Bhagat Singh and the challenges of today

Bhagat Singh was sentenced to death on 23 March 1931 and after his martyrdom he joined the ranks of those best freedom fighters of our country who selflessly served the country and the people. He challenged the British imperialism. He was martyred at the age of just 23, but even at the time of his martyrdom he was representing that stream of the freedom movement which was fighting with the goal of transforming our country’s political freedom into economic freedom, which wanted that after independence all the citizens of the country should get the right to live a beautiful life irrespective of caste, language, religion and for this, the right to livelihood. Certainly this goal could not be achieved without eliminating the inequality between the rich and the poor and without reorganizing the society on an egalitarian basis. This is why he was attracted towards scientific socialism. He studied Marxism, welcomed the workers’ revolution in the Soviet Union and in the course of his detailed study, he transformed from a terrorist to a revolutionary and then to a communist. A few minutes before his hanging, he was reading ‘Lenin’s biography’ and in his own words, “one revolutionary was meeting another revolutionary.” It is worth mentioning that Lenin was the revolutionary who, by overthrowing the Tsar of Russia, established the rule of workers and peasants for the first time in the world, formed the Soviet Union and took steps towards the formation of an exploitation-free society on the basis of Marxist principles. This task was done by the Communist Party there under the leadership of Lenin. Therefore, the philosophy of scientific socialism is known all over the world by the name of Marxism-Leninism. It is clear that Bhagat Singh also wanted to drive away British imperialism from this country and establish an egalitarian society on the basis of Marxist-Leninist principles, where man cannot exploit man. On the basis of his scientific studies and revolutionary experiences, he had come to the conclusion that this work cannot be done by any bourgeois-capitalist party, but only and only the Communist Party can bring about such a transformation of society. Therefore, the formation of the Communist Party and its revolutionary mass organizations, massive mobilization of all sections of the common people around their burning demands and problems under the leadership of such a party and mass organizations and organizing revolutionary political actions is very important. No change should be expected without organizing widespread mass struggles and without changing the political consciousness of the society with the experiences gained from these struggles. Bhagat Singh has revealed these thoughts in detail in the letter ‘To the young political workers’.

Thus, Bhagat Singh emerges as the revolutionary-ideological representative of our country’s freedom movement, who did not limit our country’s freedom struggle to just freedom from British imperialism, but also linked it to the fight against class exploitation and the concept of freedom from capitalist-landlord power and capitalist-feudal ideas. Such freedom is possible for human society only when the communal forces and ideas dividing them on religious grounds are uprooted, casteism is completely eradicated, religion is completely limited to personal beliefs and economic justice is strictly linked with social justice. Such social justice — which moves towards the abolition of caste system and which eliminates gender inequality — can be achieved only by fighting against all the manifestations and symbols of feudal ideas on the strength of comprehensive land reforms. Indian society is multi-coloured, there are many religions, many languages, many cultures have been mingling in this culturally rich country for centuries. People’s clothing, food habits and behavior are also different. Therefore, Indian culture is a pluralistic culture. Our unity in diversity is that despite so many differences, our human problems, joys and sorrows, hopes and aspirations are the same. The unity and integrity of our country can be protected only when we learn to respect this diversity and defeat the attempts to eliminate its multi-colouredness and mold it into a single colour. Our collective existence and sovereignty are safe in this diversity. Bhagat Singh’s struggle was a struggle to protect this diversity for the unity of India. In the course of this struggle, he also sharply criticizes communal-casteist organizations and their leaders. Bhagat Singh also criticizes Gandhiji and the Congress in the same perspective that their policies can compromise with British imperialism and replace white exploiters with black exploiters, but cannot establish an egalitarian society.

Thus, Bhagat Singh connects the country’s freedom struggle with freedom from imperialism, freedom from communalism and casteism, freedom from class exploitation and the struggle to protect the unity and integrity of the country through secularism and diversity and criticizes the then leadership of the freedom struggle for showing weakness in this. Today we are seeing how accurate Bhagat Singh’s Marxist vision was. British imperialism is gone, but class exploitation continues unabated. We have achieved political freedom, but the work of wiping the tears of Gandhiji’s ‘last man’ is at a standstill, because this political freedom was not supposed to bring economic freedom with it. Without this economic freedom, the fight for social justice cannot move forward and various forms of social injustice have become dominant in our national life. In the absence of economic-social justice, the diversity of our country has also come under threat and communal-fascist ideology is flourishing, due to which the unity-integrity-sovereignty of the country is getting endangered. It is clear that the political freedom achieved under the leadership of Congress and Gandhiji did not solve the problems of our country and society. To solve this, we will have to connect with Bhagat Singh’s Marxist vision and intensify mass mobilization and struggles around alternative policies based on this vision and fight to overthrow the capitalist-feudal power.

