Gandhi and Bhagat Singh

Did Mahatma Gandhi Try His Best To Save Bhagat Singh From The Gallows?

Or

Was Bhagat Singh Just Another Pawn In The Complex And Intricate Web Of Imperial Power Politics?

This book tries to understand and explain why Mahatma Gandhi, the most influential political leader of his time in India, could not save Bhagat Singh when he was negotiating a settlement of political questions with Viceroy Lord Irwin during February-March 1931. Gandhi's critics accuse him of failing, mainly owing to his stern commitment to non-violence, while his party men and followers defend him, and attribute this failure to the events that took place beyond his reckoning.

Using a wide range of historical material, V.N. Datta examines with sensitivity and critical discernment, the tragic episode of Bhagat Singh's death sentence from a new perspective—by analyzing it in the context of the political climate of the time, pressure of public opinion, and the working of the British imperial system itself.

V.N. Datta is a professor emeritus of modern history at Kurukshetra University. He was the general president of the Indian History Congress, the resident fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge (1998), and visiting professor to a number of universities including Moscow, Leningrad and Berlin. Among his much acclaimed publications are Jallianwala Bagh (translated into Hindi and Punjabi), New Light on Punjab Disturbances, Vol I and II, Sati: A Historical, Social, and Philosophical Enquiry into the Hindu Rite of Widow-Burning and Maulana Azad. He has contributed articles regularly to journals and the popular press. He is now writing a book called Ghalib's Dilli (1857).

This work is a revised and enlarged version of the keynote address delivered at the International conference held on `Bhagat Singh and His Times' at the ICCSR complex in Punjab University, Chandigarh, from 27 to 30 September 2007. The conference was organised under the auspices of the Indian Council of Historical Research and the Institute of Punjab Studies.

This year marks the birth centenary of Bhagat Singh and the seventy-fifth year of his execution. Bhagat Singh was hanged in the Central Jail in Lahore on 23 March 1931 at 7.30 pm. A number of books have been published in 2007 relating to his role in the national movement. His own writings and what his contemporaries and others wrote on him have also been published. The present study belongs to a different category—it focuses on a single issue: Mahatma Gandhi's attitude to Bhagat Singh's trial and execution. Most historical narratives discuss or refer to Gandhi's reactions on Bhagat Singh's trial and execution. When Bhagat Singh and his comrades were tried and hanged, Gandhi by then had emerged as the most influential political leader with a mass following in the country. He was loved and respected for his moral integrity and practical sagacity.