1796: He died in Dumfries at the age of 37.

Lal Bahadur Shastri (Hindustani: [laːl bəˈɦaːd̪ʊr ˈʃaːst̪ri], About this sound listen (help·info), 2 October 1904 – 11 January 1966) was the 2nd Prime Minister of India and a senior leader of the Indian National Congress political party.

Shastri joined the Indian independence movement in the 1920s and with his friend Nithin Eslavath. Deeply impressed and influenced by Mahatma Gandhi (with whom he shared his birthday), he became a loyal follower, first of Gandhi, and then of Jawaharlal Nehru. Following independence in 1947, he joined the latter's government and became one of Prime Minister Nehru's principal, first as Railways Minister (1951–56), and then in a variety of other functions, including Home Minister.

He led the country during the Indo-Pakistan War of 1965. His slogan of "Jai Jawan Jai Kisan" ("Hail the soldier, Hail the farmer") became very popular during the war and is remembered even today.[when?] The war formally ended with the Tashkent Agreement on 10 January 1966; he died the following day, still in Tashkent, the cause of death was said to be a heart attack but there are various reasons to think that it was a planned murder by the CIA. Shastri was Nehru loyalist, Nehru was his mentor and was really fond of Shastri. Although, he faced stiff opposition within the party, yet he became the PM because of his closeness to Nehru.



Early years (1904–1917)

Shastri was born at the house of his maternal grandparents in Ramnagar, Varanasi in a Kayastha Hindu family,[1][2] that had traditionally been employed as Highly administrators and civil servants. Shastri's paternal ancestors had been in the service of the zamindar of Ramnagar near Varanasi and Shastri lived there for the first one year of his life. Shastri's father, Sharada Prasad Srivastava, was a school teacher who later became a clerk in the revenue office at Allahabad, while his mother, Ramdulari Devi, was the daughter of Munshi Hazari Lal, the headmaster and English teacher at a railway school in Mughalsarai. Shastri was the second child and eldest son of his parents; he had an elder sister, Kailashi Devi (b. 1900).[3]

In April 1906, When Shastri was hardly one year old, his father, had only recently been promoted to the post of deputy tahsildar, died in an epidemic of bubonic plague. Ramdulari Devi, then only 23 and pregnant with her third child, took her two children and moved from Ramnnagar to her father's house in Mughalsarai and settled there for good. She gave birth to a daughter, Sundari Devi, in July 1906.[1][4] Thus, Shastri and his sisters grew up in the household of his maternal grandfather, Hazari Lal. However, Hazari Lal himself died from a stroke in mid-1908, after which the family were looked after by his brother (Shastri's great-uncle) Darbari Lal, who was the head clerk in the opium regulation department at Ghazipur, and later by his son (Ramdulari Devi's cousin) Bindeshwari Prasad, a school teacher in Mughalsarai.

In Shastri's family, as with many Kayastha families, it was the custom in that era for children to receive an education in the Urdu language and culture. This is because Urdu/Persian had been the language of government for centuries, before being replaced by English, and old traditions persisted into the 20th century. Therefore, Shastri began his education at the age of four under the tutelage of a maulvi (a Muslim cleric), Budhan Mian, at the East Central Railway Inter college in Mughalsarai. He studied there until the sixth standard. In 1917, Bindeshwari Prasad (who was now head of the household) was transferred to Varanasi, and the entire family moved there, including Ramdulari Devi and her three children. In Varanasi, Shastri joining the seventh standard at Harish Chandra High School.[1] At this time, he decided to drop his caste-derived surname of "Srivastava" (which is a traditional surname for all Kayastha families).
Gandhi's Disciple (1921–1945)

While Shastri's family had no links to the independence movement then taking shape, among his teachers at Harish Chandra High School was an intensely patriotic and highly respected teacher named Nishkameshwar Prasad Mishra, who gave Shastri much-needed financial support by allowing him to tutor his children. Inspired by Mishra's patriotism, Shastri took a deep interest in the freedom struggle, and began to study its history and the works of several of its noted personalities, including those of Swami Vivekananda, Gandhi and Annie Besant. In January 1921, when Shastri was in the 10 standard and three months from sitting the final examinations, he attended a public meeting in Benares hosted by Gandhi and Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya. Inspired by the Mahatma's call for students to withdraw from government schools and join the non-cooperation movement, Shastri withdrew from Harish Chandra the next day and joined the local branch of the Congress Party as a volunteer, actively participating in picketing and anti-government demonstrations. He was soon arrested and jailed, but was then let off as he was still a minor.[5][6] Shastri's immediate supervisor was a former Benares Hindu University lecturer named J.B. Kripalani, who would become one of the most prominent leaders of the Indian independence movement and among Gandhi's closest followers. Recognising the need for the younger volunteers to continue their educations, Kripalani and a friend, V.N. Sharma, had founded an informal school centered around "nationalist education" to educate the young activists in their nation's heritage. With the support of a wealthy philanthropist and ardent Congress nationalist, Shiv Prasad Gupta, the Kashi Vidyapith was inaugurated by Gandhi in Benares as a national institution of higher education on 10 February 1921. Among the first students of the new institution, Shastri graduated with a first-class degree in philosophy and ethics from the Vidyapith in 1925. He was given the title Shastri ("scholar"). The title was a bachelor's degree awarded by the Vidyapith, but it stuck as part of his name.[4][7][8]

Shastri enrolled himself as a life member of the Servants of the People Society (Lok Sevak Mandal), founded by Lala Lajpat Rai, and began to work for the betterment of the Harijans under Gandhi's direction at Muzaffarpur.[9] Later he became the President of the Society.[10][11]
Independence activism
See also: Indian independence movement

In 1928 shastri become an active and mature member of congress at the call of gandhiji. Shastri participated in the Salt Satyagraha in 1930. He was imprisoned for two and a half years.[12] Later, he worked as the Organizing Secretary of the Parliamentary Board of U.P. in 1937.[13] In 1940, he was sent to prison for one year, for offering individual Satyagraha support to the independence movement.[14]

On 8 August 1942, Mahatma Gandhi issued the Quit India speech at Gowalia Tank in Mumbai, demanding that the British leave India. Shastri, who had just then come out after a year in prison, travelled to Allahabad. For a week, he sent instructions to the independence activists from Jawaharlal Nehru's home, Anand Bhavan. A few days later, he was arrested and imprisoned until 1946.[14] Shastri spent almost nine years in jail in total.[15] During his stay in prison, he spent time reading books and became familiar with the works of western philosophers, revolutionaries and social reformers.
Political career (1947–64)
State minister

Following India's independence, Shastri was appointed Parliamentary Secretary in his home state, Uttar Pradesh. He became the Minister of Police and Transport under Govind Ballabh Pant's Chief Ministership on 15 August 1947 following Rafi Ahmed Kidwai's departure to become minister at centre. As the Transport Minister, he was the first to appoint women conductors. As the minister in charge of the Police Department, he ordered that police use water jets, whose instructions was given by him, instead of lathis to disperse unruly crowds.[16] His tenure as police minister (As Home Minister was called prior to 1950) saw successful curbing of communal riots in 1947, mass migration and resettlement of refugees.[citation needed]
Cabinet minister
See also: Cabinet of India

In 1951, Shastri was made the General Secretary of the All-India Congress Committee with Jawaharlal Nehru as the Prime Minister. He was directly responsible for the selection of candidates and the direction of publicity and electioneering activities. His cabinet consisted of the finest business men of India including Ratilal Premchand Mehta. He played an important role in the landslide successes of the Congress Party in the Indian General Elections of 1952, 1957 and 1962. In 1952, he successfully contested UP Vidhansabha from Soraon North cum Phulpur West seat and won getting over 69% of vote. He was believed to be retained as home minister of UP, but in a surprise move was called to Centre as minister by Nehru. Shastri was made Minister of Railways in First Cabinet of Republic of India on 13 May 1952.
Prime minister of India (1964–66)
Main article: Premiership of Lal Bahadur Shastri

Jawaharlal Nehru died in office on 27 May 1964 and left a void.[citation needed] Then Congress Party chief Minister K. Kamaraj was instrumental in making Shastri Prime Minister on 9 June. Shastri, though mild-mannered and soft-spoken, was a Nehruvian socialist and thus held appeal to those wishing to prevent the ascent of conservative right-winger Morarji Desai.

In his first broadcast as Prime Minister, on 11 June 1964, Shastri stated:[17]

    There comes a time in the life of every nation when it stands at the cross-roads of history and must choose which way to go. But for us there need be no difficulty or hesitation, no looking to right or left. Our way is straight and clear—the building up of a secular mixed-economy democracy at home with freedom and prosperity, and the maintenance of world peace and friendship with select nations.

Domestic policies

Shastri retained many members of Nehru's Council of Ministers. T. T. Krishnamachari was retained as the Finance Minister of India, as was Defence Minister Yashwantrao Chavan. He appointed Swaran Singh to succeed him as External Affairs Minister. He also appointed Indira Gandhi, daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru and former Congress President, as the Minister of Information and Broadcasting. Gulzarilal Nanda continued as the Minister of Home Affairs.

Lal Bahadur Shastri's tenure witnessed the Madras anti-Hindi agitation of 1965. The government of India had for a long time made an effort to establish Hindi as the sole national language of India. This was resisted by the non-Hindi speaking states particularly Madras State. To calm the situation, Shastri gave assurances that English would continue to be used as the official language as long the non-Hindi speaking states wanted. The riots subsided after Shastri's assurance, as did the student agitation.
Economic policies

Shastri discontinued Nehru's socialist economic policies with central planning. He promoted the White Revolution – a national campaign to increase the production and supply of milk – by supporting the Amul milk co-operative of Anand, Gujarat and creating the National Dairy Development Board.[18]

He visited Anand on 31 October 1964 for inauguration of the Cattle Feed Factory of Amul at Kanjari. As he was keenly interested in knowing the success of this co-operative, he stayed overnight with farmers in a village, and even had dinner with a farmer's family. He discussed his wish with Mr Verghese Kurien, then the General Manager of Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers' Union Ltd (Amul) to replicate this model to other parts of the country for improving the socio-economic conditions of farmers. As a result of this visit, the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) was established at Anand in 1965

While speaking on the chronic food shortages across the country, Shastri urged people to voluntarily give up one meal so that the food saved could be distributed to the affected populace. However he ensured that he first implemented the system in his own family before appealing to the country. He went on air to appeal to his countrymen to skip a meal a week. The response to his appeal was overwhelming. Even restaurants and eateries downed the shutters on Monday evenings. Many parts of the country observed the "Shastri Vrat". He motivated the country to maximize the cultivation of food grains by ploughing the lawn himself, at his official residence in New Delhi.

