If
Shaheed Bhagat Singh is a "terrorist"
Great Britain is
history's greatest "terrorist"
By
Amba Charan Vashishth
A UK-based historian and Warwick University's professor David
Hardiman dubbed the great Indian martyrs and freedom fighters — Bhagat Singh
and Chandrashekhar Azad — as "terrorists" while delivering the 24th
IP Desai Memorial Lecture on 'Nonviolent Resistance In India during 1915-1947' organised
by Centre for Social Studies on February 14 in Surat (Gujarat). He said,
"Terrorist groups, who predate Mahatma Gandhi, were always there alongside
Gandhi's non-violent movement." He added, "Some of these famous
figures were Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad, who were involved in
organisations like Hindustan Republic Association (HRA) and Hindustan Republic
Socialist Association (HRSA)," (These illustrious sons of India continue
to be shown as "terrorists" in the records of the British
Government.)
This remark infuriated the audience and one among them Major
Unmesh Pandya, member of executive council of Veer Narmad South Gujarat
University, stood up to protest saying: "The UK-based scholar used word
terrorists seven to eight times for the revolutionaries. There is a unanimous
understanding between the academicians of the entire world not to use the word
terrorist for the people who had not killed innocent civilians. One can use
words like extremist or revolutionary," Pandya added. He retorted, "A
terrorist means who terrorises people. But freedom fighters like Bhagat Singh
or Chandrashekhar Azad initiated armed movement against imperialism. If one
considers any violent or armed movement as a terror activity, then under that
definition British Raj or Queen Victoria's activities can also be defined as
terrorism," he argued.
The protesting professor did have a point and logic on his side.
When the British started sneaking clandestinely into the Indian territory then
under Mughals and others, they were only destabilizing a government in power
and position through illegal and terrorist techniques. They entered India in
the garb of traders. The predecessor of the British crown was the East India
Company which applied every tool of the game — treachery, deceit, allurement,
threat — to terrorise people and the rulers into submitting to their whims and caprice.
In fact, first the rule of the East India Company and later, of
the British Crown was an illegitimate one. They could, at the most, be termed
as occupation forces, not a legal government. So fighting against an invader or
an occupying force is not a crime but right and moral duty of every patriot.
What
implies terrorism? The Oxford Dictionary defines it as the
"unofficial or unauthorized use of violence and intimidation in the
pursuit of political aims". The Cambridge dictionary describes it as (threat of) violent action for political purposes". The
Merriam-Webster dictionary has almost the same definition: "The use of
violent acts to frighten the people in an area
as a way of trying to achieve a political goal".
The Indian Penal Code (IPC) enacted in 1860 by
the British Government stipulates severe punishment for crimes of treason,
sedition and waging war against the State: " Whoever wages war against the Government of India, or attempts to wage such
war, or abets the waging of such war ´(Section 121); Whoever collects men, arms
or ammunition or otherwise prepares to wage war with the intention of either
waging or being prepared to wage war against the Government of India´Section
122); Whoever, by any act, or by any illegal omission, conceals the existence
of a design to wage war against the
Government of India, intending by such concealment to facilitate, or
knowing it to be likely that such concealment will facilitate, the waging of
such war (Section 123); Whoever
by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation,
or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites
or attempts to excite disaffection towards the Government established by law in
India (Section 124A); and Whoever wages war against the Government of any
Asiatic Power in alliance or at peace with the Government of India or attempts
to wage such war, or abets the waging of such war. In fact, these are the very crimes and acts
of terror the British government and its earlier avtar, the East India Company indulged
in to establish their hegemony over the then kingdoms in India. These are the very
crimes the British committed to spread their wings of dominance by every fair
or foul means — cheating, deceit, allurement, promises, terror and what not.
And these exactly are the crimes the British prohibited by law to be committed
by any Indian and provided for severest punishment.
The crime of "treason,
sedition and waging war against the State" as enunciated in various
sections of the IPC were actually committed and perpetrated by the British
government. Therefore, by the yardstick set by the British themselves, they
themselves are, perhaps, the greatest "terrorists" of all times in
history.
These are exactly the
techniques adopted by the present day terrorists be it the Maoists, Naxalites,
Talibans, Indian Muhajideen, SIMI or by
whatever name they may be known. It is by employing these dubious means that
these ultras have come to command and expand their area of influence and establish
their parallel administration, collecting taxes and punishing people for acts
they brand as crimes by generating a sense of terror in the minds of the
innocent people.
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