BHLAGAT SINGH AS 'SATYAGRAHI': THE LIMITS TO NON-VIOLENCE IN LATE COLONIAL INDIA

Abstract

Bhagat Singh and M.K., among the anti-colonial nationalists, Gandhi is seen as exemplifying entirely opposite resistance tactics. Whereas Gandhi is the embodiment of non-violence, Bhagat Singh is considered a militant revolutionary. This paper argues that not after their murder of a police inspector in Lahore or after throwing explosives at the New Delhi Legislative Assembly, but during their practice of hunger strikes and non-violent civil disobedience inside the walls of Lahore's prisons in 1929-30, Bhagat Singh and his comrades became national heroes.In fact, the resistance tactics used by both Gandhi and Bhagat Singh had much in common. The British tried to discredit their non-violent requests for rights as 'political prisoners' by calling these revolutionaries' killers 'and' terrorists '. Gandhi and his followers accepted the same names. The quality of anti-colonial nationalism embodied by Bhagat Singh, however, was central to the resolution of many of the pre-partition Punjab divisions.