"The share of revolutionary youth in the fight for Indian Freedom is by no means negligible and those who talk of India's freedom having been secured by Gandhiji are not only ungrateful but are trying to write false history."

Nathuram Godse

Due to the failure of the Non-cooperation Movement, there was shock and anger for the people of Punjab who were waiting some wonders to happen that would punish the guilty of the ‘Jallianwala Bagh’ massacre. In the Gaya session of Congress, Ram Prasad Bismil accused Gandhiji for exploiting the sentiments of the victims of the ‘Jallianwala Bagh’ tragedy for personal gains. Bismil then went to Allahabad where, he along with Sachindra Nath Sanyal and Dr. Jadugopal Mukherjee formed the ‘Hindustan Republican Association’ (HRA).

In stark contrast to Gandhiji, the HRA believed in fighting the British using violent means. Within a year, the HRA established branches in Agra, Allahabad, Benares, Cawnpore, Lucknow, Saharanpur and Shahjahanpur. They also started manufacturing bombs in Calcutta – at Dakshineswar and Shovabazar – and at Deoghar in Bihar.

From 1924 to 1925, the HRA grew in numbers with the influx of new members like Bhagat Singh, Chandrasekhar Azad, Sukhdev Thapar, Shivram Rajguru and Batukeshwar Dutt. During this period, there were many attempts at disruption and obtaining funds such as the robbery of a post office in Calcutta and money belonging to the railways at Chittagong, both in 1923. But the Kakori train robbery was the most prominent of the early HRA efforts.

The Kakori event occurred on 9^th August 1925, when HRA members looted government money from a train around 14 miles from Lucknow and accidentally killed a passenger in the process. Many members of the HRA were arrested and stood trial for their involvement in that incident and others which had preceded it. The outcome was that four leaders – Ashfaqullah Khan, Ram Prasad Bismil, Roshan Singh and Rajendra Lahiri – were hanged in December 1927 and a further 16 imprisoned for lengthy terms.

After the Kakori robbery and the subsequent trial, various revolutionary groups had emerged in places such as Bengal, Bihar and Punjab. These groups eventually came together for a meeting at Feroz Shah Kotla, in Delhi, on 7^th August 1928, and from this emerged the ‘Hindustan Socialist Republican Association’ (HSRA). The socialist leanings voiced in the earlier HRA manifesto had gradually moved more towards Marxism and the HSRA spoke of a revolution involving a struggle by the masses. It saw itself as being at the forefront of this revolution, spreading the word and acting as the armed section of the masses. Its ideals were apparent in other movements elsewhere at that time, including incidents of communist-inspired industrial action by workers and the Rural Kisan Movement.

Meanwhile, the demand for transfer of power to Indians was gathering momentum. The Government in England was a Conservative Government which was not in very much favor of giving any control to Indians. In March 1927, the British Government announced its decision to appoint a Statutory Commission in advance of the prescribed date.

In November 1927, the British government set up a Commission, headed by Sir John Simon, to report into the state of Indian constitutional affairs and on the political situation in India. This commission was formed by the British Government only to show the people that British were sincere in the efforts in giving people the self-rule but it was the Indians who could not decide for a consensus on power-sharing. As expected, Indian political parties boycotted the Commission, because it did not include a single Indian in its membership.

At the annual session of the Congress in Madras, a resolution was passed which advocated the boycott of the Simon Commission "at every stage and in every form". Other factions of the politicians also joined the suit. Wherever the commission went, people came out in processions shouting slogans "Simon Go Back".

When the Commission visited Lahore on 30th October 1928, senior leader, Lala Lajpat Rai, led a non-violent protest against the Commission in a silent march, but the police responded with violence. The superintendent of police, James A. Scott, ordered the police to lathi charge the protesters and personally assaulted Rai, who was grievously injured, later on Rai could not recover from the injury and died on 17^th November 1928.

