People's Democracy

The Problem of Culture as Bhagat Singh Viewed It

Naresh ‘Nadeem’

AS we know, Bhagat Singh was basically a political being and, in his “Introduction to Dreamland,” he explicitly described himself as “a political worker” (p 117).1 At the same time, he made it clear that he was “neither a poet nor a litterateur…. neither a journalist nor a critic,” and he certainly had no pretension to being a professional thinker. Secondly, we also know that he had had a very short life and went to the gallows at the age of only 23 years and a half. Hence whatever he said about the questions of culture is only fragmentary, and it is from these mutually unconnected writings that we have to reconstruct his conception of culture. Regrettably, such a presentation can’t but have one lacuna here and another there.

Let us begin at the beginning. Being a revolutionary who smilingly kissed the hangman’s noose, Bhagat Singh was motivated by a particular (and clear) conception of what India should be like after her independence. And to it must be added the fact that the vision that motivated Bhagat Singh and his generation of revolutionaries was at the same time patriotic and internationalist. As the Manifesto of their organisation, the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA), said, “We believe in violence, not as an end (in) itself but as a means to a noble end” (p 186), and this noble end was to put an end to the exploitation of man by man and of nation by nation. This was what the Manifesto of Naujawan Bharat Sabha, a Lahore based open platform of revolutionaries during 1926-30, meant by the “doctrine of universal brotherhood” (p 179). (This manifesto was drafted by Bhagat Singh’s colleague, Bhagwati Charan Vohra, who was martyred while testing a bomb in a jungle on the Ravi bank in Lahore.) Bhagat Singh and his comrades aspired for a society where there would be no oppression and no repression, and where there would be “equal opportunity to all without any sort of distinction,” and this was of what the “British rule in India (was) a direct negation” (ibid). This was what motivated these handful of revolutionaries to take up arms against the might of the British empire. In place of the latter, which Bhagat Singh called an “evil” empire having “far-reaching power for mischief” (p 70), he wanted the establishment of a “socialistic society” in which the “sovereignty of the proletariat” would be recognised and “a world federation (would) redeem humanity from the bondage of capitalism and misery of imperial wars” (p 74). 

This is the running theme that runs through all the available writings of Bhagat Singh and his comrades-in-arms. 

It was therefore natural that Bhagat Singh’s conception of culture was permeated with this broader objective regarding the future of India and the world. To him, in plain and simple words devoid of jargon, culture should be such that it facilitates the end of exploitation of man by man and nation by nation. 

There are reasons to believe that Bhagat Singh understood the importance of culture as early as in the age of 16. Written in Hindi in 1923, his article “The Problem of Punjab’s Language and Script” belongs to a period when he was still under the influence of Arya Samaj, a revivalist movement, more so because of his family background. (His grandfather was an Arya Samajist, and Bhagat Singh himself later acknowledged the fact of this influence.) However, on the importance of culture in revolutionary work, this article has the following to say: 

“Perhaps Garibaldi could not have succeeded in mobilising the army with such ease if Mazzini had not invested his thirty years in his mission of cultural and literary renaissance. The revival of Irish language was attempted with the same enthusiasm along with the renaissance in Ireland…. The French revolution would have been impossible without the literature of Rousseau and Voltaire. Had Tolstoy, Karl Marx and Maxim Gorky not invested years of their lives in the creation of a new literature, Russian revolution would not have taken place, leave alone the propagation of communism” (pp 45-46). 

That is why he says that social and religious reformers place much emphasis on “the literature of their country,” and quotes the example of Kabir Saheb whose couplets still captivate people with their sweetness and sensitivity.

It is thus clear that Bhagat Singh’s conception of literature or culture was radically different from the way a ruling class or a ruling party projects these things. If you like, we may put it thus in today’s context: culture is not confined to a few items of classical or folk dances, and the like, that our rulers present in (say) many a “Festival of India” held abroad. Nor is it something that need be confined to the elite. Culture is what makes the broad mass of people aware of the need of a fundamental transformation of society and rouses them to action for the purpose. 

This could not be otherwise. Unless you make a protracted and sustained effort to clear the mass consciousness of the whole muck accumulated over the past, and unless you free the people from the influence of alien or ruling class ideas, you cannot expect the masses to enter the field of action. That is where the need of culture and a cultural renaissance is felt in all its intensity.

