Bhagat Singh was a charismatic Indian revolutionary who participated in the mistaken murder of a junior British police officer in what was to be retaliation for the death of an Indian nationalist.
47 Facts About Bhagat Singh
2.
Bhagat Singh was thereafter on the run for many months, and no convictions resulted at the time.
3.
Bhagat Singh was convicted of the murder of John Saunders and Channan Singh, and hanged in March 1931, aged 23.
4.
Bhagat Singh became a popular folk hero after his death.
5.
Bhagat Singh became a symbol; the act was forgotten, the symbol remained, and within a few months each town and village of the Punjab, and to a lesser extent in the rest of northern India, resounded with his name.
6.
Bhagat Singh wrote for, and edited, Urdu and Punjabi newspapers, published in Amritsar and contributed to low-priced pamphlets published by the Naujawan Bharat Sabha that excoriated the British.
7.
Bhagat Singh often used pseudonyms, including names such as Balwant, Ranjit and Vidhrohi.
8.
Bhagat Singh was a prominent member of the Hindustan Republican Association and was probably responsible, in large part, for its change of name to Hindustan Socialist Republican Association in 1928.
9.
Bhagat Singh conspired with revolutionaries like Shivaram Rajguru, Sukhdev Thapar, and Chandrashekhar Azad to kill Scott.
10.
Bhagat Singh did not become popular because of his act of terrorism but because he seemed to vindicate, for the moment, the honour of Lala Lajpat Rai, and through him of the nation.
11.
Bhagat Singh became a symbol, the act was forgotten, the symbol remained, and within a few months each town and village of the Punjab, and to a lesser extent in the rest of northern India, resounded with his name.
12.
At the station, Bhagat Singh managed to conceal his identity while buying tickets, and the three boarded the train heading to Cawnpore.
13.
For some time, Bhagat Singh had been exploiting the power of drama as a means to inspire the revolt against the British, purchasing a magic lantern to show slides that enlivened his talks about revolutionaries such as Ram Prasad Bismil who had died as a result of the Kakori conspiracy.
14.
On 8 April 1929, Bhagat Singh, accompanied by Batukeshwar Dutt, threw two bombs into the Assembly chamber from its public gallery while it was in session.
15.
Nonetheless, the jailed Bhagat Singh was reported to be elated, and referred to the subsequent legal proceedings as a "drama".
16.
One key discrepancy concerns the automatic pistol that Bhagat Singh had been carrying when he was arrested.
17.
Bhagat Singh was re-arrested for murdering Saunders and Chanan Bhagat Singh based on substantial evidence against him, including statements by his associates, Hans Raj Vohra and Jai Gopal.
18.
Bhagat Singh was sent to Central Jail Mianwali from the Delhi jail.
19.
Bhagat Singh considered himself, along with others, to be a political prisoner.
20.
Bhagat Singh noted that he had received an enhanced diet at Delhi which was not being provided at Mianwali.
21.
Bhagat Singh led other Indian, self-identified political prisoners he felt were being treated as common criminals in a hunger strike.
22.
Bhagat Singh was transported to Borstal Jail, Lahore, and the trial began there on 10 July 1929.
23.
Bhagat Singh finally heeded a resolution of the Congress party, and a request by his father, ending his hunger strike on 5 October 1929 after 116 days.
24.
The revolutionaries refused to attend the court and Bhagat Singh wrote a letter to the magistrate citing various reasons for their refusal.
25.
Bhagat Singh stated that he had filed the first information report against the accused under specific orders from the chief secretary to the governor of Punjab and that he was unaware of the details of the case.
26.
Bhagat Singh was initially against the appeal but later agreed to it in the hope that the appeal would popularise the HSRA in Britain.
27.
Bhagat Singh's trial has been described by the Supreme Court as "contrary to the fundamental doctrine of criminal jurisprudence" because there was no opportunity for the accused to defend themselves.
28.
Bhagat Singh refused to apologise, or even file an appeal.
29.
Bhagat Singh was not a devotee of non-violence, but he did not subscribe to the religion of violence.
30.
Bhagat Singh took to violence due to helplessness and to defend his homeland.
31.
Bhagat Singh stated that he was opposed to Singh's execution and proclaimed that he had no power to stop it.
32.
Bhagat Singh regarded Kartar Bhagat Singh Sarabha, the founding-member of the Ghadar Party as his hero.
33.
Bhagat Singh was inspired by Bhai Parmanand, another founding-member of the Ghadar Party.
34.
Bhagat Singh was an avid reader of the teachings of Mikhail Bakunin and read Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky.
35.
From May to September 1928, Bhagat Singh published a series of articles on anarchism in Kirti.
36.
Bhagat Singh then read the text of a telegram in the court and asked the magistrate to send it to the Third International.
37.
Bhagat Singh did not understand how members of these two groups, initially united in fighting against the British, could be at each other's throats because of their religious differences.
38.
Bhagat Singh took an interest in Soham Swami's book Common Sense.
39.
Bhagat Singh acknowledged the fact that religion made death easier, but said that unproven philosophy is a sign of human weakness.
40.
Bhagat Singh was used as a deterrent factor when his fury and his laws were repeatedly propagated so that man might not become a danger to society.
41.
Bhagat Singh was the cry of the distressed soul for he was believed to stand as father and mother, sister and brother, brother and friend when in time of distress a man was left alone and helpless.
42.
Four years after Bhagat Singh's hanging, the Director of the Intelligence Bureau, Sir Horace Williamson, wrote: "His photograph was on sale in every city and township and for a time rivaled in popularity even that of Mr Gandhi himself".
43.
Bhagat Singh remains a significant figure in Indian iconography to the present day.
44.
Bhagat Singh's memory defies categorisation and presents problems for various groups that might try to appropriate it.
45.
Bhagat Singh represents a challenge to almost every tendency in Indian politics.
46.
Bhagat Singh was voted the "Greatest Indian" in a poll by the Indian magazine India Today in 2008, ahead of Bose and Gandhi.
47.
In 2008, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library and Act Now for Harmony and Democracy, a non-profit organisation, co-produced a 40-minute documentary on Bhagat Singh entitled Inqilab, directed by Gauhar Raza.