It’s a deep dive into the thoughts of India’s greatest revolutionary, and it’s starkly different from the icon he has been refashioned into in the present political discourse.
Everybody knows Bhagat Singh was a revolutionary, but what he was trying to achieve remains eclipsed and distorted by the tendency to shade the independence struggle with a coat of nationalist monochrome. As a result, Bhagat Singh is divested of his ideas, vision and message, and remains one of the token faces in the freedom fighters collage of a political party’s poster.
Thus, it becomes essential to know the man to undo the myth. Here’s what Bhagat Singh’s ideology was, clearly stated in his own words:
“complete overthrow of the existing order and the replacement with the socialist order. “
And this he intended to do through the capture of power against the state, which was a weapon of the elite to safeguard its interest. He read Lenin and followed and appreciated the Soviet system of governance closely.
Unfortunately, his ideas have been shunned while the portrait has been glamorized, and the poster boy of atheism has been reduced to a mere object of divinity.
What’s needed is a critical engagement with his thoughts, and one may agree or disagree, but the point is to first understand his vision, rather than subscribe to politically motivated renderings that do injustice to his stature.
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