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The History of a Legend: Accounting for Popular Histories of Revolutionary Nationalism in India*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 February 2012

KAMA MACLEAN
KAMA MACLEAN*
Affiliation:
School of History and Philosophy, University of New South Wales, Kensington, 2031 Sydney, Australia Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Narratives about the revolutionary movement have largely been the preserve of the popular domain in India, as Christopher Pinney has recently pointed out. India's best-known revolutionary, Bhagat Singh—who was executed by the British in 1931 for his role in the Lahore Conspiracy Case—has been celebrated more in posters, colourful bazaar histories and comic books than in academic tomes. These popular formats have established a hegemonic narrative of his life that has proved to be resistant to subsequent interventions as new materials, such as freshly-declassified intelligence reports and oral history testimonies, come to light. This paper accounts for why Bhagat Singh's life story has predominantly prevailed in the domain of the popular, with special reference to the secrecy of the revolutionary movement and the censure and censorship to which it was subjected in the 1930s.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 6 , November 2012 , pp. 1540 - 1571
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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Footnotes

*

The research for this paper and its first drafts were done in my capacity as Professorial Research Fellow at the United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, in 2009, with the assistance of travel grants from the University of New South Wales, Sydney. Thanks are due to the archival staff at the Nehru Library and the National Archives in New Delhi, and of the Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections in the British Library. I also wish to thank Gauhar Raza, Raj Mani, Rajesh Prasad, Max Harcourt, Jim Masselos and Chaman Lal, and I remain indebted to Amit and Reema Sarwal for their support. An early draft was presented at a seminar at the University of Sydney, 3 August 2009, and I am grateful to the audience for their feedback. Robin Jeffrey, Michael Milne, Rochona Majumdar and Ian Tyrrell made insightful comments on early drafts. Thanks are also due to the anonymous readers of Modern Asian Studies for their constructive comments.

References

** In fact the ‘A’ of HRSA stood for BOTH ‘Army’ and ‘Association’, with the influence of the Irish Republican Army evident in the former, and the latter being used more after late 1928, when they had a letterhead produced with ‘Association’. For consistency, I will use the latter throughout.

1 ‘Notice issued by the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association, December 1928, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (henceforth NMML), Private Papers, Acc. 822.

2 Neeti Nair has recently attributed this popularity to Bhagat Singh's adoption of Gandhian tactics in jail. See ‘Bhagat Singh as “Satyagrahi”: the Limits to Non-violence in Late Colonial India’, Modern Asian Studies, 43, 3, 2009: 649–681.

3 ‘Finally, Bhagat Singh statue unveiled in Parliament’, Sikh News, 2 September 2008.

4 Tarlo, Emma, Clothing Matters: Dress and Identity in India (London: Hurst & Co., 1996), p. 84Google Scholar.

5 Courtesy of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.

6 Singh, Bhagat, ‘Why I am an Atheist’, in Verma, Shiv (ed.), Bhagat Singh on the Path of Liberation (Chennai: Bharathi Pustakalay, 2007), p. 116Google Scholar.

7 Aditi Tandon, ‘Bhagat Singh stands tall in Parliament’, Tribune, 16 August 2008.

8 See Fenech, Louis E., ‘Contested Nationalisms, Negotiated Terrains: The Way Sikhs Remember Udham Singh “Shahid” (1899–1940)’, Modern Asian Studies, 36, 4, 2002: 827–870CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 ‘Family up in arms over Bhagat Singh statue’, Hindustan Times, 4 November 2008.

10 Ibid.

11 See, for example, pictures of the statues of Bhagat Singh erected in the 1960s in Amar Shahid Bhagat Singh (Chandigarh: Suchna, Prachar and Paryatan Vibhag, Punjab Government, 1968), p. 94.

12 Nijhar, Milkha Singh, ‘Bhagat Singh ki chori-chhipe khinche gaya chitra (The Secretly-taken Photograph of Bhagat Singh)’, in Juneja, M. M. (ed.), Bhagat Singh par Chuninda Lekh (Hisar: Modern Publishers, 2007), p. 205Google Scholar.