Such a long comment on Bhagat Singh’s ideology is because today, when the history of the national movement is getting blurred and when other leaders of the freedom movement are disappearing from people’s memory, Bhagat Singh is still alive as a legend in the minds of the Indian masses and especially in the current young generation and they draw inspiration from his martyrdom. This is the reason why today in the country, an attempt is being made to present Bhagat Singh disconnected from his ideology. The depth of this conspiracy can be gauged from the fact that the people and the organizations and the parties who have no connection whatsoever with Bhagat Singh’s ideology are trying to usurp Bhagat Singh’s legacy. In this sequence, they present Bhagat Singh as the hero of the Sikh community, whereas Bhagat Singh represents the revolutionary movement of the entire country and in reality, he was an atheist. In this sequence, they present Bhagat Singh as a terrorist, whereas he had nothing to do with terrorism whatsoever. During his trial in the court, he clearly stated — “Bloody battles are not necessary for revolution and there is no place for personal revenge in it. It is not a cult of bombs and pistols. By revolution, we mean — radical change in the existing system based on injustice.” It is clear that Bhagat Singh’s revolutionary legacy has no connection with the “Maoist” extreme-left ideology, which is limited to killing innocent people in the name of armed revolution.

Those Hindu organisations, which had no contribution in the freedom movement and were actually engaged in flattering the British, are also trying to usurp Bhagat Singh’s revolutionary legacy. Such people try to put him on a par with Savarkar, whereas Bhagat Singh had unshakable faith in secularism and the main instruction of the Naujawan Bharat Sabha, which he had founded, was that no relations should be maintained with organisations or parties that spread communal ideas and such movements should be helped which are close to the ideals of Naujawan Sabha because they are free from communal feelings. Thus, he considered communalism to be the biggest enemy in establishing an exploitation-free society. If communal forces are praising Bhagat Singh today, it is only to weaken the struggle to establish an exploitation-free society by misleading the youth community.

Thus, Bhagat Singh’s ground and ideological struggle was not only against imperialism for the independence of the country, but also against communalism, casteism and inequality for freedom from class exploitation and establishment of socialism and against terrorism to protect the unity-integrity-sovereignty of the country. This thinking of Bhagat Singh for the golden future of the country distinguishes him from his contemporary freedom struggle leaders and places him at an excellent level. The ideological ground he prepared for the establishment of an exploitation-free society and the struggle he did for it are the reason why Bhagat Singh is still alive in the minds of the Hindustani, Indian-Pakistani people.

Bhagat Singh attained martyrdom at the age of 23, but it was his ideological prowess for establishing an exploitation-free society that after being released from British jails, most of his colleagues joined the communist movement. Shiv Verma, Kishorilal, Ajay Ghosh, Vijay Kumar Sinha and Jaidev Kapoor were among them. Ajay Ghosh even became the general secretary of the United CPI during 1951-62. Shiv Verma became a prominent leader of the Marxist Communist Party. He has written excellent memoirs about Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru etc. along with their human weaknesses and virtues. This fight of Bhagat Singh and his comrades is still being carried forward by the progressive, democratic and leftist forces of the country. They are the true carriers of Bhagat Singh’s revolutionary legacy today.

Bhagat Singh gave three main slogans — Long live the revolution! Long live the working class!! And down with imperialism!!! These slogans are still the main slogans of the revolutionary movement of the country and the slogan ‘Long live the revolution’ has become a popular slogan. These three slogans are the essence of his struggles. In his case, he told the court:
Despite being an important part of the society, the labourers are being deprived of their basic rights and their hard earned money is snatched by the capitalists. The farmer, who provides food to others, is now struggling for food for his family. The weaver who provides cloth to the markets of the world is not able to find cloth to cover his body and that of his children. The masons, blacksmiths and carpenters who build beautiful palaces end their lives by living in dirty huts. On the contrary, the exploitative capitalists who are like leeches in the society, squander millions of rupees for petty things.
This terrible inequality and forced discrimination is taking the world towards a great upheaval. This situation cannot continue for long. It is clear that today’s rich class is celebrating sitting on the mouth of a terrible volcano.
If this palace of civilization is not taken care of in time, it will soon crumble. The country needs a radical change and those who realize this, it is their duty to rebuild the society on communist principles.
Revolution is the birthright of mankind, which cannot be snatched away. Freedom is the birthright of every human being. The working class is the real nurturer of society, the establishment of the supreme power of the people is the ultimate goal of the working class.
Whatever punishment we are given for these ideals and beliefs, we will gladly welcome it. We have offered our youth as an offering on this altar of revolution, because even the biggest sacrifice is not enough for such a great ideal.”

