Why I Am An Atheist - Bhagat Singh

Bhagat Singh was not only one of India's greatest freedom fighters and revolutionary socialists, but also one of its early Marxist thinkers and ideologues. He wrote four books and a pamphlet in jail. Unfortunately, all the four books, smuggled out of jail, have been lost. Luckily the pamphlet, Why I am an Atheist, written a few days or weeks before his martyrdom, was smuggled out to his father, who published it in June 1931 in The People. Bhagat Singh was also asked by an old revolutionary, Ram Saran Das, to write an introduction to a collection of his poems, entitled Dream Land. Both these works reveal the quality of Bhagat Singh's mind, his wide reading, his capacity to understand complex issues and then present them in an easily understandable manner.

The National Book Trust, India, is proud to present these two writings of Bhagat Singh on the occasion of the 100th birth anniversary of Bhagat Singh, as also to mark the 75th years of his martyrdom, with an introduction by Prof. Bipan Chandra.

Bhagat Singh was a great patriot and revolutionary. But he was also a giant of an intellectual. From his boyhood, he immersed himself in books. He made Dwarka Das Library, founded by Lala Lajpat Rai, virtually his home. His comrades have pointed out how his kurta pockets were always filled with books. He was seldom to be found without a book. This passion for reading he carried into the jails, where he spent nearly last two years of his life. He died before he was 24. This is borne out by his jail diary where he has recorded notes from many of the books he read in jail.

The statements he made at his trials, the letters he wrote to the press, friends and relatives are witnesses of the quality of his mind and wide understanding of society and social and political movements. He also gradually moved away from an archist violence and individual heroic action towards Marxism. Bhagat Singh wrote four books and a pamphlet in jail. Unfortunately, all the four books, smuggled out of jail, have been lost. To avoid heavy penalty for their possession, they passed from hand to hand and were lost in the process.

Bhagat Singh was not only one of India's greatest freedom fighters and revolutionary socialists, but also one of its early Marxist thinkers and ideologues. Unfortunately, this last as- pect is relatively unknown with the result that all sorts of re- actionaries, obscurantist and communalists have been wrongly and dishonestly trying to utilize for their own politics and ide- ologies, the name and fame of Bhagat Singh and his comrades such as Chander Shekhar Azad.

Bhagat Singh died very young at the age of 23. His Political thought and practice started evolving very early when he made a quick transition from Gandhian nationalism to revolutionary an- archism. But already by 1927-28, he began to move from indi- vidual heroic action to Marxism. During the years 1925 to 1928, Bhagat Singh read voraciously, devouring in particular books on the Russian Revolution and the Soviet Union, even though get- ting hold of such books was in itself at the time a revolutionary and difficult task. In the 1920s, Bhagat Singh was one of the most well read persons in India on revolutionary movements, an archism and Marxism. He also tried to inculcate the reading and thinking habit among his fellow revolutionaries and younger comrades. He asserted during his trial before the Lahore High Court that "the sword of revolution is sharpened at the whetstone of thought." Already by the end of 1928, he and his comrades had accepted socialism as the final object of their activities and changed the name of their organization from the Hindustan Republican Association to Hindustan Socialist Republican Association.