THE UNITED States President, Barack Obama, on Saturday announced conclusion of 20 deals worth 10 billion dollars by the US and Indian Business firms while stating that it would create over 50,000 jobs in the US and job opportunities in India as well.
Allaying fears of small businessmen in India while addressing the US India Business Council (USIBC) meet at the Trident hotel here, Obama asserted that bilateral partnership holds an enormous potential, adding that deals between business firms of both the countries were not just creating only wealth but huge job opportunities in both countries.
During his speech, President Obama said “increased commerce is win-win situation for both the countries,” adding that the “U.S. and India will engage in healthy competition.”
“Trade between both the countries will create jobs in both the countries,” he said.
In his speech, the U.S. President also announced that High tech trade will go up indicating easing of restrictions.
He also asked India to remove trade barriers and promised to reciprocate.
Obama informed that several landmark deals have been done including Boeing selling dozens of planes to India and General Electric selling hundreds of Electric engines. “The increased commerce between the two countries will be a win-win situation.”
The U.S. President, referring to the enormous unexplored potential in bilateral trade, said that India can be America''s top trading partner.
He said due to the liberal economic policies pursued by India, tens of millions of people were taken out of poverty and now India enjoys the status of having the largest middle class population in the world.
The economic growth in India in the last two decades is “one of the stunning achievements in human history.”
“U.S.-India relations will be the defining partnership of the 21st century,” said Obama.
November 07, 2010
BJP justified in criticising Obama for not mentioning Pakistan
INDIA'S MAIN Opposition Party BJP has rightly and very timely criticised US President Brack Obama for deliberately avoiding naming Pakistan for the terror-attacks on India including the infamous 26/11 Mumbai episode. Instant criticism by India’s main opposition party will give opportunity to US President to understand the sentiments of the majority of people in India, who consider the neighbouring country as hotbed of terrorist-activities.
USA has an unfair policy of having a tilt in favour of Pakistan and it never stops financial and military aid to Pakistan despite clear role of Pakistan authorities in patronising terrorist elements disturbing peaceful living of Indian citizens.
US has always avoided direct help to India in its fight against Pakistan-sponsored terror-attacks on India. If US would have sincerely and practically helped India in its tackling with IC-814 hijack at Kandhar, perhaps fundamentalist-elements would not have dared to destroy US World-Trade-Tower at New York in infamous 9/11 attack.
It is important that United States should understand that it would be dangerous for the world and the US itself to allow Pakistan to continue with the policy of supporting the terrorists even as it publicly denounces terrorism.
USA has an unfair policy of having a tilt in favour of Pakistan and it never stops financial and military aid to Pakistan despite clear role of Pakistan authorities in patronising terrorist elements disturbing peaceful living of Indian citizens.
US has always avoided direct help to India in its fight against Pakistan-sponsored terror-attacks on India. If US would have sincerely and practically helped India in its tackling with IC-814 hijack at Kandhar, perhaps fundamentalist-elements would not have dared to destroy US World-Trade-Tower at New York in infamous 9/11 attack.
It is important that United States should understand that it would be dangerous for the world and the US itself to allow Pakistan to continue with the policy of supporting the terrorists even as it publicly denounces terrorism.
Obama visit: Less to give, more to take?
AS PRESIDENT Obama and accompanying American CEOs'' reached Mumbai on Saturday, it was quite evident why he chose India''s financial capital as his first stop.
Unlike his predecessor - George W Bush - who offered India a historic civil nuclear deal in 2005, Obama is more likely to take than give to India.
The United States is still recovering from recession and its unemployment rate is hovering above the nine percent mark, which is adjacent to India''s growth rate. A drubbing in the mid-term poll earlier this week, clearly reflects that Obama''s economic policies have failed to captivate the American imagination.
The US recognizes that India can play a big role in bailing the country out of recession. Recent Indian acquisitions have created and saved 65,000 jobs in the US. Indian companies invested 5.5 billion dollars in American Greenfield projects between 2004-09. In mergers and acquisition of companies in the US, Indian companies have invested 20 billion dollars in the last five years.
