Amid a sea of “basanti” turbans, the venue of Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s swearing-in ceremony at Bhagat Singh’s village Khatkar Kalan reverberated with the long-lasting revolutionary music “Mera rang de Basanti chola” on Wednesday.
This was in keeping with the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) designated theme of “Rang de Basanti” for the oath ceremony — illustrating the get together’s technique of not permitting solely the BJP to put declare to nationalist iconography. Mera rang de Basanti chola was penned by Bhagat Singh’s fellow revolutionary Ram Prasad Bismil and different prisoners in 1927 whereas they had been incarcerated in a jail in Lucknow.
Who was Ram Prasad Bismil?
The revolutionary chief was born on June 11, 1897, in a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Shahjahanpur district, and was related to the Arya Samaj from an early age.
From fairly early on, he wrote highly effective patriotic poems in Urdu and Hindi and have become lively within the anti-colonial battle beneath the steerage of his guru Swami Somdev.
Bismil was 18 years outdated when he wrote the poem Mera Janm (My Birth) in protest towards the dying sentence handed to nationalist chief Bhai Parmanand within the 1915 Lahore conspiracy trial following the failed Ghadar plan to instigate a mutiny within the British Indian Army. The poem illustrated Bismil’s dedication to revolutionary beliefs and ending colonial rule in India.
Bismil prominently confirmed up on the colonial authorities’s radar three years later on the time of the Mainpuri conspiracy that was spearheaded by Genda Lal Dixit, a schoolteacher from Auraiya. He evaded arrest and was declared an absconder within the case. After the British king issued a pardon in 1920, these jailed within the Mainpuri case had been launched, and Bismil, who had been on the run until then, returned to Shahjahanpur in February 1920.
Founding the HRA
Soon afterwards, Bismil turned lively within the Congress, however his political place was in stark opposition to Mahatma Gandhi’s precept of non-violence. As Gandhi suspended the Non-Cooperation motion following the Chauri-Chaura incident on February 4, 1922, Bismil was amongst scores of disillusioned staff and leaders who left the Congress. Veterans reminiscent of Bismil, Jogesh Chatterjea, and Sachindranath Sanyal met in Kapur in October 1924 and arrange the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA).
Among those that joined the group on the time was Bhagat Singh. Soon after, the outfit modified its identify to the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association. In its manifesto, titled The Revolutionary, the group clarified its ideological place. Though the revolutionaries didn’t make any reference to socialism, they spoke of sophistication battle, nationalising main industries, and organising cooperative unions. The group additionally reiterated its dedication to secularism.
Kakori practice theft and trial
To fund arms procurement for the HRA, 10 revolutionaries beneath Bismil’s management held up the 8-Down practice at Kakori, a village close to Lucknow, on August 9, 1925, and looted the railway’s money. Scores of revolutionaries had been arrested in a swift retaliation by the colonial authorities. Bismil was arrested in September 1926.
After a prolonged trial that lasted one-and-a-half years, Bismil, Roshan Singh, Rajendra Lahiri, and Ashfaqullah Khan had been sentenced to dying in April 1927, 4 others had been despatched to the Port Blair Cellular Jail within the Andamans for all times, and 17 others acquired lengthy jail phrases.
Khan, Bismil, and Singh had been hanged on December 19 that yr in numerous prisons, two days after Lahiri was executed.
In his last days, Bismil was lodged in Barrack quantity 11 of Lucknow Central Jail. There, he wrote his autobiography, which is taken into account to be one of many best works in Hindi literature, and got here up with the music that continues to echo in Indian politics even now.
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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
