HSRA and Bhagat Singh

The Hindustan Republican Association (HRA), established in 1924, began as a direct-action revolutionary body without a clearly articulated social programme beyond ending British rule. The Kakori Train Action of 1925 — in which a group of HRA members stopped a train and seized government money to fund revolutionary activities — led to mass arrests and the decimation of the organisation. Ram Prasad Bismil, the poet-revolutionary who had written 'Sarfaroshi ki Tamanna', and Ashfaqullah Khan, his closest friend and associate who was Muslim, were hanged in 1927 alongside Roshan Singh and Rajendra Lahiri. Their executions generated enormous public sympathy. When Bhagat Singh and others reconstituted the organisation as the HSRA in 1928, they brought with them a clear socialist framework: they wanted not just a free India but an egalitarian India — one free from both foreign domination and domestic capitalism and feudalism.

In 1928, the Simon Commission — a constitutional review committee without a single Indian member — arrived in India amid widespread boycott protests. In Lahore, veteran leader Lala Lajpat Rai led a protest march against the commission. Police Superintendent J.A. Scott ordered a brutal lathi charge. Lala Lajpat Rai received severe blows to the chest and died a few weeks later. He reportedly said: 'Every blow struck on my body is a nail in the coffin of British imperialism.' The HSRA took a vow of revenge. Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and Azad planned to assassinate Scott, but in the execution they shot his deputy, Assistant Superintendent J.P. Saunders, in December 1928. The three managed to escape disguised, with Bhagat Singh famously shaving his beard and turban — a significant personal sacrifice for a Sikh — to evade detection.

The Central Legislative Assembly bomb-throwing on 8 April 1929 is one of the most deliberately planned acts of political theatre in Indian history. Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt threw smoke bombs from the visitors' gallery into the Assembly chamber — aimed to create noise, not casualties. They then showered the members with copies of their pamphlet 'To Make the Deaf Hear', which explained that they were not murderers but revolutionary messengers: 'It takes a loud voice to make the deaf hear.' They shouted 'Inquilab Zindabad' ('Long live the revolution') and 'Down with Imperialism' as they were arrested. Bhagat Singh had consciously chosen to surrender and use the trial as a public platform to propagate HSRA's ideology — exactly as he said, borrowing a phrase from the French anarchist Auguste Vaillant.

The subsequent Lahore Conspiracy Case tried Bhagat Singh not just for the Assembly bomb incident but — connecting it to the Saunders murder — charged him with conspiracy and murder. The British government, alarmed by Bhagat Singh's growing popularity and his use of the courtroom as a political stage, set up a Special Tribunal under the Defence of India Act to bypass normal judicial processes and the requirement of defence cross-examination. The trial was widely condemned as unfair. Meanwhile, in jail, Bhagat Singh led a 116-day hunger strike demanding that political prisoners be treated differently from ordinary criminals — provided books, newspapers, and better food. Jatindra Nath Das, a fellow revolutionary, died after a 63-day fast on 13 September 1929, causing a nationwide outburst of grief and anger.

Bhagat Singh was not merely an activist — he was a serious political thinker who read voraciously in jail. He read Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Upton Sinclair, and Victor Hugo. His essay 'Why I Am an Atheist' (1930), written in Lahore Jail, is a model of rational argumentation — he rejected religion not out of defiance but through reasoned analysis, arguing that suffering in the world contradicts the existence of a benevolent God and that religion is used by the powerful to keep the poor docile. His 'Letter to Young Political Workers' (1931), written days before his execution, urged the youth to take up the class struggle after him. His vision was explicitly internationalist — he saw Indian independence not as an end in itself but as a step toward a socialist world order.

Chandrashekhar Azad was the operational commander of the HSRA — a man of exceptional courage and organisational ability who bound the movement together. Born to a poor family in Madhya Pradesh, he had first been arrested at age 15 during the Non-Cooperation Movement. When brought before a magistrate who asked his name, he answered 'Azad' (free), his father's name 'Swatantrata' (independence), and his residence 'Jail'. He swore never to be captured alive and kept that oath: cornered by British police at Alfred Park in Allahabad on 27 February 1931, he held off multiple policemen alone before firing his last bullet into his own temple. Alfred Park was renamed Chandrashekhar Azad Park after Independence and remains a pilgrimage site.

• Kakori Train Action (1925): Symbolic act of defiance; HRA members looted government funds; led to four hangings and long imprisonments; Ram Prasad Bismil and Ashfaqullah Khan — Hindu-Muslim revolutionary friendship — became icons of secular nationalism.

• 'Inquilab Zindabad': Slogan coined by Maulana Hasrat Mohani in 1921 but popularised as a national revolutionary war-cry by Bhagat Singh; still widely used.

• Jatindra Nath Das (1904–1929): Revolutionary who died after 63-day hunger strike; his body was received by massive crowds in Calcutta; Subhas Chandra Bose led the procession.

• Hussainiwala Memorial: Site on the Sutlej River near Ferozepur, Punjab, where Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and Sukhdev were cremated; now a national memorial; 23 March is observed as Shaheed Diwas.

• Alfred Park (Allahabad): Site of Chandrashekhar Azad's last stand; renamed Azad Park after Independence.

• 'Why I Am an Atheist': Essay written by Bhagat Singh in October 1930 in Lahore Jail; published in 'The People' newspaper; one of the most widely read pieces of Indian political literature.

• Naujawan Bharat Sabha (1926): Mass organisation founded by Bhagat Singh in Lahore to mobilise young workers and peasants alongside the HSRA's armed activities — showing he understood the need for both vanguard action and mass politics.

• Special Tribunal: Set up under Ordinance in 1930 to try HSRA members without normal judicial safeguards; condemned by Congress and international observers as a kangaroo court.

Bhagat Singh remains among the most popular figures in Indian political memory, consistently topping surveys of 'greatest Indians'. His image — brimmed hat, defiant expression — is reproduced on T-shirts, murals, and political posters across the ideological spectrum, often divorced from his actual socialist and atheist politics. This selective appropriation of revolutionary memory is itself a historically interesting phenomenon. On 23 March every year, Shaheed Diwas (Martyrs' Day) is observed at Hussainiwala and across the country; in 2001, the Punjab government formally observed it for the first time as a state holiday. The HSRA's demand for a Socialist Republic of India continues to find echoes in left-wing politics. Bhagat Singh's writings — especially 'Why I Am an Atheist' and his jail notebook — are widely read by students and young activists. The 'Inquilab Zindabad' slogan remains one of the most recognisable political phrases in South Asia. In 2023–2024, Bhagat Singh came up in the UPSC Mains in the context of discussing multiple streams of the freedom movement, underscoring his direct exam relevance.