"An Icon of Struggle for Justice" by C. Rajshekhar

Born on 28 September 1907, 1924 was the turning point in Bhagat Singh;s life. On being pressurized for marriage, he ran off to kanpur where he started reporting for the Hindi newspaper ‘Pratap’ and also joined Chandrashekhar Azad’s Hindustan Republican Association (HRA). In 1925, he returned to Lahore; started a militant youth organization called Naujawan Bharat Sabha and helped Sohan Singh Josh in April 1926 establish the Worker’s and Peasants Party; was first arrested in 1927 on charges of explosion at Lahore and after his release, led the HRA in 1928 and renamed it as HRSA.

Retaliating against Lala Lajpat Rai’s killing, Bhagat Singh and his associates eliminated policemen Saunders in 1928.

In April 1929, Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt threw bombs into the Delhi assembly to protest against the Trade Dispute Bill and he was sentenced to life imprisonment on 12 June. A gun factory was unearthed at Lahore and Sukhdev and others were arrested; on 10^th July 1929, the Lahore Conspiracy case began and ended with the death penalty for Bhagat Singh on October 7, 1931.

Bhagat Songh was a real life hero who bore police torture bravely and sacrificed his life to free India. (Ajoy Ghosh, co-accused and general secretary of CPI in independent India writes “In July 1929 we were produced in court …met Bhagat Singh … he was carried into the court on a stretcher. For months he and Dutt had been tortured by the police”).

He had an irrepressible sense of black humour. When his tearful father told him that the hanging would take place by March end, he replied “Chalo accha hai”. In Lahore’s hot summer, “Kothri mein bhunne se accha marna hai”, he said.

He also had a romantic side to his personality. Once when sukhdev accused him of being in the clutches of a woman (the reference was to Durga Devi who planned the train getaway after the Saunders’ killing), Bhagat Singh cited the case of Mazzini – after repeated failures in his revolutionary attempts, it was a girl’s love which saved him from madness and suicide. He wrote “eik krantikari (revolutionary) ke jeevan mein prem (love) koi bemail cheez nahi hai.” However, Bhagat Singh’s character and respect for freedom fighter Bhagwati Charan Vohra’s wife Durga Devi is reflected in the same letter, “Main ye keh sakta hoon ki aapas mein pyar kar sakte hain aur apne pyar ke sahare apne aavegon (passions) se oopar utth sakte hain. Apni pavitrata (here it means fidelity) kaayam rakh sakte hain.”

A voracious reader he wrote from proson (24^th July 1930) to his friend jaidev. “Please take the following books from Dwarkadas Library and send it through Kulvir (Bhagat’s brother): ‘Militarism’ by Karl Liebknecht, ‘Why Men Fight’ by Bertrand Russell, ‘Soviets at Work, Collapse of the Second Intrernational’, ‘Let Wing Communism by Lenin, ‘Mutual Aid by Prince Kropotkin, ‘fields, factories and workshops,’ ‘civil war in France’ by Marx, ‘Land Revolution in Russia’, ‘Punjab Peasant in Prosperity and Debt’ by Darling, ‘Historical Materialism’ By Bukharin and a novel ‘Spy’ by Upton Sinclair.”

A prolific writer too, he wrote in Punjabi, English, Urdu and Hindi. Apart from writing letter and 400 page jail notebook, Bhagat Singh wrote three monographs: “Why I became an Atheist”, “The philosophy of the bomb” and “A letter to young political workers”.

His political sense was superb – whether in chucking bombs into the assembly to spread the freedom call of revolutionaries countrywide; using the prison term contemplate and write on socialism, revolutions, history of revolutionaries in India, Ireland and elsewhere; the decision to go to an indefinite hunger strike in prison urging prison reforms that galvanized the entire nation; to use the court room and resultant media publicity to get his message across etc – all these show that the 23 years old Indian Revolutionary was politically far precocious than Lenin, Mao and Che Guevara.

Young Indians are not excited by political personalities, as most contemporary politicians are dull and uninspiring.

However they can draw inspiration from Bhagat Singh’s struggle for the principles of justice and equality. As a first step, the GenNext could jettison their flimsy cricketing and filmy icons and start reading up on Bhagat Singh to keep memory of the martyr fresh.

The writer teaches at National Law Institute University, Bhopal and can be contacted at crsekhar2001@yahoo.co.in

Her smiling face - Lifting the veil

I have always been against for women covering their faces, whether its purdah for the Hindu women or naqab for their Muslim sisters. I never find any logical reason for doing so, God has given me a unique face, it’s my unique identity then what is the need to cover it. Or there is so much distrust of one human being in other that we need to cover our face and use the veil as a shield to protect ourselves.