India has emerged as the second-fastest growing investor in the United States, after the United Arab Emirates, said FICCI and Ernst and Young in a joint report. However, almost 60 percent of investments made by Indian firms in US is in pharmaceuticals and the IT sector.
A recession-hit US would certainly like to enlarge the basket by relaxing the export of high technology and dramatically jack up Indian investments, especially in defence and space technologies. President Obama has centered his India visit on business and job creation and had even indicated that Washington is considering a lifting of ban on dual use high technology.
The export ban has remained, despite the passage of the Indo-US nuclear deal in March 2008, mainly because of India''s refusal to sign Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
New Delhi believes that dual-use sanctions had no place in the burgeoning partnership and views it as anachronistic. Overall, total exports of advanced technology products exported from the U.S. to India have increased from 1.3 billion dollars in 2003 to over four billion dollars in 2009, despite the global economic slowdown.
The US administration expects business deals worth over 10 billion dollars across several sectors to be signed during Obama''s visit.India also need US support in getting a entry in key non-proliferation-related groups like the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Missile Technology Control Regime, the Australia Group (dealing with chemical and biological weapons) and the Waassenaar Group (export controls for conventional arms).
President Obama: Yes, still you can!
“Yes, we can!” ; “No, you can’t!”
IT IS a reminder of pathos we face every day. People love to abandon a goal when they face adversity. No one would choose a sinking ship. No one wants to do friendship with a man, who is down with his luck. It doesn’t matter if it is of our own making or circumstances have heaped upon us. The difference between an ordinary man / woman and a statesman is the way we react.
A great statesman would never allow himself to be the victim of circumstances for too long. He would gather up his strengths and turn the direction of winds. President Obama is a victim of his own rhetoric, machinations of Zionists and Right Wingers of the United States politics. Today, Obama is a very lonely man. Though he is yet not shorn of all incumbent powers of a President but his admirers are abandoning his sinking ship in droves. Even his closest admirers are saying: “This president feels flat — and somehow not quite genuine.”
What is happening to this great hero of 21 century? Is he under a spell or caught in a deadly political slumber? What has happened to his electrifying magic?
Today, it brings an instant smirk on everyone’s face at the mention of Obama. His admirers are wondering and feel let down and betrayed.
Republicans, Neocons and recently burgeoned Tea Partiers, who have been going for his skin since he entered the White House from front door are rejoicing at his misfortunes.
They don’t hesitate even to call him dyed-in-the-wool Muslim. In fact, they have put him in the dock for their own sins. The corporations and big banks and vultures of the Wall Street are turning against him - the worst show of rank ingratitude. Today, they are cursing the same man, who had bailed them out with the hundreds of billions of tax payers’ money.
There is no love lost between Obama and the Muslim world either. They are disillusioned with his message of hope and promise of change. Once he had fascinated and endeared himself to the Arabs and Muslims in his inaugural address in Ankara and Cairo with his idea of new relationship. He talked about the permanent stop of illegal Israeli settlement on Palestinian lands. His abject failure to push Israel toward peace despite his ostensibly sincere efforts has brought frustration, cynicism and despair in Muslim masses. He is failing on Iraq and Afghanistan fronts.
He could have stepped back from the mess left behind by Bushes and Republicans to make a fresh start. He can still stand up and fight for the ideals and values he once championed. It is not too late and all is not lost. His ‘health-care reforms’ offering medical insurance to tens of millions of poor Americans has great promise for every optimists. He can ask for a revisit by his countrymen at his stimulus package that has saved the US economy from a total free fall.
Americans would we willing to reconsider that the mess on economic front is a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan also. Call back the American Forces from Middle East and save the tax-payers’ money. Oil would be available even from Iran if American Foreign Policy follows a more humanitarian and just approach.
Dear President, we believe your heart is in the right place. Show courage to follow your convictions. There is nothing to fear! A day of honest glory is better than the victory of next election!
October 24, 2010
Population stability to remain a pipedream for India
IT REFERS to reports that India has to push back target of achieving population-stability from earlier 2045 to now 2070 when total fertility rate (TFR) continues at 2.8 per cent. All existing or demanded cast-based and other ‘reserved’ categories should be replaced with an altogether new category of those with up to two children.