Simplicity of language acquires relevance here as a corollary of mass cultural work, in its broad sense delineated above. He says, “All the Sanskrit literature, put together, failed to revive the Hindu society; new literature had to be written in a contemporary modern language….. Even for a person of proper education and comprehension, the hymns of unintelligible Sanskrit and ayats of classical Arabic cannot be as enthusing as is possible by the simple statements in a simple language” (p 47). 

It is true that Bhagat Singh drew a wrong conclusion from this correct observation and advocated unitarian acceptance of Hindi language in Punjab. So much so that he was ready to cast the Punjabi language aside and sought to denigrate Urdu; he even regretted that the people of Punjab did not accept the efforts made in this direction by Mahatma Hansraj who promised that if the leaders of Punjab “accept the Hindi script, he would get the Punjabi language in Hindi script recognised in the University” (p 49). However, one has to accept that these views, expressed at the age of 16, cannot be taken as his authentic views, as a mature Bhagat Singh soon came out of this Arya Samajist influence. This is what he himself talks about in his article “Why I am an Atheist.” Also, after he came out of the Arya Samajist influence, Urdu poetry became his constant companion; many of his letters he wrote in Urdu.

To proceed further. Religion occupies a key place in Bhagat Singh’s thinking, and in this regard he categorically declared that he was “a materialist” whose “interpretation of the phenomena would be causal,” instead of being “teleological and metaphysical” (p 119). He says in the same vein: “That this world is ‘Maya’ or ‘Mithya,’ a dream or a fiction, is clear mysticism which has been originated and developed by Hindu sages of old ages, such as Shankaracharya and others. But in the materialist philosophy this mode of thinking has got absolutely no place” (ibid). At places, Bhagat Singh does recognise a particular function of mysticism, viz that it gives a revolutionary a measure of courage to face the risks of secret work and to face the personal temptations and desires, to lead a risky life “without hope and without fear, always prepared to die unknown, unhonoured and unsung,” and he says “this sort of mysticism is by no means demoralising” (ibid). At another place, he explicitly says that the “idea of God is helpful to a man in distress” (p 152). However, contrary to those taking recourse to such mysticism, an atheist faces “all troubles quite boldly,” without any props. In the same way, he too wanted “to stand like a man with an erect head to the last, even on the gallows” (p 153). 

This relatively long article, “Why I am an Atheist,” needs to be carefully read and pondered in order to grasp how Bhagat Singh, adopting an historical approach, viewed the origin of the conception of God, and of religion that “was useful to the society in the primitive age.” At the same time, however, he is very clear that the society of today does not need such kind of props. Moreover, in a letter to Sukhdev, he says, “We become pitiable and ridiculous when we imbibe an unreasoned mysticism in our life without any natural or substantial basis” (p 108). 

In this context, Bhagat Singh proceeds from the idea that those who hold this world to be an illusion cannot vigorously fight for its betterment. Secondly, religion also serves to blur one’s vision. Referring to various doctrines of the past, including Charvak,2 Bhagat Singh talks of what our “misfortune” is. “Instead of using the experiments and expressions of the ancient savants and thinkers as a basis for our future struggle against ignorance and to try to find out a solution to this mysterious problem, we, lethargical as we have proved to be, raise the hue and cry of faith, unflinching and unwavering faith to their versions and thus are guilty of stagnation in human progress” (p 147). He is also clear that it is such an uncritical attitude that gives rise to “primitive national and racial hatred” (p 122) that goads our men to fight mutually. 

And how do they fight mutually? The Manifesto of the Naujawan Bharat Sabha, quoted above, says without mincing words: “…we Indians, what are we doing? A branch of peepal tree is cut and religious feelings of the Hindus are injured. A corner of a paper idol, tazia, of the idol-breaker Mohammedans is broken and ‘Allah’ gets enraged, who cannot be satisfied with anything less than the blood of the infidel Hindus. Man ought to be attached more importance than the animals and, yet, here in India, they break each other’s heads in the name of ‘sacred’ animals” (p 179). Further, “Religious superstitions and bigotry are a great hindrance in our progress. They have proved an obstacle in our way and we must do away with them. The thing that cannot bear free thought must perish” (p 180). And thus the battle is “two-fold because of the internal foe, on the one hand, and a foreign enemy, on the other. Our real battle is against our own disabilities which are exploited by the enemy and some of our own people for their selfish motives” (ibid).

