Bhagat Singh chose the gallows, Savarkar chose the petition

 

Bhagat Singh and Savarkar: The Gallows, The Petition, and the Two Paths of Freedom

 

Bhagat Singh chose the gallows, Savarkar chose the petition

Indian history brings together many brave figures, but few contrasts are as sharp as the one between Bhagat Singh, Vinayak Savarkar, and Mahatma Gandhi. All three opposed colonial rule, all three were imprisoned, all three shaped the political imagination of India. Yet the British treated each of them in dramatically different ways. Savarkar was transported to the Andaman Cellular Jail under the belief that he could be broken and controlled. Bhagat Singh was denied the option of transportation because the British feared that he would become unstoppable if he lived. Gandhi was never even considered for the Andamans because the British believed that his presence among political prisoners in a remote island would strengthen resistance, not weaken it. The empire made a different calculation for each man based on fear, strategy, and political consequence.

The story begins with Savarkar, one of the earliest revolutionaries associated with armed revolt against British rule. His writings and speeches encouraged violence, bomb making, and militant resistance. His association with Dhingra, who assassinated Curzon Wyllie in London, brought him under direct scrutiny. When Savarkar was arrested and sentenced to two life terms, the British believed that transportation to the Andamans would separate him from political activity and break the organisational chain that connected Indian revolutionaries in Europe and India.

Inside the Cellular Jail, Savarkar faced harsh punishment. The regime was brutal, with solitary confinement, hand driven oil mills, flogging, poor food, and complete communication blackout. Many prisoners collapsed mentally and physically under these conditions. Savarkar wrote multiple petitions to the British government asking for mercy, remission, or conditional release. In these petitions he offered to give up political activity, promised loyalty and good behaviour, and stated that he would follow the guidance of the government. These documents remain preserved in the archives and reveal a shift in tone and strategy.

The British examined these petitions carefully. They concluded that Savarkar was someone who could be managed. A man who sought release through repeated requests and promises was not a man who would continue armed revolution upon freedom. When he was finally removed from the Andamans and placed under strict restrictions in Ratnagiri, he accepted the conditions. His speeches were banned, his travel restricted, and his political activity suspended. The empire got exactly what it wanted. A revolutionary turned into a contained figure.

In complete contrast stood Bhagat Singh. He began his political journey as a revolutionary but soon became a philosopher of liberation. He read Marx, Lenin, Tolstoy, and European political thinkers with intense focus. He saw Indian independence not as a simple transfer of power but as a deeper social transformation which required the liberation of workers, peasants, and oppressed communities. His writings in jail displayed remarkable intellectual maturity and moral courage.

The British did not fear Bhagat Singh merely because he used violence. They feared him because he represented a new kind of revolutionary mind. When he launched a hunger strike for the rights of political prisoners, he became the most influential youth leader in the country. His fast lasted more than sixty days. Students held protests in Lahore, Delhi, and Calcutta. Labour groups organised marches in Bombay. Gandhi and Nehru spoke about him. The entire nation watched the struggle of one man inside a prison cell.

This changed everything for the British. A man who controls the political temperature of a subcontinent from inside jail becomes dangerous beyond measure. Transportation to the Andamans would not destroy Bhagat Singh. It would strengthen his legend. He would become a teacher to all political prisoners. His ideas would spread with even greater force. The empire had already witnessed how Irish revolutionaries turned prisons into political schools. It was not willing to repeat the same mistake in India.

Therefore, the British created a special tribunal for the Lahore Conspiracy Case through an extraordinary ordinance. This tribunal removed the right of appeal and ensured a fast conviction. Its purpose was simple. It blocked every legal pathway that could lead to transportation. The British did not want Bhagat Singh in the Andamans. They wanted him dead. They believed only death could neutralise his influence. This is why the execution was carried out secretly at night, the bodies burned without ceremony, and the ashes thrown into a river. Even in death, the British feared the fire of his ideas.