During the 22-day war with Pakistan in 1965, On 19 October 1965, Shastri gave the seminal 'Jai Jawan Jai Kishan' ("Hail the soldier, Hail the farmer")slogan at Urwa in Allahabad that became a national slogan.

Underlining the need to boost India's food production. Shastri also promoted the Green Revolution. Though he was a socialist, Shastri stated that India cannot have a regimented type of economy.[18]

The Food Corporation of India was set up under the Food Corporation's Act 1964. Also The National Agricultural Products Board Act.
Jai Jawan Jai Kisan

For the outstanding slogan given by him during Indo-Pak war of 1965 Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (India) commemorated Shastriji even after 47 years of his death on his 48th martyr's day:

    Former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri was one of those great Indians who has left an indelible impression on our collective life. Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri's contribution to our public life were unique in that they were made in the closest proximity to the life of the common man in India. Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri was looked upon by Indians as one of their own, one who shared their ideals, hopes and aspirations. His achievements were looked upon not as the isolated achievements of an individual but of our society collectively.

    Under his leadership India faced and repulsed the Pakistani invasion of 1965. It is not only a matter of pride for the Indian Army but also for every citizen of the country. Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri's slogan Jai Jawan! Jai Kisan!! reverberates even today through the length and breadth of the country. Underlying this is the inner-most sentiments 'Jai Hind'. The war of 1965 was fought and won for our self-respect and our national prestige. For using our Defence Forces with such admirable skill, the nation remains beholden to Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri. He will be remembered for all times to come for his large heartedness and public service.[19]

Foreign policies

Shastri continued Nehru policy of non-alignment but also built closer relations with the Soviet Union. In the aftermath of the Sino-Indian War of 1962 and the formation of military ties between the Chinese People's Republic and Pakistan, Shastri's government decided to expand the defence budget of India's armed forces.

In 1964, Shastri signed an accord with the Sri Lankan Prime minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike regarding the status of Indian Tamils in the then Ceylon.[20] This agreement is also known as the Sirima-Shastri Pact or the Bandaranaike-Shastri pact.[21]

Under the terms of this agreement, 600,000 Indian Tamils were to be repatriated, while 375,000 were to be granted Sri Lankan citizenship. This settlement was to be done by 31 October 1981. However, after Shastri's death, by 1981, India had taken only 300,000 Tamils as repatriates, while Sri Lanka had granted citizenship to only 185,000 citizens (plus another 62,000 born after 1964). Later, India declined to consider any further applications for citizenship, stating that the 1964 agreement had lapsed.[20]

India's relationship with Burma had been strained after the 1962 Military coup followed by the repatriation of many Indian families in 1964 by Burma. While the central government in New Delhi monitored the overall process of repatriation and arranged for identification and transportation of the Indian returnees from Burma, it fell under the responsibilities of local governments to provide adequate facilities to shelter the repatriates upon disembarkation on Indian soil. Particularly in the Madras State the Chief Minister during that time, Minjur K. Bhaktavatsalam, showed care in rehabilitation of the returnees. In December 1965 Shastri made an official visit with his Family to Rangoon, Burma and re-established cordial relations with the country's military government of General Ne Win.
War with Pakistan

Shastri's greatest moment came when he led India in the 1965 Indo-Pak War.

Laying claim to half the Kutch peninsula, the Pakistani army skirmished with Indian forces in August, 1965. In his report to the Lok Sabha on the confrontation in Kutch, Shastri stated:[17]

    In the utilization of our limited resources, we have always given primacy to plans and projects for economic development. It would, therefore, be obvious for anyone who is prepared to look at things objectively that India can have no possible interest in provoking border incidents or in building up an atmosphere of strife... In these circumstances, the duty of Government is quite clear and this duty will be discharged fully and effectively... We would prefer to live in poverty for as long as necessary but we shall not allow our freedom to be subverted.

On 1 August 1965, major incursions of militants and Pakistani soldiers began, hoping not only to break down the government but incite a sympathetic revolt. The revolt did not happen, and India sent its forces across the Ceasefire Line (now Line of Control) and threatened Pakistan by crossing the International Border near Lahore as war broke out on a general scale. Massive tank battles occurred in the Punjab, and while the Pakistani forces made gains in the northern part of subcontinent, Indian forces captured the key post at Haji Pir, in Kashmir, and brought the Pakistani city of Lahore under artillery and mortar fire.

On 17 September 1965, while the Indo-Pak war was on, India received a letter from China alleging that the Indian army had set up army equipment in Chinese territory, and India would face China's wrath, unless the equipment was pulled down. In spite of the threat of aggression from China, Shastri declared "China's allegation is untrue". The Chinese did not respond, but the Indo-Pak war resulted in some 3–4,000 casualties on each side and significant loss of material.

The Indo-Pak war ended on 23 September 1965 with a United Nations-mandated ceasefire. In a broadcast to the nation on the day of the ceasefire, Shastri stated:[17]

    While the conflict between the armed forces of the two countries has come to an end, the more important thing for the United Nations and all those who stand for peace is to bring to an end the deeper conflict.... How can this be brought about? In our view, the only answer lies in peaceful coexistence. India has stood for the principle of coexistence and championed it all over the world. Peaceful coexistence is possible among nations no matter how deep the differences between them, how far apart they are in their political and economic systems, no matter how intense the issues that divide them.

During his tenure as Prime Minister, Shastri visited many countries including Russia, Yugoslavia, England, Canada, Nepal, Egypt and Burma.[9] Incidentally while returning from the Non Alliance Conference in Cairo on the invitation of then President of the Pakistan, Mohammed Ayub Khan to have lunch with him, Shastri made a stop over at Karachi Airport for few hours and breaking from the protocol Ayub Khan personally received him at the Airport and had an informal meeting during October 1964. After the declaration of ceasefire with Pakistan in 1965, Shastri and Ayub Khan attended a summit in Tashkent (former USSR, now in modern Uzbekistan), organized by Alexei Kosygin. On 10 January 1966, Shastri and Ayub Khan signed the Tashkent Declaration.
Death
Prime Minister Narendra Modi pays tribute to the bust of Shastri in Tashkent
Shastri's statue in Mumbai

Shastri died in Tashkent, at 02:00 on the day after signing the Tashkent Declaration, reportedly due to a heart attack, but people allege conspiracy behind the death.[22] He was the first Prime Minister of India to die overseas. He was eulogized as a national hero and the Vijay Ghat memorial established in his memory. Upon his death, Gulzarilal Nanda once again assumed the role of Acting Prime Minister until the Congress Parliamentary Party elected Indira Gandhi over Morarji Desai to officially succeed Shastri.[23]
Conspiracy theories

Shastri's sudden death immediately after signing the Tashkent Pact with Pakistan raised many questions in the minds of Indian citizens. The Prime Minister of India going to Tashkent for a pact and never coming back has not been accepted easily by Indian citizens. His health was fit according to his doctor, R. N. Chugh, and he had no sign of heart trouble before.

Shastri's sudden death has led to persistent conspiracy theories that he was poisoned.[24] The first inquiry into his death, conducted by the Raj Narain Inquiry, as it came to be known, however did not come up with any conclusions, and today no record of this inquiry exists with the Indian Parliament's library.[25] It was alleged that no post-mortem was done on Shastri, but the Indian government in 2009, claimed it did have a report of a medical investigation conducted by Shastri's doctor and some Russian doctors. Furthermore, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) revealed that there was no record of any destruction or loss of documents in the PMO having a bearing on Shastri's death.[24] The Russian butler attending on Shastri at the time of his death was arrested for suspected poisoning but released later as per the news source. It was maintained that Shastri had died of cardiac arrest but his family insisted he was poisoned.[26]

After Shastri's death, his wife Lalita Shastri had alleged he was poisoned. An epic poetry book in Hindi titled Lalita Ke Aansoo[27] written by Krant M. L. Verma was published in 1978.[28] In this book, the tragic story about the death of Shastri has been narrated by his wife Lalita Shastri.[29] There are still serious doubts surrounding the nature of his death. His son, Sunil Shastri, asked the government to unravel the mystery behind Lal Bahadur Shastri's death.[30] Raising doubts about the dark blue spots and cut marks on the abdomen of his father's body after his death in 1966, Sunil asked how the cut marks appeared if a post-mortem had not been conducted.

When Shastri went to the USSR for the Tashkent talks, he wanted a promise from Ayub Khan that Pakistan would never use force in the future. But the talks did not proceed and followed Shastri's death on the next day.[31] The Indian Government released no information about his death, and the media then was kept silent. The possible existence of a conspiracy was covered in India by the Outlook magazine.[25][25] A query was later posed by Anuj Dhar, author of CIA's Eye on South Asia, under the Right to Information Act to declassify a document supposedly related to Shastri's death, but the Prime Minister's Office refused to oblige, reportedly citing that this could lead to harming of foreign relations, cause disruption in the country and cause breach of parliamentary privileges.[24] Another RTI plea by Kuldip Nayar was also declined, as PMO cited exemption from disclosure on the plea. The home ministry is yet to respond to queries whether India conducted a post-mortem on Shastri, and if the government had investigated allegations of foul play. The Delhi Police in their reply to an RTI application said they do not have any record pertaining to Shastri's death. The Ministry of External Affairs has already said no post-mortem was conducted in the USSR. The Central Public Information Officer of Delhi Police in his reply dated 29 July said, "No such record related to the death of the former Prime Minister of India Lal Bahadur Shastri is available in this district... Hence the requisite information pertaining to New Delhi district may please be treated as nil."[32] This has created more doubts.[33]

