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On Reading Bhagat Singh’s ‘Why I am
an Atheist’
Harkishan Singh Mehta
Various streams
of struggle contributed to the ouster of Anglo-phone imperialism
from
South Asia.
In August 1947, the then British colony of India was
partitioned and granted freedom transferring power to the Muslim
League in the newly created state of Pakistan and to the Indian
National Congress in residual India.
There are a
large number of heroes who sacrificed their lives, fought great
battles or suffered long prison terms inspiring large masses of
ordinary Indian people to participate in rallies, processions and
other forms of struggle. This made foreign rule cost-prohibitive and
the colonialists had to make a hasty retreat after the Second World
War. These heroes are so far known in some regions or in their
respective communities.
Two great icons
of the freedom movement with a pan-Indian appeal, however, compel
universal attention. Gandhi and Bhagat Singh with their different
approaches on two important questions viz violence-non violence and
religion-atheism worked for the same cause. These two questions are
the dominant theme of Bhagat Singh’s hurriedly written pamphlet,
‘Why I am an Atheist’ when he was awaiting death sentence in the
Lahore Jail.
As a student of National
College, Lahore, Bhagat Singh was a much admired student of his
teacher Principal Chhabil Dass and they used to go boating together
in the
Ravi
discussing many issues. According to Principal Chhabil Dass Bhagat
Singh was a voracious reader and the book which Bhagat Singh admired
the most was ‘Cry for Justice’.
His concern for
justice made him a great freedom fighter and with growing years he
went on getting closer and closer to Marxism. According to his own
testimony he studied the ideals of the world revolution and closely
read the works of the leaders of the Russian Revolution of 1917.
 Most
of the revolutionary leaders who inspired Bhagat Singh in his early
career were deeply religious people who also believed in the cult of
violence. Up to that time he was only a romantic idealist
revolutionary setting much store by the romance of violent methods.
When time came
to shoulder the while responsibility of the revolutionary movement
and he had enough time to study something of Marx and much of Lenin,
Trotsky and others beside the anarchist leader Bakunin, his
‘previous faith and convictions underwent a remarkable
modification’.
In May 1927
Bhagat Singh was arrested at Lahore. The
effort was to implicate him in Kakori case and a false allegation
was levelled against him that he had thrown a bomb just to test it
at a Dussehra crowd in 1926. Bhagat Singh laughed at the methods of
the colonial police saying, ‘People holding ideals like ours don’t
throw bombs on their own innocent people’. The difference between a
terrorist and a revolutionary becomes clear from his statement
although Bhagat Singh was labelled as a terrorist by colonial as
well as post-colonial bourgeois regimes for over half a century.
Bhagat Singh’s position with regard to revolutionary violence was
clear, ‘use of force justifiable when resorted to as a matter of
terrible necessity (emphasis added): non-violence as policy for all
mass-movements’.
Non-violence has been a major component of Gandian discourse in
spite of his endorsement of the necessity of violence for righteous
causes. His veneration of Hindu epics namely Ramayan and Mahabharat
because of his religious beliefs and the necessity of ushering in
‘Ram Rajya’ gave him a large fan-following in the length and breadth
of the country.
Bhagat Singh
followed the Buddist methodology of ‘doubt everything’ in evolving
his ideas. His critical thinking led to his distancing himself
intellectually from the earlier revolutionaries whom he otherwise
admired tremendously on both questions of violence and religion.
Similarly he did not go along with Gandhi whole-hog as his
methodology of study of society, its ethics, and economics would not
permit it. Mark his words, ‘You go and oppose the prevailing faith,
you go and criticise a hero, a great man, who is generally believed
to be above criticism because he is thought to be infallible …
Because Mahatmaji is great, therefore none should criticise him.
Because he has risen above, therefore everything he says — may be in
the field of politics or religion, economics or ethics is ‘right’.
Religion which
has come to humankind as a heritage based on faith does not stand
his critical scrutiny. And he rejects it because
of several negative features associated with it.