The HSRA revolutionaries vowed to avenge Lalaji’s death. On 17th December 1928, Bhagat Singh along with Rajguru, Sukhdev and Azad mistook John P. Saunders, an Assistant Superintendent of Police, as James Scott and shot him outside the District Police Headquarters in Lahore. The next day the HSRA acknowledged the assassination by putting up posters in Lahore that read ‘JP Saunders is dead; Lala Lajpat Rai is avenged. ... In this man has died an agent of the British authority in India. ... Sorry for the bloodshed of the human being, but the sacrifice of individuals at the altar of revolution ... is inevitable….. Inquilab Zindabad (Long live the revolution)’.¹³

The next major action by the HSRA was the bombing of the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi. On 8^th April 1929, Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt threw bombs at the empty treasury benches, being careful to ensure that there were no casualties in order to highlight the propagandist nature of their action. They made no attempt to escape and courted arrest while shouting ‘Inquilab Zindabad’ (Long Live the Revolution) and ‘Samrajyavad ko nash ho’ (Down with Imperialism). A leaflet titled "To Make the Deaf Hear", ¹⁴ was thrown in the assembly and was reproduced the next day in the Hindustan Times.

On 12^th June 1929, Bhagat Singh was sentenced to life imprisonment for causing explosions of a nature likely to endanger life, unlawfully and maliciously. However, during the trial, the police found evidence that Bhagat Singh was the person who had murdered Saunders. Bhagat Singh had committed a huge blunder by carrying with him a pistol, in the Central Assembly, where he had thrown the bombs. The police found the gun shells matching with those fired on Saunders. Thus, he was now re-arrested and charged with murder. Within a week, the police raided a bomb factory in Lahore and arrested his close aides Shivram Rajguru and Sukhdev Thapar.

They were then kept at the Lahore Central Jail in Punjab.  The conditions of Indian inhabitants of the jail were deplorable. The uniforms that Indian prisoners were required to wear in jail with were not washed for several days, and rats and cockroaches roamed the kitchen area making the food unsafe to eat. Indian prisoners were not provided with any reading material such as newspapers, nor paper to write on. In contrast, the condition of the British prisoners in the same jail was strikingly different.

On 15^th June 1929, Bhagat Singh, along with Batukeshwar Dutt and many other inmates went on a hunger strike to protest against the plight of Indian prisoners there. They demanded equality in standards of food, clothing, toiletries and other hygienic necessities, as well as availability of books and a daily newspaper for the political prisoners, whom they demanded should not be forced to do manual labour or any undignified work in the jail.

The police tried violent methods to feed them forcibly but failed to do so. Then, the authorities then attempted forcing food using feeding tubes into the prisoners, but were resisted. The hunger strike went on for sixty three days. With the matter still unresolved, the Indian Viceroy, Lord Irwin, broke his vacation in Shimla to discuss the situation with the jail authorities.

One of the inmates on hunger strike at the Lahore Central Jail was Jatin Das, a young revolutionary from Bengal. On 13^th September 1929, Jatin died after a 63 day unbroken fast. His wife, Durga Bhabhi led the funeral procession of Jatin Das from Lahore to Kolkata. As his body was carried from Lahore to Kolkata by train, thousands of people rushed to every station to pay their homage to the martyr. A two-mile long procession in Kolkata carried the coffin to the cremation ground. The hunger strike of Jatin Das in prison was one crucial moment in the resistance against illegal detentions.

In his book ‘The Indian Struggle’ (p.146) Subhash Chandra Bose states ‘In this connection, the attitude of the Mahatma was inexplicable. Evidently, the martyrdom of Jatin Das which had stirred the hearts of the country did not make any impression on him. The pages of Young India, ordinarily filled with observations on all political events and also on topics like health, diet, etc. had nothing to say about the incident’.

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 called the ‘Lahore Conspiracy Case’. Bhagat Singh was transported to Borstal Jail, Lahore, and the trial of this case began there on 10^th July 1929. In addition to charging them for the murder of Saunders, Bhagat Singh was charged with plotting a conspiracy to murder Scott and waging a war against the King. Bhagat Singh, still on hunger strike, had to be carried to the court handcuffed on a stretcher.

Then, they were disabled from participating in the court’s proceedings as the British moved an amendment to the Criminal Procedure Code empowering the court to proceed with the case even in the absence of the accused. The Swaraj Party and Muslim League opposed this move by the British. Jinnah attacked the government for introducing a vicious rule which enabled the court to proceed ex-parte against an accused and convict him on the basis of testimony untested by cross-examination and documents he had not seen. Motilal Nehru moved a successful adjournment motion in the Central Assembly as a censure against the "inhumane treatment" of the Lahore prisoners. But, there was stunned silence from the Congress. In fact, Gandhiji condemned the actions of Bhagat Singh as a retrograde action by calling him a ‘misguided youth’ who had gone wrong.

