When Bhagat Singh threw a bomb in the council house

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The date of 23 March is celebrated as Martyr’s Day in India, in the year 1931, freedom activists Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were hanged.

This ‘ Vivechana ‘ related to Bhagat Singh was published on 8 April 2020.

At that time, the Council House, which is now the Parliament House, was considered among the best buildings in Delhi.

On 6 April 1929, Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt went to the assembly hall of the council house, two days before the safety bill was introduced in the council house, to assess where the public galleries were and from where the bombs would be thrown.

They wanted to ensure that at all costs, no harm was done to their thrown bombs. Although the ‘Trade Dispute Bill’ had been passed in which every kind of strike by the workers was banned, but President Vitthalbhai Patel had not yet given his decision on the ‘Public Safety Bill’. In this bill, the government was to be given the right to detain suspects without trial.

Enter the council house

Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt had entered the council house at 11 am on April 8, minutes before the proceedings of the house began. At that time, he was wearing a khaki color shirt and half pants. On top of that, he was wearing a gray coat of coat which had three outer pockets and one pocket was inside the coat. Both of them also wore woolen socks.

Bhagat Singh had a foreign felt hat. The aim was that Bhagat Singh should not be recognized beforehand because of his tall stature and beautiful personality. This felt hat was purchased from a shop in Lahore. An Indian member of the House disappeared by giving him a pass at the gate. At that time the audience gallery was packed with people.

Another biographer of Bhagat Singh, Malvinder Jeet Singh Varich in his book ‘Bhagat Singh – The Eternal Rebel’ writes, ‘The interesting thing was that on April 3, 1929, Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt photographed Ramnath of Kashmiri Gate in the same clothes. They had their pictures drawn at the shop, the clothes in which they were going to go to the assembly hall to throw bombs. He went to that shop again on April 6 to take those pictures.

Before coming to the assembly building, Bhagat Singh gave one of his pocket watch to one of his companions Jaidev. This watch also has a history. The clock was first purchased by a member of the Ghadar Party in February 1915. After this, Ras Bihari Bose gave the watch to Shachindra Nath Sanyal, the author of ‘Bandi Jeevan’.

Sanyal gave that watch to Bhagat Singh. At that time Motilal Nehru, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, NC Kelkar and MR Jayakar were also present in the House apart from Sir John Simon. Bhagat Singh was well aware that his bombs would not be able to stop this bill from becoming a law. The reason was that there was no shortage of supporters of the British Government in the National Assembly and the second Viceroy had the extraordinary powers to make laws.

Durga Das reports the bomb to the whole world

Durga Das has given a very lively description of the incident of throwing bombs by Bhagat Singh in his famous book ‘India from Nehru to Curzon and After’.

Durga Das writes, ‘As soon as President Vitthalbhai Patel stood to give his ruling on the safety bill, on April 8, Bhagat Singh rolled a bomb on the floor of the assembly. I ran out of the journalists’ gallery and ran towards the press room. I dictated a message and told the news desk of the API to flash it to Reuters in London and all over India. Before I could give more details on the phone, the phone line was dead. The policemen immediately closed the main gate of the assembly. Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt were arrested in front of me. But Reuters did not run my news for three hours, because no follow-up was sent to it. How was it sent, no journalist was allowed to come out of the assembly hall. Amidst the rising smoke, Speaker Vitthalbhai Patel adjourned the proceedings of the House.

The slogan of Inquilab Zindabad after throwing bombs

While throwing the bomb, Bhagat Singh made sure that he rolled it on the floor a little distance from the members sitting in the chair so that the members could not fall under its grip.

As the bomb exploded loudly and the entire assembly hall sank into darkness. There was chaos in the audience gallery. Then Batukeshwar Dutt threw the second bomb. The people present in the visitors’ gallery started running towards the outside door.

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Kuldeep Nayar writes in his book ‘With Out Fear – The Life and Trial of Bhagat Singh’, ‘These bombs were of low caliber and were thrown in such a way that no one would die. Soon after the bombing, leaflets started falling down like tree leaves with slogans of ‘Inquilab Zidabad’ from the visitors’ gallery. His work was written by Bhagat Singh himself. 30-40 copies of it were typed on the letterhead of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association Party.

The vigilant reporter of Hindustan Times Durgadas, while presenting his reflexes, took the form from there and printed it in the special edition of Hindustan Times and put it in front of the whole country.

Explosion required for deaf ears

The first word of this pamphlet was ‘notice’.

