त्र्यं शं शेजवलकर,
डिसेंबर २६ १९३६:
"आज पुनः इस्लामसारखेच
संकट साम्यवादाच्या रूपाने
अवतरले आहे."
('निवडक लेखसंग्रह', १९७७, पृष्ठ
४)
Recycling my
post dated October 27 2007.....
South Asia is celebrating Bhagat Singh’s 100th birth anniversary.
Supreme sacrifice of young Bhagat Singh,
Rajguru and Sukhdev for a larger cause has motivated millions in the past and will continue to do so.
T S Shejwalkar (त्र्यंबक शंकर शेजवलकर) has described in his essay of
October 1930 what
Motilal Nehru (more
charismatic personality than his son) felt on meeting Bhagat Singh:”For
the first time in my life, I met someone greater than me.”
Bhagat Singh was just 23 when hanged.
I
have always been impressed with not just Bhagat Singh’s rugged good
looks- wearing Western hat or prisoner’s chains- but his intellect. Man
was an atheist and remained so till the end. He didn’t believe in
rebirth. He must be one of the first famous people in India to talk
about
Charles Darwin’s work. Just for the appreciation of readers, he established a library of 175 books at
Agra,
where the Assembly bomb plan was finalised. As a revolutionary thinker,
he encouraged the reading habit among his comrades and also debates on
topical social and political issues.
His family was
very eclectic and was open to diverse influences. It truly believed in a
composite India and also practised it in the family.
He once said: “Up to that period (1925) I was a romantic revolutionary… That was a turning point in my revolutionary career;
“Study”
was the cry that reverberated in the corridors of my mind. Study to
enable yourself to face the arguments advanced by opposition. Study to
arm yourself with arguments in favour of your cult. I began to study.
My
previous faith and convictions underwent a remarkable modification. The
romance of violent methods alone, which was so prominent amongst our
predecessors, was replaced by serious ideas. No more mysticism, no more
blind faith. Realism became our cult. Use of force justifiable when
restored to as a matter of terrible necessity: non-violence as policy
indispensable for all mass movements. So much about methods.
The
most important thing was the clear conception of ideal for which we
were to fight. As there were no important activities in the field of
action, I got ample opportunity to study various ideals of world
revolution. I studied
Bakunin, the anarchist leader, something of
Marx, the father of communism and much of
Lenin, Trotsky and others – the men who had successfully carried out a revolution in their country.”
Bhagat Singh trusted Lenin and his revolution in Russia without realizing horrors of Russian revolution.
George Orwell was to write “
Animal Farm” only in
1945.
Brad DeLong:”Lenin
was a really evil man. His followers and supporters slaughtered more
than ten million of their fellow humans… for Communists, Lenin and
Guevara
are truly heroic. Standing as they did on the shoulders of the great
Karl Marx, they saw deeply into the present and far into the future.
They ran great personal risks and stood bravely against their
adversaries as they struggled to bring about the revolutionary
liberation of humanity.... we cannot view Lenin and Guevara as truly
heroic, any more than we can view
Hitler and Mussolini as truly heroic…”
In
retrospect, I feel Bhagat Singh didn’t need Lenin. His native idealism,
his ideas, his leadership qualities and his youthful good looks were
more than enough to power his dreams.
Like in the
picture below Lenin is being assigned to the dustbin of history while
Bhagat Singh continues to rule many young hearts in India.
Artist:
Eldon Dedini, The New Yorker, 27 Nov 1989