13 See Maclean, Kama, ‘The Portrait's Journey: The Image, Social Communication and Martyr-Making in Colonial India’, Journal of Asian Studies, 70, 4, 2011: 1051–1082CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Photograph courtesy of Raj Mani, of the Tribune, 13 April, 1929, p. 1.

15 One of the first scholarly interventions on this topic is Jeffrey's, Robin ‘What the Statues Tell: The Politics of Choosing Symbols in Trivandrum’, Pacific Affairs, LIII, 3, Fall, 1980: 484–502CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 See, for example, Chakrabarty, Dipesh, ‘The Public Life of History: An Argument out of India’, Public Culture, 20, 1, 2008: 143–168CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Gaur, Ishwar Dayal, Martyr as a Bridegroom: A Folk Representation of Bhagat Singh (Delhi: Anthem, 2008), p. 6Google Scholar.

18 Himadri Banerjee, ‘Bhagat Singh in Bengali Writings’, at http://bhagatsinghstudy.blogspot.com/2008/01/bhagat-singh-in-bengali-writings.html (accessed 15 December 2011).

19 See Prem Singh, ‘Bhagat Singh in Hindi Literature’, Ashok Chousalkar, ‘Bhagat Singh in Marathi Literature’, and Hans, Raj Kumar, ‘Bhagat Singh in Gujarati Literature’, all in Grewal, J. S. (ed.), Bhagat Singh and his Legend (Patiala: World Punjabi Centre, 2008)Google Scholar. For more regional language materials, see Sidhu, Gurdev Singh (ed.), The Hanging of Bhagat Singh, Vol. IV: the Banned Literature (Chandigarh, Unistar, 2007)Google Scholar.

20 Pinney, Christopher, Photos of the Gods: The Printed Image and Political Struggle in India (London: Reaktion Books, 2004), p. 126Google Scholar; see also Pritam Singh, ‘Why the Story of Bhagat Singh Remains on the Margins?’ www.sacw.net/article22.html (accessed 21 December 2011).

21 Pinney, Photos of the Gods, p. 117.

22 Pinney, Christopher, ‘Visual history tells us about repressed histories’, Tehelka, Vol. 5, No. 37: 20 September 2008Google Scholar.

23 Shri Jai Dev Gupta, Oral History Transcript (hereafter OHT), interviewed by S. L. Manchanda, 10 May 1978, NMML Oral History Project, Acc no. 346, p. 88.

24 Extract from weekly report of the Director, Intelligence Bureau of the Home Department, Government of India, 20 December 1928, India Office Library, (IOL), L/P&J/12/60, p. 3.

25 Bhagat Singh, ‘Why I am an Atheist’, in Verma, (ed.), Bhagat Singh: on the Path to Liberation, p. 120.

26 Manmathnath Gupta, OHT, interviewed by Dr Hari Sharma, 22 November 1969, NMML Oral History Project, Acc. No. 174, p. 61.

27 Letter by M. D. Thapar to Shanta Kumar, 18 April 1978, in Sukhdev Papers, NMML, Acc. no. 190, LLXVI (116).

28 ‘Crown Complainant Vs Sukh Dev and others’, in Wariach, and Sidhu, (eds), The Hanging of Bhagat Singh: the Complete Judgement (Chandigarh: Unistar, 2005), p. 82Google Scholar.

29 Kumar, Avinash, ‘Nationalism as Bestseller: The Case of Chand's “Phansi Ank”’, in Gupta, Abhijit and Chakravorty, Swapan (eds), Moveable Type: Book History in India (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2008), p. 176Google Scholar.

30 Letter by D. Petrie, Director of Intelligence, 25 May 1929, NAI, Home Political 192/1929, KW I.

31 Verma (ed.), Bhagat Singh on the Path of Liberation, p. 78, fn.

32 Max Harcourt, ‘Revolutionary Networks in North Indian Politics, 1907–1935 (D. Phil., University of Sussex, 1974), p. 264.

33 C.I.D. file no 9249/1926, facsimile reproduced in Wariach, Malwinder Jit Singh, Bhagat Singh: the Eternal Rebel (New Delhi: Government of India, Publications Division, 2007), p. 58Google Scholar.

34 Jaydev Kapoor, interviewed by S. L. Manchanda, 3 October 1974. NNML Oral History Transcript (OHT), Acc. no. 431, p. 61.

