Sunday 31 August 2008

Music

Standing tall on the boundary wall of his house he would marvel at those sounds that seemed to come from the panorama in near distance. the view had a garden filled with assorted plants and few benches sprawled along. He wasn't looking at them, though, he was contemplating on the source of his continuous intrigue, "Where does that music come from after all?". There didn't seem to be any inhabitants in near sight, it just appeared to come from the oblivion.

Saturday 16 August 2008

‘Bombs and pistols do not make revolution’


[Through this brilliant statement Bhagat Singh demolished the basis of the Sessions Court judgment and emphasised the importance of motive. The motive of action, he argued, should be the main consideration while judging the offence of an accused.]

MY LORDS,

We are neither lawyers nor masters of English language, nor holders of degrees. Therefore, please do not expect any oratorial speech from us. We therefore pray that instead of going into the language mistakes of our statement Your Lordships will try to understand the real sense of it.

Leaving other points to our lawyers, I will confine myself to one point only. The point is very important in this case. The point is as to what were our intentions and to what extent we are guilty. This is a very complicated question and no one will be able to express before you that height to mental elevation which inspired us to think and act in a particular manner. We want that this should be kept in mind while assessing our intentions our offence. According to the famous jurist Solomon, one should not be punished for his criminal offence if his aim is not against law.

We had submitted a written statement in the Sessions Court. That statement explains our aim and, as such, explains our intentions also. But the learned judge dismissed it with one stroke of pen, saying that “generally the operation of law is not affected by how or why one committed the offence. In this country the aim of the offence is very rarely mentioned in legal commentaries”.

My Lords, our contention is that under the circumstances the learned judge ought to have judged us either by the result of our action or on the basis of the psychological part of our statement. But he did not take any of these factors into consideration.

The point to be considered is that the two bombs we threw in the Assembly did not harm anybody physically or economically. As such the punishment awarded to us is not only very harsh but revengeful also. Moreover, the motive knowing his psychology. And no one can do justice to anybody without taking his motive into consideration. If we ignore the motive, the biggest generals of the world will appear like ordinary murderers; revenue officers will look like thieves and cheats. Even judges will be accused of murder. This way the entire social system and the civilisation will be reduced to murders, thefts and cheating. If we ignore the motive, the government will have no right to expect sacrifice from its people and its officials. Ignore the motive and every religious preacher will be dubbed as a preacher of falsehoods, and every prophet will be charged of misguiding crores of simple and ignorant people.

If we set aside the motive, then Jesus Christ will appear to be a man responsible for creating disturbances, breaking peace and preaching revolt, and will be considered to be a “dangerous personality” in the language of the law. But we worship him. He commands great respect in our hearts and his image creates vibrations of spiritualism amongst us. Why? Because the inspiration behind his actions was that of a high ideal. The rulers of that age could not recognise that high idealism. They only saw his outward actions. Nineteen centuries have passed since then. Have we not progressed during this period? Shall we repeat that mistake again? If that be so, then we shall have to admit that all the sacrifices of the mankind and all the efforts of the great martyrs were useless and it would appear as if we are still at the same place where we stood twenty centuries back.

From the legal point of view also, the question of motive is of special importance. Take the example of General Dyer. He resorted to firing and killed hundreds of innocent and unarmed people. But the military court did not order him to be shot. It gave him lakhs of rupees as award. Take another example. Shri Kharag Bahadur Singh, a young Gurkha, Killed a Marwari in Calcutta. If the motive be set aside, then Kharag Bahadur Singh ought to have been hanged. But he was awarded a mild sentence of a few years only. He was even released much before the expiry of his sentence. Was there any loophole in the law that he escaped capital punishment? Or, was the charge of murder not proved against him? Like us, he also accepted the full responsibility of his action, but he escaped death. He is free today. I ask Your Lordship, why was he not awarded capital punishment? His action was well calculated and well planned. From the motive end, his action was more serious and fatal than ours. He was awarded a mild punishment because his intentions were good. He saved the society from a dirty leech who had sucked the life-blood of so many pretty young girls. Kharag Singh was given a mild punishment just to uphold the formalities of the law.