 That
historically much blood was shed in the name of religion was
particularly abhorrent to him. But much blood was shed in the name
of geo-cultural nationalism also. This blood shedding was
predominantly a European phenomenon. That is why he concedes some
positive space to religion for reconstruction of Indian society
after its national and social liberation. He seems to be different
from priest-turned-atheist Stalin and closer to a later day
revolutionary Fidel Castro of Cuba. We
shall discuss this in some detail in a later section. Let us for the
present see how his family background helped him to move on to
atheism.
Bhagat Singh was
born in a politically active family. For generations the family was
involved in various movements. The interest of the family in
politics remained even after Bhagat Singh’s martyrdom and India’s freedom.
One of his brothers became Jan Sangh M.L.A. in Punjab
and another a Congress minister in Uttar Pradesh.
There was no
religious continuity in the family, however. His grandfather was an
orthodox Arya Samajist, his father was a liberal in as much as the
orthodoxy of the religion is concerned. It appears his family
had embraced Sikhism a few generations earlier and there was a
tradition of keeping unshorn and unclipped hair in the family.
Bhagat Singh did not stick to this Sikh code all his life.
The fluidity in
the religious allegiance of his elders accounted for a liberal
atmosphere in the family and his concern and his studious nature
made him draw upon multiple sources for ideological inspiration. But
his early death prevented him from studying the theology and history
of any Asian religious tradition in any detail.
Religion has had
a hold on human mind for long and has continued to be a material
force in the conduct of human affairs both for good and evil. From
multiple gods with small ‘g’ to one God with capital ‘G’ and that
too a formless one has been a long journey. From simple to complex
rituals to quiet contemplation and concentrated meditation has also
been a long human experience.
In its
historical march religion seems to have been a psycho-spiritual
phenomenon. Adherents of religion have, however, generally treated
it as a spiritual phenomenon whereas its critics have
 treated
it as a mere psychological affair. Different religious traditions
have had a social and political dimension too. Progressive role
played by different Asian religions at different times in human
history more or less escaped young Bhagat Singh notice. Nevertheless
the possibility of positive role of religion seems to have been
lurking in his mind. This is reflected in his comment ‘as for as I
am concerned let me admit at the very outset that I have not been
able to study much on this point. I had great desire to study the
oriental philosophy but I could not get any chance or opportunity to
do the same’.
The above
statement seems to be contradict his claim earlier on in the
pamphlet, ‘it is after very careful study of the subject and after
much consideration that I have come to disbelieve in God’. The fact
is that his exposure to Oriental philosophy particularly the Sanatan,
Sufi and Sikh tradition was very little whereas the philosophy of
the Occident especially after the onset of capitalism occupied his
mind during his years of youthful revolutionary activity.
As noted earlier
Bhagat Singh had read something of Marx and much of Lenin, Trotsky
and others who had successfully carried out a revolution in their
country. These revolutionaries were all atheists. Bhagat Singh did
become an atheist following the example of these great
revolutionaries but perhaps understood Marx better than them on the
question of religion. Bhagat Singh belonged to the Orient and these
revolutionaries came from the Occident where capitalism had already
destroyed religion. Prof. Bipin Chandra in section II of his
introduction brings out the closeness of the views of Bhagat Singh
and Karl Marx when he quotes at length in a footnote. A perusal of
this quote from Marx written in 1844 gives a different meaning from
the one often quoted out of context cliché “opium of the masses”.
May be Bhagat
Singh had read the Communist Manifesto where Marx and Engels write
in 1848 about capitalism, ‘The bourgeoisie wherever it has got the
upper hand has put an end to … idyllic relations … and left no other
nexus between man and man than naked self interest, than callous
“cash-payment.” It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of
religions fervour … in the icy waters of egotistical calculation.