Now we come to Gandhi, whose treatment by the British was entirely different from both. Gandhi led the largest non violent mass movement in the world. His campaigns paralysed British administration more effectively than any bomb or gun. Yet the British never sent him to the Andamans. The question is why.

Gandhi was not transported to the Andamans because the British feared that his presence there would inspire the other political prisoners. Gandhi had the rare ability to transform a prison into a moral battlefield. If Gandhi were placed in the Cellular Jail, he would turn the entire Andaman penal colony into a centre of civil resistance. His presence would unite political prisoners, strengthen their resolve, and attract global attention. The British did not want the world to see Gandhi working under brutal prison conditions. They did not want hunger strikes and civil disobedience from a remote island becoming an international embarrassment. The empire recognised that Gandhi’s real power was moral. They could jail him in mainland prisons because it allowed them to manage public perception. But placing Gandhi in an island prison surrounded by torture would damage the imperial image beyond repair.

There was another reason. Gandhi did not believe in violent overthrow of the state. He did not run secret societies or armed groups. His philosophy of non violence allowed the British to manage him through conventional imprisonment. He could be jailed in Yerwada or Poona without creating a revolutionary storm inside an isolated jail. The British believed they could negotiate with Gandhi, postpone his campaigns, and use dialogue to reduce tension. None of this was possible with Bhagat Singh.

Therefore, Gandhi was always jailed within India. The British calculated that Gandhi’s politics, though powerful, could be contained by time bound imprisonment within mainland jails. But sending him to the Andamans would have created a martyr even more powerful than Bhagat Singh.

These three men demonstrate the three ways the British responded to political danger. Savarkar was transported because he could be broken and neutralised. Gandhi was kept in mainland prisons because his influence depended on public visibility and the empire could manage the optics. Bhagat Singh was executed because no prison, no island, and no negotiation could contain his ideas.

Bhagat Singh refused compromise. Savarkar accepted compromise. Gandhi negotiated but never surrendered his principles. The British understood these differences with clarity. Savarkar was the prisoner they could manage. Gandhi was the leader they could imprison but not silence. Bhagat Singh was the mind they could not afford to let live.

Bhagat Singh chose the gallows. Savarkar chose the petition. Gandhi chose the path of resistance through suffering. Each man created a different legacy, but history remembers who bowed and who stood firm. The empire calculated its moves based on fear. And the man they feared the most was the young revolutionary who embraced death with calm dignity.

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Author Introduction
Siddhartha Shankar Mishra is an Advocate in the Supreme Court of India. He writes on history, politics, law, and society. Email id: ssmishra33@gmail.com

References
Lahore Conspiracy Case Records
British Government Ordinance for Special Tribunal, 1930
Collected Works of Bhagat Singh
Jail Notes of Bhagat Singh
National Archives of India documents on Savarkar
Cellular Jail Records and Petitions of Savarkar
Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi
British India Home Department Prison Records

 

The Sangh in the Shadows of Washington

 

How a Self-Styled Cultural Guardian Ended Up Sharing a Lobby Firm with Pakistan 

In the theatre of Indian nationalism the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh loves to posture as the eternal sentinel of Bharat, the grand custodian of culture, the loudest opponent of foreign influence and the sworn ideological enemy of Pakistan. For a century its public voice has been steeped in the politics of purity. Its image relies on projecting a moral fortress that defies Western pressure and rejects any compromise with forces that it claims threaten the nation. That is why the recent revelations from the United States lobbying disclosure records strike at the very core of the Sangh story. For buried inside those filings is a fact that even the most loyal pracharak cannot spin away. The RSS has been linked to a United States lobby firm that has also carried out government related work for Pakistan. The same Pakistan that the Sangh calls an eternal adversary. The same Pakistan that its leaders invoke in every election speech to stoke fear and consolidate votes.