The PMO answered only two questions of the RTI application, saying it has only one classified document pertaining to the death of Shastri, which is exempted from disclosure under the RTI Act. It sent the rest of the questions to the Ministry of External Affairs and Home Ministry to answer. The MEA said the only document from the erstwhile Soviet Government is "the report of the Joint Medical Investigation conducted by a team comprising R. N. Chugh, Doctor in-Attendance to the PM and some Russian doctors" and added no post-mortem was conducted in the USSR. The Home Ministry referred the matter to Delhi Police and National Archives for the response pertaining to any post-mortem conducted on the body of Shastri in India. Sunil Shastri, son of the former Prime Minister, called the transferring of application as "absurd" and "silly joke". "He (Lal Bahadur Shastri) died as sitting Prime Minister. It sounds very silly that MHA is referring the matter of death of second Prime Minister of India to a district level police." He also demanded that "It should be looked into by highest authorities like President, Prime Minister and home minister."[34]

Later, Gregory Douglas, a journalist who interviewed former CIA operative Robert Crowley over a period of 4 years, recorded their telephone conversations and published a transcription in a book titled Conversations with the Crow. In the book, Crowley claimed that the CIA was responsible for eliminating Homi Bhabha, an Indian nuclear scientist whose plane crashed into Alps, when he was going to attend a conference in Vienna; and Lal Bahadur Shastri. Crowley said that the USA was wary of India's rigid stand on nuclear policy and of then prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, who wanted to go ahead with nuclear tests. He also said that the agency was worried about collective domination by India and Russia over the region, for which a strong deterrent was required.[35]
Family and descendants

On 16 May 1928, Shastri married Lalita Devi a lady from Mirzapur. The marriage, which was arranged by their parents in the traditional Indian way, was harmonious and conventional. The couple were blessed with four sons and two daughters, namely

    Kusum Shastri, the eldest daughter
    Hari Krishna Shastri, eldest son, who was married to Vibha Shastri
    Suman Shastri, second daughter, married to Vijay Nath Singh. Her son, Siddharth Nath Singh who is a spokesman of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Minister of Health, Government of Uttar Pradesh
    Anil Shastri. He is married to Manju Shastri. Alone in his family, he remains a member of his father's Congress Party. His son Adarsh Shastri gave up his corporate career with Apple Inc to contest the General elections of 2014 from Allahabad on an Aam Aadmi Party ticket. He lost that election.[36]
    Sunil Shastri. He is married to Meera Shastri. He is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
    Ashok Shastri, the youngest son. He worked in the corporate world before his untimely death at the age of 37.[37] His wife Neera Shastri and his son Sameep Shastri are members of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Legacy

Ramachandra Guha argued that Shastri shared little in common with his predecessor Jawaharlal Nehru.[38] While Shastri preferred peace with Pakistan, writing to a friend after the Indo-Pakistani War in 1965 that the problems between both countries should be settled amicably, he had previously displayed a knack for taking quick and decisive actions during the war.[38] He swiftly took the advice of his commanders, and ordered a strike across the Punjab border.[38] This was in stark contrast to Nehru who in a similar situation in 1962, had refused to call in the air force to relieve the pressure on the ground troops.[38] At the end of the conflict, Shastri flamboyantly posed for a photograph on top of a captured US-supplied Pakistani M48 Patton tank.[38]

However, in common with Nehru, Shastri was a secularist who refused to mix religion with politics. In a public meeting held at the Ram Lila grounds in Delhi, a few days after the ceasefire, he complained against a BBC report which claimed that Shastri's identity as a Hindu meant that he was ready for a war with Pakistan. He stated:[38]

    While I am a Hindu, Mir Mushtaq who is presiding over this meeting is a Muslim. Mr. Frank Anthony who has addressed you is a Christian. There are also Sikhs and Parsis here. The unique thing about our country is that we have Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis and people of all other religions. We have temples and mosques, gurdwaras and churches. But we do not bring all this into politics. This is the difference between India and Pakistan. Whereas Pakistan proclaims herself to be an Islamic State and uses religion as a political factor, we Indians have the freedom to follow whatever religion we may choose, and worship in any way we please. So far as politics is concerned, each of us is as much an Indian as the other.

Kuldip Nayar, Shastri's media advisor from 1960 to 1964, recalls that, during the Quit India Movement, his daughter was ill and he was released on parole from jail. However, he could not save her life because doctors had prescribed costly drugs. Later on in 1963, on the day when he was dropped from the cabinet, he was sitting in his home in the dark, without a light. When asked about the reason, he said as he no longer is a minister, all expenses will have to be paid by himself and that as a MP and minister he didn't earn enough to save for time of need.[39]

Although Shastri had been a cabinet minister for many years in the 1950s, he was poor when he died. All he owned at the end was an old car, which he had bought in instalments from the government and for which he still owed money. He was a member of Servants of India society (which included Gandhi, Lala Lajpat Rai, Gopal Krishna Gokhle) which asked all its members to shun accumulation of private property and remain in public life as servants of people. He was the first railway minister who resigned from office following a major train accident as he felt moral responsibility.

The foundation stone of Bal Vidya Mandir, a distinguished school of Lucknow, was laid by him during his tenure as the Prime Minister, on 19 November 1964.

He inaugurated the Central Institute of Technology Campus at Tharamani, Chennai, in November 1964.

He inaugurated the Plutonium Reprocessing Plant at Trombay in 1965. As suggested by Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha, Shastri authorized the development of nuclear explosives. Bhabha initiated the effort by setting up the nuclear explosive design group Study of Nuclear Explosions for Peaceful Purposes (SNEPP).

He inaugurated the Andhra Pradesh Agricultural University at Hyderabad on 20 March 1965 which renamed as Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University in 1996 and was separated into two universities after formation Telangana State. The University in Telangana was named in July 2014 as Professor. Jayashanker Agricultural University.

Shasstriji also inaugurated the National Institute of Technology, Allahabad.

Lal Bahadur Shastri inaugurated the Jawahar Dock of the Chennai Port Trust & starts the construction work of Tuticorin Port (Now VOC Port Trust) in November 1964.

He inaugurated Sainik School Balachadi, in State of Gujarat. He laid the foundation stone of Almatti dam during the year -------- . Now the commissioned dam bears his name.
Memorials
Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie

Shastri was known for his honesty and humility throughout his life. He was the first person to be posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna, and a memorial "Vijay Ghat" was built for him in Delhi.

Several educational institutes, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (Mussorie, Uttarakhand) is after his name.

Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management was established in Delhi by the 'Lal Bahadur Shastri Educational Trust' in 1995 as is one of the top business schools in India.

The Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute was named after Shastri due to his role in promoting scholarly activity between India and Canada.[40]

Lal Bhadur Shastri Memorial run by Lal Bahadur Shastri National Memorial Trust, is situated next to 10 Janpath his residence as Prime Minister,[41] at 1, Motilal Nehru Place, New Delhi.

In 2011, on Shastri's 45th death anniversary, Uttar Pradesh Government announced to renovate Shastri's ancestral house at Ramnagar in Varanasi and declared plans to convert it into a biographical museum.[42][43]

Varanasi International Airport is named after him.[44]

Lal Bahadur Shastri Centre for Indian Culture with a Monument and a street is named after him in the city of Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

Few stadiums are named after him in the cities of Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh Ahmadabad in Gujarat,Kollam, Kerala and Bhawanipatna in Odisha.

The Almatti Dam is renamed as Lal Bahadur Shastri Sagar in Northern Karnataka built across the River Krishna. The foundation stone was laid by him.

MV Lal Bahadur Shastri a Cargo Ship is named after him.

RBI released coins in the denomination of Rs.5 during his birth century celebrations.

All India Lal Bahadur Shastri Hockey tournament is held every year since 1991 a major tournament in the field of Hockey.

The Left Bank Canal form the Nagarjuna Sagar Dam in AP is named Lal Bahadur Shastri Canal which is 295 km in Length.

Life size statues of Shastri are erected at Mumbai, Bangalore(Vidhana Soudha), New Delhi(CGO Complex), Almatti Dam Site, Ramnagar-UP, Hisar, Vizagapattinam, Nagarjuna Dam site,Warangal.

Life size bust of Shastri are erected at Thiruvananthapuram, Pune, Varanasi(Airport), Ahmedabad (lake side), Khrushetra, Shimla, Kasargod, Indore, Jalandar, Mhow, Uran.

Some major roads in the cities of New Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Puduchery, Lucknow, Warangal and Allahabad bearing the name of the legend.

Lal Bahadur Shastri Medical College in Mandi, Himachal Pradesh.

Shastri Bhavans in Newdelhi, Chennai, Lucknow

In 2005, the Government of India created a chair in his honour in the field of democracy and governance at Delhi University.

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Anukreethy Vas
Born	September 28, 1998 (age 19) Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, India
Education	BA degree in French
Alma mater	Loyola College, Chennai (College) R. S. Krishnan Higher Secondary School (Schooling)
Occupation	Model Beauty pageant titleholder
Height	1.67 m (5 ft 6 in)
Title	Femina Miss Tamil Nadu 2018 Femina Miss India 2018
Beauty pageant titleholder
Hair color	Black
Eye color	Black
Major competition(s)	Femina Miss Tamil Nadu 2018 (Winner) Femina Miss India 2018 (Winner) Miss World 2018 (TDB)

Anukreethy Vas (born September 28, 1998) is an Indian model and beauty pageant winner who was crowned Femina Miss India 2018[1]. She will represent India at the 68th edition of Miss World pageant to be held in Sanya, China on 8 December 2018.



Personal life

Anukreethy was born and brought up in Trichy, a district in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. She lost her father at very early age and has been raised up by a single mother. She did her schooling from R. S. Krishnan Higher Secondary School and is currently pursuing a BA degree in French at Loyola College, Chennai.

Pageantry

Anukreethy Vas was crowned as Femina Miss India 2018 by the outgoing titleholder and Miss World 2017 Manushi Chhillar. During the competition, she was crowned Miss beautiful smile and won the Beauty with a Purpose award. Anukreethy will represent India at Miss World 2018 pageant to be held in Sanya, China on 8 December 2018.

Anukreethy Vas is an Indian model and the winner of Femina Miss India 2018 pageant. She represented the state of Tamil Nadu at the Femina Miss India 2018 pageant, which she won. Anukreethy is the 55th Indian woman to win the Miss India pageant. She has no time to relax as she will go on to represent India at various international beauty pageants and competitions.

