Contemporary Relevance of Ideas and Ideals of Shahid Bhagat Singh
Contemporary Relevance of Ideas and Ideals of Shahid Bhagat Singh
Today we are commemorating the martyrdom of Shahid Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev. The history department of Morris College should be congratulated for organising this talk and discussion to pay tribute to the Martyrs. There cannot be any better way to remember our freedom fighters but to discuss the ideas and ideals cherished by them. There cannot be any fitting homage to these heroes but to discuss the contemporary relevance of their ideas. By trying to connect their ideas from past to the present we do not treat them as relics of the past but we engage with them in a far profounder and meaningful way.
Amongst all the revolutionaries of his generation Bhagat Singh was the most prolific and in a very short time became the philosopher and ideologue of his compatriots and co-revolutionaries. Her grappled with wide range of ideas and like great thinkers we witness widespread transformation in his ideas as well. He discarded older conceptualisations and imbibed newer ones when he found the older ones not being able to stand up to closer scrutiny and rigorous analysis. Today while remembering Bhagat Singh we must not only celebrate the range of his interests but also this transformation. We must also celebrate this ease with which he traversed the world of ideas. And the most remarkable thing while talking about all his accomplishments is to remember that he achieved this in the last three years of his life waiting for his almost certain death sentence.
Let us take the question of transformation in his ideas first. We see four distinct stages where one after the other the ideas, as I suggested earlier, were tested at a comprehensive level and Bhagat Singh moves on to a bigger and complex ideas. It would also mean that at times the ideas had to be tested empirically. The real life was consistently fuelling and feeding the ideological life. The ideas were never kept at the level of ideas only. It was meaningless for our freedom fighter to deal with them at an abstract level if did not help to solve the problem at hand in a concrete manner. The first was coming to terms with the idea of revolutionary violence. The failure of the Non Cooperation movement had already triggered a disillusionment in the youth and Bhagat Singh could not remain aloof from it. But as we observe later this espousal of revolutionary violence could not stay long with Bhagat Singh and within a short span of time we see a remarkable shift to criticism of individual acts of violence. And we come to second stage in the evolutionary paradigm of his thinking. There was definitely a realisation settling in that these individual retributive acts of violence may not lead to the awakening of the masses as hoped by revolutionaries. For the first time they were forced to think about the long term outcome of the pursuance of this idea of violence. It would be a mistake to think that there was an abandonment of the idea of revolution but we see careful linkage of this revolutionary endeavour towards awakening of the masses. They realised that for the engineering of the revolutions the spark can be provided by some acts or instance but sustenance could only be given by the masses. And here we come to the third most significant stage of Bhagat Singh’s thinking where the individual and his act become a symbol. We also see that Bhagat Singh becomes aware of the politics involved and played by both sides namely the oppressor and the oppressed. The body becomes a tool and there is no running away from the oppressor. And the first significant battle is won. This kind of systematic thinking led him to explore the ideology that had worked most in finding out ways to sustain the moment of revolution once the spark has been provided to it. In other words we find our fourth stage asking for his attention and that was the study of socialism and communism. It would be of grave danger to deduce that it is here that Bhagat Singh found his peace. This was also simply the beginning of a long term engagement and had he got the time we would have seen a remarkable synthesis of it; and probably yet another moving on in search of - his - voice and exploration of a systematic thought which also reflected the voice of his countrymen.
If one has to locate these transformations in Bhagat Singh and find out the departure point, one can find it in - Bhagat Singh before Saunders assassination and Bhagat Singh after Saunders assassination. The subtlety of steps, the realisation of the long term impact of an act, taking the war with the British to wholly different level by making every act and every utterance against the British into a spectacle, a performance, the reverberations of which would be heard in every nook and corner of the country. It is the latter Bhagat Singh that we remember and in fact would like to remember knowingly or unknowingly. It is this latter Bhagat Singh, who almost annihilated himself during the fast in jail, that gives a churning to the core of our beings and makes the most sceptic of human beings a thorough believer in the power of nationalism.
Bhagat Singh teaches us courage but he also teaches us critical thought. The courage of Bhagat Singh is the courage of Babasaheb Ambedkar which combines with it a ruthless assessment of the shortcomings of the modern world that we inhabit. Both are uncompromisingly universal in approach. Both are authentic and original and seek universal truths. There is a relentless non conformism to their thinking process. This is especially visible in the “atheism” essay of Bhagat Singh. The approach is almost like he is seeking philosophic universals.
From historical figures like Bhagat Singh and Babasaheb Ambedkar and for that matter even Gandhi we seek answers according to our own assumptions and prejudices and our own world views. Instead of they defining our world it is we who define them and also confine them. This was an attempt to show how varied and beautifully original one life could be and by sheer force of its commitment can inspire and guide us for generations.
(Excerpts of speech given at Morris College, Nagpur.)
