Bhagat Singh - Early Life

Early Life

The house where Shaheed Bhagat Singh was born to Kishan Singh and Vidyavati is in present-day Pakistan known as Chak No. 105, GB, Banga village, Jaranwala Tehsil in the Lyallpur district of the Punjab Province of British India. He belonged to a patriotic Sikh family, some of whose in Indian Independence movements, and others had served in Maharaja Ranjit Singh's army. His ancestors hailed from the village of Khatkar Kalan near the town of Banga in Nawanshahr district (now renamed Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar) of Punjab. The family originally belonged to a village by the name of Narli in erstwhile Lahore district and which is now part of Tarn Taran district in India. There is an interesting account of how one of the ancestors moved to Khatkar Kalan given in the autobiography of Singh's uncle and famous freedom fighter, Ajit Singh in his autobiography Buried Alive. Singh's given name of "Bhagat" means 'devotee' and he was nicknamed "Bhaganwala" ('the lucky one') by his grandmother, since the news of the release of his uncle Ajit Singh from Mandalay jail and that of his father from Lahore jail both coincided with his birth. His grandfather, Arjun Singh, was a follower of Swami Dayananda Saraswati's Hindu reformist movement, Arya Samaj, which had a considerable influence on the young Bhagat. His father, and uncles Ajit Singh and Swaran Singh, were members of the Ghadar Party, led by Kartar Singh Sarabha and Har Dayal. Ajit Singh was forced to flee to Persia due to pending court cases against him, while Swaran Singh died at home in 1910 following his release from Borstal Jail in Lahore.

Unlike many Sikhs of his age, Singh did not attend the Khalsa High School in Lahore, because his grandfather did not approve of the school officials' loyalism to the British authorities. Instead, his grandfather, enrolled him in the Dayanand Anglo Vedic High School, an Arya Samaji institution. Singh was influenced by a number of incidents during his childhood which instilled in him a deep sense of patriotism to eventually take up the struggle for India's independence. In 1919, at the age of 12, Bhagat Singh visited the site of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, where non-violent people gathered at a public meeting were fired upon without warning, killing hundreds and wounding thousands. Bhagat Singh participated ardently in Mahatma Gandhi's Non-Cooperation Movement in 1920 and openly defied the British by following Gandhi's wishes of burning his government school books and any imported British clothing he could find. At the age of 14, he welcomed in his village, protestors against the Gurudwara Nankana Sahib firing of 20 February 1921 which killed a large number of unarmed protesters. Disillusioned with Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence, after Gandhi called off the non-cooperation movement, following the violent murders of policemen by villagers, which were a reaction to the police's killing of three villagers by firing at Chauri Chaura in the United Provinces in 1922, he joined the Young Revolutionary Movement. Henceforth, he began advocating the violent overthrow of the British in India.

In 1923, Singh joined the National College in Lahore, where he not only excelled in academics but also in extra-curricular activities. He was a participant of the dramatics society in the college. By this time, he was fluent in Hindi, English, Urdu, Punjabi and Sanskrit languages. In 1923, Singh won an essay competition set by the Punjab Hindi Sahitya Sammelan. In his essay on Punjab's Language and Script, he quoted Punjabi literature and showed a deep understanding of the problems of afflicting Punjab. He joined the Indian nationalist youth organisation Naujawan Bharat Sabha (Hindi: "Youth Society of India") along with his fellow revolutionaries, and became popular in the organisation. He also joined the Hindustan Republican Association, which had prominent leaders, such as Ram Prasad Bismil, Chandrashekhar Azad and Ashfaqulla Khan. The name of the organisation was changed to Hindustan Socialist Republican Association at Singh's insistence. A year later, to avoid getting married by his family, Singh ran away from his house to Cawnpore. In a letter he left behind, he stated:

"My life has been dedicated to the noblest cause, that of the freedom of the country. Therefore, there is no rest or worldly desire that can lure me now ..."

It is also believed that he went to Cawnpore to attempt to free the Kakori train robbery convicts from jail, but returned to Lahore for unknown reasons. On the day of Dussehra in October 1926, a bomb exploded in Lahore. Singh was arrested for his alleged involvement in this Dussehra bomb case on 29 May 1927, but was released for exhibiting good behaviour against a steep fine of Rs. 60,000, about five weeks after his arrest. He wrote for and edited Urdu and Punjabi newspapers, published from Amritsar. In September 1928, the Kirti Kisan Party ("Workers and Peasants Party") organised an all-India meeting of revolutionaries in Delhi by Singh as its secretary. He later rose to become this association's leader.