WHAT IF BHAGAT SINGH HAD LIVED?

Surely there are umpteen very important contemporary issues on which follow-ups can be presented before you dear readers. But today let us walk together to follow into the life of a hero, who had sacrificed his life literally and willingly for our sake.
An enigma, obsessed with passion for his country's freedom, he had achieved rare clarity of thought, sharpened his intelligence and conquered the fear of death in his teens. And that death was inflicted upon him at the age of 23, for he was fighting for you and me, to enable us to live with dignity in a free homeland.
This unparalleled hero was Bhagat Singh whose death anniversary falls on March 23. He was born on September 26, 1907, in the family of freedom fighters. His uncle, Ajit Singh, and father, Kishan Singh, were known as radicals and had successfully mobilised masses to oppose the British at every step under an organisation called "Bharat Mata Society".
Today 70 years later we ought to pause and review how Bhagat Singh was different from Mahatma Gandhi? Though both had fought for the freedom of India yet both vehemently adopted routes totally different in nature.
While Bhagat Singh was merely 20 years old in 1928, Mahatma Gandhi was already a mature person of 59 years. Yet both were into the movement in full swing with matching intensity, dedication, conviction and above all passion. What was it between the two that presents a very uneasy historical record ? Before we delve into that aspect let us have a brief life sketch of Bhagat Singh as his life actually was.
Bhagat Singh studied at D.A.V. High School and later at National College, Lahore. He acted in plays and became fluent in Urdu, Hindi, Gurmukhi, English and even Sanskrit.
By the age of 16, Bhagat Singh had of his own choice dedicated his life to achieve freedom for his country. How firm and full of conviction he was about this goal can be gauged from the fact that a year later, in 1924, when his family pressurised him to get married, he categorically refused.
Immediately after this Bhagat Singh left for Kanpur and worked for Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi in his weekly called Pratap.
In the same year he became a member of the Hindustan Republican Association.
Merely 17 and his life got molded into a revolutionary from here onwards. By 1925 he had founded "Naujawan Bharat Sabha" in Lahore. Soon he worked for Sohan Singh Josh in his monthly called Kirti.
Bhagat Singh's first direct encounter with the British came in 1927, when he was arrested on charges of having links with the accused in the Kakori case for an article written under the pseudonym "Vidrohi" which meant "rebel". However, he was let off on grounds of good behaviour but on a heavy security bond of Rs 60,000.
Bhagat Singh came under the influence of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Bakumin besides thoroughly studying the history of the revolutionary movement in India, which included the Bahhar Akali Movement too.
Amongst his contemporary living legends the person who succeeded in occupying the seat of "mentor, friend and brother" in Bhagat Singh's own words was Kartar Singh Sarabha, who fought racial discrimination in San Francisco, USA.
Bhagat wrote many articles in a very short span of his life. These writings speak volumes about his astonishingly clear and focused thinking despite his rather young age.
All the brilliantly written articles reveal his own depth, seriousness of purpose, truthful accounts and of course a targeted mission.
There were a series of barbarous authoritarian, dictatorial and atrocious actions of the British Government besides daily display of injustice and discrimination towards Indians that outraged the impressionable but extraordinary intelligent mind of young Bhagat Singh.
Saunders' cruel assault on the forehead of Lala Lajpat Rai with a baton during the anti-Simon Commission demonstration which took his life, the Nankana Sahib massacre (six Sikhs were executed by the British), Kartar Singh Sarabha's execution when Bhagat Singh was just a child, Jatin Das's death in jail during a hunger strike and endless atrocities on freedom fighters led Bhagat Singh to give a befitting reply to the British.
Soon followed the murder of Saunders in Lahore in December, 1928, and bombs were thrown in the Legislative Assembly on April 8, 1929. It is important to note the self-confession that the bombs were carefully thrown behind the chairs so as no innocent was physically hurt.
"Revolution to me is not the cult of bomb and pistol but a total change of society culminating in the overthrow of both foreign and Indian capitalism and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat." Bhagat Singh himself expressed these profound views during his own trial.
It may also be mentioned here that it was Bhagat Singh and all his contemporary radicals alone who insisted that freedom fighters should continue their struggle for "Puran Swaraj".
It is a historical fact that Mahatma Gandhi and his associates in the face of British cunning were willing to adopt the middle path.
The bombs were clearly meant to be purely demonstrative. It is noteworthy that the occasion was the anti-Labour Trades Disputes Bill. The year 1928-29 had witnessed a massive labour upsurge in India.
Finally, awaiting his own execution for the murder of Saunders, Bhagat Singh at the young age of 23 studied Marxism thoroughly and wrote a profound article, "Why I am an atheist".
It was at this juncture that many organisations of the times fervently appealed to Mahatma Gandhi to save the life of Bhagat Singh.
The Yuva Vahini of Jawaharlal Nehru, the Naujawan Bharat Sabha, Aruna Asaf Ali, all the known radical revolutionaries, pleaded with Mahatma Gandhi to save Bhagat Singh and his associates Sukhdev and Rajguru.
The Gandhi-Irwin talks were on and political observers were confident that a word from Gandhi will certainly commute hanging to life imprisonment.
The historical records of the dialogue between Gandhi and Irwin in the series of crucial meetings that took place pretty close to the hanging of Bhagat Singh reveal a dismal picture.
Mahatma Gandhi spoke for everyone and every issue but did not utter a single word to bargain for Bhagat Singh's life. Hence his statement after the hanging of martyr Bhagat Singh, "the Congress made many attempts to save the lives of Bhagat Singh and his two associates", is not a substantiated fact.
Historian Dr Rajiv Lochan whose major research work revolves around Mahatma Gandhi puts this whole historical perspective in the following observations:"From all events and records available it is quite obvious that Gandhiji perceived both Subhas Chander Bose and Bhagat Singh as potential threats to his own highly acclaimed position".
At Hussainiwala in Ferozepore the place where Bhagat Singh's samadhi has been built to keep his memories alive, the scene fills you with tears flowing from your heart. B.K.Dutt's samadhi as per his last wish has also been made in the lap of Bhagat Singh's own samadhi. Amidst silence, flowers and water flows a question which will never get answered :"What if Bhagat Singh had lived ?"