Bhagat Singh

·         On August 15, 2008 almost 80 years after he dropped the bomb in the Central Assembly Hall to “make the deaf hear,” statue Bhagat Singh was unveiled in courtyard number 5 of Indian Parliament

·         On April 8, 1929, Bhagat Singh stormed Parliament to accomplish a revolutionary mission.

·         Martyr’s nephews Abhay Sandhu and Zorawar Singh and his niece Verinder Sandhu, who has recently chronicled Bhagat’s life in her book, “Yugdrishta Bhagat Singh aur unke Mrityunjaya Purkhe” were present on he occasion

Mission IAS’2009

·         The installation of the statue was initiated by M.S. Gill with a proposal one-and-a-half years ago to mark Bhagat Singh’s birth centenary.

·         Ram Sutar is the creator of 18-foot bronze statue of Bhagat Singh.

·         Interesting also is the fact that Bhagat’s statue is one among the only four to be donated by the Lok Sabha Secretariat; the other three being of Rabindra Nath Tagore, Vivekananda, and Aurbindo Ghosh.

·         Bhagat Singh was born on 27 September 1907 at the village of Banga, Lyallpur district (now in Pakistan) the second son of Kishan Singh and Vidya Vati.

·         At the time of his birth, his father was in jail for his connection with the Canal Colonization Bill agitation, in which his brother, Ajit Singh (Bhagat Singh’s uncle), took a leading part.

·         Through his father, who was a sympathizer and supporter of the Ghadr campaign of 1914-15, Bhagat Singh became an admirer of the leaders of the movement.

·         The execution of Kartar Singh Sarabha made a deep impression on the mind of the young man who vowed to dedicate his life to the country.

·         Having passed the fifth class from his village school, Bhagat Singh joined Dayanand Anglo-Vedic School in Lahore.

·         In response to the call of Mahatma Gandhi and other nationalist leaders, to boycott government aided institutions, he left his school and enrolled in the National College at Lahore.

·         He was successful in passing a special examination preparatory to entering college. He was reading for his B.A. examination when his parents planned to have him married. He vehemently rejected the suggestion and said that, if his marriage was to take place in Slave-India, my bride shall be only death.

·         Bhagat Singh left home and went to Kanpur where he took up a job in the Pratap Press.

·         When Bhagat Singh was assured that he would not be compelled to marry and violate his vows sworn to his motherland, he returned to his home in Lahore. This was in 1925 when a morcha had been going on at Jaito .

·         In March 1926 was formed the Naujawan Bharat Sabha. Bhagat Singh, one of the principal organizers became its secretary.

·         On 23rd March, 1931, we all know, Bhagat Singh, Raj Guru and Sukhdev were hanged to death. They were given the death sentence in the Lahore conspiracy case. The British Governor-General promulgated an ordinance to establish a special tribunal to try the Lahore conspiracy case, while denying the accused the right to appeal. “By all accounts, it was farcical Trial”.

·         After Bhagat Singh was hanged to death, his body was secretly cremated at Husainivala by police and the remains thrown into the River Sutlej. The next day, however, his comrades collected the bodily remains from the cremation site and a procession was taken out in Lahore.

·         In 1950, after Independence, the land where Bhagat Singh and his companions were cremated was procured from Pakistan and a memorial built. In March 1961, a Shahidi Mela was held there.

·         Every year, on 23 March, the martyr’s memory is similarly honoured.

·         The old memorial, destroyed in the 1971 Indo-Pak war, has been rebuilt Bhagat Singh is remembered by the endearing title of Shahid-e-Azam, the greatest of martyrs.