat
Singh, Web).
Bhagat Singh wanted the "haves" to devote
themselves for the emancipation of the "have-nots" and the
intellectual class to introspect and fight for the cause of the poor. A
resolute 19-year-old Bhagat Singh ran away from his home in Lyallpur (now in
Pakistan) just to avoid getting married in the service of his homeland. In his
letter to his father Singh wrote: “My life has been dedicated to the noblest
cause, that of the freedom of the country. Therefore, there is no rest or
worldly desire that can lure me now” (Juneja 193). In
search of revolutionary groups and ideas, he met Sukhdev and Rajguru. Singh,
along with the help of Chandrashekhar Azad, formed the Hindustan Socialist
Republican Army (HSRA), imbued with the fire of revolution and ideas of
socialism. The manifesto of HSRA clearly stated:
The
immediate object of the revolutionary party in the domain of politics is to
establish a federal republic of the United States of India by an organised and
armed revolution. The basic principle of this republic shall be universal
suffrage and the abolition of all system which makes the exploitation of man by
man possible. In this republic the electors shall have the right to recall
their representatives if so desired, otherwise the democracy shall be a mockery
(Mazumdar 173).
This was the unconquerable spirit and stuff of which
Bhagat Singh was made. It is ironical that India has not been able to think
about such ideas even after seventy plus years of her independence. Bhagat
Singh assassinated British police officer J. P. Saunders to avenge the then recent
death of Lala Lajpat Rai, the Punjabi activist, due to the brutal beating by
the police. Bhagat Singh firmly asserted that “the use of force is justifiable
when resorted to as matter of terrible necessity” (Bhagat Singh; 2020: 7). A
few months later, in 1929, he threw a smoke-bomb in the Delhi Legislative
Assembly, proclaiming Inqilab Zindabad (long live revolution), and
awaited his arrest. S. Irfan Habib gives a good account of the assembly bomb
incident in his book To Make the Deaf
Hear about their slogans after assembly bombing. They shouted “long live
revolution,” “down with imperialism” and “long live proletariats.” Singh’s idea
was very clear about the surrender:
Our sole purpose was “to make the deaf hear” … we have
only hoisted the “danger signal.” We have only marked the end of an era of
utopian non-violence, of whose futility the rising generation has been convinced
beyond the shadow of doubt (Bhagat Singh, 2020: 40).
Inspired by the speech made in 1894 by Auguste Vaillant,
the French revolutionary who, prior to receiving the death sentence, had
declared that an explosion was necessary to “make the deaf hear,” Bhagat Singh
displayed his zeal for the freedom of his motherland from the clutches of the
oppressive British rule by affirming in equally bold words:
Let the Govt. know that, while protesting against the
Public Safety and the Trades Disputes Bills and the callous murder of Lala
Lajpat Rai on behalf of the helpless Indian masses, we want to emphasise the
lesson often repeated by history that it is easy to kill the individuals, but
you cannot kill the ideas. Great empires crumbled but the ideas survived. Bour-bons
and Czars fell while the revolution marched ahead triumphantly. We are sorry to
admit that we who attach so great a sanctity to human life, we who dream of a
glorious future when man will be enjoying perfect peace and full liberty, have
been forced to shed human blood. But the sacrifice of the individuals at the
altar of the great revolution that will bring freedom to all rendering the
exploitation of man by man impossible, is inevitable. Long Live Revolution! (Bhagat
Singh, 2017: 195).
Also,
during the historic trial, in the statement before the Lahore high court, he put
himself across convincingly saying that: “Bombs and pistols do not make a
revolution. The sword of revolution is sharpened on the whetting-stone of
ideas” (Virender Singh 50). Singh’s writings show that he was in favour
of using violence only in extreme situations. In fact, it was his non-violent
struggle and supreme sac-rifice for the nation which made him Shaheed-E-Azam
(King of Martyrs) and a household name in India. But ironically most of us, do
not seem to know the real Bhagat Singh, though we refer to him with reverence.
In India before 1920 Bhagat Singh was one of the most fa-mous revolutionaries of the Indian independence movement
as he represented
the biggest anarchist movement influenced by Western Anarchism and Communism. He wrote in his
journal Why I am an Atheist, “I studied Bakunin, the anarchist leader.
