Bhagat Singh as ‘Satyagrahi’: The Limits to Non-violence in Late Colonial India

Abstract

Among anti-colonial nationalists, Bhagat Singh and M.K. Gandhi are seen to exemplify absolutely contrasting strategies of resistance. Bhagat Singh is regarded as a violent revolutionary whereas Gandhi is the embodiment of non-violence. This paper argues that Bhagat Singh and his comrades became national heroes not after their murder of a police inspector in Lahore or after throwing bombs in the Legislative Assembly in New Delhi but during their practice of hunger strikes and non-violent civil disobedience within the walls of Lahore's prisons in 1929–30. In fact there was plenty in common in the strategies of resistance employed by both Gandhi and Bhagat Singh. By labelling these revolutionaries ‘murderers’ and ‘terrorists’, the British sought to dismiss their non-violent demands for rights as ‘political prisoners’. The same labels were adopted by Gandhi and his followers. However, the quality of anti-colonial nationalism represented by Bhagat Singh was central to the resolution of many of the divisions that racked pre-partition Punjab.

Killing in the Name Of? Capital Punishment in Colonial and Postcolonial India

“…A death sentence that captured the public imagination as never before, Singh's spectacular popularity produced huge petitions carrying 138,000 signatures for his commutation, accompanied by protests across India. 31 In the midst of this, Gaya Prasad Singh successfully introduced The Abolition of Capital Punishment Bill to the Legislative Assembly for debate. Employing a defense of abolitionism that would be recognizable to many today, he listed a series of "progressive countries" that had wholly or partially abolished the punishment, denigrated its deterrent value, heralded the importance of rehabilitation rather than retribution, and argued that its continued presence was a "relic of barbarism."…”

Imagining the Indian nationalist movement: Revolutionary metaphors in imagery of the freedom struggle

“…Descriptions of the revolutionaries as moths can be traced to their hunger strike campaign in jail in 1929, in protest at racial discrimination between British and Indian prisoners, a campaign that undoubtedly led to the popularization of the revolutionaries (Nair, 2009;Sherman, 2008). Beginning on 15 June, 17 convicts and prisoners under trial in jails across Punjab and Delhi embarked on a coordinated hunger strike, which was closely reported in the Indian press.…”

The Bomb,Bhadralok, Bhagavad Gita, and Dan Breen: Terrorism in Bengal and Its Relation to the European Experience

“…The label ''terrorist'' could, to be sure, obfuscate the blend of violence and non-violence utilized by Indian revolutionaries. 6 Yet in the case of Bengal, as the historian Charles Townshend has observed, ''terrorism'' accurately reflected the nature of the revolutionaries' anti-colonial actions, which 2 M. Silvestri included robberies, arms smuggling, acts of violence against British and Indian servants of the colonial state, and, by the 1930s, attacks on Europeans in general. 7 Historians of South Asia have also utilized the term ''revolutionary terrorists,'' which reflects the broader goals-the end of colonial rule and the establishment of an independent Indian government-that acts such as the murder of colonial officials were meant to accomplish.…”