Bhagat Singh a great martyr of Punjab, popularly referred as Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagt Singh, was born on 28 September 1907 at the village of Banga, Lyallpur district (now in Pakistan). Considered to be one of the most influential revolutionaries of the Indian independence movement. He had a spirit of martyrdom since his childhood.
In the leaflet he threw in the Central Assembly on 9 April 1929, he stated that It is easy to kill individuals but you cannot kill the ideas. Great empires crumbled while the ideas survived.
Less known facts about Bhagat Singh
- Bhagat Singh was a great actor in college and took part in several plays. Most notable plays he was praised in were ‘Rana Pratap’, ‘Samrat Chandragupta’ and ‘Bharata-durdasha’.
- At the age of 12, right after the Jalianwala Bagh incident, Bhagat Singh bunked school and went straight to the place of the tragedy. He collected a bottle of mud wet with blood of Indians and worship the bottle every day.
- As a child, Bhagat Singh often talked and wanted to grow guns in the fields, so that he could fight the British.
- At the age of 8, he talked about driving out Britishers from India and not about the games or toys.
- At an early age he was attracted towards socialism and socialist revolutions led by Lenin Soon he started to reading about them.
- Singh said: “They may kill me, but they cannot kill my ideas. They can crush my body, but they will not be able to crush my spirit.” This was to be quoted many times over by revolutionaries after Singh’s death.
- The bombs Bhagat Singh and his associates threw in the Central Assembly in Delhi were made from low grade explosives. They were lobbed away from people in the corridors of the building and were meant only to startle and not harm. The British investigation into the incident and forensics report also confirmed this.
- During his stay in prison in 1930, Bhagat Singh coined the word “political prisoner” and demanded he and his comrades be given basic amenities that even British looters and goons in the jail were entitled to.
- He coined the phrase ‘Inquilab Zindabad’ that became the slogan of the India’s armed freedom struggle.
- Singh was hanged an hour ahead of the official time when the death sentence was to be commuted and was secretly cremated on the banks of the river Sutlej by jail authorities. However, thousands of people on hearing the news gathered at the spot and took out a procession with his ashes.