35 Shiv Verma, interviewed by Hari Dev Sharma and S. L. Manchanda, 16 February 1972. NMML OHT, Acc. no 50, p. 87.

36 Verma, NMML OHT, p. 88; Durga Devi Vohra, interviewed by S. L. Manchanda, 7 October 1972, NMML OHT, Acc. 369, p. 11.

37 Jitendra Nath Sanyal, Sardar Bhagat Singh (a short life-sketch), Allahabad: J. N. Sanyal, 1931, National Archives of India (NAI), Proscribed Literature section, Acc. 969, p. 42.

38 Vohra, NMML OHT, p. 15.

39 Sohan Singh Josh, ‘My Meetings with Bhagat Singh’, Link, 22 March 1981, p. 15.

40 Chhabil Das, interviewed by S. L. Manchanda, 17 May 1971, NMML OHT Acc. No. 163, pp. 34–35.

41 The first Congress Session Bhagat Singh attended was in Ahmedabad, in 1921. Jai Dev Gupta, NMML OHT, p. 28.

42 See Habib, S. Irfan, ‘Trials, Congress and Revolutionaries’, in To Make the Deaf Hear: Ideology and Programme of Bhagat Singh and His Comrades (New Delhi: Three Essays Collective, 2007), pp. 73–102Google Scholar; Nair, ‘Bhagat Singh as “Satyagrahi”’, p. 30.

43 Extract, Weekly Report of the Director, Intelligence Bureau, 12 January 1928, IOR/L/P&J/12/59, p. 17. See also Report by Fryer, 19 April 1929, NAI, Home Political, 192/1929, K.W. II, p. 14.

44 Sanyal, Sardar Bhagat Singh, p. 44; Kapoor, NMML OHT, p. 93.

45 Statement of Lalit Kumar Mukherji, Confession Exhibit PBV/1/28.6.29, in Waraich, Malwinderjit Singh and Jain, Harish (eds), The Hanging of Bhagat Singh, Confessions, Statements and Other Documents, Vol. III (Chandigarh: Unistar, 2007), p. 247Google Scholar.

46 Extract from Director, Intelligence Bureau (DIB) Report, 8 April 1929. IOR/L/PJ/12/389, p. 3.

47 Friend, Corinne (ed.), Yashpal looks back: selections from an Autobiography (Delhi: Vikas, 1981), p. 47Google Scholar.

48 Kapoor, NMML OHT, pp. 103–105.

49 This was in fact a point of much debate within the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association. For details see Kapoor, NMML OHT, pp. 101–119.

50 Kapoor, NMML OHT, pp. 125–126.

51 ‘Judgment: Session Court’, in Wariach and Sidhu (eds), Complete Judgement, p. 36.

52 ‘Bhagat Singh and Dutt's Sensational Statement’, Hindustan Times, 8 June 1929, pp. 1, 5.

53 Weekly Report of the Director, Intelligence Bureau, of the Home Department, 3 October 1929. IOR/L/PJ/12/389, p. 25.

54 ‘Statement Before the Lahore High Court Bench’, in Verma (ed.), Bhagat Singh: on the Path of Liberation, p. 147–148.

55 ‘Statement in Sessions Court’, in Verma (ed.), Bhagat Singh: on the Path of Liberation, p. 82.

56 Jai Dev Gupta, NMML OHT, p. 69.

57 The Communist Party of Great Britain, Lahore Conspiracy Case, 5 March 1931. IOR/L/PJ/12/377, pp. 23–25.

58 ‘Labour Government. Executes 3 India Rebels Frame-up Revolutionists for British Imperialism’, in Verma, (ed.), Bhagat Singh: on the Path to Liberation, pp. 181–182.

59 Sidhu (ed.), Banned Literature, p. 196.

60 Two sources, each quoting different newspapers, provide graphic descriptions of the torture that some of the Lahore Conspiracy Case prisoners were exposed to. See C. S. Venu, Sirdar Bhagat Singh, p. 22; The Communist Party of Great Britain, ‘Lahore Conspiracy Case’, 5 March 1931. IOR/L/PJ/12/377, p. 24.

