Sardar Bhagat Singh’s birth anniversary (he was born on September 27, 1907) make's one’s thoughts turn to the life of the man who has come to be known as “Shaheed-e-Azam” for laying down his life for his country. Many things are known about him, except for his tryst with Delhi. One remembers anecdotes about the way Bhagat Singh outwitted the colonial police and spies who were trying their best to capture him alive. The revolutionary had taken a room from an old disinherited Rani near Ghatia Bazar, Agra on rent. The whole day he stayed indoors but at night he and his companions (all sworn to rid the country of the British) came out and walked the streets wrapped up in blankets. They would generally go to the milk shop of Salga Ghosi and order kulhars of milk, with a layer of rabri on it, which they drank slowly as an after-dinner treat.
Dinner for them, however, was sparse, mostly vegetarian (dal-sabzi). Sometimes mutton from Barati butcher’s shop was bought early in the morning by one of the non-vegetarian comrades whose photo did not occupy the “Rogues Gallery” in the thana. These men also bought vegetables from Taron-ka-Bazaar (so named as there were a lot of electric wires overhead) and dal-chawal from the shops of Moti and his uncle Antee while the ghee was bought from Panna Lal, who sold the best desi variety. The stuff was cooked by them too but sometimes the landlady and her daughter-in-law helped to make it real delicious without realizing whom they were serving.
After living these for some days the Revolutionary Party discreetly moved to Delhi, according to old residents who are all dead now. In Delhi too the revolutionaries adopted the same life-style. They stayed atop a halwai’s shop, some with beards, though Bhagat Singh, had shaved off his “darhi” and also cut his hair against the tenets of his religion to escape recognition. He, however, justified it by saying that the motherland demanded sacrifices and parting with kesh (hair) was among them. His comrade-in-arms was the hefty Chandrashekhar Azad who shot himself rather than fall into the hands of the police during an encounter in Alfred Park, Allahabad.
It was by chance that Sarin Bhai, a revolutionary from Chillint Ghatia, who was staying incognito in Chandni Chowk, met Bhagat Singh in Parantha Gali where he had come to drink milk. It was a winter night and wrapped in a blanket Sarin Bhai peered at the face of the man who was standing near him at the shop (now taken over by a zari sari trader) and suddenly it dawned on him that he was Bhagat Singh, the most wanted revolutionary. Sarin picked up a conversation with him and they walked out of Parantha Wali Gali towards the Town Hall and then Queen’s Park (now Gandhi Park), opposite Old Delhi Station. Here they discussed plans to make the British pay for their atrocities. The handsome Sarin Bhai, from a Khatri family which migrated from Punjab during Shah Alam’s reign, was later arrested and jailed but released fairly early as there were no heinous charges against him. The meeting with the great Revolutionary was a big turning point in his life which made him remain a bachelor.
Sarin Bhai used to talk about those days after Independence. He related the story of how he, Bhagat Singh and two others went to meet Lala Hanwant Sahay (whom I interviewed in 1966) who used to stay opposite Fort View Hotel in Chandni Chowk. Lalaji was one of the accused in the Hardinge Bomb case in which a bomb was thrown at the Viceroy while he was going in a royal procession to the Red Fort in 1912. Hardinge was wounded and his elephant mahout killed. Lalaji, his teacher Master Amir Chand, Master Awadh Behari, Bhai Balmukund and Basant Sanyal were arrested as conspirators. Lalaji was sentenced to life imprisonment (which was later reduced to seven years rigorous imprisonment) and the others to death. Bhagat Singh was just five-years-old then and on meeting Lalaji he was greatly enthused. “We will eventually win Swaraj,” he told him and left after having some gajar-ka-halwa to do sit-ups and push-ups (dand-baitakh) behind Pipal Park, the site now occupied by Tilak market. While Lala Hanwant Sahay was a religious-minded man, Bhagat Singh had declared himself an atheist. In a pamphlet, “Why I am an Atheist”, at a time when the noose was being prepared for his hanging, undaunted by the lurking death, when many fall on their knees to seek pardon from God, he states: “God has become a useful myth and was useful to the society of the primitive age.”
Moreover, “the idea of God is helpful to man in distress”. God and religion enabled the helpless individual to face life with courage. “God was brought into imaginary existence to encourage man to face boldly all the trying circumstances, to meet all dangers manfully and to check and restrain his outbursts in prosperity and affluence”. “Belief softens the hardships, even can make them pleasant. In God man can find very strong consolation and support.” Thus to the distressed, the betrayed and the helpless, God serves as “a father, mother, sister and brother, friend and helper.”
But, says Bhagat Singh, “when science has grown and when the oppressed begin to struggle for their self-emancipation, when man tries to stand on his own legs and become a realist the need for God, this artificial crutch, comes to an end.” He was tortured and hanged along with his associates Rajguru and Sukhdev for bombing the State Assembly and killing Assistant Superintendent of Police J. P. Saunders on March 23, 1931 and cremated at Hussainiwala on the banks of the Sutlej, just as young as the poet John Keats and proving himself an example of the true patriotism enunciated by Sir Walter Scott about a century earlier.
(The author is a veteran chronicler of Delhi)
(The report had earlier wrongly mentioned September 7 as the birth anniversary of Bhagat Singh. It is Septmeber 27.)