It is unfortunate that tax-payers’ hard-earned money is being swallowed by people, who instead of limiting family-expenses by birth-control, cry for more subsidies and facilities at government-expense. Instead of wasting money on family-planning programmes, government should rather save public-money by inducing disincentives for persons with large families. All government facilities and subsidies like reservation, medical, ration, government jobs or promotions should be withdrawn on having a third child in the family.
Women going for deliveries in private or government hospitals may be compulsorily sterilised on birth of second child. Only persons with up to two children should be allowed to contest elections. Even idea of snatching voting rights from persons with more than two children can be considered after some time of introducing above-mentioned steps.
It is unfortunate that tax-payers’ hard-earned money is being swallowed by people, who instead of limiting family-expenses by birth-control, cry for more subsidies and facilities at government-expense. Instead of wasting money on family-planning programmes, government should rather save public-money by inducing disincentives for persons with large families. All government facilities and subsidies like reservation, medical, ration, government jobs or promotions should be withdrawn on having a third child in the family.
Women going for deliveries in private or government hospitals may be compulsorily sterilised on birth of second child. Only persons with up to two children should be allowed to contest elections. Even idea of snatching voting rights from persons with more than two children can be considered after some time of introducing above-mentioned steps.
June 18, 2010
Practical order by Delhi High Court judge
JUSTICE S N Dhingra of Delhi High Court, known for his several landmark and practical verdicts, added one more such verdict to his credit when he ordered an accused to inflict injuries to his body similar to ones on his wife’s body directing the SHO for video-graphing the complete process, when the accused argued that injuries on his wife’s body were self-inflicted to slap a false dowry-harassment case on him.
If judges become practical also apart from written law, fear-psychology will emerge in wrong-doers who in present system find it easy to bail out from courts through loopholes in legal system twisted in their favour by costly and known faces of legal community.
It is also important that justice is delivered timely and the victims as well as ordinary litigants are able to get decisions quickly to restore the faith of the people in the judicial system.
If judges become practical also apart from written law, fear-psychology will emerge in wrong-doers who in present system find it easy to bail out from courts through loopholes in legal system twisted in their favour by costly and known faces of legal community.
It is also important that justice is delivered timely and the victims as well as ordinary litigants are able to get decisions quickly to restore the faith of the people in the judicial system.
Remembering the three martyrs: Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev
MAHATMA GANDHi arrived in Karachi in the month of March, 1931 to participate in the annual Congress session. There was a surprise in store for him. He was not a welcome guest to a large section of vocal people assembled there.
They waved black flags and shouted slogan “ Gandhi Go back”. Unbelievable but true. The vociferous youth were members of the Navajawan Sabha, a forum of the Congress party itself. Lo and behold! The restive youth were led by no less a person than Subhash Bose, a giant among men.
The sad cause they espoused was : non-intervention of Gandhi Ji in getting the death sentence of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev commuted. The three brave young men who challenged the British Raj and fought for the Independence of their motherland, Bharat, were hanged by the neck by the British Indian government on 23rd March 1931 in the Lahore central jail. Against all rules, the hanging was done in the evening at 7.33 P.M .Their bodies were hurriedly disposed off to avoid peoples’ ire The Three young men became Martyrs for the cause of their motherland.
The Indian nation was in a state of shock on their premature hanging, a day before the appointed date, and after a slipshod funeral on the banks of the Sutluj river at Hussainiwala near Ferozepore. It was a sacrilege and added insult to injury. Instead of condoling their deaths and comforting their families Ghandhi Ji, in his own wisdom, had chosen to proceed to Bombay to see off Lord Irwin, the outgoing Viceroy who had declined to commute the death sentence of the three young freedom fighters. There was general indignation. The black flag demonstration against Gandhi Ji was a manifestation of the pent up anger of the people.
Vedic Influence On Martyrs
An analytical study of the events in the Punjab in the first few decades of the twentieth century points to the influence of the Arya Samaj, founded by Swami Dayanand Saraswati in Bombay in 1875 and in Lahore in 1877. No section of the populace remained untouched by this great historical event, irrespective of the religious faith they subscribed to.
