Sunday, March 22, 2009

Let us remember Bhagat Singh - today is 23rd mar

did not see any prominent coverage on any of the main sites though ... :(

Shaheedon ki chitaon par lagein ge har baras mele,
Vatan par marne vaalon ka yahee baaqi nishaan ho ga.

Like many other things they thought they* had lived for and were dying for (see part of his last petition below), like many other things they envisioned for (and in) an independent india, the above sher also, looks, in today's india, part of fiction :(.
Things have gone horribly wrong .... :(, reality has drifted so much away from the visions of perhaps the best, most humanist, most devoted, most selfless, perhaps most talented of generations of indians in known history ... :(

Excerpts from Bhagat Singh's last petition:
"... Let us declare that the state of war does exist and shall exist so long as the Indian toiling masses and the natural resources are being exploited by a handful of parasites. They may be purely British Capitalist or mixed British and Indian or even purely Indian. They may be carrying on their insidious exploitation through mixed or even on purely Indian bureaucratic apparatus. All these things make no difference ..."

11 comments:

Sambaran said...

Shaad, I refuse to consider our generation anyway inferior (or for that matter, superior) to Bhagat Singh's generation. I do not understand how can you term the pre-independence generation any better, more humane, more devoted, more selfless or more talented. I hope you are not getting affected by whatever-in-past-was-better syndrome.

Saurabh Dwivedy said...

Thank you for reminding the dismal state of our "Conscience" (of whatever is left that is). Indeed if we can forget the true sons-of-the-soil we ought to forfeit our rights to be called the sons-of-the-soil ourselves. What soil we belong to?

What's making headlines today?

5 innovative ways to cash out in a
down-turn

10 ways to bamboozle AIG employees who drilled a marina trench down your backside.

Another IT girl killed. Police security under scanner. Women are not safe.

Is this what Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru fought and lay their lives for?

I may sound cynical or even hopelessly pessimistic. But for a society that does not even stop to pay respects to those who lay their lives just so we and our children could breathe in an independent environment - what else can one think of?

Anyway... so long as there are people like you, there is hope that we will continue our fight. If nothing, we'll keep reminding them whether they like it or not.

Good Work!

shadkam77 said...

sambaran,
Nope. I m not getting affected by whatever-in-past-was-better syndrome.

Following are the things that made me feel it. Off course, u may disagree.

Gandhi, I believe, was a saint (btw saints are also humans, they are not above human follies). A saint cause he did miracles. When punjab was burning in communal fire in 47 and entire british indian army was unable to control it, Bengal also burnt, but as soon as Gandhi reached there, ceased to. It was a miracle. Another saintly act is http://shadkam.islam.googlepages.com/i-gandhi.html , and there are innumerable ones ...
Bhagat Singh, somebody who was martyred at 23 yrs of age, had already developed such a great understanding of the world, had such a great vision for india ... his writings look equivalent to the profs at JNU ... in that young tender age, when all me and u might have aspired for is a job (and once we got that, a girlfriend).
Tagore, Khudiram bose, Sanyal, Premchand, Yashpal, Ganesh Vidyarthi ... I mean, u can find out names from a google search ... such gems, make that generation what it was ...

Well - i ve not finished, I ve just begun.
Perhaps u'll say that there are such gems in today's generation as well - i'll agree, perhaps there are.
But the difference between that generation and this is, that generation gave these gems the muqaam, the position they deserved ... whereas we don't do that ...

Today a Bhagat singh will be killed in a fake encounter most probably - like shankar guha niyogi and numerous others. Gandhi was killed in 1948 itself, and with time, the number of people who justify his murder, who identify with, sypathise with, his killer and his killer's ideology has only increased. Heck, one of my own ex-roommates had "Gandhi-Vadh Kyon" and praised it.
The only time many of us indians feel proud about having Gandhi is when an MLK and a Nelson Mandela call him their inspiration.

Today's generation worries more about stock market, than the number of farmers committing suicide. For India, Bharat doesn't exist. An occasional Arundhati Roy, an occasional Safdar Hashmi speak against it, and are being hated for it.

I can go on n on ... but i guess u get the point ...

Anonymous said...

Thanks Shadkam for reminding us about one of those days when we Indians should collectively mourn the loss of such a devoted INDIAN and appreciate what we seem to have got for free!

Anonymous said...

I'm hoping for something that takes all of us back to roots , cuts us down to our sizes and holds our flying ambitions to earth. It's a weird world we live in - and much more so in this country - where what you get in life is inversely proportional to how much humanity you have.

anty said...

Thanks a bunch for all below:
1. Reminding me of Bhagat Singh's b'day
2. You considering it worth your time reading my web log and for the nice things you had to say.
3. For pointing out a typo in my previous post. It had to read, "It is perhaps a human trait to let go of what one has, and when it has gone far enough, make a feckless chase."
I mixed up singular and plural :P

Thanks again pal!

Anonymous said...

Wow! Thank you! I always wanted to write in my site something like that. Can I take part of your post to my blog?

shadkam77 said...

@anon, sure ... would like to visit ur blog too :), if u dont mind ...

Anonymous said...

Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!

Anonymous said...

great read. I would love to follow you on twitter.

Anonymous said...

Hi
Very nice and intrestingss story.