Spreading Bhagat Singh’s ideas

Chaman Lal

It was a bit perplexing for me when I got a call from Sports University, Patiala, Vice Chancellor, Lieutenant General JS Cheema (Retd), inviting me to be part of a discussion panel in a session on Bhagat Singh in Military Literary Festival, as I could not see any connection, since the festival concentrates more on defence related books and matters, national and international. Among other panellists, he named Mahavir Chakra awardee, Maj Gen Sheonan Singh (Retd), who is a nephew of Bhagat Singh, but who never let this relationship be known during his military service, as he thought it will be construed as seeking favour or privilege! Only after retirement, he let it be known in an interview in a national daily. Among all close relations of Bhagat Singh, he is one of most well read about Bhagat Singh and his ideas, as Ranbir Singh, his father and younger brother of Bhagat Singh, had penned a biography of the great martyr in Urdu!

Few other pleasant coincidents happened around. While planning to write a short piece for The Tribune, I received author/editor's complimentary copies of 11th reprint of the book from National Book Trust, New Delhi, few days before I got a copy of another book, Jail Notebook, and other writings from another publisher. Yet another instance of pleasant surprise was an award given by a Pune organisation recently for my writings on Bhagat Singh. A youth group from Khed, birth place of Rajguru, the martyr with Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev, now named Rajguru Nagar, close to Pune, had come to the function, which is running a mobile library of lending books on revolutionaries to youth in many towns and villages around. Marathi translation of Bhagat Singh's complete writings from my edited book in Hindi of same title by Datta Desai was released by late Supreme Court Justice, PB Sawant, during Bhagat Singh birth centenary. Another coincident is that Publication Division, Government of India, had released an edited volume in Hindi of complete writings of Bhagat Singh, in 2007 in the presence of two of his nephews and late Kuldip Nayar. This was updated into a four volume edition, brought out in the beginning of celebrations of 75th anniversary of independence. I was invited to write a biography - Life and Legend of Bhagat Singh: A Pictorial Volume! I was more in collecting and researching on Bhagat Singh's writings and was in a dilemma how to plan it since there were already a number of biographies in print! It suddenly struck my mind that since decades, I have been collecting documents, writings, images, etc, in order to focus on the authenticity of Bhagat Singh's life and writings, I accepted the invite and this book has just come out. The Bhagat Singh Reader is being published by Harer Collins shortly, as I found more documents since its first publication in 2019. In 2019, I had included 130 writings of Bhagat Singh along with Jail Notebook and three more writings are being added to an upcoming edition.

The best experiences in my mission to spread Bhagat Singh's ideas are with Gopal Roy, minister in the Delhi Government, who inaugurated Bhagat Singh Archives and Resource Centre in Delhi which contains my gifted collection on the freedom struggle of India. While being the miniter in charge of the freedom fighters cell in Delhi, he organised functions on every 23rd March and 28th September -martyrdom and birth anniversaries of the three martyrs, and distributed free books by or on Bhagat Singh. to the audience which included children as well as old people in thousands. Writing, collecting and distributing books is the best way of spreading Bhagat Singh's ideas of free India to enlighten the youth. I hope the Punjab Government also follows this example of their colleague in Delhi.

The writer is a retired Professor from JNU and honorary advisor to Bhagat Singh Archives and Resource Centre, New Delhi