You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Biography of Bhagat Singh, 1907-1931, Indian revolutionary and freedom fighter.
The continual tussles over Bhagat Singh's identity, even more amplified of late, are a testament to the heroic status the man continues to hold in the annals of the Indian freedom struggle. Despite him having addressed his views on religion, politics and activism, there are many willing to forge completely new narratives of his life, and many more willing to believe them. A timely antidote, this meticulously researched biography is an expansive foray into the life of Bhagat Singh. The volume deliberates upon his family from before when he was born, examining along the way the role that various episodes, policies and people played in shaping the identity of a legendary revolutionary, while also delving into his opinions on important questions of the time. It shines a bright light on the oft-ignored personal influences that made Singh who he was, along with the issue of his contested identity in today's politics. This is the definitive Bhagat Singh biography of our times.
Bhagat Singh Biography
“The state, the government machinery is just a weapon in the hands of the ruling class to further and safeguard its interest. We want to snatch and handle it to utilize it for the consummation of our ideal, that is, social reconstruction on a new, that is, Marxist, basis.” – Bhagat Singh The young martyr Bhagat Singh is a legend of the Indian anti-colonial struggle. He was not just a man of action, but of great intellect and deep insight. While still in his early teens, he showed a depth of understanding of Indian political reality. He read widely and became fluent in several Indian languages, as well as English. Moreover, he wrote insightful political essays, ones that a much older person would have been proud to have written. It is not only that his call to arms against the British imperialists inspired Indians – young and old. It is that his written works continue to stir the minds of all those who seek a world where everyone is equal, and all can fully develop their capacities. He is as much a part of the Indian radical tradition today as he was one hundred years ago.
In 1929, Bhagat Singh surrenders after a daring bomb attack in the heart of Delhi’s assembly. Behind bars, he prepares for an ideological battle against the empire. However, a shocking betrayal shatters his world. Phanindra Nath Ghosh, a trusted comrade, becomes a British approver, revealing every secret of the HSRA. His damning testimony leads to multiple arrests, and then the British hang Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdeo. Popularly known as the ‘king's witness’, he had singlehandedly brought on an armed revolution. But with their leaders gone and British oppression at its peak, surviving HSRA members rally around one burning desire: revenge. Their target is the man who dismantled th...
Shaheed Bhagat Singh’s ‘Jail Notebook’ opens a window into his exploration of ideas of distinguished thinkers and philosophers. Well-known among his comrades as an avid and voracious reader, Bhagat Singh managed to procure during his imprisonment in jail a large number of selected books by prominent authors of his choice. The excerpts, notes and quotes from those books which he wrote down in his jail notebook reflected not only the seriousness with which he studied the books but also his intellectual sophistication and social and political concerns. However, the perfunctory reference to the sources or books from which these notes and quotes were taken left a rather perplexing question ...
'India Today' magazine recently conducted a poll to find the 'greatest Indian'. Gandhi, Nehru? No it was the atheist Marxist revolutionary Bhagat Singh.
This biography is based on authentic sources like Bhagat Singh’s own family’s writings, interviews with them and interviews of his comrades and other revolutionaries in archival records of credible institutions. Many biographies of Bhagat Singh have been published earlier also, but in writing this biography some new information and documents of his lifetime like certain newspaper coverages have been added in form of pictures.
This book is an attempt to approach Bhagat Singh’s revolutionary rhetoric as a site of perpetual motion; of constant shifts and transformations that point towards instances of conscious refashioning in one’s own politics. Throughout his life Bhagat Singh made use of multiple political ideologies for conceptualizing revolution ranging from spiritual nationalism, Gandhism, socialism, Marxism and anarchism. At some points he can also be seen merging some of the more disparate ideologies for the progression of the revolutionary cause. This book explores the changing revolutionary thought of Bhagat Singh, made explicit through his personal and political writings from the period of 1923-1931. The aforementioned shifts in his politics are demarcated through a close reading of select texts from this time period to argue for a fundamental reframing in the way we approach Bhagat Singh’s politics.