Further ‘It compels all nations on pain of extinction to adopt
bourgeois mode of production. It compels them to introduce what it
calls civilisation into their midst i.e. to became bourgeois
themselves. In one word it creates a world after its own image.’ It
is Anglo-phone capitalism which colonised many parts of the world
including the entire South Asia to
force capitalism as a mode of production on these areas. This is
what infuriated Bhagat Singh against capitalism. Having seen the
breaking capitalist barrier on the road to human happiness and
fulfilment in czarist Russia Lenin, Trotsky and other with their
atheism made a strong appeal on young Bhagat Singh’s mind.
 We
have already seen that capitalism ‘drowned the most heavenly
ecstasies of religious fervour’. A large number of pamphlets tracts
etc. were written by the rising bourgeoisie on atheism as, in the
European experience, religion had thwarted the progress of free
thinking and the development of science. The ‘tyranny of religion’
was a peculiar Occidental experience unlike in the Orient where
religious ideas were constantly growing. These ideas were
progressive and libertarian which Bhagat Singh did not have the time
to study.
The great
English poet P. B. Shelly (1792-1822) who was a romantic rebel wrote
an influential pamphlet titled “The Necessity of Atheism” (1911)
when he was a student at Oxford. The
pre-bourgeois establishment of the University expelled him from the
campus.
The bourgeois
mode of production needs constant renewal and improvements in the
instruments of production which is possible only in an atmosphere of
free thinking. Once this became possible capitalist ideologues did
not need atheism any more and they could not talk of freedom of
conscience and religion as parts of bourgeois freedom. It is an
irony of history that the usherers and builders of socialism clamped
the tyranny of atheism on the newly liberated people in the
erstwhile Soviet land.
P. B. Shelly
came from aristocratic background and served as the intellectual of
the rising bourgeoisie when he wrote “The Necessity of Atheism” in
his romantic rebellious style. Bhagat Singh, however, came from the
farming community and was aflush with youthful revolutionary passion
of national and social revolution. What made him, then, feel the
necessity of atheism in the India
of the early twentieth century? It needs going into some aspects of
the colonisation of India and the struggle for its de-colonisation
being waged both by the Indian bourgeoisie and the working people to
understand this question.
Anglo-phone
capitalism in its imperial avatar did not conquer/colonise the whole
of South
Asia at
one go. Not before the Anglo-Sikh War was the whole of the
subcontinent organised as the Indian colony of British Empire.
This was followed by many a revolt in different parts of India
including the great rebellion of 1857.
The design of
British bourgeois to cast India in its own
image, however, was ready in 1835. Lord T.B. Macaulay in his
notorious minute on education dated February 2, 1835 states “We must
at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters
between us and the millions whom we govern – a class of persons,
Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in
morals and in intellect.” The bourgeois intelligentsia so created,
then established, in imitation of and collaboration with bourgeois
England, all the educational, cultural, political, legal,
administrative, even scientific institutions during colonial rule.
 Lord
Macaulay had already recruited the great German Sanskrit scholar Max
Meuller who, along with others, gave concrete shape to the idea of India
reviving the glories of ancient India before Islam had made its
presence in this land. The bureaucrat intellectual Bankim’s Anand
Math where ‘decadence’ of India under ‘Muslim Rule’ was to be
overcome by achieving freedom for India after a period of
collaboration with British imperialism become the ruling ideology of
the Indian (mainly Hindu) bourgeois intelligentsia.
Men of property
and education (chiefly Hindu) formed some associations for the
gradual Indianisation of colonial administration. The climax of this
process came in December 1885 when the Indian National Congress was
born in a meeting of 72 businessmen, landlords, lawyers and some
Englishmen. This organisation went on increasing its strength and
some constitutional progress was also gradually taking place but the
dominant content of bourgeois Indian nationalism was Hindu geo-culturalism.
It was with the arrival of Mahatma Gandhi on the scene that an
effort was made to evolve a composite Indian nationalism.
