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Shaheed Bhagat Singh
– by Ven Parthsarthy 30 Sep 2008 (MSN India-Contribute)
It is heart warming to learn that a long denied and long-
felt need for a statue of Shaheed Bhagat Singh in the Parliament House was fulfilled on Independence Day..One wonders why it should have taken sixty years after Independence for the Government to recognize the notable part played by this young revolutionary who was a nightmare to the British Rulers. All the credit for gaining Independence have been cornered by the Congress party.While undoubtedly the Congress played the spear-head, others too have done much in various ways., It is the cumulative effect of such brave acts that fueled the patriotic spirit in all Indians and eventually made the British to pack up and go home in 1947.
In his book “Role of Central Legislature in the Freedom
Struggle”, reputed author Mr. Manoranjan Jha says that while both the Indian and British sides were advancing towards reconciliation (leading to the famous Gandhi-Irwin Pact) “this spirit was however ruffled on 24th March, 1931 the day after Bhagat Singh and two other revolutionaries had been executed”.
Here is an excerpt:
Mr.T. Rangachariar, then Leader of the Opposition later to be elected as Deputy President of the Indian Legislative Assembly, said that the vast majority of the public firmly believed that, of the accused, at least Bhagat Singh was not concerned with the particular crime for which he was convicted and sentenced to death. The public expected that the Government would recognize the force of public opinion conveyed to them by no less a person than Gandhiji himself. But the Government flouted that opinion.
Rangachariar told the Government that he and the Nationalist Party strongly resented this action of the government and therefore would walk out of the House….Sir George Rainy, the Leader of the House told the Nationalist Party that their walk out would amount to an abnegation of their responsibilities to their constituencies. Several members of the Nationalist Party retorted the they were fully alive to all that.
Mr. Rangachariar and the members of his party then walked out of the Assembly in protest. It is worth recalling that it was Rangachariar, representing Madras who fired the first salvo in the Legislative arena, by moving a resolution for Dominion status in 1927. It was as a result of this initiative that a watered down version was introduced in the garb of an Act of Parliament in 1935.
Though Bhagat Singh believed in the culture of violence , many felt that in the face of the obduracy of the British , a shock treatment was necessary. That is
what Bhagat Singh provided. How easly we forget our heroes and wake up after sixty years to recognize their brave deeds!