The times when this must have been introduced were different from today, now women are not what they use to be; we no longer live in anarchy or in a monarchial set up? In a free independent India when we have equal rights, why these women does not have an equal status?

Shopping in the old streets of Bhopal, I see various women who have either covered their face either with the anchal of the saree or a burqa. Even if it is 45 degree hot they are jam packed with these black clothes (which absorbs even more heat). Few days back in these same street a burqa clad women was sitting next to me in a shoe shop, I turned my face right and we happen to look at each other I passed a smile but I couldn’t make out that whether she responded to my smile with a smile or not as her face was covered. She bought something and started walking, I looked at her again, our eyes met – she must have smiled at me but again I couldn’t make out.

What harm it could have made if I would have seen her smiling face behind the black cloth, it happened to make a sort of communication gap between us and not only me it happens with lots of people. I feel it kinds of takes away your freedom to express yourself. Even if that woman smiled back at me, I just couldn’t know.

Advocates of veil justify it by saying that it protects the dignity of a woman, they chose to wear it at their own will, and it protects them from evil eyes.

Well then I beg to disagree, a veil is not the symbol of dignity of a woman, it’s her stature and her conduct, and not a piece of cloth. And even if women nowadays choose to wear it, then I would like to say even this choice was imposed upon them much before in history by the male counterpart.

It’s a pity that a face is considered no more than a pretty item, which needs to be concealed out of shame of being looked at. Do you believe beauty is something shameful that need to be covered? If so why God created it?

I don’t say that modernism is throwing off your clothes, if covering your face is a sign of conservatism than neither wearing a mini skirt suggests liberalism. We live in an era where equality is being sought, then why are we humans creating these sorts of discriminations. Let a human live like he/she is, when God makes no discrimination why do we?

I’m still thinking of those two glittering eyes, her smile must be as beautiful as her eyes were.

Dental Woes

Today I experienced how it is to be the center of the attraction, generally a common person in our country is a center of attraction on his birthday or wedding, exceptions being that you are a celebrity or the news channels have recently hyped something about you.

Well nothing of that sort with me, I was the center of the attraction because I went to a dentist today. After a passing a hell of one week in acute pain with no effect of the painkiller the D-day for me arrived when my root canal surgery was to be done.

I was made to sit on this huge chair, which was equipped with so many weird tools, the sight of which gave me jitters that they are supposed to do something inside your mouth.

After getting a nice scolding from the doctor on losing my older prescription, he said “eik paper tu sambhal nahi payi aap, dant kaise sambhale hongay”.

After all this one really pretty girl showed up, who was a dentist and supposed to do my surgery, and I found her no more pretty when she put that huge anesthetic injection in my mouth but ya she was pretty and was sweetly humming some song all the time.

The nightmare though, was yet to come, suddenly three four men came around me looking with keen interest what is happening inside my mouth, probably they were interns, the girl was explaining them “ok now you have to insert a needle like this” “this is how you see the canal”. I preferred to close my eyes, though my jaws were aching like anything. Once it was done, those interns appeared again, and the next moment I found some weirdoes touching my chin and cheeks and admiring the tooth as if some diamond. I was like a live example for them and couldn’t even say a word with those mirror and forceps inside.

When finally done I was happy it was over but to my surprise she said, “there are three sittings more”. I was like noooooo.

I have been to many doctors, dermatologists, ophthalmologist, etc. etc. but going to the dentist is the worst of all, so better take care of those buddies next time they are hell important.

Jab We Met

Last week, I saw the movie ‘Jab We Met’ most talked about because of the break up of Kareena and Shahid, who play the leading role in the film. There break up hit the national news because it was of such importance to the Indian film fanatic fraternity. And luckily this did help the movie do well in the theater, which made excellent collections at the box office.

The movie was no doubt well made with good performances by kareena and shahid, while kareena looking less of her chameli image for the first time and shahid my-my, after watching this film every girl must be wanting to marry him and that includes me too.

The storyline of the movie was of-course clichéd, we must have seen various hindi movies where the girl and guy meet in a train or during a journey, first they hate each other then eventually realizes this love when they are moving apart, etc., etc. yet the movie offers something different may be it’s the shahid-kareena ‘chemistry’, awesome music, well written scenes and of-course the raw Punjabi culture which ads a ting to the story. Thanks to all this you never feel bore in the film or find it repetitive anywhere.

Yet, it makes me wonder that whatever shown in the movie how far it is close to real life, though this is not a criteria for judging a film, because nothing is impossible in Hindi film. So please go and watch the film and you will surely enjoy it but please don’t expect that you will meet a multi-millionaire boy in the train, who will fall in love with you.