It is clear from this statement of Bhagat Singh that today the living conditions for the common people and the hardworking workers and farmers have become even more unfavourable, because the place of imperialist exploiters has been taken by capitalist-feudal exploiters. These black exploiters are rapidly implementing the policies of imperialist liberalisation to fill their coffers and are opening the market of our country for their loot. The inequality between the rich and the poor, the struggle between the exploiter and the exploited has increased hundreds of times in the 94 years after Bhagat Singh, hence the need for socialist revolution and the need to establish an exploitation-free society based on the principle of equality has become more relevant than before. But this reorganisation of society is not possible without the unity of workers-farmers and all the oppressed-downtrodden sections of the society and without organising widespread mass struggles on the basis of this. Only the Marxist-Leninist viewpoint based on scientific socialism will become the weapon to develop this unity and struggle. But organizing the resources required for such radical changes in the system is not an easy task and demands huge sacrifices from political activists. This path is full of thorns, which includes torture, oppression, suppression and jail. But the path of revolution moves forward only through this path.

Why is this so? Because the imperialism that was alive in the form of colonialism during Bhagat Singh’s time is flourishing today in the form of globalization. During Bhagat Singh’s time, the forces of socialism were progressing globally, but after the fall of the Soviet Union, it has weakened today. The nationalist values ​​of the freedom movement had weakened the walls of caste discrimination and forced the communal forces to retreat, but after independence, the ruling capitalist-feudal class compromised with the same forces, as a result of which caste-based oppression and casteist ideas got a chance to flourish again in the society and the forces carrying communal-fascist ideas are directly in power at the Centre. Due to the weakening of the forces of socialism globally and the reduction in the parliamentary strength of the left in this country, the corporate media got a chance to propagate the immortality of capitalism. Thus, in today’s time, the relevance of Bhagat Singh’s thoughts and socialist revolution has increased, but the difficulties in implementing this path have increased many fold.

The policies of globalization-liberalization that have been implemented in our country since the 1990s have had adverse effects on all areas of society and economy. These adverse effects are such that they become the reason for each other’s flourishing and our socio-economic life is surrounded by crises from all sides. There is no easy way to overcome or get out of this. The solution presented by the ruling parties of our country, especially the Congress and the BJP, to overcome these crises creates another new crisis. In reality, their policies are not to solve the crisis, but to put the country in crisis.

Our country is an agricultural country and any idea of ​​development of this country cannot be made without considering agriculture. If agriculture and farmers are to be developed in this country, then landless and poor farmers will have to be given land for farming and housing. Today, three-fourth of the land in the country is owned by only one-third of the rich farmers. After independence, land reform laws were made, but they were not implemented. Therefore, there is no shortage of land to give to the poor. Similarly, about two crore tribal families have possession of forest land. Tribal forest rights law was made, but it was also not implemented properly and even today they are being evicted from the forests. Along with giving land to these poor, they should be given facilities for farming such as bank loan at cheap rates, seeds, fertilizers, medicines, electricity, water. After the farming season, they should get work in the village itself in MNREGA. For this, the government will have to invest in rural development works. The government should make arrangements to buy the entire crop of the farmers at profitable prices. This grain should be distributed to all the citizens of the country at cheap prices under the public distribution system, so that poor people can be saved from the shocks of market fluctuations and black marketing and inflation.

These measures will boost agricultural production and also ensure its distribution. This will increase the income of the rural population and their purchasing power in the market. This will increase the demand for industrial goods, new factories will open and the unemployed will get jobs. The economy will gain further momentum as the urban unemployed will get jobs and their purchasing power will increase again. This is the simple formula for the development of the Indian economy.

But after independence and especially in this era of globalization-liberalization, the opposite is happening. Farmers were not given land and those who have some land, it is being snatched away for the capitalists by changing the law or by hatching conspiracies. Tribals, Dalits and the economically deprived are suffering the most. Subsidies on agricultural inputs are being abolished, due to which the cost price of the crop is increasing. The government is neither ready to give a profitable minimum support price nor to buy its grain. They have no choice but to get looted in the market. They are being deprived of rural employment by making the MNREGA law ineffective. All the poor and needy are gradually being excluded from the system of cheap ration and they are being forced to buy food grains at high prices in the market. Due to this, the purchasing power of the rural people is falling drastically, they are getting trapped in the web of debt, leaving farming and are being forced to migrate or commit suicide. When the purchasing power of 75 percent of the population will be weak, the demand will also decrease. Due to the decrease in demand, factories will be closed and those who have jobs will also be pushed into the quagmire of unemployment. This will put the entire country’s economy in recession. And this is exactly what is happening. Agriculture is also getting ruined and factories are also not surviving.