As for “some of our own people with their selfish motives,” Bhagat Singh and his comrades did have a clear idea as to how interested quarters exploit religion to dupe the masses and perpetuate the latter’s thraldom. About God, religion, the other world, heaven and hell, rebirth, etc, he says: “My dear friends, these theories are the inventions of the privileged ones; they justify their usurped power, riches and superiority by the help of these theories. Yes, it was perhaps Upton Sinclair3 who wrote at some place that just make a man a believer in immortality and then rob him of all his riches and possessions. He shall help you even in that ungrudgingly. The coalition among the religious preachers and possessors of power brought forth jails, gallows, knouts and these theories” (pp 150-51). 

It was with this perspective that Bhagat Singh rejected religion lock, stock and barrel. About the manuscript Dreamland, he says the author (Lala Ram Saran Das, another convicted revolutionary) tries to conciliate various conflicting religions “just as all nationalists try to do…. on my part, I would have dismissed it with one sentence of Karl Marx that religion is opium for the masses” (p 120). 

However, even if we ignore the feeling that Bhagat Singh has understood Marx here somewhat wrongly, the fact remains that dismissing religion as opium for the masses does not solve the problem of “various conflicting religions,” as we in India are sadly witnessing today. Atheism may be one’s personal creed, just as this or that particular religion is, but it cannot be imposed on the masses who believe in this or that particular religion. Then? Evidently, the problem of conciliating “various conflicting religions’ still remains. 

Here one cannot but compare Bhagat Singh with the Ghadar Party revolutionaries of a generation ago. This party was formed in San Francisco, USA, in 1913 and the British used the cruellest methods to decimate it through the first Lahore Conspiracy Case of 1915-16.4 According to late Comrade Sohan Singh Josh, the Ghadar revolutionaries “believed in secularism and stood for a stable Hindu-Muslim-Sikh unity. They also did not accept the categories of touchables and untouchables. Unity of India and unity for the freedom struggle of India were the main principles which weighed within and guided them.”5 Josh correctly said that Ghadar Party was the first among the Indian revolutionary groups to adopt the ideals of secularism in its real sense, as separation of religion from politics, and to late Comrade Shiv Verma, “This was their first great achievement in Indian politics.”6

Be that as it may, Bhagat Singh was very clear that a critical and scientific bent of mind was very much needed to clear the muck accumulated over the ages. And we think the best way to sum up this discussion is to present here his testimony in his own words: 

“Any man who stands for progress has to criticise, disbelieve and challenge every item of the old faith. Item by item he has to reason out every nook and corner of the prevailing faith. If after considerable reasoning one is led to believe in any theory or philosophy, his faith is welcome. His reasoning can be mistaken, wrong, misled, and sometimes fallacious. But he is liable to correction because reason is the guiding star of his life. But mere faith and blind faith is dangerous: it dulls the brain, and make a man reactionary. A man who claims to be a realist has to challenge the whole of the ancient faith. If it does not stand the onslaught of reason it crumbles down. Then the first thing for him is to shatter the whole (thing) down and clear a space for the erection of a new philosophy. This is the negative side. After it begins the positive work in which sometimes some material of the old faith may be used for the purpose of reconstruction” (p 147). 

This is the injunction one has to scrupulously follow if one has to do something for a betterment of the life of people in our own country and the world.

Notes & References

1. Unless otherwise indicated, references are to Shiv Verma (ed), Selected Writings of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, New Delhi, 1986. The book was published on the 55th anniversary of the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev. Comrade Shiv Verma (1904-97), the editor of the book, had been a colleague of Bhagat Singh and was sent to the Andaman Cellular Jail in the same Second Lahore Conspiracy Case that ended with the execution of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev.

2. Curiously, Bhagat Singh takes Charvak not as a school of philosophy but as an “independent thinker of the past ages.” It may also be mentioned here that during his few months of stay in Kanpur after leaving home, Bhagat Singh was constantly in touch with Radha Mohan Gokul Ji, an avowed atheist, whom great Urdu-Hindi writer Premchand had lovingly nicknamed “modern Charvak.” 

3. Interestingly, Upton Sinclair was one of Bhagat Singh’s favourite authors and Bhagat Singh, even in his condemned cell, had had a copy of Sinclair’s Spy with him.

4. Ghadar revolutionary Kartar Singh Sarabha, who went to the gallows at the tender age of 16, was Bhagat Singh’s ideal.

5. Sohan Singh Josh, Hindustan Ghadar Party: A Short History, New Delhi, p 160.

6. Shiv Verma, op cit, Introduction, p 17.