Day 80 - Three Heroes

23rd March 1931 - tell that date to the Indian public and say that it is a significant date in the Indian freedom struggle and I can guarantee you that 99.9% of the Indian population would not be able to say why. At the same time mention 2nd October or 14th November or event 31st January and there will be a significant portion that will get it right.

Why is that? Why have we or our government over the years made Gods out of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru but have forgotten other freedom fighters? Why is it that we do not remember Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel or Maulana Azad ? Is it because human nature makes heroes out of a few and forgets the character artists? The do-ers of the plan?

Any freedom struggle in the world has always been fought on two separate paths - one of violence and aggression and the other on restraint, dialogue and non-violence. The easiest path to take is that of aggression - an eye for an eye - to show your strength to the enemy and mercilessly beat him down into submission. Gandhi showed India, and the world, that there is another path that one can take and succeed. Gandhiji's way got India its independence and maybe that is the reason we celebrate him as our leader.

But there was another battle being fought along the sidelines - the battle of aggression and revenge - being fought by the Hindustan Republican Association or better known by its leader Bhagat Singh. Bhagat Singh energised the youth with his fiery ideas and got many a youth to fight for our freedom. His revolutionary ways irked the British Government and created a plausible danger for them that the Indian freedom struggle might become a violent one as compared to the easy non-violent one that Gandhi was suggesting. Bhagat Singh and his compatriots were the only ones who asked for and sought revenge for Lala Lajpat Rai's murder and the Jalianwala Bagh massacre. To the Britishers he was a terrorist but to us he was a freedom fighter.

So why have we forgotten heroes like Bhagat Singh and his ilk? Are we embarrassed about their revolutionary ways in our history of non-violence and ahimsa? Do we want to put them in the shadows of our history and forget them? Why don't we wish to remember that people like him readily accepted death so that many youth could get energised and fight for our freedom? It is important that we do not belittle the acts and the path of Bhagat Singh. That was one more way to seek independence. Is it the right way? Who are we to tell? But did many youth join the freedom struggle because of him?I'm sure they did.

23rd March 2011 will be the 80th anniversary of the hanging of Bhagat Singh, Shivaram Rajguru & Sukhdev Thapar - three heroes who stood up to the British and showed us a different way. Maybe we should petition the government to declare 23rd March as Heroes Day.