This principle (that the law does not take motive into consideration - ed.) is quite absurd. This is against the basic principles of the law which declares that “the law is for man and not man for the law”. As such, why the same norms are not being applied to us also? It is quite clear that while convicting Kharag Singh his motive was kept in mind, otherwise a murderer can never escape the hangman’s noose. Are we being deprived of the ordinary advantage of the law because our offence is against the government, or because our action has a political importance?

My Lords, under these circumstances, please permit us to assert that a government which seeks shelter behind such mean methods has no right to exist. If it is exists, it is for the time being only, and that too with the blood of thousands of people on its head. If the law does not see the motive there can be no justice, nor can there be stable peace. Mixing of arsenic (poison) in the flour will not be considered to be a crime, provided its purpose is to kill rats. But if the purpose is to kill a man, it becomes a crime of murder. Therefore, such laws which do not stand the test of reason and which are against the principle of justice should be abolished. Because of such unjust laws, many great intellectuals had to adopt the path of revolt.

The facts regarding our case are very simple. We threw two bombs in the legislative Assembly on April 8, 1929. As a result of the explosion, a few persons received minor scratches. There was pandemonium in the chamber, hundreds of visitors and members of the Assembly ran out. Only my friend B.K. Dutt and myself remained seated in the visitors gallery and offered ourselves for arrest. We were tried for attempt to murder, and convicted for life. As mentioned above, as a result of the bomb explosion, only four or five persons were slightly injured and one bench got damaged. We offered ourselves for arrest without any resistance. The Sessions Judge admitted that we could have very easily escaped, had we had any intention like that. We accepted our offence and gave a statement explaining our position. We are not afraid of punishment. But we do not want that we should be wrongly understood. The judge removed a few paragraphs from our statement. This we consider to be harmful for our real position.

A proper study of the full text of our statement will make it clear that, according to us, our country is passing through a delicate phase. We saw the coming catastrophe and thought it proper to give a timely warning with a loud voice, and we gave the warning in the manner we thought proper. We may be wrong. Our line of thinking and that of the learned judge may be different, but that does not mean that we be deprived of the permission to express our ideas, and wrong things be propagated in our name.

In our statement we explained in detail what we mean by “Long Live Revolution” and “Down With Imperialism”. That formed the crux of our ideas. That portion was removed from our statement. Generally a wrong meaning is attributed to the word revolution. That is not our understanding. Bombs and pistols do not make revolution. That is not our understanding. The sword of revolution is sharpened on the whetting-stone of ideas. This is what we wanted to emphasise. By revolution we mean the end of the miseries of capitalist wars. It was not proper to pronounce judgement without understanding our aims and objects and the process of achieving them. To associate wrong ideas with our names is out and out injustice.

It was very necessary to give the timely warning that the unrest of the people is increasing and that the malady may take a serious turn, if not treated in time and properly. If our warning is not heeded, no human power will be able to stop it. We took this step to give proper direction to the storm. We are serious students of history. We believe that, had the ruling powers acted correctly at the proper time, there would have been no bloody revolutions in France and Russia. Several big power of the world tried to check the storm of ideas and were sunk in the atmosphere of bloodshed. The ruling people cannot change the flow of the current. We wanted to give the first warning. Had we aimed at killing some important personalities, we would have failed in the attainment of our aim.

My Lords, this was the aim and the spirit behind our action, and the result of the action corroborates our statement. There is one more point which needs elucidation, and that is regarding the strength of the bombs. Had we had no idea of the strength of the bombs, there would have been no question of our throwing them in the presence of our respected national leader like Pandit Motilal Nehru, Shri Kelkar, Shri Jayaker and Shri Jinnah. How could we have risked the lives of our leaders? After all we are not mad and, had we been so, we would have certainly been sent to the lunatic asylum, instead of being put in jail.