Biography/Wiki

Anukreethy Vas is a 19-years-old (born on 28 September 1992) Librian girl from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. She is a lethal combination of beauty with brains as she not only won millions of hearts with her gorgeous smile, but also with her intelligence and splendid answers in the Femina Miss India 2018 that impressed judges, including cricketers Irfan Pathan and KL Rahul, fashion designer Gaurav Gupta and Bollywood actors Malaika Arora, Bobby Deol and Kunal Kapoor, which played a huge part in her clinch the Miss India title.

Her journey to win the title was not easy as she beat 29 other contestants from across India.
Apart from winning the Femina Miss India 2018, she had also won the Femina Miss Tamil Nadu 2018 in February.

Physical Appearance

Anukreethy has every bit of glamour quotient in her personality as she is 5′ 8″ tall, weighs around 55 kg,

Family

Anukreethy hails from a middle-class Tamil family with roots in Thrissur, Kerala, India. She was raised by a single mother, Seleena Prasad, and had a challenging childhood. But her mother always encouraged her passion for modelling. Apart from her mother, she has a younger brother, Gowtham.

Career

Anukreethy has always been a bright student and did her schooling from the RSK Higher Secondary School in Thiruverumbur, Tamil Nadu. She is currently pursuing a B.A. degree in French at Loyola College in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Despite the good option of becoming a French translator, she always had an interest to became a celebrity and her desire to do so brought her to the arena of beauty pageants.

Facts

• Anukreethy takes a lot of interest in dancing, travelling and acting. 

• She was very good at sports during her school days and had even played at state-level.

• Hrithik Roshan and Vikram are among her favourite actors, and Deepika Padukone is her favourite actresses.

• Her favourite model is Manushi Chillar.
  
  

  Anukreethy Vas with Manushi Chillar

• She loves dogs and has a pug. 

• A quote that inspires her is “The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today. So be the best version of yourself everyday.”

Early life

Mangal Pandey was born on 19 July 1827 in a Brahmin family[1] in Nagwa, a village of upper Ballia district, Ceded and Conquered Provinces (now in Uttar Pradesh).[2] He had joined the Bengal Army in 1849. In March 1857 Pandey was a private soldier in the 5th Company of the 34th Bengal Native Infantry (B.N.I.).
The 1857 incident
Main article: Indian Rebellion of 1857
Photo of the Enfield Rifle, the pending adoption of which caused unrest in the Bengal Army in early 1857

On the afternoon of 29 March 1857, Lieutenant Baugh, Adjutant of the 34th Bengal Native Infantry, then stationed at Barrackpore was informed that several men of his regiment were in an excited state. Further, it was reported to him that one of them, Mangal Pandey, was pacing in front of the regiment's guard room by the parade ground, armed with a loaded musket, calling upon the men to rebel and threatening to shoot the first European that he set eyes on. Testimony at a subsequent enquiry recorded that Pandey, unsettled by unrest amongst the sepoys and intoxicated by the narcotic bhang, had seized weapons and run to the quarter-guard building upon learning that a detachment of British soldiers was disembarking from a steamer near the cantonment.[3]

Baugh immediately armed himself and galloped on his horse to the lines. Pandey took position behind the station gun, which was in front of the quarter-guard of the 34th, took aim at Baugh and fired. He missed Baugh, but the bullet struck his horse in the flank bringing both the horse and its rider down. Baugh quickly disentangled himself and, seizing one of his pistols, advanced towards Pandey and fired. He missed. Before Baugh could draw his sword, Pandey attacked him with a talwar (a heavy Indian sword) and closing with the adjutant, slashed Baugh on the shoulder and neck and brought him to the ground.It was then that another sepoy, Shaikh Paltu, intervened and tried to restrain Pandey even as he tried to reload his musket.[4]

English Sergeant-Major Hewson, had arrived on the parade ground, summoned by a native officer, before Baugh. He had ordered Jemadar Ishwari Prasad, the Indian officer in command of the quarter-guard, to arrest Pandey. To this, the jemadar stated that his NCOs had gone for help and that he could not take Pandey by himself.[5] In response Hewson ordered Ishwari Prasad to fall in the guard with loaded weapons. In the meantime, Baugh had arrived on the field shouting 'Where is he? Where is he?' Hewson in reply called out to Baugh, 'Ride to the right, sir, for your life. The sepoy will fire at you!'[6] At that point Pandey fired.

Hewson had charged towards Pandey as he was fighting with Lieutenant Baugh. While confronting Pandey, Hewson was knocked to the ground from behind by a blow from Pandey's musket. The sound of the firing had brought other sepoys from the barracks; they remained mute spectators. At this juncture, Shaikh Paltu, while trying to defend the two Englishmen called upon the other sepoys to assist him. Assailed by other sepoys, who threw stones and shoes at his back, he called on the guard to help him hold Pandey, but they threatened to shoot him if he did not let go of the mutineer.[6]

Some of the sepoys of the quarter-guard then advanced and struck at the two prostrate officers. They then threatened Shaikh Paltu and ordered him to release Pandey, whom he had been vainly trying to hold back. However, Paltu continued to hold Pandey until Baugh and the sergeant-major were able to get up. Himself wounded by now, Paltu was obliged to loosen his grip. He backed away in one direction and Baugh and Hewson in another, while being struck with the butt ends of the guards' muskets.[6]

In the meantime, a report of the incident had been carried to the commanding officer General Hearsey, who then galloped to the ground with his two officer sons. Taking in the scene, he rode up to the guard, drew his pistol and ordered them to do their duty by seizing Mangal Pandey. The General threatened to shoot the first man who disobeyed. The men of the quarter-guard fell in and followed Hearsey towards Pandey. Pandey then put the muzzle of the musket to his chest and discharged it by pressing the trigger with his foot. He collapsed bleeding, with his regimental jacket on fire, but not mortally wounded.[6]

Pandey recovered and was brought to trial less than a week later. When asked whether he had been under the influence of any substances, he stated steadfastly that he had mutinied on his own accord and that no other person had played any part in encouraging him. He was sentenced to death by hanging, along with Jemadar Ishwari Prasad, after three Sikh members of the quarter-guard testified that the latter had ordered them not to arrest Pandey.[6]

Mangal Pandey's execution was scheduled for 18 April, but was carried out ten days before that date. Jemadar Ishwari Prasad was executed by hanging on 21 April.[6]
Aftermath
A scene from the 1857 Indian Rebellion

The 34th B.N.I. Regiment was disbanded "with disgrace" on 6 May as a collective punishment, after an investigation by the government, for failing to perform their duty in restraining a mutinous soldier and their officer. That came after a period of six weeks while petitions for leniency were examined in Calcutta. Sepoy Shaikh Paltu was promoted to havildar (sergeant) for his behavior on 29 March but was murdered in an isolated part of the Barrackpore cantonment shortly before the regiment was disbanded.[7]

The Indian historian Surendra Nath Sen notes that the 34th B.N.I. had a good recent record and that the Court of Enquiry had not found any evidence of a connection with unrest at Berhampur involving the 19th B.N.I. four weeks before (see below). However, Mangal Pandey's actions and the failure of the armed and on-duty sepoys of the quarter-guard to take action convinced the British military authorities that the whole regiment was unreliable. It appeared that Pandey had acted without first taking other sepoys into his confidence but that antipathy towards their British officers within the regiment had led most of those present to act as spectators, rather than obey orders.[8]
Motivation

The personal motivation behind Pandey's behaviour remains confused. During the incident itself he shouted to other sepoys: "come out - the Europeans are here"; "from biting these cartridges we shall become infidels" and "you sent me out here, why don't you follow me". At his court-martial he stated that he had been taking bhang and opium, and was not conscious of his actions on 29 March.[9]

There were a wide range of factors causing apprehension and mistrust in the Bengal Army immediately prior to the Barrackpore event. Pandey's reference to cartridges is usually attributed to a new type of bullet cartridge used in the Enfield P-53 rifle which was to be introduced in the Bengal Army that year. The cartridge was thought to be greased with animal fat, primarily from cows and pigs, which could not be consumed by Hindus and Muslims respectively (the former a holy animal of the Hindus and the latter being abhorrent to Muslims). The cartridges had to be bitten at one end before use. The Indian troops in some regiments were of the opinion that this was an intentional act of the British, with the aim of defiling their religions.[10]

Colonel S. Wheeler of the 34th B.N.I. was known as a zealous Christian preacher. The wife of Captain William Halliday of the 56th B.N.I. had the Bible printed in Urdu and Devanagari and distributed among the sepoys, thus raising suspicions amongst them that the British were intent on converting them to Christianity.[6]

The 19th and 34th Bengal Native Infantry were stationed at Lucknow during the time of annexation of Oudh in 1856 because of alleged misgovernment by the Nawab. The annexation had negative implications for sepoys in the Bengal Army (a significant portion of whom came from that princely state). Before the annexation, these sepoys had the right to petition the British Resident at Lucknow for justice — a significant privilege in the context of native courts. As a result of the East India Company's action they lost that special status, since Oudh no longer existed as a nominally independent political entity.[11]

The 19th B.N.I. is important because it was the regiment charged with testing the new cartridges on 26 February 1857. However, right up to the mutiny the new rifles had not been issued to them, and the cartridges in the magazine of the regiment were as free of grease as they had been through the preceding half century. The paper used in wrapping the cartridges was of a different colour, arousing suspicions. The non-commissioned officers of the regiment refused to accept the cartridges on 26 February. This information was conveyed to the commanding officer, Colonel William Mitchell; he took it upon himself to try to convince the sepoys that the cartridges were no different from those they had been accustomed to and that they need not bite it. He concluded his exhortation with an appeal to the native officers to uphold the honour of the regiment and a threat to court-martial such sepoys as refused to accept the cartridge. However, the next morning the sepoys of the regiment seized their bell of arms (weapons store). The subsequent conciliatory behaviour of Mitchell convinced the sepoys to return to their barracks.[12]
Court of Enquiry

A Court of Enquiry was ordered which, after an investigation lasting nearly a month, recommended the disbanding of the 19th B.N.I.. The same was carried out on 31 March. The 19th B.N.I. were allowed to retain items of uniform and were provided by the government with allowances to return to their homes. Both Colonel Mitchell of the 19th B.N.I. and (subsequent to the incident of 29 March) Colonel Wheeler of Pandey's 34th B.N.I. were declared unsuited to take charge of any new regiments raised to replace the disbanded units.[13]
Consequences