I need not emphasize the obvious historical fact that the foundation of the Arya Samaj in Lahore was laid in the garden of a Muslim gentleman, Doctor Rahim Khan. The Vedic discourses were attended by a cross section of the population comprising Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. Reverting to our subject of the martyrs, it would be appropriate to mention that Bhagat Singh, a born Sikh, had his sacred thread ceremony, Yajnopavit, done as a child, notwithstanding his caste being a Sandhu Jat, who were not entitled to hold the ceremony.
The Arya Samaj, a reformist movement, had opened the portals of Vedic knowledge and sixteen sanskars to one and all. Bhagat Singh was a beneficiary of the Arya liberalisation, courtesy his grandfather, Arjan Singh and father, Kishen Singh. His one uncle was also hanged as a freedom fighter and another had to leave India for Iran to avoid persecution at the hands of the British overlords.
Sukhdeo, the second martyr, too was from Lyallpur like Bhagat Singh and the family did not remain untouched by the waves of reform powered by the Arya Samaj. Both Sukhdeo and Bhagat Singh had enrolled themselves for studies in the National College, Lahore that had a preponderance of professors, who had received their education and baptism in Nationalism at the Gurukul Kangri, Haridwar, founded by Swami Shraddhanand.
Bhagat Singh was a student of the DAV School, Lahore too for a period of time and the spirit of freedom was indeed instilled in him there too. Vedalankar, Vidyalankar – the two degrees of Gurukul Kangri were in evidence in surfeit among the teaching faculty of both the educational institutions that shaped the personality and instilled patriotism and moral courage among many a greedom fighter, including our national Martyrs, Bhagat Singh and Sukhdeo.
Rajguru’s was a different story. Born in a village near Pune in Maharashtra in a family that comprised Purohits and students of the Vedas, they were appropriately addressed as Rajguru. It was the pursuit of Vedic studies that brought Shivram Rajguru to Varanasi and later to Kanpur to meet revolutionaries of the eminence of Chandra Shekhar Azad.
Bhagat Singh too had made more than one visit to Kanpur with the common intent of freeing the motherland through other ways and means than the one espoused by Gandhi Ji. These young men had no faith and, of course, no patience to follow the path of Ahimsa for achieving independence. Of course, the three had become inseparable comrades-in-arms in the noble cause where bomb – making and killing of foreigners or their lackeys was not a taboo. The revolutionaries from Bengal were a great help and they always came forward unhesitatingly. Many a time Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru had to miss a meal, forego new clothes to save money for the revolutionary cause.
FIGHT TO FINISH
AIM – that indeed is the first principle of war. Our revolutionaries knew this and indeed practised this. They had Independence of India as their sole aim. They did not allow any other thing to come in between that could make them deviate from the AIM. Not even the girls. Delving deep into their contemporary history, a researcher will have no option but to pronounce that celibacy was their creed. They could not but cling to creed unflinchingly. They had great disdain for the institution of marriage until independence was achieved. A mere mention of marriage was to them like a red rag to a bull.
Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru had left their homes and near and dear ones for the cause celebre and would not le marriage derail their noble mission. Notwithstanding their young age, the period when the urge for sex is at its zenith, they never thought of women, leave aside craving for company. This character quality is indeed laudable. It is a beacon light for the youth of the twenty first century where sex is taken as a dynamo to energise all activities. The three Martyrs show us light at the end of the tunnel. Even a blind person will not miss it.
Bhagat Singh and Rajguru came from different ethnic backgrounds but their aim was the same. Bharat Mata Ki Jai – that was their creed and that was their slogan. They had unflinching faith in their mission and knew that they would achieve the AIM – living or dead. In any case, the Vedic philosophy of life had it ingrained in them that the soul never dies, it only changes the bodies. Believers in the Vedic Trinity know it well that Parmatma, jeevatma and Prakriti have separate existences, never born and never die. Why grieve for a change in outer appearance.
This Vedic belief buttressed their determination to fight to finish; fight to win. Bhagat Singh, Sukhdeo and Rajguru had seen the barbarity of the British police officers when they cane charged the Indian procession at the Lahore railway station where they had assembled to show black flag to the Simon Commission as it was anti-Indian.
