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Campaigning for Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in the run up to Karnataka to polls on 12 May, Prime Minister Narendra Modi lashed out at the Congress, stating that the party’s leaders did not have the time to meet Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt when they were jailed. He added that, however, they had the time to meet politicians jailed for corruption.
When freedom fighters like Bhagat Singh, Batukeshwar Dut were jailed while fighting for our independence, did any Congress leader go to meet them? But the Congress leaders have the time to meet people who’re corrupt and have been jailed.PM Modi in Karnataka’s Bidar
However, truth be told, Jawaharlal Nehru not only met the jailed Bhagat Singh, but also wrote about it in his autobiography.
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In 1929, when the Indian independence struggle gathered momentum, Bhagat Singh and Batukeswar Dutt bombed the Central Legislative Assembly Hall in Delhi to gain attention of the Britishers.
Arrested and jailed for the incident, Bhagat Singh took up the cause of bettering jail conditions and initiated a hunger strike.
As the fast continued indefinitely, the then 40-year-old Jawaharlal Nehru visited Bhagat Singh and the others in jail. Here's what he wrote about the meeting:
I was very much pained to see the distress of the heroes. They’ve staked their lives in this struggle. They want political prisoners to be treated as political prisoners. I’m quite hopeful that their sacrifice would be crowned with success.
It was also reportedly the first time Nehru met Bhagat, and he described it as:
I saw Bhagat Singh for the first time, and Jatindranath Das and a few others. They were all very weak and bed-ridden and it was hardly possible to talk to them much. Bhagat Singh had an attractive, intellectual face, remarkably calm and peaceful. There seemed to be no anger on it. He looked and talked with great gentleness.
Speaking at the historic Karachi session of the Congress in 1931 – days after Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were hanged – Nehru even sponsored a resolution which was seconded by the then senior Congress leader Madan Mohan Malviya. While Nehru ideologically opposed Bhagat Singh, he still acknowledged his struggle for independence.
The resolution said while Congress disagreed with political violence in principle, it admired the bravery and sacrifice of Bhagat Singh and his comrades.
This Congress, while dissociating itself from and disapproving of political violence in any shape or form, places on record its admiration of the bravery and sacrifice of the late Bhagat Singh and his comrades, Sukhdev and Rajguru, and mourns with the bereaved families for the loss of these lives. This Congress is of the opinion that this triple execution is an act of wanton vengeance and is a deliberate flouting of the unanimous demand of the nation for commutation.
Speaking to AltNews, Professor Chaman Lal who is a retired professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University and author of the book, Understanding Bhagat Singh said, “Bhagat Singh’s relationship with the Congress was a love-hate relationship. Bhagat Singh’s family was part of Congress. His father was a Congress activist. Bhagat Singh had also attended Congress sessions with his father. Both Jawaharlal Nehru and Motilal Nehru had met Bhagat Singh numerous times during the Lahore trial.”
He said that Motilal Nehru even formed a committee to press for the demands of the prisoners lodged in jail who had begun a fast unto death seeking humane conditions.
Following the prime minister’s statement, Historian Irfan Habib who has authored a book on Bhagat Singh's ideology tweeted that several Congress leaders even defied Gandhi to speak for Bhagat Singh.
Incidentally, one of the lawyers who represented the martyrs went on to become a senior Congress leader. His name is Asaf Ali, husband of the legendary freedom fighter Aruna Asaf Ali.
Earlier, PM Modi claimed that the Congress government under Jawaharlal Nehru had humiliated two of the military icons hailing from Karnataka – Field Marshal Cariappa and General Thimayya, and got his facts wrong.
Maybe, the prime minister’s team of researchers and fact-checkers need a course in contemporary history before 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
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