On 12^th September 1929, Jinnah said in the Central Assembly ‘I regret that, rightly or wrongly, youth today in India is stirred up, and you cannot, when you have 300 and odd millions of people, you cannot prevent such crimes from being committed, however much you deplore them and however much you may say that they are misguided. It is the system, this damnable system of government, which is resented by the people.’ ¹⁵ There was a thunderous applause from the spellbound House when the president adjourned the House. Thus, due to the efforts of Jinnah, the amendment was not passed in the assembly.

Next day, The Tribune’s special correspondent reported: “Mr Jinnah created a profound impression by the excellent form in which he argued the case… winning applause after applause from the spellbound House when the president adjourned the House…” ¹⁶

Meanwhile, the heroics of Bhagat Singh had begun to cause jitters in the Congress. After the debacle of the Non-Cooperation Movement, the Congress was almost agenda less and had no active programme except the ‘Khadi’. Thus, time was running out for the agenda-less Congress. Then, in order to counter the rising popularity of Bhagat Singh, the Congress leaders met in Lahore on 29^th December 1929 where they passed the resolution declaring ‘Purna Swaraj’ within a year. These Congress leaders had made it a habit of selling Utopian dreams to Indians. Nine years ago, Gandhiji had sold a similar dream. Now, it was the turn of the new president, Jawaharlal Nehru.

In the same session, the Congress resolved to organize the country’s first civil disobedience movement. The Congress gave Gandhiji the responsibility of leading the civil disobedience movement. Gandhiji decided to begin the civil disobedience movement with a ‘Satyagraha’ aimed at the British salt tax. The 1882 Salt Act gave the British a monopoly on the collection and manufacture of salt, limiting its handling to government salt depots and levying a salt tax. Violation of the Salt Act was a criminal offence. Even though salt was freely available to those living on the coast, Indians were forced to purchase it from the colonial government.

The British establishment too was not disturbed by these plans of resistance against the salt tax. The Viceroy himself did not take the threat of a salt protest seriously as salt tax represented 8.2% of the British Raj tax revenue. But, Gandhiji had sound reasons for his decision. He felt that this protest would dramatise the whole situation and re-assert him into the forefront of Indian politics once again.

At midnight on 31^st December 1929, the Congress President Jawaharlal Nehru raised the tricolour flag of India on the banks of the Ravi at Lahore. The following day, 172 Indian members of central and provincial legislatures resigned in support of the resolution and in accordance with Indian public sentiment.

On 12^th March 1930, Gandhiji and 80 volunteers, set out on foot for the coastal village of Dandi in Navsari, Gujarat, over 390 kilometres from their starting point at Sabarmati Ashram. As they entered each village, crowds greeted the marchers, beating drums and cymbals. Gandhiji gave speeches attacking the salt tax as inhuman. Each night they slept in the open. The only thing that was asked of the villagers was food and water to wash with. Gandhiji had to bring the poor into his movement. It was necessary for his eventual victory.

Upon arriving at the seashore on 5^th April 1930, Gandhiji raised a lump of salty mud and declared, ‘With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire.’ ¹⁷ The Salt ‘Satyagraha’ then spread throughout India. As days passed, the movement started getting ugly and violent. In reaction, the British government arrested over sixty thousand people by the end of the month.

On 4^th May 1930, Gandhiji decided to raid the Dharasana Salt Works in Gujarat, 25 miles south of Dandi. He wrote to the Viceroy, telling him of his plans. Around midnight as Gandhiji was sleeping, the District Magistrate of Surat drove up with two Indian officers and thirty heavily armed constables. He was arrested under an 1827 regulation calling for the jailing of people engaged in unlawful activities, and held without trial near Poona. This was just what Gandhiji wanted in order to draw the country’s attention away from the ‘Lahore Conspiracy Case’.

Meanwhile, ‘Lahore Conspiracy Case’ began to tilt in fovour of Bhagat Singh and his comrades. The court had dismissed six of the seven witnesses against the accused. The Viceroy then declared an emergency on 1^st May 1930, and promulgated an ordinance setting up a Special Tribunal composed of three high court judges for this case. The ordinance cut short the normal process of justice as the Tribunal was authorised to function without the presence of any of the accused in court, and to accept death of the persons giving evidence as a concession to the defence.