61 See R. A. Butler's undated letter to Mr Crombie of the Intelligence Bureau, IOR/L/PJ/12/314, p. 40.

62 Political Prisoners In India: A Statement issued by Direction of the Society of Friends, January 1937, p. 18, IOR/L/PJ/12/314.

63 The voluminous files of Indian Political Intelligence (IPI) in the L/PJ/12 series were only made accessible to researchers in 1996. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/A2A/records.aspx?cat=059-lpj12&cid=-1&Gsm=2008–06-18–1 (accessed 21 December 2011).

64 Barrier, N. G., Banned: Controversial Literature and Political Control in British India, 1907–1947 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1974), pp. 206–209Google Scholar, lists 29 entries on Bhagat Singh; the more recent Shaw, G. and Lloyd, M. (eds), Publications Proscribed by the Government of India: A catalogue of the collections in the India Office Library and Records and the Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books, British Library Reference Division (London: British Library, 1985), p. 192Google Scholar, has over 70 relevant entries.

65 Sidhu (ed.), Banned Literature.

66 Ibid., p. 8.

67 ‘Report on the Political Situation in Bengal for the second half of April, 1931’. NAI, F/18/3/1931.

68 See Chaman Lal, ‘Bibliography on Bhagat Singh’, in Grewal (ed.), Bhagat Singh and his Legend, pp. 255–269.

69 Tribune, March 7, 1931, p. 7.

70 Tribune March 6, 1931, p. 5.

71 It would appear from correspondence between the Home Department and Punjab Government that a date for the executions was not fixed until as late as 17 March. Telegram XV no. 797-S, 17 March 1931, NAI, Home Political 4/21/31, p. 18.

72 Tribune, 4 March 1931, p. 7.

73 Tribune, 5 March 1931, p. 7.

74 See NAI, Home Judicial, 152/I/31 and K.W.

75 Bose, Subhas Chandra, The Indian Struggle: 1920–1942 (New York: Asia Publishing House, 1964), p. 204Google Scholar.

76 Nair, ‘Bhagat Singh as “Satyagrahi”’, p. 17.

77 Kapoor, NMML OHT, p. 184; ‘Report on the political situation in Bengal for the fortnight ending the first half of September 1929’, IOR/L/PJ/12/686.

78 Bhagat Singh had been partly raised by his childless aunt, Harnam Kaur, and so the question of who constituted ‘immediate family’ even within the context of the Indian extended family unit, was not a straightforward one. Jai Dev Gupta, NMML OHT, p. 14.

79 Tribune, 25 March, 1931, p. 1.

80 ‘Report on the political situation in the Punjab for the fortnight ending the 31st of March, 1931.’ NAI, F/18/3/1931.

81 Statement of Sir Henry Craik, Finance Minister in the Punjab Legislative Council, The Indian Annual Register: an Annual Digest of Public Affairs of India, Vol 1, January–June 1931. Calcutta: Annual Register Office, 1932, p. 215.

82 ‘Report on the political situation in the Punjab for the fortnight ending the 31st of March, 1931’, NAI, F/18/3/1931.

83 Letter from Emerson, Secretary to the Home Department, Government of India, to Gandhi, 20 March 1931, NAI, Home Political 4/21/31, p. 66.

84 ‘Irritation is undoubtedly there. It would be better to allow it to find vent through meetings etc.’ Letter from M. K. Gandhi to Emerson, 20 March 1931. NAI, Home Political, 4/21/31, p. 65.

85 Letter from Emerson, 18 February 1931. NAI, Home Political 4/21/31, p. 43.

86 Cawnpore Riots Enquiry Committee Report, in The Indian Annual Register: an Annual Digest of Public Affairs of India, Vol 1, January–June 1931. Calcutta: Annual Register Office, p. 96.

87 Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Communal Outbreak at Cawnpore, Cmd. 3891, June 1931, p. 4.

88 The Indian Annual Register: an Annual Digest of Public Affairs of India, Vol. 1, January–June, Calcutta: Annual Register Office, 1931, p. 30.

89 Jai Dev Gupta, NMML OHT, p. 62.

90 Letter to Emerson, Secretary to the GOI, Home Political from G. F. S. Collins, 1 April 1931. Fortnightly Reports for the second half of March 1931, NAI, F/18/3/1931.