I read a few books of Marx, the father of Communism. I also read Lenin and
Trotsky and many other writers who successfully carried out revolutions in
their countries. All of them were atheists” (Bhagat Singh, 2020: 8). Singh believed
that there are many reasons for thinking that an atheist stance is crucial for
revolutionaries to take. Because politically, their commit-ment is to this
world since they do not have a back-door escape of some god looking after them
in the next life.
Though some people believe that
there is a strong connection between Atheism and Anarchism, others
believe there is no such connection. It is certainly true that Anarchist
thinkers have been strongly unsympathetic to organized religion and tend to be
atheists, but the reverse has not been true. But if you ask atheists why they see the need to label themselves and
discuss atheism, they will almost invariably answer that religious dogma
infiltrating itself in the schools and politics is the main issue. Therefore,
atheism does reduce itself to a social issue to some extent. What links them
both is the concept of authority, rejecting the authority of god over man and
the existence of hierarchy respectively.
There is no doubt that Singh’s revolutionary ideas were
greatly influenced by Marx and Engels and also by anarchists like Bakunin,
Trotsky and Lenin. The Jail Notebook and other Writings traces the sole
surviving scripts written by Bhagat Singh while he was in jail. It is not so
well known that Bhagat Singh wrote four books in jail which were smuggled out,
destroyed and are lost forever. What survived was a diary that the young martyr
kept in jail, full of notes, poems and jottings from what he was reading. In
sharp contrast to his popular image as a gun-toting revolutionary, Bhagat
Singh’s 404-page jail diary is filled with excerpts, notes and quotes on a wide
variety of subjects that reflect not only his serious study and intellectual
insight, but also his social and political concerns. When we look at the content of
his writings we are impressed by the range of books he read. He apparently read
with a purpose and not just to keep himself occupied. While there are quotes
from stray literature and poetry, most of the Notebook is focused on
definite themes and it seems that he was keenly studying radical Western
critical tradition and trying to assi-milate its diverse strands with an open
mind.
Bhagat Singh’s Why
I am an Atheist shows his journey of mature understanding of social,
political and religious issues. As Marx pointed out, “religion is the opium of
the masses,” Singh drew the conclusion that theology,
that is, a theological doctrine institutionalized through social structures
characterized by privilege and oppression, was contrary to natural law. He was
of the view that revolutionaries should never compromise in the pursuit of
social change. Singh had a message
for the ruling class:
We believe that had ruling powers acted correctly
at a proper time, there would have been no bloody revolutions in France and
Russia.… The ruling people cannot change the flow of the current (Virender
Singh 50).
In his discussion of God
and the State, Bhagat Singh blithely places Bakunin alongside Lenin,
Trotsky and Marx: all four men had, for the young thinker, put forward
convincing cases that state power relied on the suppression of masses through
appeals to transcendence. In the words of Bakunin:
There is a class of people who, if they do not believe,
must at least make a semblance of believing. This class, comprising all the
tormentors, all the oppressors … believe that “if god did not exist, it would
be necessary to invent him…” The people must have a religion (Bakunin 89).
Republished by Jalandhar-based Universe Publications, Reminiscences
of Lenin gives us an idea how Lenin had influenced the freedom movement in
India by leading the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. From May 1928 to September
1928, Singh published several articles on anarchism in Punjabi periodical Kirti.
He wrote, “the people are scared of the word anarchism. The word anarchism has
been abused so much that even in India revolutionaries have been called
anarchist to make them unpopular. As anarchism means absence of ruler and
abolition of state, not absence of order,” Singh continued to explain, “I think
in India the idea of universal brotherhood, the idea of the Sanskrit phrase, Vasudhaiva
Kutumbakam, has the same meaning” (M. K. Singh 84).
Singh began to question religious ideologies after
witnessing the Hindu-Muslim riots that broke out after Gandhi disbanded the
non-cooperation movement. He did not understand how members of these two
groups, initially united in fighting against the British, could be at each
other’s throats because of their religious differences. Bhagat Singh declared
that religion distracts people from addressing real problems and issues and hindered
the revolutionaries’ struggle for independence. The young leader wrote that his thinking about god underwent a radical
change after he studied anarchist and related Leftist literature by Bakunin,
Karl Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, all of whom he said were ‘atheists.’ In the long essay, Why
I am an Atheist, written and completed in 1931, a few days before his
hanging, Bhagat Singh laid bare the nature of his lack of faith. Later, even
when his execution was imminent, religious belief remained conspicuous by its
absence:
By the end of 1926, I
was convinced that the belief in an Almighty, Supreme Being who created, guided
and controlled the universe had no sound foundations. I began discussions on
this subject with my friends. I had openly declared myself an atheist (Bhagat Singh,
2020: 8).