The case commenced on 5^th May 1930 in Poonch House, Lahore. The Tribunal conducted the trial from 5^th May 1930 to 10^th September 1930. The ordinance as well as the Tribunal was due to lapse on 31^st October 1930 as it had not been passed in the Central Assembly or the British Parliament. Then, on 7^th October 1930, the Tribunal delivered its 300-page judgement based on all the evidence and concluded that participation of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru was proved beyond reasonable doubt in Saunders murder and sentenced them to ‘Death by Hanging’.

By October 1930, the Salt ‘Satyagraha’ had succeeded in drawing the attention of the world. Millions saw the newsreels showing the march. The British government was shaken by Civil Disobedience Movement. As a result, in October 1930, Lord Irwin announced a series of three Round Table Conferences organized by the British Government to discuss constitutional reforms in India offering it a 'dominion status in an unspecified future’.”

The Round Table Conference was opened officially by Lord Irwin on 12^th November 1930 at London. However, as the Congress was in the midst of the Civil Disobedience Movement, they kept away from the conference. It was very difficult for any progress to be made in the absence of the Congress. Thus, the conference was called off on 19^th January 1931.

 By early 1931, British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald and Secretary of State for India William Benn were eager for peace, if they could secure it without weakening the position of the Labour Government. They wanted to make a success of the Round Table Conference and knew that, without the presence of Gandhiji and the Congress could not achieve it. MacDonald went so far as to express the hope that the Congress would be represented at the next session.

The Viceroy took the hint and, on 25^th January 1931, promptly ordered the unconditional release of Gandhiji and all members of the Congress. He urged Gandhiji to call off the Civil Disobedience Movement and participate in the Round Table Conference. Gandhiji put forth certain conditions which included, lifting of curbs imposed on the Congress, release of prisoners arrested during the movement, withdrawal of cases pending against them and removal of tax on salt.

Many Congress, including Jawaharlal Nehru, leaders pleaded with Gandhiji to include the commutation of the death sentence of Bhagat Singh as one of the conditions to participate in the Round Table Conference. They tried to convince Gandhi that Bhagat Singh deserves another chance to defend himself as he was convicted in a very unconstitutional manner. But, Gandhiji turned a deaf ear to all of them. As a result, the hopes of saving Bhagat Singh began receding.

On 14^th February 1931, senior Congress leader, Madan Mohan Malavia, filed a mercy appeal before Lord Irwin which was rejected. An appeal was also sent to Gandhiji by prisoners of the Lahore Jail not to sign the pact with Lord Irwin until the death sentence of Bhagat Singh is commuted. But, Gandhiji ignored everyone and signed the pact with Lord Irwin on 5^th March 1931.

Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were to be hanged on 24^th March 1931. But, that schedule was moved forward by 11 hours and they were hanged on 23^rd March 1931 at 7:30 pm. The jail authorities then broke the rear wall of the jail and secretly cremated the three men under cover of darkness outside Ganda Singh Wala village, and then threw the ashes into the Sutlej River.

The execution of Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev was reported widely by the press, especially as it was on the eve of the annual convention of the Congress party at Karachi. Gandhiji was heckled and faced black flag demonstrations by angry youths who shouted ‘Down with Gandhi’. ¹⁸ There was outrage all over the country. But, the Congress which had not bothered to help Bhagat Singh during the trial was using his martyrdom to score political brownie points.

In his book ‘The Indian Struggle’ (p.191), Subhash Chandra Bose describes this hypocrisy of the Congress as ‘To perfect the stage management, Sardar Kishen Singh, the father of Late Sardar Bhagat Singh, was brought in to the rostrum and made to speak in support of the Congress leaders. The tactics of the party was superb’.

In the issue of Young India of 29 March 1931, Gandhiji, trying to justify his actions, 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….. 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.”

In response, the ‘Bharat’, an Indian revolutionary newspaper, published on 30^th March 1931 “Here for those who have eyes to see, is an example of the work of those 'disciples of truth' (referring to the Gandhian). Western demagogues never exploited more cynically individual heroism and the sentiments of the public for their own ends. Bhagat Singh was sung up and down for two days in Congress... the parents of the dead men were exhibited everywhere. Probably their charred flesh, had it been available, would have been thrown to the people... And to cap it all, no uncompromising condemnation of the Government that carried out the act, but a pious reflection that the Government had 'lost the golden opportunity of promoting goodwill between the two nations'.”

