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Bhagat Singh as ‘Satyagrahi’: The Limits to Non-violence in Late Colonial India1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 May 2009
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.
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References
Bibliography
Files from the Home Political Department, 1925–31.
Proceedings of the Lahore Conspiracy Case, 1930.
Miscellaneous Papers of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association
Private Papers of Comrade Ram Chandra
Private Papers of Sukhdev
The Diary of Bhagat Singh
The People, 1925–29.
Oral History Transcripts (OHT)
Mr Jaidev Gupta interviewed by Mr S.L. Manchanda, 10 May 1978.
Mr Jaidev Kapoor interviewed by Mr S.L. Manchanda, 3 October 1974.
Mr Abdul Majid Khan interviewed by Dr Hari Dev Sharma, 16 June 1974.
Mr Durga Das Khanna interviewed by Mr S.L. Manchanda, 19 May 1976.
Mr Chiranji Lal Paliwal interviewed by Mr S.L. Manchanda, 6 January 1978.
The Tribune, 1924–1931.
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