The Political Writings Of Bhagat Singh

“The state, the government machinery is just a weapon in the hands of the ruling class to further and safeguard its interest. We want to snatch and handle it to utilize it for the consummation of our ideal, that is, social reconstruction on a new, that is, Marxist, basis.” – Bhagat Singh The young martyr Bhagat Singh is a legend of the Indian anti-colonial struggle. He was not just a man of action, but of great intellect and deep insight. While still in his early teens, he showed a depth of understanding of Indian political reality. He read widely and became fluent in several Indian languages, as well as English. Moreover, he wrote insightful political essays, ones that a much older person would have been proud to have written. It is not only that his call to arms against the British imperialists inspired Indians – young and old. It is that his written works continue to stir the minds of all those who seek a world where everyone is equal, and all can fully develop their capacities. He is as much a part of the Indian radical tradition today as he was one hundred years ago.

This book is an attempt to approach Bhagat Singh’s revolutionary rhetoric as a site of perpetual motion; of constant shifts and transformations that point towards instances of conscious refashioning in one’s own politics. Throughout his life Bhagat Singh made use of multiple political ideologies for conceptualizing revolution ranging from spiritual nationalism, Gandhism, socialism, Marxism and anarchism. At some points he can also be seen merging some of the more disparate ideologies for the progression of the revolutionary cause. This book explores the changing revolutionary thought of Bhagat Singh, made explicit through his personal and political writings from the period of 1923-1931. The aforementioned shifts in his politics are demarcated through a close reading of select texts from this time period to argue for a fundamental reframing in the way we approach Bhagat Singh’s politics.

Shaheed Bhagat Singh’s ‘Jail Notebook’ opens a window into his exploration of ideas of distinguished thinkers and philosophers. Well-known among his comrades as an avid and voracious reader, Bhagat Singh managed to procure during his imprisonment in jail a large number of selected books by prominent authors of his choice. The excerpts, notes and quotes from those books which he wrote down in his jail notebook reflected not only the seriousness with which he studied the books but also his intellectual sophistication and social and political concerns. However, the perfunctory reference to the sources or books from which these notes and quotes were taken left a rather perplexing question mark with regard to the authentic source i.e. from exactly which editions of which books by which particular authors were these taken. As a result, fantastic claims and wild speculations came to be made by admiring scholars as to the number of books and the kind of original works of great thinkers that Bhagat Singh was able to study in the jail. As a sequel to that the present work Bhagat Singh’s ‘Jail Note Book’, Its Context and Relevance by Harish Jain represents an exceptionally tenacious and laborious search and research into the specific and authentic sources of the particular notes and quotes entered in the Jail Notebook. The story of the author’s exploration for over a decade, searching and identifying books by following astute guesses and hunches, and rummaging through many likely or probable books accessible at that time, many of which were not easily available now, makes a fascinating reading. Contextualising the importance and reach of the ideas of the various authors in those times helps one to understand why they might have appeared significant to Bhagat Singh. Besides discussing the ideas central to the books he read attempt has been made here to explain the import of the quotes he chose to copy. A unique work of its kind, this study is both enriching and a pleasure to read.

"Bhagat Singh spent the last two years of his life in jail, awaiting execution. During this time, he and his comrades fought one of the most celebrated Court Battles in the annals of national liberation struggles, and used the court as a vehicle for the propagation of their revolutionary message. They also struggled against the inhuman conditions in the Colonial jail, and faced torture and pain. Their heroism made them icons and figures of Inspiration for generations to come. All this is well-known. What is not so well-known is that Bhagat Singh wrote four Books in jail. Although they were smuggled out, they were destroyed and are lost forever. What survived was a Notebook that the Young martyr kept in jail, full of notes and jottings from what he was reading. In the year of his Birth centenary, LeftWord is proud to present his Notebook in an elegant edition. This Edition has been checked against the copy preserved in the National Archives of India. The Notebook is richly annotated by Bhupender Hooja; and the annotations have been revised and updated for this edition. Also included are the most important Texts that Bhagat Singh wrote in jail, Chaman Lal's lucid introduction, the New York Daily Worker's reports and Periyar's editorial on the hanging" -- Provided by publisher.

On 23 March 1931, Bhagat Singh and two of his associates were hanged at the Lahore Central Jail. This was the culmination of the Lahore Conspiracy Case, one of the most controversial, not to say notorious, trials to take place in India under the Raj. In this book A.G.Noorani argues that Singh and his comrades were the victims of a travesty of justice that amounted to nothing short of judicial murder. With a lawyer's insight, Noorani chronicles the miscarriages of justice by which Bhagat Singh was brought to the gallows.