To understand the gravity of this moment we must step back and examine the contradiction. The RSS has always insisted that it is a cultural organisation, that it engages in moral upliftment and national awakening rather than political power seeking. Yet political power follows it like a shadow. Its pracharaks become chief ministers, cabinet ministers, governors and strategists. Its worldview shapes the ruling party. Its directives influence legislation. Despite this enormous influence the Sangh maintains the fiction that it stands outside the corridors of power. But when a foreign lobbying firm in Washington formally registers work that mentions the RSS as the beneficiary, that fiction tears apart.

The filings show work aimed at United States India bilateral relations, a bland phrase used to cover the art of influence. These disclosures reveal that the lobby firm was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in twenty twenty five. What makes this episode even more shocking is that the same firm has also been recorded as representing interests related to Pakistan. The result is a surreal scene. The guardian of Indian nationalism and the political establishment of Pakistan walking through the same door of the same United States influence shop. The RSS can chant nationalism every morning but the paperwork in Washington tells another story.

The Sangh leadership rushed to issue a denial. It claimed that it had not hired any firm and that it works only within Bharat. But the denial raises more questions than answers. If the RSS did not hire the firm directly then who did. Why would an intermediary pay for lobbying that benefits the Sangh if not at the Sangh direction. Why would the name of the RSS appear in the official filing at all. Lobby firms do not invent clients for entertainment. These filings are made under penalty of law. Someone used the name and someone expected influence in Washington. It is this cloak and dagger style that exposes the deeper character of the organisation. In public the Sangh poses as a moral guardian. In private it appears quite comfortable with the most transactional form of foreign influence.

Even more disturbing is what this lobbying aims to achieve. The international image of the Sangh has taken a beating in recent years. Reports of rising attacks on minorities, shrinking democratic space and aggressive majoritarian politics have tarnished its reputation. Western lawmakers, global rights bodies and academic institutions have grown increasingly vocal about the ideological violence that shadows the Sangh worldview. By turning to a United States lobby firm the organisation seems desperate to manage this global perception. This is not outreach. This is sanitisation. It is an attempt to soften criticism abroad even as the same politics hardens at home.

The Pakistan angle further destroys the nationalist halo. For decades the RSS has used Pakistan as the central villain in its story. Every criticism of its politics is dismissed as anti national. Every electoral speech draws a line between patriots and Pakistan sympathisers. Yet when it comes to foreign lobbying the Sangh and Pakistan appear as clients of the same influence factory. What does that say about the purity of the nationalism that the Sangh sells to its followers. What does it say about the loud sermons of swadeshi and cultural pride. The truth is simple. When power is at stake the Sangh is willing to cross oceans, hire foreign consultants and share a corridor with the very forces it demonises at home.

This revelation also exposes the hypocrisy behind the constant attack on Indian activists scholars and organisations that engage with global institutions. The Sangh and its ecosystem regularly brand them as foreign agents or anti national voices for speaking to international bodies. Yet here we see the Sangh linked to foreign lobbying of the most elite kind. Not for justice. Not for rights. But for image management. When civil society reaches out to global institutions it is painted as disloyal. When the Sangh does it through expensive lobby firms it becomes strategic diplomacy.

There is also a deeper danger. When domestic political organisations turn to undisclosed foreign influence networks they open the door to quiet bargaining that bypasses public scrutiny. In a democracy influence must remain transparent. If the Sangh or its affiliates seek foreign lobbying to reinforce their political narrative, the citizens of India deserve to know. They deserve transparency not shadowy denials. They deserve honesty not patriotic slogans used as camouflage.

The Sangh thrives on moral absolutism. It insists that its worldview is pure, uncompromised and rooted in civilisational pride. But the Washington filings show a very different face. They show an organisation that is fully aware of its declining global legitimacy. They show an organisation that is willing to pay or allow intermediaries to pay large sums to soften that decline. They show an organisation that has mastered the art of public nationalism and private convenience.