(Dr. Kalyan Kumar is
Organising Secretary, Shramik Elgar)
kalyannayan@gmail.com
Today we are commemorating the martyrdom of Shahid Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev. The history department of Morris College should be congratulated for organising this talk and discussion to pay tribute to the Martyrs. There cannot be any better way to remember our freedom fighters but to discuss the ideas and ideals cherished by them. There cannot be any fitting homage to these heroes but to discuss the contemporary relevance of their ideas. By trying to connect their ideas from past to the present we do not treat them as relics of the past but we engage with them in a far profounder and meaningful way.
Amongst all the revolutionaries of his generation Bhagat Singh was the most prolific and in a very short time became the philosopher and ideologue of his compatriots and co-revolutionaries. Her grappled with wide range of ideas and like great thinkers we witness widespread transformation in his ideas as well. He discarded older conceptualisations and imbibed newer ones when he found the older ones not being able to stand up to closer scrutiny and rigorous analysis. Today while remembering Bhagat Singh we must not only celebrate the range of his interests but also this transformation. We must also celebrate this ease with which he traversed the world of ideas. And the most remarkable thing while talking about all his accomplishments is to remember that he achieved this in the last three years of his life waiting for his almost certain death sentence.
Let us take the question of transformation in his ideas first. We see four distinct stages where one after the other the ideas, as I suggested earlier, were tested at a comprehensive level and Bhagat Singh moves on to a bigger and complex ideas. It would also mean that at times the ideas had to be tested empirically. The real life was consistently fuelling and feeding the ideological life. The ideas were never kept at the level of ideas only. It was meaningless for our freedom fighter to deal with them at an abstract level if did not help to solve the problem at hand in a concrete manner. The first was coming to terms with the idea of revolutionary violence. The failure of the Non Cooperation movement had already triggered a disillusionment in the youth and Bhagat Singh could not remain aloof from it. But as we observe later this espousal of revolutionary violence could not stay long with Bhagat Singh and within a short span of time we see a remarkable shift to criticism of individual acts of violence. And we come to second stage in the evolutionary paradigm of his thinking. There was definitely a realisation settling in that these individual retributive acts of violence may not lead to the awakening of the masses as hoped by revolutionaries. For the first time they were forced to think about the long term outcome of the pursuance of this idea of violence. It would be a mistake to think that there was an abandonment of the idea of revolution but we see careful linkage of this revolutionary endeavour towards awakening of the masses. They realised that for the engineering of the revolutions the spark can be provided by some acts or instance but sustenance could only be given by the masses. And here we come to the third most significant stage of Bhagat Singh’s thinking where the individual and his act become a symbol. We also see that Bhagat Singh becomes aware of the politics involved and played by both sides namely the oppressor and the oppressed. The body becomes a tool and there is no running away from the oppressor. And the first significant battle is won. This kind of systematic thinking led him to explore the ideology that had worked most in finding out ways to sustain the moment of revolution once the spark has been provided to it. In other words we find our fourth stage asking for his attention and that was the study of socialism and communism. It would be of grave danger to deduce that it is here that Bhagat Singh found his peace. This was also simply the beginning of a long term engagement and had he got the time we would have seen a remarkable synthesis of it; and probably yet another moving on in search of - his - voice and exploration of a systematic thought which also reflected the voice of his countrymen.
If one has to locate these transformations in Bhagat Singh and find out the departure point, one can find it in - Bhagat Singh before Saunders assassination and Bhagat Singh after Saunders assassination. The subtlety of steps, the realisation of the long term impact of an act, taking the war with the British to wholly different level by making every act and every utterance against the British into a spectacle, a performance, the reverberations of which would be heard in every nook and corner of the country. It is the latter Bhagat Singh that we remember and in fact would like to remember knowingly or unknowingly. It is this latter Bhagat Singh, who almost annihilated himself during the fast in jail, that gives a churning to the core of our beings and makes the most sceptic of human beings a thorough believer in the power of nationalism.
Bhagat Singh teaches us courage but he also teaches us critical thought. The courage of Bhagat Singh is the courage of Babasaheb Ambedkar which combines with it a ruthless assessment of the shortcomings of the modern world that we inhabit. Both are uncompromisingly universal in approach. Both are authentic and original and seek universal truths. There is a relentless non conformism to their thinking process. This is especially visible in the “atheism” essay of Bhagat Singh. The approach is almost like he is seeking philosophic universals.
From historical figures like Bhagat Singh and Babasaheb Ambedkar and for that matter even Gandhi we seek answers according to our own assumptions and prejudices and our own world views. Instead of they defining our world it is we who define them and also confine them. This was an attempt to show how varied and beautifully original one life could be and by sheer force of its commitment can inspire and guide us for generations.
(Excerpts of speech given at Morris College, Nagpur.)
(Dr. Kalyan Kumar is
Organising Secretary, Shramik Elgar)
kalyannayan@gmail.com
