Bhagat Singh wrote this at a time when youth movements were sprouting all over the country, demanding complete independence and radical social and economic change. Nehru and Bose addressed youth conferences in many parts of the country. Nehru presided over a Socialist Youth Congress in Calcutta in December 1928, which called for independence as “a necessary preliminary to communist society”. They organised the Independence for India League as a pressure group within the Congress.

Singh began his article referring to the disenchantment among the youth after the Non-Cooperation Movement and the ensuing violence. He saw the emergence of Bose and Nehru as a redeeming feature of the national struggle during the 1920s. Bose and Nehru, he said, “had fresh ideas and were immensely popular among the youth.” However, he felt they differed immensely in their ideas: “one is devoted to the ancient Indian culture while the other is the product of the West. One is a soft-hearted emotional being, while the other is a perfect revolutionary”.

Bhagat Singh refers to a meeting in Bombay where Nehru and Bose spoke. Bose turns out to be an emotional Bengali, said Singh, one who believed India had a profound spiritual message and that those who said nationalism was a narrow creed were mistaken. Singh disagreed, calling that idea “sheer romanticism.” Nehru, according to Singh, stands in contrast to Bose, as he says: “Each country, wherever you go, claims that it has a special message for the world. England carries the burden of its civilising mission. I don’t see anything special with my country.”

This response can be located in a context when most nationalists were forced to defend Indian culture, religion and civilisation which was being vilified during colonialism. Bhagat Singh and Nehru shared a vision which went beyond this. It was evident when Bhagat Singh approvingly cited a passage from Nehru saying, “Every youth must rebel. Not only in the political sphere, but in social, economic and religious spheres also…Everything unreasonable must be discarded even if they find authority for it in the Vedas and Quran.” Bhagat Singh expressed similar views in his famous essay “Why I am an atheist”, saying that “any man who stands for progress has to criticise, disbelieve and challenge… mere faith and blind faith is dangerous: it dulls the brain and makes a man reactionary”.

Bhagat Singh and his Naujawan Bharat Sabha stood for a socialist republic, which is the measure he brought to Bose and Nehru. He writes: “Subhash Babu is sympathetic to the worker’s cause and wants improvement in their lives. Panditji, on the other hand wants a complete change through revolution.” He quotes Nehru: “they should aim at a Swaraj for the masses based on socialism. That was a revolutionary change which they could not bring about without revolutionary methods…” Bhagat Singh concludes his piece with an exhortation to Punjab’s youth, to follow Nehru.

In fact, despite Gandhi’s public disapproval of Bhagat Singh and his politics, Nehru was all praise for the Naujawan Bharat Sabha and expected it to “grow in strength to take a leading part in forming a national India”. Recognising Singh’s popularity, Nehru said: “He was a young boy full of burning zeal for the country. He was like a spark which became a flame in a short time and spread from one end of the country to the other, dispelling the prevailing darkness everywhere.”

The writer is Maulana Azad Chair at NUEPA, New Delhi and author of ‘To Make the Deaf Hear: Ideology and Programme of Bhagat Singh and his Comrades’

Source: The Indian Express, Tuesday , Mar 23, 2010