The saga of the RSS and the United States lobby firm is not just about paperwork or money. It is about truth. It is about the gap between what the Sangh preaches and what it practices. It is about the collapse of the high moral ground that it claims to occupy. When a self proclaimed cultural guardian and a geopolitical adversary like Pakistan end up using the same foreign lobby channels, the entire narrative of ideological purity collapses. This episode stands as a reminder that loud nationalism can hide quiet desperation. And that the strongest slogans often belong to those who most fear scrutiny.

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References

1.    United States Lobbying Disclosure Act filings for Squire Patton Boggs

2.    Reports on the RSS related lobbying by Prism and other investigative platforms

3.    Public statements and denials issued by RSS spokespersons

4.    Reports on Squire Patton Boggs engagements with Pakistan related interests

5.    Analysis by independent policy and legal observers on foreign influence activity in Washington

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Author Introduction

The author Siddhartha Shankar Mishra is an Advocate at the Supreme Court of India and writes frequently on law politics and society with a sharp critical and rights based perspective. He can be reached at ssmishra33@gmail.com.

Indraprastha to Delhi: The Politics of Lost Ideals

 

Sanatan and the Indian Civilizational Journey

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1. Introduction

The story of Indian civilization is a continuous and uninterrupted flow of cultural evolution. Unlike many ancient societies that collapsed or were replaced, the Indian subcontinent shows a remarkable pattern of gradual development where ideas, practices, and social structures build upon earlier foundations. This journey begins with the Harappan or Indus Saraswati Civilization and extends through the Vedic age, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, and the Upanishadic philosophical era, eventually giving rise to what is known today as Sanatan Dharma.

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2. The Harappan Cultural Foundation

The Harappan Civilization flourished from around 2600 to 1900 BCE. It had organized cities, well arranged drainage systems, standardized measurements, craft specialization, trade networks, and artistic expression. Although it did not leave behind large religious texts or chronicles, its cultural symbols and social frameworks survived in later Indian traditions. After around 1900 BCE, ecological and river course changes led to gradual migration toward the Ganga basin. This shift did not destroy civilization. Instead, it transformed and merged into new cultural expressions.

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3. The Early Vedic World and the Rise of the Bharata Clan

During this transitional phase, the early Vedic culture emerged. The Rig Veda, one of the oldest surviving poetic and philosophical compositions, belongs to this period. The early Vedic people were pastoral, thoughtful, and spiritually inquisitive. They were not invaders but inheritors of the Indian landscape. Archaeology, linguistics, and genetics increasingly support cultural continuity rather than replacement.

One of the earliest recorded political conflicts of this age is the Battle of the Ten Kings. It occurred on the banks of the river Parushni, now known as the Ravi. It was not a clash between outsiders and natives but a struggle among Vedic clans. King Sudas of the Bharata tribe defeated a coalition of ten tribes. This victory established the Bharata lineage, which later merged into the Kuru dynasty. This is the same Kuru lineage that becomes central in the Mahabharata.

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4. The Ramayana and the Idea of Righteous Rule

The Ramayana belongs to a later stage in this evolving civilization. It reflects structured kingdoms, codes of leadership, and social order. Ayodhya becomes the symbol of ethical governance. The Ramayana is not merely a familial saga. It is a reflection on duty, justice, sacrifice, and the fragile nature of human relationships. The text emphasizes the responsibility of rulers to uphold truth and moral order.

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5. The Mahabharata and the Complexity of Human Duty

The Mahabharata presents an even more complex world. Indraprastha and Hastinapur become the central political centers. The conflict between the Pandavas and the Kauravas is not simply a quarrel between two families. It is a profound examination of power, legitimacy, greed, loyalty, and the burden of responsibility. Within this epic lies the Bhagavad Gita, a philosophical dialogue that has influenced thought across the world.

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6. The Meaning of Arya in Ancient India

In both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, many individuals are described as Arya. The term Arya in ancient Indian thought does not refer to a race. It is a moral and ethical quality. An Arya is one who embodies truth, courage, discipline, respect, and responsibility. An Anarya is one who ignores these values. Thus, Arya describes character, not bloodline.

