Ideological Rethinking

A real breakthrough was made by Bhagat Singh and his comrades in terms of revolutionary ideology, forms of revolutionary struggle and the goals of revolution. The rethinking had begun in the mid-1920s. The Founding Council of HRA had decided to preach revolutionary and communist

principles, and the HRA Manifesto (1925) declared that the “HRA stood for abolition of all systems which made exploitation of man by man possible”. The HRA’s main organ Revolutionary had proposed nationalisation of railways and other means of transport and of heavy industries such as ship building and steel. The HRA had also decided to start labour and peasant organisations and work for an “organised and armed revolution”. During their last days (late 1920s), these revolutionaries had started moving away from individual heroic action and violence towards mass politics.

Bismil, during his last days, appealed to the youth to give up pistols and revolvers, not to work in revolutionary conspiracies and instead work in an open movement. He urged the youth to strengthen Hindu-Muslim unity, unite all political groups under the leadership of the Congress. Bismil affirmed faith in communism and the principle that “every human being has equal rights over the products of nature”. The famous statement of the revolutionary position is contained in the book The Philosophy of the Bomb written

by Bhagwaticharan Vohra.

Even before his arrest, Bhagat Singh had moved away from a belief in violent and individual heroic action to Marxism and the belief that a popular broad-based movement alone could lead to a successful revolution. In other words, revolution could only be “by the masses, for the masses”. That is why Bhagat Singh helped establish the Punjab Naujawan Bharat Sabha (1926) as an open wing of revolutionaries to carry out political work among the youth, peasants and workers, and it was to open branches in villages. Bhagat and Sukhdev also organised the Lahore Students’ Union for open, legal work among students. Bhagat and his comrades also realised that a revolution meant organisation and development of a mass movement of the exploited and the suppressed sections by the revolutionary intelligentsia.

Bhagat used to say, “...real revolutionary armies are in villages and factories.”

What then was the need for individual heroic action?

Firstly, effective acquisition of new ideology is a prolonged and historical process whereas the need of the time was a quick change in the way of thinking. Secondly, these young intellectuals faced the classic dilemma of how to mobilise people and recruit them. Here, they decided to opt for propaganda by deed, i.e., through individual heroic action and by using courts as a forum for revolutionary propaganda.