The attack by and punishment of Pandey is widely seen as the opening scene of what came to be known as the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Knowledge of his action was widespread amongst his fellow sepoys and is assumed to have been one of the factors leading to the general series of mutinies that broke out during the following months. Mangal Pandey would prove to be influential for later figures in the Indian Nationalist Movement like V.D. Savarkar, who viewed his motive as one of the earliest manifestations of Indian Nationalism. Modern Indian nationalists portray Pandey as the mastermind behind a conspiracy to revolt against the British, although a recently published analysis of events immediately preceding the outbreak concludes that "there is little historical evidence to back up any of these revisionist interpretations".[14]
Film, stage and literature

A film based on the sequence of events that led up to the mutiny entitled Mangal Pandey: The Rising starring Indian actor, Aamir Khan along with Rani Mukerji, Toby Stephens and Amisha Patel, directed by Ketan Mehta was released on 12 August 2005.[15]

The life of Pandey was the subject of a stage play titled The Roti Rebellion, which was written and directed by Supriya Karunakaran. The play was organized by Sparsh, a theatre group, and presented in June 2005 at The Moving Theatre at Andhra Saraswat Parishad, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh.[16]

Samad Iqbal, a fictional descendant of Mangal Pandey, is a central character in Zadie Smith's debut novel White Teeth. Pandey is an important influence on Samad's life and is repeatedly referenced and investigated by the novel's characters.
English language

In the English language, Pandey is best remembered for the word his surname and his actions helped coin: pandy — a traitor, particularly a rebellious sepoy of the Mutiny of 1857. Once a colloquial term widely used by English speakers in India, the word is now obsolete.[17][18]
Commemoration
The Mangal Pandey cenotaph on Surendranath Banerjee road at Barrackpore Cantonment, West Bengal.

The Government of India commemorated Pandey by issuing a postage stamp bearing his image on 5 October 1984. The stamp and the accompanying first-day cover were designed by Delhi-based artist C. R. Pakrashi.[19]

A park named Shaheed Mangal Pandey Maha Udyan has been set up at Barrackpore to commemorate the place where Pandey attacked British officers and was subsequently hanged.[20]

Bhagat Singh
Bhagat Singh in 1929
Born	1907 Banga, Punjab, British India (now in Punjab, Pakistan)
Died	23 March 1931 (aged 23) Lahore, Punjab, British India (now in Punjab, Pakistan)
Organization	Naujawan Bharat Sabha Hindustan Socialist Republican Association Kirti Kisan Party
Movement	Indian Independence movement

Bhagat Singh (Punjabi pronunciation: [pə̀ɡət̪ sɪ́ŋɡ] (About this sound listen) 1907[a] – 23 March 1931) was an Indian nationalist considered to be one of the most influential revolutionaries of the Indian independence movement. He is often referred to as Shaheed Bhagat Singh, the word "Shaheed" meaning "martyr" in a number of Indian languages.

In December 1928, Bhagat Singh and an associate, Shivaram Rajguru, fatally shot a 21-year-old British police officer, John Saunders, in Lahore, British India, mistaking Saunders, who was still on probation, for the British police superintendent, James Scott, whom they had intended to assassinate. They believed Scott was responsible for the death of popular Indian nationalist leader Lala Lajpat Rai, by having ordered a lathi charge in which Rai was injured, and, two weeks after which, died of a heart attack. Saunders was felled by a single shot from Rajguru, a marksman. He was then shot several times by Singh, the postmortem report showing eight bullet wounds. Another associate of Singh, Chandra Shekhar Azad, shot dead an Indian police constable, Chanan Singh, who attempted to pursue Singh and Rajguru as they fled.

After escaping, Singh and his associates, using pseudonyms, publicly owned to avenging Lajpat Rai's death, putting up prepared posters, which, however, they had altered to show Saunders as their intended target. Singh was thereafter on the run for many months, and no convictions resulted at the time. Surfacing again in April 1929, he and another associate, Batukeshwar Dutt, exploded two improvised bombs inside the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi. They showered leaflets from the gallery on the legislators below, shouted slogans, and then allowed the authorities to arrest them. The arrest, and the resulting publicity, had the effect of bringing to light Singh's complicity in the John Saunders case. Awaiting trial, Singh gained much public sympathy after he joined fellow defendant Jatin Das in a hunger strike, demanding better prison conditions for Indian prisoners, and ending in Das's death from starvation in September 1929. Singh was convicted and hanged in March 1931, aged 23.

Bhagat Singh became a popular folk hero after his death. In still later years, Singh, an atheist and socialist in life, won admirers in India from among a political spectrum that included both Communists and right-wing Hindu nationalists. Although many of Singh's associates, as well as many Indian anti-colonial revolutionaries, were also involved in daring acts, and were either executed or died violent deaths, few came to be lionised in popular art and literature to the same extent as Singh.
Contents

    1 Early life
    2 Revolutionary activities
        2.1 Lala Lajpat Rai's death and killing of Saunders
        2.2 Escape
        2.3 1929 Assembly incident
        2.4 Assembly case trial
        2.5 Capture
    3 Ideals and opinions
        3.1 Atheism
        3.2 "Killing the ideas"
    4 Reception
    5 Popularity
    6 Legacy and memorials
        6.1 Modern days
    7 References
        7.1 Notes
        7.2 Citations
        7.3 Works cited and bibliography
    8 External links

Early life

Bhagat Singh, a Sandhu Jat,[4] was born in 1907[a] to Kishan Singh and Vidyavati at Chak No. 105 GB, Banga village, Jaranwala Tehsil in the Lyallpur district of the Punjab Province of British India. His birth coincided with the release of his father and two uncles, Ajit Singh and Swaran Singh, from jail.[5] His family members were Sikhs; some had been active in Indian Independence movements, others had served in Maharaja Ranjit Singh's army. His ancestral village was Khatkar Kalan, near the town of Banga, India in Nawanshahr district (now renamed Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar) of the Punjab.[6]

His family was politically active.[7] His grandfather, Arjun Singh followed Swami Dayananda Saraswati's Hindu reformist movement, Arya Samaj, which had a considerable influence on Bhagat.[6] His father and uncles were members of the Ghadar Party, led by Kartar Singh Sarabha and Har Dayal. Ajit Singh was forced into exile due to pending court cases against him while Swaran Singh died at home in Lahore in 1910 following his release from jail.[8][b]

Unlike many Sikhs of his age, Singh did not attend the Khalsa High School in Lahore. His grandfather did not approve of the school officials' loyalty to the British government.[10] He was enrolled instead in the Dayanand Anglo-Vedic High School, an Arya Samaji institution.[11]

In 1919, when he was 12 years old, Singh visited the site of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre hours after thousands of unarmed people gathered at a public meeting had been killed.[5] When he was 14 years old, he was among those in his village who welcomed protesters against the killing of a large number of unarmed people at Gurudwara Nankana Sahib on 20 February 1921.[12] Singh became disillusioned with Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence after he called off the non-co-operation movement. Gandhi's decision followed the violent murders of policemen by villagers who were reacting to the police killing three villagers in the 1922 Chauri Chaura incident. Singh joined the Young Revolutionary Movement and began to advocate for the violent overthrow of the British Government in India.[13]
In this historical photograph of students and staff of National College, Lahore, Singh can be seen standing fourth from the right.

In 1923, Singh joined the National College in Lahore,[c] where he also participated in extra-curricular activities like the dramatics society. In 1923, he won an essay competition set by the Punjab Hindi Sahitya Sammelan, writing on the problems in the Punjab.[11] Inspired by the Young Italy movement of Giuseppe Mazzini,[7] he founded the Indian socialist youth organisation Naujawan Bharat Sabha in March 1926.[15] He also joined the Hindustan Republican Association,[16] which had prominent leaders, such as Chandrashekhar Azad, Ram Prasad Bismil and Shahid Ashfaqallah Khan.[17] A year later, to avoid an arranged marriage, Singh ran away to Cawnpore.[11] In a letter he left behind, he said:

    My life has been dedicated to the noblest cause, that of the freedom of the country. Therefore, there is no rest or worldly desire that can lure me now.[11]

Police became concerned with Singh's influence on youths and arrested him in May 1927 on the pretext that he had been involved in a bombing that had taken place in Lahore in October 1926. He was released on a surety of Rs. 60,000 five weeks after his arrest.[18] He wrote for, and edited, Urdu and Punjabi newspapers, published in Amritsar[19] and also contributed to low-priced pamphlets published by the Naujawan Bharat Sabha that excoriated the British.[20] He also wrote for Kirti, the journal of the Kirti Kisan Party ("Workers and Peasants Party") and briefly for the Veer Arjun newspaper, published in Delhi.[15][d] He often used pseudonyms, including names such as Balwant, Ranjit and Vidhrohi.[21]
Revolutionary activities
Lala Lajpat Rai's death and killing of Saunders

In 1928, the British government set up the Simon Commission to report on the political situation in India. Some Indian political parties boycotted the Commission because there were no Indians in its membership,[e] and there were protests across the country. When the Commission visited Lahore on 30 October 1928, Lala Lajpat Rai led a march in protest against it. Police attempts to disperse the large crowd resulted in violence. The superintendent of police, James A. Scott, ordered the police to lathi charge (use batons against) the protesters and personally assaulted Rai, who was injured. Rai died of a heart attack on 17 November 1928. Doctors thought that his death might have been hastened by the injuries he had received. When the matter was raised in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the British Government denied any role in Rai's death.[23][24][25]

Bhagat was a prominent member of the HRA and was probably responsible, in large part, for its change of name to HSRA in 1928.[7] The HSRA vowed to avenge Rai's death.[18] Singh conspired with revolutionaries like Shivaram Rajguru, Sukhdev Thapar, and Chandrashekhar Azad to kill Scott.[15] However, in a case of mistaken identity, the plotters shot John P. Saunders, an Assistant Superintendent of Police, as he was leaving the District Police Headquarters in Lahore on 17 December 1928.[26]
HSRA pamphlet after Saunder's murder, signed by Balraj, a pseudonym of Chandrashekhar Azad

Contemporary reaction to the killing differs substantially from the adulation that later surfaced. The Naujawan Bharat Sabha, which had organised the Lahore protest march along with the HSRA, found that attendance at its subsequent public meetings dropped sharply. Politicians, activists, and newspapers, including The People, which Rai had founded in 1925, stressed that non-co-operation was preferable to violence.[22] The murder was condemned as a retrograde action by Mahatma Gandhi, the Congress leader, but Jawaharlal Nehru later wrote that:

    Bhagat Singh did not become popular because of his act of terrorism but because he seemed to vindicate, for the moment, the honour of Lala Lajpat Rai, and through him of the nation. He became a symbol, the act was forgotten, the symbol remained, and within a few months each town and village of the Punjab, and to a lesser extent in the rest of northern India, resounded with his name. Innumerable songs grew about him and the popularity that the man achieved was something amazing.[27]

Escape

After killing Saunders, the group escaped through the D.A.V. College entrance, across the road from the District Police Headquarters. Chanan Singh, a Head Constable who was chasing them, was fatally injured by Chandrashekhar Azad's covering fire.[28] They then fled on bicycles to pre-arranged safe houses. The police launched a massive search operation to catch them, blocking all entrances and exits to and from the city; the CID kept a watch on all young men leaving Lahore. The fugitives hid for the next two days. On 19 December 1928, Sukhdev called on Durgawati Devi, sometimes known as Durga Bhabhi, wife of another HSRA member, Bhagwati Charan Vohra, for help, which she agreed to provide. They decided to catch the train departing from Lahore to Bathinda en route to Howrah (Calcutta) early the next morning.[29]

Singh and Rajguru, both carrying loaded revolvers, left the house early the next day.[29] Dressed in western attire (Bhagat Singh cut his hair, shaved his beard and wore a hat over cropped hair), and carrying Devi's sleeping child, Singh and Devi passed as a young couple, while Rajguru carried their luggage as their servant. At the station, Singh managed to conceal his identity while buying tickets, and the three boarded the train heading to Cawnpore (now Kanpur). There they boarded a train for Lucknow since the CID at Howrah railway station usually scrutinised passengers on the direct train from Lahore.[29] At Lucknow, Rajguru left separately for Benares while Singh, Devi and the infant went to Howrah, with all except Singh returning to Lahore a few days later.[30][29]
1929 Assembly incident

For some time, Singh had been exploiting the power of drama as a means to inspire the revolt against the British, purchasing a magic lantern to show slides that enlivened his talks about revolutionaries such as Ram Prasad Bismil who had died as a result of the Kakori conspiracy. In 1929, he proposed a dramatic act to the HSRA intended to gain massive publicity for their aims.[20] Influenced by Auguste Vaillant, a French anarchist who had bombed the Chamber of Deputies in Paris,[31] Singh's plan was to explode a bomb inside the Central Legislative Assembly. The nominal intention was to protest against the Public Safety Bill, and the Trade Dispute Act, which had been rejected by the Assembly but were being enacted by the Viceroy using his special powers; the actual intention was for the perpetrators to allow themselves to be arrested so that they could use court appearances as a stage to publicise their cause.[21]

The HSRA leadership was initially opposed to Bhagat's participation in the bombing because they were certain that his prior involvement in the Saunders shooting meant that his arrest would ultimately result in his execution. However, they eventually decided that he was their most suitable candidate. On 8 April 1929, Singh, accompanied by Batukeshwar Dutt, threw two bombs into the Assembly chamber from its public gallery while it was in session.[32] The bombs had been designed not to kill,[22] but some members, including George Ernest Schuster, the finance member of the Viceroy's Executive Council, were injured.[33] The smoke from the bombs filled the Assembly so that Singh and Dutt could probably have escaped in the confusion had they wished. Instead, they stayed shouting the slogan "Inquilab Zindabad!" ("Long Live the Revolution") and threw leaflets. The two men were arrested and subsequently moved through a series of jails in Delhi.[34]
Assembly case trial

According to Neeti Nair, associate professor of history, "public criticism of this terrorist action was unequivocal."[22] Gandhi, once again, issued strong words of disapproval of their deed.[27] Nonetheless, the jailed Bhagat was reported to be elated, and referred to the subsequent legal proceedings as a "drama".[34] Singh and Dutt eventually responded to the criticism by writing the Assembly Bomb Statement:

    We hold human life sacred beyond words. We are neither perpetrators of dastardly outrages ... nor are we 'lunatics' as the Tribune of Lahore and some others would have it believed ... Force when aggressively applied is 'violence' and is, therefore, morally unjustifiable, but when it is used in the furtherance of a legitimate cause, it has its moral justification.[22]

The trial began in the first week of June, following a preliminary hearing in May. On 12 June, both men were sentenced to life imprisonment for: "causing explosions of a nature likely to endanger life, unlawfully and maliciously."[34][35] Dutt had been defended by Asaf Ali, while Singh defended himself.[36] Doubts have been raised about the accuracy of testimony offered at the trial. One key discrepancy concerns the automatic pistol that Singh had been carrying when he was arrested. Some witnesses said that he had fired two or three shots while the police sergeant who arrested him testified that the gun was pointed downward when he took it from him and that Singh "was playing with it."[37] According to the India Law Journal, which believes that the prosecution witnesses were coached, these accounts were incorrect and Singh had turned over the pistol himself.[38] Singh was given a life sentence.[39]
Capture

In 1929, the HSRA had set up bomb factories in Lahore and Saharanpur. On 15 April 1929, the Lahore bomb factory was discovered by the police, leading to the arrest of other members of HSRA, including Sukhdev, Kishori Lal, and Jai Gopal. Not long after this, the Saharanpur factory was also raided and some of the conspirators became informants. With the new information available, the police were able to connect the three strands of the Saunders murder, Assembly bombing, and bomb manufacture.[40] Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru, and 21 others were charged with the Saunders murder.[41]
Hunger strike and Lahore conspiracy case

Singh was re-arrested for murdering Saunders and Chanan Singh based on substantial evidence against him, including statements by his associates, Hans Raj Vohra and Jai Gopal.[38] His life sentence in the Assembly Bomb case was deferred until the Saunders case was decided.[39] He was sent to Central Jail Mianwali from the Delhi jail.[36] There he witnessed discrimination between European and Indian prisoners. He considered himself, along with others, to be a political prisoner. He noted that he had received an enhanced diet at Delhi which was not being provided at Mianwali. He led other Indian, self-identified political prisoners he felt were being treated as common criminals in a hunger strike. They demanded equality in food standards, clothing, toiletries, and other hygienic necessities, as well as access to books and a daily newspaper. They argued that they should not be forced to do manual labour or any undignified work in the jail.[42][22]

The hunger strike inspired a rise in public support for Singh and his colleagues from around June 1929. The Tribune newspaper was particularly prominent in this movement and reported on mass meetings in places such as Lahore and Amritsar. The government had to apply Section 144 of the criminal code in an attempt to limit gatherings.[22]

Jawaharlal Nehru met Singh and the other strikers in Mianwali jail. After the meeting, he stated:

    I was very much pained to see the distress of the heroes. They have staked their lives in this struggle. They want that political prisoners should be treated as political prisoners. I am quite hopeful that their sacrifice would be crowned with success.[43]

Muhammad Ali Jinnah spoke in support of the strikers in the Assembly, saying:

    The man who goes on hunger strike has a soul. He is moved by that soul, and he believes in the justice of his cause ... however much you deplore them and, however, much you say they are misguided, it is the system, this damnable system of governance, which is resented by the people.[44]

The government tried to break the strike by placing different food items in the prison cells to test the prisoners' resolve. Water pitchers were filled with milk so that either the prisoners remained thirsty or broke their strike; nobody faltered and the impasse continued. The authorities then attempted force-feeding the prisoners but this was resisted.[45][f] With the matter still unresolved, the Indian Viceroy, Lord Irwin, cut short his vacation in Simla to discuss the situation with jail authorities.[47] Since the activities of the hunger strikers had gained popularity and attention amongst the people nationwide, the government decided to advance the start of the Saunders murder trial, which was henceforth called the Lahore Conspiracy Case. Singh was transported to Borstal Jail, Lahore,[48] and the trial began there on 10 July 1929. In addition to charging them with the murder of Saunders, Singh and the 27 other prisoners were charged with plotting a conspiracy to murder Scott, and waging a war against the King.[38] Singh, still on hunger strike, had to be carried to the court handcuffed on a stretcher; he had lost 14 pounds (6.4 kg) from his original weight of 133 pounds (60 kg) since beginning the strike.[48]

The government was beginning to make concessions but refused to move on the core issue of recognising the classification of "political prisoner". In the eyes of officials, if someone broke the law then that was a personal act, not a political one, and they were common criminals.[22] By now, the condition of another hunger striker, Jatindra Nath Das, lodged in the same jail, had deteriorated considerably. The Jail committee recommended his unconditional release, but the government rejected the suggestion and offered to release him on bail. On 13 September 1929, Das died after a 63-day hunger strike.[48] Almost all the nationalist leaders in the country paid tribute to Das' death. Mohammad Alam and Gopi Chand Bhargava resigned from the Punjab Legislative Council in protest, and Nehru moved a successful adjournment motion in the Central Assembly as a censure against the "inhumane treatment" of the Lahore prisoners.[49] Singh finally heeded a resolution of the Congress party, and a request by his father, ending his hunger strike on 5 October 1929 after 116 days.[38] During this period, Singh's popularity among common Indians extended beyond Punjab.[22][50]

Singh's attention now turned to his trial, where he was to face a Crown prosecution team comprising C. H. Carden-Noad, Kalandar Ali Khan, Jai Gopal Lal, and the prosecuting inspector, Bakshi Dina Nath.[38] The defence was composed of eight lawyers. Prem Dutt Verma, the youngest amongst the 27 accused, threw his slipper at Gopal when he turned and became a prosecution witness in court. As a result, the magistrate ordered that all the accused should be handcuffed.[38] Singh and others refused to be handcuffed and were subjected to brutal beating.[51] The revolutionaries refused to attend the court and Singh wrote a letter to the magistrate citing various reasons for their refusal.[52][53] The magistrate ordered the trial to proceed without the accused or members of the HSRA. This was a setback for Singh as he could no longer use the trial as a forum to publicise his views.[54]
Special Tribunal

To speed up the slow trial, the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, declared an emergency on 1 May 1930 and introduced an ordinance to set up a special tribunal composed of three high court judges for the case. This decision cut short the normal process of justice as the only appeal after the tribunal was to the Privy Council located in England.[38]