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7. The Origin of the Word Hindu

The word Hindu is not originally religious in meaning. It comes from the name of the river Sindhu. Ancient Persians pronounced Sindhu as Hindu. The Greeks adapted it into Indoi. Over time, Hindu came to refer to the cultural and geographical community living east of the Indus River. It is a civilizational identity rather than a fixed religious doctrine.

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8. Sanatan as Eternal Truth

Sanatan means eternal. It refers to truths that do not depend on a single prophet, a single book, or a particular historical event. It is a way of understanding life and existence based on observation, reflection, and direct experience. Compassion, truth, non harm, inner clarity, and the understanding of consciousness are central to Sanatan thought.

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9. Neti Neti and the Discovery of the Self

The Upanishads express the philosophical core of Sanatan. They ask the deepest question: Who am I The body changes, emotions shift, identity evolves. Therefore, none of these can be the real Self. The Upanishads employ the method of Neti Neti which means Not this, not that. By negating all temporary identities, the seeker discovers the eternal awareness within. This awareness is called Atman. The Upanishads declare that Atman is one with Brahman, the ultimate reality.

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10. Distortion in Political Interpretation

In the modern era, Sanatan is often reduced to slogans, identity, and spectacle. Political actors simplify rich philosophical traditions into emotional symbols. The noise of public expression overshadows the silence of inner realization. The challenge today is to distinguish the eternal wisdom of Sanatan from the temporary rhetoric of politics.

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Conclusion

Indian civilization flows like a river across time. It absorbs, transforms, and evolves. Harappan planning, Vedic poetry, Ramayana ethics, Mahabharata introspection, and Upanishadic realization all form one continuous cultural current. The journey of Indian thought moves from ritual toward reflection and from external authority toward inner awareness.

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References

Rig Veda Book Seven
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2.3.6 and 3.9.26
Romila Thapar Ancient Indian History
Upinder Singh A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India
B B Lal Excavations at Hastinapur

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Author Introduction

Siddhartha Shankar Mishra is an Advocate at the Supreme Court of India and a writer engaged in examining Indian history, culture, and constitutional values through critical and philosophical reflection.

 

India Without Bharat: The Ideological Decline of a Nation

 

What survives is not the plural soul of Bharat but a hollow India where debate is silenced, dissent criminalised, and history rewritten.

History has a cruel sense of humour. A land that once debated metaphysics under banyan trees now argues over WhatsApp forwards. A civilisation that produced Ashoka’s edicts, Buddha’s sermons, Kabir’s dohas, and Akbar’s dialogues now finds its leaders distributing history lessons via television anchors who confuse mythology with policy. Welcome to India of the RSS, loud, insecure, and allergic to the very idea of Bharat.

When Bharat Still Breathed

Bharat was never a flat, monochrome canvas. Ashoka, after the carnage of Kalinga, turned from conquest to Dhamma, carving in stone his call for tolerance and compassion.

Ashoka engraved tolerance on stone, today’s rulers engrave vengeance in concrete.

Bimbisara welcomed Buddha and Mahavira alike. The Chalukyas and Pallavas encouraged Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Tamil together, nurturing multiple streams of faith and philosophy. The Upanishads declared Ekam Sat, Vipra Bahudha Vadanti — truth is one, the wise speak of it in many ways. Compare that with today’s rulers who thunder that truth is one and it must be spoken only in their language, preferably in a Sanskritised Hindi that feels more imposed than inspired.

Encounters and Synthesis

The slave dynasties, Delhi Sultans, and later the Mughals brought conquest. But Bharat did not dissolve. It absorbed, debated, and created synthesis. Akbar invited pandits, ulema, Jesuit priests, and Zoroastrians to one table. His experiment was about coexistence, not control.

Bhakti and Sufi saints became bridges, their verses mocking hollow ritual and affirming love. Kabir stood in the bazaar and prayed for everyone. Today the same bazaar is flooded with trolls praying for lynchings in the name of nationalism. Bharat conversed with the other, India under the RSS cannot tolerate a question.

