Why Bhagat Singh was not a Marxist thinker

BHAGAT SINGH was not only one of lndia's greatest freedom fighters and revolutionary socialists, but also one of its early Marxist thinkers and ideologues. Unfortunately, this last aspect is relatively unknown with the result that all sorts of reactionaries, obscurantists and communalists have been wrongly and dishonestly trying to utilise, for their own politics and ideologies, the name and fame of Bhagat Singh and his comrades, including Chander Shekhar Azad.”

Thus wrote my remarkable teacher and mentor, Professor Bipan Chandra, in his introduction to Bhagat Singh's twenty-page pamphlet, 'Why I Am an Atheist', discovered by Punjabi poet Amarjit Chandan in 1979.

In the last 40 years, this historical evaluation of Bhagat Singh has acquired the power of unquestionable fact, if not dogma. Multiple editions of his "Jail Notebook" have been published to impress upon the reading public, that the book opens a window into his exploration of ideas of distinguished thinkers and philosophers.

"However," writes Harish Puri, historian of the Ghadar Movement, "the perfunctory references to the sources or books from which these notes and quotes were taken have left a rather perplexing question mark with regard to the authentic source. That is, from which editions of which books, by which particular authors, were these taken? As a result, fantastic claims and wild speculation have been made by admiring scholars about the books and works of great thinkers that Bhagat Singh was able to study in jail."

From 1925-28, Bhagat Singh read voraciously, devouring particular books on the Russian Revolution and the Soviet Union, even though getting hold of such books must have been a difficult task. No doubt, in the 1920s, Bhagat Singh was one of the most well-read persons in India on revolutionary movements. He asserted during his trial before the Lahore High Court that "the sword of revolution is sharpened at the whetstone of thought."

Already by the end of1928, he and his comrades had accepted Socialism as the final objective of their activities and changed the name of their organisation from the Hindustan Republican Association to Hindustan Socialist Republican Association. From now on, it is asserted, even before his arrest in June 1929 and definitely after, Bhagat Singh's "furious march towards the acquisition and mastery of Marxism" continued unabated.

But what sort of Marxism did Bhagat Singh imbibe from his readings? Did this Marxism help him in any way to get some insight into the contemporary politics of Indian nationalism, working class movements and the immediate historical social reality around him?

A mastery of Marxism that is merely an exercise in the appropriation of textual discourse must remain a "Brahmanical Marxism", unless it helps party intellectuals engage dispassionately with the social reality of their times by constructing a framework of "practising theory".

Who, then, should be or can be called a Marxist thinker? This question brings Antonio Gramsci, the Italian intellectual, to mind, who, just like Bhagat Singh, and at the same time, was spending his days in Fascist Mussolini's jail. Gramsci was imprisoned in 1926, and remained in prison until shortly before his death in 1937.

The story of his jail days is no less poignant than that of Bhagat Singh's tortuous hunger strikes. But even under these conditions, he continued his reading and writing work to solve the concrete problems of international revolutionary movement, its setbacks and victories.

During his studies, Gramsci developed/invented three main new concepts that constitute his “practicing theory or praxis". The three concepts are: political hegemony/cultural hegemony; subaltern or hegemonised groups of society; and the War of Position.

These days, debates on the West Asian crisis bandy about the concept of "hegemony" to explain Trump-Netanyahu's strategic aims. But the fact is that US-Israel must first convincingly dominate or beat Iranian society into submission and carry out regime change. Once a nation or society gives its consent or is forced to give its consent to be ruled by another social group, can hegemony be established. This is always a very difficult and critical moment in the life of a defeated people.

For example, the sullen Indian rebels of the 1857 Mutiny, after their defeat by British forces and Sikh troops, were persuaded to accept the hegemony of the British Raj when they saw their elite was incorporated into the Raj.

Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan — newly honoured with the Knight Commander of the Order of the Star of lndia by the British Government in 1888 —was brought in to accept the suzerainty of the new rulers.

He advocated a pro-British stance among Indian Muslims, believing that cooperation or the acceptance of British hegemony was essential for the community's progress. Those Muslims who refused to reconcile were either marginalised or sent to Kalapani — the Andamans. The point is that hegemony cannot be established without regime change.

That's why today's Iranians are being subject to the stark dilemma — accept US-Israeli hegemony and survive, or embrace martyrdom.

Let us now examine Gramsci's third key concept, the 'War of Position', and its relevance for India. Gramsci realised that while the Bolshevik Revolution may have been a suitable strategy to violently seize power from the Russian monarchy in crisis, this strategy was not relevant for the capitalist modern state in the West.

Surveying the scene of world politics in the 1920s, Gramsci came to the conclusion that Gandhi in India was experimenting with such a strategy. This was appropriate, Gramsci felt, as the Indian colonial state, unlike the Russian feudal absolutist state, was a sort of semi-hegemonic state where millions had already given their consent to their colonial masters.

Bhagat Singh, however, believed that Gandhi was the stumbling block in the path of his desired violent revolution, and that his path of non-violence supported the semi-hegemonic state in India. For example, how happy was our great poet Rabindranath Tagore when the British authorities bestowed upon him the Knighthood? How many zaildars and numberdars in Punjab — the eyes and ears of the colonial state in the villages — were thrilled to receive sanads of recognition from a British deputy collector.

That's why during the anti-Simon demonstrations, Bhagat Singh and his comrades put the blame of the lathi-charge on Lala Lajpat Rai on British officer James Scott, but were blind to the fact that it were the jawans of Punjab Police who had beaten him up. Tolstoy's observation in his letter to Gandhi is insightful. "Not the English, the Indians have enslaved themselves," he said.

On December 17, 1928, in Lahore, Chandrashekhar Azad shot Chanan Singh, the Indian police constable trying to catch Bhagat Singh and his associates during their escape, immediately after the assassination of British officer John Saunders (mistakenly targeted instead of Scott).

Such was the power of British hegemony, revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh believed, that but for Gandhi, they would have been able to blow up British control. They were not able to see how and why the British Raj allowed them to preach their beliefs via the media, or sing revolutionary songs even in court or why jail deputies were permitting them to read books.

This brief discussion underlines the fact that Bhagat Singh understood only rudimentary facts of Marxism. He was not able to acquire/invent a new framework by creatively engaging with the extraordinarily complex reality of the modern centralised bureaucratic state, legitimised by the consent of millions of Indians. In fact, he was not even able to absorb the experience of the Akali movement (1925-25), the first great peaceful mass movement in the subcontinent which the British authorities tried to repress with massive brute force. Gandhi, in a telegram to the Akalis, had observed that the "first battle of freedom has been won."

Strangely, Bhagat Singh could only understand the failed Ghadar movement. But instead of learning a lesson from its tragic failure, he blindly followed the example of the Ghadarites.

The fact remains that Bhagat Singh was hanged not for his revolutionary ideas but for committing a murder of a British officer.