Who is responsible for this recession and crisis? Certainly, the capitalist parties that have ruled this country since independence and the Congress and BJP, which ruled for a long time, are also included in this. It is under their rule that an agreement has been made with the World Trade Organization that foreigners can sell whatever they want in our country’s market, as much as they want, and the grains here are being given heavy subsidy to the crocodiles. That is why no one is ready to buy the grains of the farmers of this country. Under their rule, government factories are being closed when the demand decreases, so that the factories of the capitalists keep running and they keep earning huge profits. They take advantage of the increase in unemployment by reducing wages further, to earn more profits. For this reason, they deliberately do not give work to local laborers, but bring laborers from outside and get the work done through contractors. These capitalists form a nexus with foreign capitalists and invest in the market through them, which is called Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). They are investing in retail trade and the livelihood of 4 crore retail traders, including street vendors, street vendors and small shopkeepers, is in danger. The power of foreign money is bent on destroying all of them. They are trying to usurp the country’s insurance sector, banks, railways, defense sector — all the important sectors of the economy. The public may be ruined, but their profits should keep increasing, this is the policy of these governments.

There is another dimension to this crisis. In the name of building factories, they are snatching not only the land of farmers but also the natural resources of this country. They demand coal mines to build power, cement or steel factories. They destroy forests to dig coal and drive away the tribals living there. On the basis of ownership of coal mines, they earn huge profits by increasing the share prices of their companies. Whether electricity, cement, steel etc. are produced or not, they earn profits by digging coal. If the factory starts, they occupy rivers to run it and deprive the society of even the use of river water. And to earn more profits, they dump all the industrial waste in the rivers, ruining the environment and bio-ecology. To run this factory, they take loans from banks, where our own money is deposited. That is, nothing goes out of the pockets of these capitalists, they play the game of destroying us with our own money and earn profit, profit … and profit only. Despite all this, they do not even pay the legal tax on this profit and the Congress-BJP governments announce every year that they will stop collecting taxes worth 6 lakh crore rupees. These governments do not have funds for social welfare works for the common man, but they have a full budget to loot the capitalists. To further accelerate this loot, they are abolishing, distorting or weakening all the laws made in the interest of the common man. These include all the labor laws, land acquisition and rehabilitation laws, MNREGA laws, tribal forest rights law, PESA law etc. The policy of usurping natural resources has the patronage of this government, which has given rise to scams worth lakhs and crores of rupees.

The history of human civilization is the history of struggle against exploitation and when the society is deprived of its natural rights on such a large scale, its legal rights are snatched away and a conspiracy is hatched to destroy its future generations by depriving them of the accumulated wealth, then definitely mass struggles will also develop. Capitalist powers also conspire to crush these mass struggles. The law and its interpretation work in the interests of the exploiters. But when this also does not work, then an attempt is made to divide the people on religious-caste basis. Communal and caste riots are instigated, a wall of hatred is erected to incite one poor against another poor. The policy of “divide and rule” which was in place during the time of Bhagat Singh, the same policy is being followed even today. Communal and religious fundamentalist forces are playing their open game. Caste oppression of upper castes on lower castes continues. “Kamal (lotus) is being made to bloom in the kamandal” to crush the fight for social justice.

That is why the fight against imperialism, communalism, casteism and social injustice, against economic inequality — and against the capitalist-landlord power responsible for all this — has become more relevant. The diseases that are visible in society today can be cured only by following the path shown by Bhagat Singh. And that path is the path of radical transformation of society based on the concepts of Marxism-Leninism and the basic principles of scientific socialism. Only the leftist forces and mass organizations of this country are walking on this path, which have been struggling for the establishment of a classless, exploitation-free society since their inception till today. They are trying to take political freedom forward in the direction of economic freedom and social justice.

But this struggle is not easy. It demands huge sacrifices, patience and renunciation of ego. In the inspiring words of Bhagat Singh himself – “If you start working in this direction, you will have to be very restrained. Revolution neither requires being carried away by emotions nor death. It requires a life full of continuous struggle, pain and sacrifices. First of all, destroy your ‘ego’. Give up the dream of personal comforts! After this, start working. You will have to move forward inch by inch. For this, courage, determination and very strong willpower are needed. No difficulty, no obstacle should be able to discourage you. No failure and betrayal should be able to disappoint you. The oppression inflicted on you should not be able to destroy your revolutionary passion. You should emerge victorious amidst the pain of suffering and sacrifices. And these individual victories should become the valuable assets of the revolution.”

To fight the present unjust regime and change the society, there is a need to develop such political workers on Bhagat Singh’s call and an understanding of the philosophy of scientific socialism. The struggle for socialism can be taken forward only by combining Bhagat Singh’s theoretical understanding and Ambedkar’s ground struggle. For this, the slogan of Jai Bhim needs to be changed to the slogan of Inquilab Zindabad by linking it with Lal Salaam. Come, let us all unite to establish an exploitation-free society.

(Sanjay Parate is the vice president of Chhattisgarh Kisan Sabha)