An old and venerable leader like Lala Lajpat Rai, a doyen among Aryas and Congressmen alike, was not spared the baton. Saunders, a police officer, himself beat Lala Ji resulting in his premature demise within a month. It was then and there that Bhagat Singh, Sukhdeo and Rajguru had vowed to avenge the insult and injury to venerable Lala Lajpat Rai, a great disciple of Swami Dayanand Saraswati. Our revlutionaries fought to finish and achieved their aim.
Chandra Shekhar Azad too had joined them when they made a plan to kill the Superintendent of Police, Scott, who had ordered the lathi charge. He was present at the time of execution of the plan too. Well, under a mistaken identity, Saunders, who was equally guilty of humiliating Indians, was killed by their bullets near the police station in Lahore. It shook the British administration not only in Punjab but in the rest of India too.
Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt had the moral and physical courage to bomb the Central Assembly in New Delhi on 8th April 1029 and fire a few shots from the visitors’ gallery when the Public Safety Act was being passed as an ordinance after it was voted out by the Indian members. Our Duo had not intended to kill or injure anyone. By a loud explosion and smoke they wished the deaf government in Delhi to heed to the voice of the Indian masses. Their mission was a success, notwithstanding the sentence of life imprisonment awarded to them. Of course, the case of shooting the police officer in Lahore and trial of the three freedom fighters in Lahore gave a new turn to events as mentioned heretofore.
MEMORIES OF MARTYRS
Bhagat Singh was in the hot seat after Sunders, the British police officer, who was shot dead by the revolutionaries to avenge the death of Punjab Kesari, Lala Lajpat Rai. Lahore was not a safe place for him and his comrades-in-arms. To avoid detection by the British government sleuths, Bhagat Singh had shorn off his long hair and beard. He dressed like a European, was accompanied by a lady, Durga bhabhi (wife of another revolutionary) with a babe in her arms to give the impression of a family leaving Lahore and travelled first class in the train.
They left Lahore undetected. A great escape indeed like that of Neta Ji subhash Chandra Bose later from Calcutta. Rajguru left Lahore like a labourer and Sukhdeo like a daily wage earner. Chandra Shekhar Azad was clever by half and even his friends were amazed how he got away from the prying eyes of the alert spies and police personnel. He too died a Martyr’s death later in Allahabad Alfred park fighting the police like a possessed man.
The three Martyrs were almost of the same age group.Great bonhomie prevailed among them. Notwithstanding heated discussions on political and economic matters they remained bosom friends till they breathed their last at the gallows with a broad grin and smile on their faces. Bhagat Singh was merely 23 years old and so was Sukhdev Thapar; Shivaram Rajguru was only 22 years old when they kissed the noose at the gallows and attained martyrdom.
Every year on 23rd March we remember them for their patriotism and courage. Many men and women go to their Samadhi – the place where they were cremated on the banks of the Sutluj river in Ferozepore to offer flowers. Their lives thrill our youth till today. No wonder more than half a dozen movies have been made and screened by Bollywood handing down their sacred memory to posterity so that the boys and girls of today are prepared to defend the hard won freedom and keep our Bharat mata free from shackles of all kinds.
Let us take a leaf out of the prison diary of Shaheed Bhagat Singh and share his thoughts. He wrote :
“ Social progress depends not upon the ennoblement of the few but on the enrichment of democracy ; universal brotherhood can be achieved only when there is an equality of opportunity – of opportunity in the social, political and individual life.”
They waved black flags and shouted slogan “ Gandhi Go back”. Unbelievable but true. The vociferous youth were members of the Navajawan Sabha, a forum of the Congress party itself. Lo and behold! The restive youth were led by no less a person than Subhash Bose, a giant among men.
The sad cause they espoused was : non-intervention of Gandhi Ji in getting the death sentence of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev commuted. The three brave young men who challenged the British Raj and fought for the Independence of their motherland, Bharat, were hanged by the neck by the British Indian government on 23rd March 1931 in the Lahore central jail. Against all rules, the hanging was done in the evening at 7.33 P.M .Their bodies were hurriedly disposed off to avoid peoples’ ire The Three young men became Martyrs for the cause of their motherland.