In a nuanced and well-argued stance, he traces how his
atheism came to be. Clearly, atheism wasn’t a part of his childhood. He
insisted:
Atheism was not something I chose; it was where I ended
up after discovering that I could no longer believe in gods ... instead of
using the experiments and expressions of the ancient thinkers as the basis of
our future struggles against ignorance, lethargic as we have proved to be, we
raise the hue and cry of faith … and thus are guilty of stagnation in human
progress (Bhagat Singh, 2020: 13).
Clearly atheism seemed to be the outcome of the extensive
programme of the reading of revolutionary literature that Bhagat Singh had
embarked on in the years prior to his final lapse of faith. And it was his atheism
that did not waver till his dying day. Singh states in the essay Why I am an Atheist:
Belief softens the hardships, even can make them
pleasant. In god man can find very strong consolation and support. Without Him,
man has to depend upon himself. To stand upon one’s own legs amid storms and
hurricanes is not a child’s play. At such testing moments, vanity, if any, eva-porates,
and man cannot dare to defy the general beliefs (Bhagat Singh, 2020:10).
But,
given that many trials and tribulations lay ahead of him, what is perhaps of
interest is how faith did not make a comeback to Bhagat Singh’s life. He wanted
to make people realize that religion is the tool of elites to keep people
ignorant and distracted by the promise of a world to come after death. He
claimed:
My dear friends, these theories are the inventions of the
privileged ones. They justify their usurped power, riches and superiority by
the help of these theories. Yes, it was perhaps Upton Sinclair that wrote at
some place, that just make a man a believer in mortality and then rob him of
all his riches and possessions. He shall help you even in that ungrudgingly (Bhagat
Singh, 2020:18).
Relatedly, Bhagat Singh’s challenge to Gandhi’s ‘Satya’
is not that ‘truth’ does not exist, but that ‘truth’ is unavailable. It is here
that Bhagat Singh makes obvious his revolutionary stance: it derives not from
vanity but rather from humility and egalitarianism. It seems likely that Bhagat
Singh may have read Bertrand Russel’s “Why I am not a Christian” in some form.
On the other hand, the connection between these two texts relies primarily on
the similarity of their titles. Bhagat Singh had access to other writings on
Christianity and Christian agnos-ticism by Bertrand Russell, most notably
Russell’s 1927 pamphlet, Has Religion
Made Useful Contributions to Civilization? whose first paragraph appears in
Bhagat Singh’s Jail Notebook. He drew upon the critique of religion from
a number of traditions, Russell, Marx, Gorky, Ingersoll, Tom Paine, Rousseau,
Upton Sinclair and others. He wanted to teach people how religion dulls radical
consciousness and how it is used by the ruling classes to reinforce authority.
Clearly,
faith had completely left him leaving no traces behind. Bhagat Singh’s
objection to faith and god seemed to be both philosophical as well as springing
from the severe religious unrest that he observed around him which marred
regular life in 1920s India. This was a matter that Bhagat Singh had also
written on prior to 1931 in an article entitled Religion and National Politics published in the journal Kirti
in May 1928. Similarly, in another article, Communal
Problem and its So-lution, published in the same journal the following
month, Bhagat Singh remarks forebodingly on the then recent Lahore communal
riots prompted by the publication of a controversial book called Rangila
Rasul by an individual with Arya Samaji inducements which the Muslim
community found offensive. On the other hand, cow slaughter was a sore point
with the Hindu community. The article reprimands the members of all three
religious communities (Hindu, Muslim and Sikh) for their inability to keep a
cool head in the face of provocation and the political leadership for their
inability to play a constructive role.
Supporting Marxist-Leninist atheism Singh refers to the
origin of religion and explains methods for the scientific criticism of
religion. He remarks:
As regards the origin of god, my own idea is that, having
realized the limitations of man, his weaknesses and short-comings having been
taken into consideration, god was brought into imaginary existence to encourage
man to face boldly all the trying circumstances (Bhagat Singh, 2020: 20).