Nathuram Godse states’

77. Moderate's opinion condemned the revolutionary violence. Gandhiji publicly denounced it day after day on every platform and through the press. There is however little doubt that the overwhelming mass of the people gave their silent but wholehearted support to the vanguard of the armed resistance working for national freedom. The theory of the revolutionary is, that a nation always tries to wage war on its alien conquerors, It owes no allegiance to the conqueror, and the very fact of his domination carries with it a notice to him that he may be overthrown any moment. The judgements passed on the armed resistance by a subject people to the foreign master, on the principle of allegiance of the citizen to his State is altogether beside the mark. And the more the Mahatma condemned the use of force in the country's battle for freedom the more popular it became.

This effectively ended the HSRA as an organisation.  At the time of his execution, Bhagat Singh was just twenty three years old. These young men of HSRA, who gave up their lives for the country, did not come from the riffraff of society. They were educated, cultural men belonging to most respectable families having high social status in private life. They sacrificed lives comfort and ease at the altar of the liberty of the Motherland.

In April 1931, Lord Willingdon replaced Lord Irwin as the Viceroy of India. In two months, the tribunal which pronounced death sentences on the accused, was declared invalid. 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. The judges who pronounced the sentence lost their office.

Over eight decades after his hanging, Lahore police searched the records of the Anarkali Police Station in Lahore and found the original FIR. Written in Urdu, the FIR was registered with the Anarkali police station on 17^th December 1928 at 4.30 p.m. against two ‘unknown gunmen’. The complainant-cum-eyewitness said the man he followed was ‘five feet 5 inch, had Hindu face, small moustache, having slim and strong body, wearing white trouser and grey shirt and also wearing small black christi-like hat’. ¹⁹ Bhagat Singh’s name was not mentioned in the FIR for the murder of a British police officer here in 1928. The special judges of the tribunal handling Bhagat Singh’s case awarded the death sentence without giving the opportunity to Bhagat Singh’s lawyers to cross-question the witnesses.

Noted columnist, A. G. Noorani, in chapter fourteen ‘Gandhi’s Truth’ of his book ‘The Trial of Bhagat Singh’, wrote that Gandhiji’s efforts in saving Bhagat Singh’s life were ‘half-hearted’ because of his failure to make a strenuous appeal to the Viceroy for the commutation of his death sentence to life. Noorani further wrote that Gandhi did not care to see Bhagat Singh when he was on hunger strike in jail. Noorani asserts that during his conversations with the Viceroy, Gandhiji pleaded not for the commutation of Bhagat Singh’s death sentence, but only for its suspension which he very well knew that the Viceroy would not accept.

Four years after Bhagat Singh's execution, the then Director of the Intelligence Bureau, Sir Horace Williamson wrote, “His photograph was on sale in every city and township and for a time rivalled in popularity even that of Mr. Gandhi himself.” ²⁰ Had Gandhiji shown some efforts in saving his life, perhaps Bhagat Singh could have lived to witness the freedom of India. Perhaps, Gandhiji feared that if Bhagat Singh, Rajguru & Sukhdev are canonised by the Indian people then he would never get his due importance in Indian politics of freedom struggle. This execution had brought to light Gandhiji’s envy and Jinnah’s high esteem for Bhagat Singh and his comrades. Eighty years later, the debate rages loud and clear on whether Bhagat Singh would have displaced Gandhiji if he were to be alive.

Batukeshwar Dutt, the lone survivor of the ‘Lahore Conspiracy Case’, was released after serving 14 years in jail. At the time of his release, he had contracted tuberculosis. He nonetheless participated in the Quit India Movement and was again jailed for four years. He was lodged in Motihari Jail (In Champaran district of Bihar). After India gained independence, he married Anjali in November 1947. Even after independence, the Government of India did not accord him any recognition and he spent his remaining life in penury away from political limelight, a forgotten hero. Batukeshwar Dutt died on 20^th July 1965 in Delhi after a long illness. He was cremated in Hussainiwala near Firozepur in Punjab where the bodies of his comrades Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were also cremated many years ago. He was survived by his only daughter, Mrs. Bharti Bagchi, in Patna where his house was situated in the Jakkanpur area. Till this day, his sacrifices for the cause of India’s freedom have never been recognized.