In it was a quote from the French martyr August Valen, that ‘blasts are needed to hear deaf ears’. Finally, Kamander in Chief Balraj was named.

As the bomb was sorted, the members of the assembly started returning to their respective seats. Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt did not try to escape while sitting in the visitors’ gallery. As his party had decided in advance, he remained standing in his place. The policemen present there did not go to them fearing that they might not have weapons.

Bhagat Singh surrendered his automatic pistol with which he fired bullets into the sounders’ body. He was well aware that this pistol was the greatest proof of his involvement in the murder of Sounders. Both were taken to different police stations. Bhagat Singh in the main Kotwali and Batukeshwar Dutt in the Chandni Chowk police station so that both of them can be interrogated separately.

An initial clue to Intelligence Department

The Viceroy issued a statement saying that the two invaders did not kill anyone. He believed that he could have wreaked havoc if he wanted. Their target was just Central Assembly. Congressman Chaman Lal, who was considered a progressive at the time, first condemned the exploits of the revolutionaries. He said that throwing bombs was an insane task.

Kuldeep Nayyar writes in his book that ‘the British intelligence department felt that the style and format of writing handbills has been used in the past. A senior police officer was sent to Lahore to investigate the posters that were stuck on the walls there after killing the Sounders. There was a similarity between the type of leaflets thrown by Bhagat Singh and those posters. Both were issued by the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association and the name of the sender of both was Balraj, who was the Commander in Chief of this organization. The first word of both was notice and both ended with the slogan ‘Inquilab Zidabad’.

Asaf Ali fought the case of Bhagat Singh

It was from here that the British got clues before Bhagat Singh’s involvement in the killing of the Sounders. As the investigation progressed, the suspicion of them grew stronger. It became clear that Bhagat Singh had written the writings of the leaflets and posters. It was right too. Bhagat Singh wrote both of them with his own hands. Bhagat Singh was tried for attempted murder under section 307 of the Indian Penal Code. Asaf Ali of the Congress party fought the case of Bhagat Singh. In his first meeting with Asaf Ali, Bhagat Singh asked him to tell Chaman Lal that he was not crazy. ‘We only claim that we are serious students of the history and circumstances of our country and its aspirations.’

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With this feat, Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt became the heroes of Indian youth. His public support increased so much that the British government decided to set up a court in jail. This jail used to be in the building where Maulana Azad Medical College is currently. Rai Bahadur Suryanarayana was the lawyer of the British in this case. Additional Magistrate PB Pool was the judge of the case.

Bhagat Singh’s parents were also present during the entire trial. When Bhagat Singh was brought to court for the first time, he raised his hands and raised slogans of ‘Inquilab Zidabad’. Only after this, the magistrate ordered that both should be handcuffed. Both of them did not oppose it and they sat on the bench behind the iron railing. Bhagat Singh refused to give any statement, saying that what he had to say would be said in the court of the session judge.

The main witness from the government was Sergeant Terry who said that when Bhagat Singh was arrested in the assembly, a pistol was found from him.

Testifying, Terry said, “The pistol was in Bhagat Singh’s right hand and his face was towards the ground.” This was not correct, because Bhagat Singh surrendered his pistol himself and he himself asked the policeman to arrest him.

Yes, a loaded magazine of pistol was definitely recovered from Bhagat Singh. 11 people testified against Bhagat Singh. During the cross-examination, it was revealed that Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt had brought a bomb in their pocket and a detonator in the other pocket and they were deliberately slow to make sure that the bomb did not accidentally explode beforehand.

Life sentence

When Bhagat Singh was allowed to speak in the court, he requested the court to order him to provide newspapers in the jail. But the court turned down his request. The court was treating him like an ordinary criminal.

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On June 4, the case was transferred to the court of Sessions Judge Leonard Middletown. On June 6, the accused gave their statements. The trial ended on 10 June and the verdict was pronounced on 12 June. The court found Bhagat Singh and Dutt guilty of deliberately causing explosions that could have killed people.

Both of them were sentenced to life imprisonment. During the trial, the prosecution witness Sir Sobha Singh (father of famous writer Khushwant Singh) testified that he saw Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt hurling bombs. Although both of them were not in favor of appealing against this decision later they were persuaded to do so.

The argument has been given that this will help in propagating the message of revolution. As expected the High Court on 13 January 1930 dismissed the appeals of Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt and sent them behind bars for 14 years. Bhagat Sing was later hanged on charges of killing Sounders.

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