With the rise of
Muslim and Dalit intelligentsia composite bourgeois Indian
nationalism as a negotiator for freedom from imperialist yoke was
becoming more and more difficult. The colonial rulers knew the
chinks in this nationalism. Ruling a divided indigenous people by a
foreign power was relatively easy. The very fact that Gandhiji had
to negotiate affirmative action for Dalits and his inability to
avoid
India’s partition shows that he could not speak on behalf of an
inclusive nation. His concept of secularism as ‘Sarav Dharam Sambhav-all
religions are equal’ did not cut much ice with a sizable section of
the Muslim intelligentsia. Religious question stood in the way of
India’s freedom through constitutionalism of the Indian National
Congress although it had gathered quite a mass under Gandhiji’s
leadership. Bhagat Singh who wanted a quick social change and early
freedom had different ideas about Indian Nationalism.
Bourgeois
concept of nationalism is essentially geo-cultural. Given the
history of such a vast region with so much diversity and inequality
evolving a composite culture while retaining religion as an
important (even if not dominant) component of modern nationhood was
not easy though not impossible. Hence the movement of gradualist and
evolutionary constitutionalist freedom was making only tardy
progress.
 Bhagat
Singh’s revolutionary concept of Indian nationalism was
anti-imperialism which excluded only the Anglo-phone bourgeois. It
required the emergence of a sizeable atheist intelligentsia as a
leader of the freedom movement. It appears Bhagat Singh's
intelligent mind chose atheism as his creed as a role model for the
anti-imperialist nationalists. Imperialism did not give him enough
time to carry out his task and partition of the subcontinent became
a necessary condition for the bourgeois nationalists to earn freedom
from
London.
Ever since
Bhagat Singh joined the National College
at Lahore and with his access to the Dwarka Das Library established
by Lala Lajpat Rai, he immersed himself in studying world
revolutionary movements. He grasped many a lesson of world history
both from bourgeois and revolutionary sources. Most of the arguments
he advances in favour of atheism are based on European historical
experience. He almost forgets or was never exposed to the writings
of the religion which his forefathers embraced quite some
generations earlier. To take an example he writes ‘Rebellion against
king is always a sin according to every religion.’
Bhagat Singh was
probably never educated about the contents of the Adi Granth
particularly the Babar Bani. A reading of some verses particularly
the once at pages 722, 360, 417-18, 1288, 468-69, 145 all by Guru
Nanak could have opened new vistas for Bhagat Singh. Bhagat Singh
was a great admirer of Guru Gobind Singh but was very little aware,
if at all, of the struggle from the Guru Nanak to Guru Gobind Singh
against the policies of various kings and their henchmen. Bhagat
Singh was naturally drawn towards Marxism because it offered the
possibilities of a ‘griefless world’ in the form of a communist
society. Such a society is envisaged by bhagat Ravidas in the form
of ‘Be-Gham Pura’ (griefless city) and is duly incorporated in
the Adi Granth at page 345.
It is intriguing
how Bhagat Singh says about the moment of his death, ‘I or to be
more precise, my soul as interpreted in the metaphysical terminology
shall be finished there. Nothing further.’ Anybody who is
conversant with the ancient Indian belief which is believed even now
that it is the body which dies and the soul is immortal. Nay, it can
be reincarnated in human form. This is what Bhai Randhir Singh had
told Bhagat Singh on October 4, 1930.
We do not know whether Bhagat Singh renounced his atheism but Bhai
Sahib’s words to the effect, ‘Bhagat Singh, you will not die but
will be born again to do heroic deeds in the service of the
motherland’ ust have electrified him and his body died after some
weeks with a smile on his face.
Bhagat Singh was
no less than Gandhiji was an icon of the freedom struggle of India in his
deeds as well as thoughts. A close reading of his pamphlet ‘why I am
an atheist’ where he explains his ideas on violence and religion
shows that his ideas were liberal whereas Gandhiji’s were dogmatic.
Had Gandhiji intervened to save his life to afford him the
possibility of studying ‘the Sanatan, Sufi and Sikh thought’ in the
remaining years the two souls could come closer and India could have
emerged as a united social democracy!
3
October, 2007
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