| Bhagat Singh being politicised: Kuldip Nayar |
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| Written by Tribune News Service, Chandigarh | |
| Saturday, 29 September 2007 | |
 The inaugural address set the tone for the seminar and the emphasis was on a socialist patriot instead of a revolutionary one. But “Bhagat Singh is being politicised and he hated all these things,” declared veteran journalist, MP and scholar Kuldip Nayar.This was at the opening lecture of a three-day seminar, ‘Bhagat Singh and His Times’ organised by the Institute of Punjab Studies, Chandigarh, and the Indian Council for Historical Research, New Delhi, at Panjab University today. Nayar, recalling those tumultuous days, said he was a child when Bhagat Singh was hanged, “But I remember the protest that resounded through the country and even in a little place like Sialkot where I used to live. The sympathetic outpouring even amazed London,” he stated. Nayar’s lecture, interestingly, did not just dwell on the historical aspects of the time. He went further and reinterpreted what we as a nation needs to take from Bhagat Singh’s life. “This was an inevitable phase of revolution but he did not favour terrorism. The revolutionary acts stemmed from defiance not of violence,” he stated. Bhagat Singh represented the common man. Together they struggled and suffered for the cause but what made him special was his tryst with martyrdom, explained Nayar. “Bhagat Singh did not agree with Gandhi’s views. It was the goal that mattered and if people recovered freedom by force, it justified the actions. Violence was a catharsis for the oppressed. However, armed struggle cannot establish an egalitarian society. Defy, do not surrender to what is wrong, mobilise people towards a welfare state but revolution is not bombs and noise,” he argued. According to him, Bhagat Singh wanted to create a society where there would be freedom from oppression and exploitation. “Everywhere that I have travelled in the country I have found statues of Bhagat Singh. Even in Kerala he is an inspiration for young people. He died because he wanted to make the cause for freedom stronger,” he said. Eminent historian Prof V.N. Datta’s keynote address, ‘Gandhi and Bhagat Singh’ while unravelling the controversy surrounding Gandhi’s role in the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh in its social, political and historical milieu, stressed on the need for “icy objectivity, reserve and caution” while analysing Bhagat Singh’s role in the national movement. He said not only should the ICHR compile all the works of this revolutionary, which should be analysed in greater detail but also that history should also be written by non-professionals to give a larger dimension that is curbed when one minutely starts to list sources. “Militant nationalism requires deeper understanding of a man in whom rational impulses also emanated,” he said. According to Prof Datta, Bhagat Singh was as much a victim of the British imperial rule as was the non-violent movement. “I have no reason to doubt that Gandhi admired his patriotism and sacrifice and would have loved many more Bhagat Singhs to live and die for the freedom of India. But this has to be viewed as constructive destruction and this is how the cycle of history moves on,” he concluded. While Dr G.S. Gosal, honorary chairperson of the Institute of Punjab Studies, summed up the inaugural addresses, the morning began with the director of the institute, Dr J.S. Grewal, introducing the seminar said of all the contemporary revolutionaries Bhagat Singh had probably the best grasp of the rationale and implications of a revolution as a means of social construction. He said while a lot of work had been done on Bhagat Singh, a theoretical possibility of a better understanding of Bhagat Singh was being created through new material and new interpretations. The present seminar is a part of this process. |
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