91 Tribune, 4 April 1931, p. 1.

92 Jai Dev Gupta, NMML OHT, p. 62; ‘Bhagat Singh Cremation Enquiry Committee’, The Indian Annual Register: an Annual Digest of Public Affairs of India, Vol 1, January–June 1931. Calcutta: Annual Register Office, p. 253.

93 Friend, Corrine (ed.), Selections from Autobiography: Yashpal looks back (Delhi: Vikas, 1981), p. 218Google Scholar.

94 Kooner, K. S. and Sindhra, G. S., Some Hidden Facts: Martyrdom of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Secrets unfolded by an Officer of the Intelligence Bureau of British India (Chandigarh: Unistar, 2005)Google Scholar.

95 The legal proceedings which sent Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev to the gallows have been rigorously questioned by Noorani, A. G., The Trial of Bhagat Singh: the Politics of Justice (Delhi: Oxford University Press [1996]), 2008Google Scholar.

96 ‘Was Bhagat Singh shot dead?’, The Tribune, 11 December 2005.

97 Bose, Indian Struggle, pp. 204–205.

98 Report on the political situation in the Punjab for the fortnight ending the 31st of March, 1931. NAI, F/18/3/1931.

99 Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Communal Outbreak at Cawnpore, Cmd. 3891, June 1931.

100 Report on Bengal for second half of March 1931. NAI, F/18/3/1931.

101 Speech by Jawaharlal Nehru, originally in Hindi, delivered at the Karachi Congress, 1931, in Zaidi, A. M. (ed.), Congress Presidential Addresses, Vol. 10: 1930–35 (Delhi: Indian Institute of Applied Political Research, 1988), p. 77Google Scholar.

102 Reproduced from Piyam in the Zamindar (Lahore) on 3 April, 1931. NAI, Home Political 1931, 13/XI and K. W.

103 Courtesy of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.

104 ‘The Martyr, Sardar Bhagat Singh’, in NAI, Home Political 1931, 13/XI and K. W.

105 Letter from P. C. Bamford, Deputy Director, Home Department, 16 April 1931, NAI, Home Political, 4/22/1931.

106 Jatindranath Sanyal, the author of Sardar Bhagat Singh, was also trialled in the Lahore Conspiracy Case. He was acquitted, only to be jailed for two years for sedition for writing and publishing his book.

107 Chandravati Devi, ‘Shahid Sardar Bhagat Singh’, NAI, Home Political 4/22/1931, p. 32.

108 Vir Bharat, 9 July 1931, NAI, Home Political 4/22/1931, p. 63.

109 See ‘Watan de Lal’, in Sidhu (ed.), Banned Literature, pp. 47–48.

110 Thus it was recently published in a collection of short stories, Rai, Rustom (ed.), Pratibandhit Hindi Sahitya, Part 1 (Delhi: Radhakrishnan Prakashan, 1999), p. 185Google Scholar. Two other eulogies, ‘Bhagat Singh Kirtanamrutam’, in Sidhu (ed.), Banned Literature, p. 131; and ‘Quami Shahid’, Sidhu (ed.), Banned Literature, p. 119, also allege that he was innocent of Saunders’ murder.

111 ‘Petition of Sardar Kishan Singh’, in Wariach and Sidhu (eds), Complete Judgment, p. 244.

112 See ‘Letter to Father’, in Verma (ed.), Bhagat Singh: on the path of liberation, p. 170.

113 C. S. Venu, Sirdar Bhagat Singh, Madras, circa 1931, p. 65.

114 Sidhu (ed.), Banned Literature, p. 34.

115 ‘Khoon ke Ansu’, in Sidhu (ed.), Banned Literature, p. 75.

116 See ‘Denigration in the tone of the Press in the Punjab’, NAI, Home Political 1931, 13/XI and K. W.

117 Letter from the Chief Secretary to Government, Punjab, no. 14360-SB, 2 September 1933, ‘Terrorism in India’, IOR/L/PJ/12/397, p. 90.

118 Josh, My Meetings with Bhagat Singh, p. 19.

119 ‘Brief note on the Alliance of Congress with Terrorism’, IOR/L/PJ/12/391, p. 9.