On 2 July 1930, a habeas corpus petition was filed in the High Court challenging the ordinance on the grounds that it was ultra vires and, therefore, illegal; the Viceroy had no powers to shorten the customary process of determining justice.[38] The petition argued that the Defence of India Act 1915 allowed the Viceroy to introduce an ordinance, and set up such a tribunal, only under conditions of a breakdown of law-and-order, which, it was claimed in this case, had not occurred. However, the petition was dismissed as being premature.[55]

Carden-Noad presented the government's charges of conducting robberies, and the illegal acquisition of arms and ammunition among others.[38] The evidence of G. T. H. Hamilton Harding, the Lahore superintendent of police, shocked the court. He stated that he had filed the first information report against the accused under specific orders from the chief secretary to the governor of Punjab and that he was unaware of the details of the case. The prosecution depended mainly on the evidence of P. N. Ghosh, Hans Raj Vohra, and Jai Gopal who had been Singh's associates in the HSRA. On 10 July 1930, the tribunal decided to press charges against only 15 of the 18 accused and allowed their petitions to be taken up for hearing the next day. The trial ended on 30 September 1930.[38] The three accused, whose charges were withdrawn, included Dutt who had already been given a life sentence in the Assembly bomb case.[56]

The ordinance (and the tribunal) would lapse on 31 October 1930 as it had not been passed by the Central Assembly or the British Parliament. On 7 October 1930, the tribunal delivered its 300-page judgement based on all the evidence and concluded that the participation of Singh, Sukhdev, and Rajguru in Saunder's murder was proven. They were sentenced to death by hanging.[38] Of the other accused, three were acquitted (Ajoy Ghosh, Jatindra Nath Sanyal and Des Raj), Kundan Lal received seven years' rigorous imprisonment, Prem Dutt received five years of the same, and the remaining seven (Kishori Lal, Mahabir Singh, Bijoy Kumar Sinha, Shiv Verma, Gaya Prashad, Jai Dev and Kamalnath Tewari) were all sentenced to transportation for life.[57]
Appeal to the Privy Council

In Punjab province, a defence committee drew up a plan to appeal to the Privy Council. Singh was initially against the appeal but later agreed to it in the hope that the appeal would popularise the HSRA in Britain. The appellants claimed that the ordinance which created the tribunal was invalid while the government countered that the Viceroy was completely empowered to create such a tribunal. The appeal was dismissed by Judge Viscount Dunedin.[58]
Reactions to the judgement

After the rejection of the appeal to the Privy Council, Congress party president Madan Mohan Malviya filed a mercy appeal before Irwin on 14 February 1931.[59] Some prisoners sent Mahatma Gandhi an appeal to intervene.[38] In his notes dated 19 March 1931, the Viceroy recorded:

    While returning Gandhiji asked me if he could talk about the case of Bhagat Singh because newspapers had come out with the news of his slated hanging on March 24th. It would be a very unfortunate day because on that day the new president of the Congress had to reach Karachi and there would be a lot of hot discussion. I explained to him that I had given a very careful thought to it but I did not find any basis to convince myself to commute the sentence. It appeared he found my reasoning weighty.[60]

The Communist Party of Great Britain expressed its reaction to the case:

    The history of this case, of which we do not come across any example in relation to the political cases, reflects the symptoms of callousness and cruelty which is the outcome of bloated desire of the imperialist government of Britain so that fear can be instilled in the hearts of the repressed people.[59]

A plan to rescue Singh and fellow HSRA inmates from the jail failed. HSRA member Durga Devi's husband, Bhagwati Charan Vohra, attempted to manufacture bombs for the purpose, but died when they exploded accidentally.[61]
Execution
Death certificate of Bhagat Singh

Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were sentenced to death in the Lahore conspiracy case and ordered to be hanged on 24 March 1931. The schedule was moved forward by 11 hours and the three were hanged on 23 March 1931 at 7:30 pm[62] in the Lahore jail. It is reported that no magistrate at the time was willing to supervise Singh's hanging as was required by law. The execution was supervised instead by an honorary judge, who also signed the three death warrants, as their original warrants had expired.[63] The jail authorities then broke a hole in the rear wall of the jail, removed the bodies, and secretly cremated the three men under cover of darkness outside Ganda Singh Wala village, and then threw the ashes into the Sutlej river, about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from Ferozepore.[64]
Criticism of the tribunal trial

Singh's trial has been described by the Supreme Court as "contrary to the fundamental doctrine of criminal jurisprudence" because there was no opportunity for the accused to defend themselves.[65] The Special Tribunal was a departure from the normal procedure adopted for a trial and its decision could only be appealed to the Privy Council located in Britain.[38] The accused were absent from the court and the judgement was passed ex-parte.[54] The ordinance, which was introduced by the Viceroy to form the Special Tribunal, was never approved by the Central Assembly or the British Parliament, and it eventually lapsed without any legal or constitutional sanctity.[66]
Reactions to the executions
Front page of The Tribune announcing the executions

The executions were reported widely by the press, especially as they took place on the eve of the annual convention of the Congress party at Karachi.[67] Gandhi faced black flag demonstrations by angry youths who shouted "Down with Gandhi".[17] The New York Times reported:

    A reign of terror in the city of Cawnpore in the United Provinces and an attack on Mahatma Gandhi by a youth outside Karachi were among the answers of the Indian extremists today to the hanging of Bhagat Singh and two fellow-assassins.[68]

Hartals and strikes of mourning were called.[69] The Congress party, during the Karachi session, declared:

    While dissociating itself from and disapproving of political violence in any shape or form, this Congress places on record its admiration of the bravery and sacrifice of Bhagat Singh, Sukh Dev and Raj Guru and mourns with their bereaved families the loss of these lives. The Congress is of the opinion that their triple execution was an act of wanton vengeance and a deliberate flouting of the unanimous demand of the nation for commutation. This Congress is further of the opinion that the [British] Government lost a golden opportunity for promoting good-will between the two nations, admittedly held to be crucial at this juncture, and for winning over to methods of peace a party which, driven to despair, resorts to political violence.[70]

In the issue of Young India of 29 March 1931, Gandhi wrote:

    Bhagat Singh and his two associates have been hanged. The Congress made many attempts to save their lives and the Government entertained many hopes of it, but all has been in a vain.

    Bhagat Singh did not wish to live. He refused to apologise, or even file an appeal. Bhagat Singh was not a devotee of non-violence, but he did not subscribe to the religion of violence. He took to violence due to helplessness and to defend his homeland. In his last letter, Bhagat Singh wrote, " I have been arrested while waging a war. For me there can be no gallows. Put me into the mouth of a cannon and blow me off." These heroes had conquered the fear of death. Let us bow to them a thousand times for their heroism.

    But we should not imitate their act. In our land of millions of destitute and crippled people, if we take to the practice of seeking justice through murder, there will be a terrifying situation. Our poor people will become victims of our atrocities. By making a dharma of violence, we shall be reaping the fruit of our own actions.
    Hence, though we praise the courage of these brave men, we should never countenance their activities. Our dharma is to swallow our anger, abide by the discipline of non-violence and carry out our duty.[71]

Gandhi controversy

There have been suggestions that Gandhi had an opportunity to stop Singh's execution but refrained from doing so. Another theory is that Gandhi actively conspired with the British to have Singh executed. In contrast, Gandhi's supporters argue that he did not have enough influence with the British to stop the execution, much less arrange it,[72] but claim that he did his best to save Singh's life.[73] They also assert that Singh's role in the independence movement was no threat to Gandhi's role as its leader, so he would have no reason to want him dead.[24] Gandhi always maintained that he was a great admirer of Singh's patriotism. He also stated that he was opposed to Singh's execution (and for that matter, capital punishment in general) and proclaimed that he had no power to stop it.[72] Of Singh's execution Gandhi said: "The government certainly had the right to hang these men. However, there are some rights which do credit to those who possess them only if they are enjoyed in name only."[74] Gandhi also once remarked about capital punishment: "I cannot in all conscience agree to anyone being sent to the gallows. God alone can take life, because he alone gives it."[75] Gandhi had managed to have 90,000 political prisoners, who were not members of his Satyagraha movement, released under the Gandhi-Irwin Pact.[24] According to a report in the Indian magazine Frontline, he did plead several times for the commutation of the death sentences of Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev, including a personal visit on 19 March 1931. In a letter to the Viceroy on the day of their execution, he pleaded fervently for commutation, not knowing that the letter would arrive too late.[24] Lord Irwin, the Viceroy, later said:

    As I listened to Mr. Gandhi putting the case for commutation before me, I reflected first on what significance it surely was that the apostle of non-violence should so earnestly be pleading the cause of the devotees of a creed so fundamentally opposed to his own, but I should regard it as wholly wrong to allow my judgement to be influenced by purely political considerations. I could not imagine a case in which under the law, penalty had been more directly deserved.[24]

Ideals and opinions

Singh's ideal was Kartar Singh Sarabha. He regarded Kartar Singh, the founding-member of the Ghadar Party as his hero. Bhagat was also inspired by Bhai Parmanand, another founding-member of the Ghadar Party.[76] Singh was attracted to anarchism and communism.[77] He was an avid reader of the teachings of Mikhail Bakunin and also read Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky.[78] In his last testament, "To Young Political Workers", he declares his ideal as the "Social reconstruction on new, i.e., Marxist, basis".[79] Singh did not believe in the Gandhian ideology—which advocated Satyagraha and other forms of non-violent resistance, and felt that such politics would replace one set of exploiters with another.[80]

From May to September 1928, Singh published a series of articles on anarchism in Kirti. He was concerned that the public misunderstood the concept of anarchism, writing that: "The people are scared of the word anarchism. The word anarchism has been abused so much that even in India revolutionaries have been called anarchist to make them unpopular." In his opinion, anarchism refers to the absence of a ruler and abolition of the state, not the absence of order, and: "I think in India the idea of universal brotherhood, the Sanskrit sentence vasudhaiva kutumbakam etc., has the same meaning." He believed that:

    The ultimate goal of Anarchism is complete independence, according to which no one will be obsessed with God or religion, nor will anybody be crazy for money or other worldly desires. There will be no chains on the body or control by the state. This means that they want to eliminate: the Church, God and Religion; the state; Private property.[77]

Historian K. N. Panikkar described Singh as one of the early Marxists in India.[80] The political theorist Jason Adams notes that he was more enamoured with Lenin than with Marx.[78] From 1926 onward, he studied the history of the revolutionary movements in India and abroad. In his prison notebooks, he quoted Lenin in reference to imperialism and capitalism and also the revolutionary thoughts of Trotsky.[77] When asked what his last wish was, Singh replied that he was studying the life of Lenin and he wanted to finish it before his death.[81] In spite of his belief in Marxist ideals however, Singh never joined the Communist Party of India.[78]
Atheism
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Why I am an atheist?