Hence,
even if it is a tease to say this without explanation, I think it is valid to
say that Bhagat Singh was an atheist, who believed in a god who is us,
humanity, past, present and future, for better or worse. For him Atheism is
an attitude, a frame of mind that looks at the world objectively, fearlessly,
always trying to understand all things as a part of nature. He believes that if there is anything beyond human experience
it might as well not exist.
In
today’s scenario remembering Bhagat Singh would be to look at his thoughts and
philosophy in the light of his humanist agenda, socialist ideas, and fight
against exploitation, inequity and injustice. His ideas should reach the masses
in a way that he and his comrades actually thought and implemented. That would
perhaps be the greatest tribute to Bhagat Singh. One should not forget the last
words of Bhagat Singh which he noted in his Jail Notebook:
I desire that on no occasion, whether near or remote, nor
for any reason whatsoever, shall demonstration 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 condition of the living (Bhagat Singh,
2017: 51).
We still feel the loss that our country suffered at his
untimely death. It was not for nothing that the British imperialists hanged him
and the future rulers of India preferred to remain silent on his death
sentence. At times, it seems, to be a "conspiracy" that deprived us
of reading and understanding Bhagat Singh at the school/college level. The
rebel inside us was not allowed to grow. We never learnt the language of
sacrifice. As a result, most of us today tend to remain silent or be part of
the corrupt, unjust and criminal system rather than stand up against it. This
also explains the popular saying ‘people want Bhagat Singh to take birth again
but in the neighbourhood’. The impression that one gathers after re-reading his articles is that
little has changed in close to a hundred years. The distractions that media and political leadership
throw at us are not going to go away. It is up to us to look away.
In a country like India, while atheism is bound to have
limited appeal, can we hope to worship our nation with the same zeal and ardour
that we reserve for our theistic slogans and godmen? Can we forsake our selfish
vested interests and challenge the status quo as did Bhagat Singh? Can we look
away from our religious and caste differences and concentrate on more
compelling matters instead? Instead of garlanding his portrait on various
anniversaries, if we, the people of India, read, reflect and practice what the
writings of this great visionary martyr ask of us, it would perhaps be the
greatest tribute to Bhagat Singh.
WORKS CITED
Habib, S. Irfan. Inquilab: Bhagat Singh on Religion and Revolution. Sage Publications, E-Book 2018.
Juneja, M. M. Selected
Collections on Bhagat Singh - Volume 1, Modern Publishers, 2007.
Mazumdar, Satyendra Narayan. In Search of a Revolutionary
Ideology and a Revolutionary Programme: A Study in the Transition from National
Revolutionary Terrorism to Communism. People's Publishing House,1979.
Mukherjee, Subrata, Sushila Ramaswamy. Michael Bakunin: His Thoughts and Works. Deep and Deep Publications, 2002.
Ramnath, Maia. Decolonizing Anarchism: An
Antiauthoritarian History of India's Liberation Struggle. A.K. Press, 2011.
Singh,
Virender. Jail Notebook of Bhagat Singh. Neelkanth Prakashan, 2018.
Singh,
Bhagat. The Jail Notebook and Other Writings. Ed. By Chaman Lala and
Bhupendra Hooja. Left World Books, e-book, March 2017.
Singh,
Bhagat. Why I am an Atheist. Srishti Publishers and Distributors, 2020.
Singh, M. K. Encyclopaedia of Indian War of
Independence 1857-1947: Revolutionary Phase: Bhagat Singh and Chandra
Shekhar Azad. Anmol
Publications, 2009.
Singh,
Bhagat. https://bhagatsinghthesocialistrevolutionary.wordpress.
com/2019/07/17/ vishav-prem-universal-love-1924. Accessed 1-10-20.
Verma,
Shiv, Bhagat Singh. Selected Writings of Shaheed Bhagat Singh. National
Book Centre, 1986.
·
Dr. Roopali Khanna is Director, Kala Sadhana Art Gallery in Agra. She has
been associated as Guest Faculty with the Department of English at B.D.K.
College, Agra. Her area of interest is inspirational literature.
Published in Re-Markings 20th Anniversary Special Number: Vol 20 No.1 March 2021. pp. 100-108. www.re-markings.com
Copyright Nibir K. Ghosh 2021.
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