120 M. K. Gandhi, ‘The Bomb and the Knife’, CWMG, Vol. XL, pp. 259–260.

121 It is true that revolutionary errors were made despite well-laid plans—for example Jai Gopal's failure to identify the correct target, Superintendent Scott, in Lahore on 18 December 1928, which resulted in Saunders being shot instead. However, an entire ‘action’ in Delhi was aborted at the last minute when the intended target, the Viceroy, failed to attend. Verma, NMML OHT, p. 95. When he went to bomb the Legislative Assembly, Bhagat Singh passed up an opportunity to shoot Sir John Simon, who was sitting in the visitors’ gallery next to the brother of the Speaker, Mr Patel, because ‘it was feared that if the shot missed Sir John it would kill the brother of Mr Patel’. This reluctance to take advantage of any situation was interpreted by David Petrie, the Director of the Intelligence Bureau, as ‘abnormal’. Report by Mr Petrie, 10 June 1929, NAI, Home Political, 192/1929, K.W. II, p. 90.

122 ‘Notice issued by the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association and a Statement issued to the Commissioner on behalf of J. N. Sanyal and five others, the Special Tribunal, Lahore Conspiracy Case, December 1928–1930. NMML, Private Papers, Acc. 822.

123 ‘Beware, Ye Bureaucracy’, in Verma (ed.), Bhagat Singh: on the Path to Liberation, pp. 72–73.

124 This has been indicated in Mittal, S. K. and Habib, Irfan, ‘The Congress and the Revolutionaries in the 1920s’, Social Scientist, Vol. 10, No. 6, June 1982, pp. 20–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

125 Connections between Motilal Nehru and the revolutionaries are further alluded to in Sahni, J. N., Truth about the Indian Press (Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1974), p. 748Google Scholar; Bhikshu Chaman Lal, interviewed by Uma Shankar, Centre of South Asian Studies, Cambridge, Oral History Collection, 19 August 1976, no. s110, p. 15.

126 Extract from Weekly Report of the Director, Intelligence Bureau of the Home Department, Government of India, 27 August 1931, no. 33. IOR/L/PJ/12/369, p. 8; Manmathnath Gupta, interviewed by Uma Shankar, Centre of South Asian Studies, Cambridge, Oral History Collection, 28 August 1974, s104, p. 10.

127 Jai Dev Gupta, NMML OHT, p. 19.

128 Manmathnath Gupta, NMML OHT, p. 68; See also Gupta, Manmathnath, They Lived Dangerously: Reminiscences of a Revolutionary (Delhi: People's Publishing House, 1969)Google Scholar, Chapter 9.

129 Nair, ‘Bhagat Singh as “Satyagrahi”’, p. 22.

130 See Sukhdev's letter and Gandhi's response, in Young India, 23 April 1931, pp. 82–84; CWMG, vol. XLVI, pp. 397–399.

131 Geetanjali Pandey, Between Two Worlds: an Intellectual Biography of Premchand, New Delhi: Manohar, 1989, p. 53.

132 See note from a Congress meeting at Kalka, Ambala District on 6 July, 1931, in NAI, Home Political, 33/9/1931.

133 Manmathnath Gupta, NMML OHT, p. 54. See also the introduction of his book, They Lived Dangerously.

134 Lal, Vinay, The History of History (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 88Google Scholar.

135 Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, ‘Inaugural Address’, in Grewal (ed.), Bhagat Singh and his Legend, p. 14. Hooja, Bhupindra (ed.), A Martyr's Notebook, Jaipur, Indian Book Chronicle, 1994Google Scholar.

136 These disputes appear to have been over land. Jai Dev Gupta, OHT, pp. 39–40.

137 Verma, Bhagat Singh: on the Path to Liberation, ‘Preface’, pp. 15–16.

138 Ibid., p. 16. The scholar Chaman Lal suggests that the custodian may have been Bijoy Kumar Sinha. See Lal, , ‘Political Correspondence of Bhagat Singh’, Mainstream, Vol. XLVI, No. 14, 22 March, 2008Google Scholar.