The Indian nation was in a state of shock on their premature hanging, a day before the appointed date, and after a slipshod funeral on the banks of the Sutluj river at Hussainiwala near Ferozepore. It was a sacrilege and added insult to injury. Instead of condoling their deaths and comforting their families Ghandhi Ji, in his own wisdom, had chosen to proceed to Bombay to see off Lord Irwin, the outgoing Viceroy who had declined to commute the death sentence of the three young freedom fighters. There was general indignation. The black flag demonstration against Gandhi Ji was a manifestation of the pent up anger of the people.
Vedic Influence On Martyrs
An analytical study of the events in the Punjab in the first few decades of the twentieth century points to the influence of the Arya Samaj, founded by Swami Dayanand Saraswati in Bombay in 1875 and in Lahore in 1877. No section of the populace remained untouched by this great historical event, irrespective of the religious faith they subscribed to.
I need not emphasize the obvious historical fact that the foundation of the Arya Samaj in Lahore was laid in the garden of a Muslim gentleman, Doctor Rahim Khan. The Vedic discourses were attended by a cross section of the population comprising Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. Reverting to our subject of the martyrs, it would be appropriate to mention that Bhagat Singh, a born Sikh, had his sacred thread ceremony, Yajnopavit, done as a child, notwithstanding his caste being a Sandhu Jat, who were not entitled to hold the ceremony.
The Arya Samaj, a reformist movement, had opened the portals of Vedic knowledge and sixteen sanskars to one and all. Bhagat Singh was a beneficiary of the Arya liberalisation, courtesy his grandfather, Arjan Singh and father, Kishen Singh. His one uncle was also hanged as a freedom fighter and another had to leave India for Iran to avoid persecution at the hands of the British overlords.
Sukhdeo, the second martyr, too was from Lyallpur like Bhagat Singh and the family did not remain untouched by the waves of reform powered by the Arya Samaj. Both Sukhdeo and Bhagat Singh had enrolled themselves for studies in the National College, Lahore that had a preponderance of professors, who had received their education and baptism in Nationalism at the Gurukul Kangri, Haridwar, founded by Swami Shraddhanand.
Bhagat Singh was a student of the DAV School, Lahore too for a period of time and the spirit of freedom was indeed instilled in him there too. Vedalankar, Vidyalankar – the two degrees of Gurukul Kangri were in evidence in surfeit among the teaching faculty of both the educational institutions that shaped the personality and instilled patriotism and moral courage among many a greedom fighter, including our national Martyrs, Bhagat Singh and Sukhdeo.
Rajguru’s was a different story. Born in a village near Pune in Maharashtra in a family that comprised Purohits and students of the Vedas, they were appropriately addressed as Rajguru. It was the pursuit of Vedic studies that brought Shivram Rajguru to Varanasi and later to Kanpur to meet revolutionaries of the eminence of Chandra Shekhar Azad.
Bhagat Singh too had made more than one visit to Kanpur with the common intent of freeing the motherland through other ways and means than the one espoused by Gandhi Ji. These young men had no faith and, of course, no patience to follow the path of Ahimsa for achieving independence. Of course, the three had become inseparable comrades-in-arms in the noble cause where bomb – making and killing of foreigners or their lackeys was not a taboo. The revolutionaries from Bengal were a great help and they always came forward unhesitatingly. Many a time Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru had to miss a meal, forego new clothes to save money for the revolutionary cause.
FIGHT TO FINISH
AIM – that indeed is the first principle of war. Our revolutionaries knew this and indeed practised this. They had Independence of India as their sole aim. They did not allow any other thing to come in between that could make them deviate from the AIM. Not even the girls. Delving deep into their contemporary history, a researcher will have no option but to pronounce that celibacy was their creed. They could not but cling to creed unflinchingly. They had great disdain for the institution of marriage until independence was achieved. A mere mention of marriage was to them like a red rag to a bull.
Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru had left their homes and near and dear ones for the cause celebre and would not le marriage derail their noble mission. Notwithstanding their young age, the period when the urge for sex is at its zenith, they never thought of women, leave aside craving for company. This character quality is indeed laudable. It is a beacon light for the youth of the twenty first century where sex is taken as a dynamo to energise all activities. The three Martyrs show us light at the end of the tunnel. Even a blind person will not miss it.