Singh began to question religious ideologies after witnessing the Hindu–Muslim riots that broke out after Gandhi disbanded the Non-Cooperation Movement. He did not understand how members of these two groups, initially united in fighting against the British, could be at each other's throats because of their religious differences.[82] At this point, Singh dropped his religious beliefs, since he believed religion hindered the revolutionaries' struggle for independence, and began studying the works of Bakunin, Lenin, Trotsky – all atheist revolutionaries. He also took an interest in Soham Swami's book Common Sense,[g][83]

While in prison in 1930–31, Bhagat Singh was approached by Randhir Singh, a fellow inmate, and a Sikh leader who would later found the Akhand Kirtani Jatha. According to Bhagat Singh's close associate Shiva Verma, who later compiled and edited his writings, Randhir Singh tried to convince Bhagat Singh of the existence of God, and upon failing berated him: "You are giddy with fame and have developed an ego that is standing like a black curtain between you and God".[84][h] In response, Bhagat Singh wrote an essay entitled "Why I am an Atheist" to address the question of whether his atheism was born out of vanity. In the essay, he defended his own beliefs and said that he used to be a firm believer in the Almighty, but could not bring himself to believe the myths and beliefs that others held close to their hearts.[86] He acknowledged the fact that religion made death easier, but also said that unproven philosophy is a sign of human weakness.[84] In this context, he noted:

    As regard the origin of God, my thought is that man created God in his imagination when he realised his weaknesses, limitations and shortcomings. In this way he got the courage to face all the trying circumstances and to meet all dangers that might occur in his life and also to restrain his outbursts in prosperity and affluence. God, with his whimsical laws and parental generosity was painted with variegated colours of imagination. He was used as a deterrent factor when his fury and his laws were repeatedly propagated so that man might not become a danger to society. He was the cry of the distressed soul for he was believed to stand as father and mother, sister and brother, brother and friend when in time of distress a man was left alone and helpless. He was Almighty and could do anything. The idea of God is helpful to a man in distress.[84]

Towards the end of the essay, Bhagat Singh wrote:

    Let us see how steadfast I am. One of my friends asked me to pray. When informed of my atheism, he said, "When your last days come, you will begin to believe." I said, "No, dear sir, Never shall it happen. I consider it to be an act of degradation and demoralisation. For such petty selfish motives, I shall never pray." Reader and friends, is it vanity? If it is, I stand for it.[84]

"Killing the ideas"

In the leaflet he threw in the Central Assembly on 9 April 1929, he stated: "It is easy to kill individuals but you cannot kill the ideas. Great empires crumbled, while the ideas survived."[87][better source needed] While in prison, Singh and two others had written a letter to Lord Irwin, wherein they asked to be treated as prisoners of war and consequently to be executed by firing squad and not by hanging.[88] Prannath Mehta, Singh's friend, visited him in the jail on 20 March, four days before his execution, with a draft letter for clemency, but he declined to sign it.[24]
Reception

Singh was criticised both by his contemporaries,[who?] and by people after his death,[who?] for his violent and revolutionary stance towards the British as well as his strong opposition to the pacifist stance taken by Gandhi and the Indian National Congress.[89][90] The methods he used to convey his message, such as shooting Saunders, and throwing non-lethal bombs, stood in stark contrast to Gandhi's non-violent methodology.[90]
Popularity
Wall painting of Singh, Rewalsar, Himachal Pradesh.

Subhas Chandra Bose said that: "Bhagat Singh had become the symbol of the new awakening among the youths." Nehru acknowledged that Bhagat Singh's popularity was leading to a new national awakening, saying: "He was a clean fighter who faced his enemy in the open field ... he was like a spark that became a flame in a short time and spread from one end of the country to the other dispelling the prevailing darkness everywhere".[17] Four years after Singh's hanging, the Director of the Intelligence Bureau, Sir Horace Williamson, wrote: "His photograph was on sale in every city and township and for a time rivaled in popularity even that of Mr. Gandhi himself".[17]
Legacy and memorials
See also: Hussainiwala National Martyrs Memorial

Bhagat Singh remains a significant figure in Indian iconography to the present day.[91] His memory, however, defies categorisation and presents problems for various groups that might try to appropriate it. Pritam Singh, a professor who has specialised in the study of federalism, nationalism and development in India, notes that

    Bhagat Singh represents a challenge to almost every tendency in Indian politics. Gandhi-inspired Indian nationalists, Hindu nationalists, Sikh nationalists, the parliamentary Left and the pro-armed struggle Naxalite Left compete with each other to appropriate the legacy of Bhagat Singh, and yet each one of them is faced with a contradiction in making a claim to his legacy. Gandhi-inspired Indian nationalists find Bhagat Singh's resort to violence problematic, the Hindu and Sikh nationalists find his atheism troubling, the parliamentary Left finds his ideas and actions as more close to the perspective of the Naxalites and the Naxalites find Bhagat Singh's critique of individual terrorism in his later life an uncomfortable historical fact.[92]

    On 15 August 2008, an 18-foot tall bronze statue of Singh was installed in the Parliament of India, next to the statues of Indira Gandhi and Subhas Chandra Bose.[93] A portrait of Singh and Dutt also adorns the walls of the Parliament House.[94]

The National Martyrs Memorial, built at Hussainiwala in memory of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru

    The place where Singh was cremated, at Hussainiwala on the banks of the Sutlej river, became Pakistani territory during the partition. On 17 January 1961, it was transferred to India in exchange for 12 villages near the Sulemanki Headworks.[64] Batukeshwar Dutt was cremated there on 19 July 1965 in accordance with his last wishes, as was Singh's mother, Vidyawati.[95] The National Martyrs Memorial was built on the cremation spot in 1968[96] and has memorials of Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev. During the 1971 India–Pakistan war, the memorial was damaged and the statues of the martyrs were removed by the Pakistani Army. They have not been returned[64][97] but the memorial was rebuilt in 1973.[95]
    The Shaheedi Mela (Punjabi: Martyrdom Fair) is an event held annually on 23 March when people pay homage at the National Martyrs Memorial.[98] The day is also observed across the Indian state of Punjab.[99]
    The Shaheed-e-Azam Sardar Bhagat Singh Museum opened on the 50th anniversary of his death at his ancestral village, Khatkar Kalan. Exhibits include Singh's ashes, the blood-soaked sand, and the blood-stained newspaper in which the ashes were wrapped.[100] A page of the first Lahore Conspiracy Case's judgement in which Kartar Singh Sarabha was sentenced to death and on which Singh put some notes is also displayed,[100] as well as a copy of the Bhagavad Gita with Bhagat Singh's signature, which was given to him in the Lahore Jail, and other personal belongings.[101][102]
    The Bhagat Singh Memorial was built in 2009 in Khatkar Kalan at a cost of ₹168 million (US$2.5 million).[103]
    The Supreme Court of India established a museum to display landmarks in the history of India's judicial system, displaying records of some historic trials. The first exhibition that was organised was the Trial of Bhagat Singh, which opened on 28 September 2007, on the centenary celebrations of Singh's birth.[65][66]

Modern days
Statues of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev at the India–Pakistan Border, near Hussainiwala

The youth of India still draw tremendous amount of inspiration from Singh.[104][105][106] He was voted the "Greatest Indian" in a poll by the Indian magazine India Today in 2008, ahead of Bose and Gandhi.[107] During the centenary of his birth, a group of intellectuals set up an institution named Bhagat Singh Sansthan to commemorate him and his ideals.[108] The Parliament of India paid tributes and observed silence as a mark of respect in memory of Singh on 23 March 2001[109] and 2005.[110] In Pakistan, after a long-standing demand by activists from the Bhagat Singh Memorial Foundation of Pakistan, the Shadman Chowk square in Lahore, where he was hanged, was renamed as Bhagat Singh Chowk. This change was successfully challenged in a Pakistani court.[111][112] On 6 September 2015, the Bhagat Singh Memorial Foundation filed a petition in the Lahore high court and again demanded the renaming of the Chowk to Bhagat Singh Chowk.[113]
Films and television

Several films have been made portraying the life and times of Singh. The first film based on his life was Shaheed-e-Azad Bhagat Singh (1954) in which Prem Abeed played the role of Singh followed by Shaheed Bhagat Singh (1963), starring Shammi Kapoor as Bhagat Singh. Two years later, Manoj Kumar portrayed Bhagat Singh in an immensely popular and landmark film, Shaheed. Three major films about Singh were released in 2002 but all were unsuccessful Shaheed-E-Azam, 23 March 1931: Shaheed except The Legend of Bhagat Singh in which Ajay Devgan playing role of Bhagat Singh and got National film award for best actor 2002. Siddharth played the role of Bhagat singh in the 2006 film Rang De Basanti, a film drawing parallels between revolutionaries of Bhagat Singh's era and modern Indian youth.[114]

Karam Rajpal portrayed Bhagat Singh in Star Bharat's television series Chandrashekhar which is based on life of Chandra Shekhar Azad.[115]

In 2008, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) and Act Now for Harmony and Democracy (ANHAD), a non-profit organisation, co-produced a 40-minute documentary on Bhagat Singh entitled Inqilab, directed by Gauhar Raza.[116][117]
Theatre

Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru have been the inspiration for a number of plays in India and Pakistan, that continue to attract crowds.[118][119][120]
Songs

Although created by Ram Prasad Bismil, the patriotic Hindustani songs, "Sarfaroshi ki Tamanna" ("The desire to sacrifice") and "Mera Rang De Basanti Chola" ("O Mother! Dye my robe the colour of spring"[121]) are largely associated with Singh and have been used in a number of related films.[122]
Other

In 1968, a postage stamp was issued in India commemorating the 61st birth anniversary of Singh.[123] A ₹5 coin commemorating him was released for circulation in 2012