139 M. D. Thapar, Sukhdev's brother, wrote to Kuldip Nayar that ‘other political sufferers like Dr Kichloo's son, got a monthly packet of Rs. 5,000 and a flat free of cost. Against Dr Kichloo's son, compare our clan's sacrifice’. Nayar, Kuldip, Without Fear: The Life and Trial of Bhagat Singh (New Delhi: HarperCollins, 2007), p. xiiiGoogle Scholar.

140 See, for example, entries on Hindustan Socialist Republican Association members in Chopra, P. N. (chief ed.), Who's Who of Indian Martyrs (New Delhi: Government of India, 1969)Google Scholar.

141 Amar Shahid Bhagat Singh, Chandigarh: Suchna, Prachar and Paryatan Vibhag, Punjab, 1968; Fiftieth Anniversary of Martyrdom of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev (Chandigarh: Punjab Government Publication, 1981).

142 Kumar, ‘Nationalism as Bestseller’, p. 178.

143 For a discussion of the recent Bhagat Singh film phenomenon, see Philip Lutgendorf's review of ‘The Legend of Bhagat Singh’, http://www.uiowa.edu/~incinema/LegendBhagat.html (accessed 15 December 2011).

144 The film's ‘distortion of facts about Bhagat Singh and other national figures’ was raised by P. Sundarayya (Communist Party of India, Maxist) in the Rajya Sabha. ‘Film on Bhagat Singh’, The Hindu, 11 September 1954 (reproduced in The Hindu, 11 September 2004).

145 Pinney, Photos of the Gods, p. 177. Scenes from subsequent Bhagat Singh films have likewise influenced calendar and bazaar art; indeed the statue installed in the parliamentary complex in 2007 could be said to resemble a popular film still from 23 March 1931: Shaheed. See the photograph of Bobby Deol in the lead role, in ‘Celluloid Tribute’, The Hindu, 4 June 2002.

146 23rd March 1931: Shaheed, directed by Guddu Dhanoa, 2002, Captain DVD.

147 Lutgendorf, ‘Legend of Bhagat Singh’.

148 Jagmohan Singh, ‘Distorting Bhagat Singh's Legacy’, Alpjan, April–June 2002, pp. 65–66.

149 To give a very brief sense of these: the most widely used social networking site in India, Orkut, has hundreds of fan sites. Frequently intense debates about historicity lie concealed under the ‘discussion’ tab on Wikipedia's ‘Bhagat Singh’ entry, and the ‘history’ tab on the right hand side of the same page reveals that the page is altered several times a day; 75 wikipedia users are registered as ‘watchers’ of the page, and are alerted to edits as they are made.

150 Ramchandra Guha, ‘The Challenge of Contemporary History’, Economic and Political Weekly, 28 June 2008, p. 198.

151 Singh, Pritam, ‘Bhagat Singh Review Article’, Journal of Punjab Studies, 14, 2, p. 298Google Scholar (viewed online, 11 November 2009, no longer available).

152 The Hanging of Bhagat Singh, a ten-volume project still in progress, under the general editorship of Malwinderjit Singh Waraich.

153 For example: Yadav, K. C. and Singh, Babar (eds), Bhagat Singh, ideas on freedom, liberty and revolution: jail notes of a revolutionary (Gurgaon: Hope India Publications, 2007)Google Scholar; Verma, Shiv (ed.), Bhagat Singh: on the Path to Liberation (Chennai: Bharathi Puthakalaya, 2007)Google Scholar; and Lal, Chaman (ed.), The Jail Notebook and Other Writings (Delhi: LeftWord Press, 2007)Google Scholar. All three anthologies include the prison notebooks, with the first offering a facsimile of each diary page, so that the reader is able to see Bhagat Singh's own handwriting, where necessary translated into English; the latter two have additional writings and useful introductions.

154 See Rajya Sabha Debates, 3 May 2007, p. 331; ‘JNU to set up Bhagat Singh chair’, Hindustan Times, 16 September 2007, p. 6.

155 Inquilab, directed by Gauhar Raza, 2007. ‘New film tells “real” Bhagat Singh story’, Hindustan Times, 14 July 2008, p. 3.

156 ‘Documentary on DD today’, Hindustan Times, 27 September 2007, p. 17.

157 Chandravati Devi, ‘Sardar Bhagat Singh’, quoted in NAI, Home Political, 4/36 Part 1, 1931, p. 28.