Bhagat Singh and Rajguru came from different ethnic backgrounds but their aim was the same. Bharat Mata Ki Jai – that was their creed and that was their slogan. They had unflinching faith in their mission and knew that they would achieve the AIM – living or dead. In any case, the Vedic philosophy of life had it ingrained in them that the soul never dies, it only changes the bodies. Believers in the Vedic Trinity know it well that Parmatma, jeevatma and Prakriti have separate existences, never born and never die. Why grieve for a change in outer appearance.
This Vedic belief buttressed their determination to fight to finish; fight to win. Bhagat Singh, Sukhdeo and Rajguru had seen the barbarity of the British police officers when they cane charged the Indian procession at the Lahore railway station where they had assembled to show black flag to the Simon Commission as it was anti-Indian.
An old and venerable leader like Lala Lajpat Rai, a doyen among Aryas and Congressmen alike, was not spared the baton. Saunders, a police officer, himself beat Lala Ji resulting in his premature demise within a month. It was then and there that Bhagat Singh, Sukhdeo and Rajguru had vowed to avenge the insult and injury to venerable Lala Lajpat Rai, a great disciple of Swami Dayanand Saraswati. Our revlutionaries fought to finish and achieved their aim.
Chandra Shekhar Azad too had joined them when they made a plan to kill the Superintendent of Police, Scott, who had ordered the lathi charge. He was present at the time of execution of the plan too. Well, under a mistaken identity, Saunders, who was equally guilty of humiliating Indians, was killed by their bullets near the police station in Lahore. It shook the British administration not only in Punjab but in the rest of India too.
Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt had the moral and physical courage to bomb the Central Assembly in New Delhi on 8th April 1029 and fire a few shots from the visitors’ gallery when the Public Safety Act was being passed as an ordinance after it was voted out by the Indian members. Our Duo had not intended to kill or injure anyone. By a loud explosion and smoke they wished the deaf government in Delhi to heed to the voice of the Indian masses. Their mission was a success, notwithstanding the sentence of life imprisonment awarded to them. Of course, the case of shooting the police officer in Lahore and trial of the three freedom fighters in Lahore gave a new turn to events as mentioned heretofore.
MEMORIES OF MARTYRS
Bhagat Singh was in the hot seat after Sunders, the British police officer, who was shot dead by the revolutionaries to avenge the death of Punjab Kesari, Lala Lajpat Rai. Lahore was not a safe place for him and his comrades-in-arms. To avoid detection by the British government sleuths, Bhagat Singh had shorn off his long hair and beard. He dressed like a European, was accompanied by a lady, Durga bhabhi (wife of another revolutionary) with a babe in her arms to give the impression of a family leaving Lahore and travelled first class in the train.
They left Lahore undetected. A great escape indeed like that of Neta Ji subhash Chandra Bose later from Calcutta. Rajguru left Lahore like a labourer and Sukhdeo like a daily wage earner. Chandra Shekhar Azad was clever by half and even his friends were amazed how he got away from the prying eyes of the alert spies and police personnel. He too died a Martyr’s death later in Allahabad Alfred park fighting the police like a possessed man.
The three Martyrs were almost of the same age group.Great bonhomie prevailed among them. Notwithstanding heated discussions on political and economic matters they remained bosom friends till they breathed their last at the gallows with a broad grin and smile on their faces. Bhagat Singh was merely 23 years old and so was Sukhdev Thapar; Shivaram Rajguru was only 22 years old when they kissed the noose at the gallows and attained martyrdom.
Every year on 23rd March we remember them for their patriotism and courage. Many men and women go to their Samadhi – the place where they were cremated on the banks of the Sutluj river in Ferozepore to offer flowers. Their lives thrill our youth till today. No wonder more than half a dozen movies have been made and screened by Bollywood handing down their sacred memory to posterity so that the boys and girls of today are prepared to defend the hard won freedom and keep our Bharat mata free from shackles of all kinds.
Let us take a leaf out of the prison diary of Shaheed Bhagat Singh and share his thoughts. He wrote :
“ Social progress depends not upon the ennoblement of the few but on the enrichment of democracy ; universal brotherhood can be achieved only when there is an equality of opportunity – of opportunity in the social, political and individual life.”
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