The Colonial Turn

The British shattered India not just economically but intellectually. They codified caste, hardened religious identities, and invented the arithmetic of majority and minority. Yet even in that fractured time, Bharat’s spirit fought back.

Raja Ram Mohan Roy challenged superstition, Vivekananda spoke of universal humanity, Gandhi weaponised non-violence, Ambedkar wrote a Constitution that enshrined liberty, equality, and fraternity. The freedom movement united Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, atheists, feminists, and peasants.

And what was the RSS doing? It sat out of the freedom struggle, whispered admiration for Mussolini and Hitler, and sneered at the tricolour. It inherited not Ashoka’s Dhamma or Gandhi’s satyagraha, but an imported cult of uniformity.

While Gandhi spun the charkha, the RSS spun excuses.

India That Is Not Bharat

Fast forward to today. The RSS claims to be the custodian of Indian culture. But their India is not Bharat. It is a hollow brand project packaged in saffron and sold through IT cells.

Universities that once stood for dissent are now laboratories of ideological policing. The New Education Policy does not liberate minds, it standardises obedience. History is no longer taught, it is airbrushed. Mughals vanish, Ambedkar is diluted, Gandhi is shrunk, Savarkar is inflated. Even Bhisham Sahni’s Tamas, a literary classic on Partition, is refashioned to suit propaganda. Theatre, cinema, literature — everything must now pass a loyalty test.

Bharat gave the world depth, RSS gives the world theatricality.

Language is weaponised. Bharat once embraced Tamil, Odia, Kannada, Urdu, Persian, and countless dialects. Today’s rulers push Sanskritised Hindi as the only marker of nationalism. The result is not unity but linguistic indigestion.

Religion, once a field of philosophy and questioning, is reduced to hashtags and mob justice. Saints who challenged power are replaced by media-savvy godmen who bless bulldozers and endorse politicians.

The Theatre of Present Affairs

Today’s headlines would be comic if they were not tragic.

Manipur burns, communities are displaced, yet Delhi remains silent for months. Bulldozer justice demolishes homes before courts can hear cases. The Enforcement Directorate and CBI, once institutions of law, are now instruments of intimidation. Opposition leaders are raided at dawn, defectors rewarded by dusk.

Media houses act as extensions of the ruling party’s messaging. Anchors roar on cue, debates resemble battlefields, and journalism has become a televised loyalty parade.

Unemployment soars, farmers’ protests are ignored, and yet there is time to rename cities, rewrite textbooks, and police dinner plates. The National Education Policy is paraded as reform while many academics feel pushed out by ideology. The Constitution, a modern Upanishad, is being hollowed out in spirit. Fraternity has been replaced by frenzy, secularism by sloganeering, equality by exclusion.

In Bharat knowledge was debated, in India news is shouted.

Reclaiming Bharat

The tragedy is clear. India may survive on the map, but Bharat suffocates. Bharat was Ashoka’s remorse, Akbar’s conversation, Kabir’s defiance, Gandhi’s satyagraha, Ambedkar’s law. India today is WhatsApp misinformation, bulldozer justice, and troll armies on payroll. Bharat was plural, India is paranoid. Bharat was confident, India is insecure. Bharat was wise, India is loud.

Reclaiming Bharat does not mean resurrecting empires or mythological fantasies. It means protecting plurality against uniformity, debate against dogma, and conscience against coercion. It means remembering that Bharat survived centuries of conquest and colonialism not by exclusion but by absorption.

If we fail, the loss will be greater than any foreign conquest. This time the coloniser is homegrown, garbed in saffron, and cheered by studios and timelines. Bharat is not dead yet, but it gasps under the weight of India. The question is, do we have the courage to reclaim it.

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Author’s Introduction
Siddhartha Shankar Mishra is an Advocate at the Supreme Court of India. He writes on law, society, and the ideological challenges confronting Indian democracy. He can be reached at ssmishra33@gmail.com