We had full knowledge about the strength of the bombs and that is why we acted with so much confidence. It was very easy to have thrown the bombs on the occupied benches, but it was difficult to have thrown them on unoccupied seats. Had we not of saner mind or had we been mentally unbalanced, the bombs would have fallen on occupied benches and not in empty places.

Therefore I would say that we should be rewarded for the courage we showed in carefully selecting the empty places. Under these conditions, My Lords, we think we have not been understood, My Lords, we think we have not been understood properly. We have not come before you to get our sentences reduced. We have come here to clarify our position. We want that we should not be given any unjust treatment, nor should any unjust opinion be pronounced about us. The question of punishment is of secondary importance before us.

Source: shahidbhagatsingh.org

Friday 15 August 2008

Sweet Love!!

Love, when given a tag, loses its meaning. Its a feeling , which is so very difficult to be capture and commanded. Its so subtle that none can enforce it upon others , nor can it be felt on its own. Its like that sweet dream which fades away the moment you try to hold it. Its ephemeral.

As with all the emotions, this too doesn't last forever, but, the beauty of this ,is that it can be nurtured and developed into passion which would constantly aflame one's heart. This transition of love into passion is the phase which lets human beings transcend their limits and reach beyond it to achieve it.

This ephemeral feeling of love is what everyone encounters in their lifetime. How many times we have felt that inundation of love into our hearts while talking to an unknown person, or maybe while doing something which we wont even be able to recapitulate later. Alas! the society in its frenzied act tends to bind the feeling into a brand, into a tag of a relationship. Its no wonder then the scandals that we get to hear are the consequence of this foolish pattern. The person involved in thse scandals, furtively drank the nectar of moment under the influence of this emotion. And they are branded as scandals by the guardians of our society. However, there are those coward and hypocrite souls too , who fear this barrier of society so much , that they let this emotion fly away, when it knocks on their doors.

A very common recurrent event corresponding to the serendipity of love is generally found at social gatherings. We meet some affable person sometimes, and we just keep longing that we had spent some more time together. I have felt such serendipity of emotions when sometimes , at public places , my eyes gets caught up with a pretty lady's eyes. We exchange furtive glances at each other. And then going on with our social norms we part away without even talking and keeping that sweetness into our hearts. These moments don't stay with us but certainly the joy of these moments is what we definitely feel , without attaching a name to it. Ah!! Its that pure placid and sweet love!!

Words of Frustration.

Born in a fucked up place and country, I never had a belief of making it big. Into the heated and dusty place, commuting daily for multiple tuition classes, to learn god knew what.I always had to get myself f****d up against all odds. And all those f*****g worries and tensions went into a gutter, drained away to nothing. What was the meaning of all those sleepless nights that I had? and then to make things worse my lust overgrew itself and I landed up into an obsession of love, which destroyed me beyond repairs. Getting f****d up every morning and night, hoping to hold on until things get better, which they never did. The idea of a sunrise after a long dark night never manifested itself in reality.With each passing day a part of me was mutilated, humiliated, disgraced and destroyed. Putting up sham of seriousness and diligence in life I tried to captivate my mind into the bounds of studies, but that never helped and I went into a deeper abyss. The situation was so dimly vague that it led me inwards into the search if my own self, realization of truth and wisdom. Putting up a considerable amount of effort and time I carried out the search of my inner-being, only to get lost at each new discovery. My laziness overpowered my capacity and dreamland became my dwelling point.

And then with an insouciant desire to be something existing simultaneously with a losing faith in self, I was led into the realms of self-realization. They led me to unknown corners of my thoughts and desire,but, as always none of them could hold me for long. The demolition of the soul continues each day, chiseled finely by the hands of clock, and marveled by the timing and sharpness. And , then confusion rears its head once again. The confusion of being something, of having someone. Everything is lost and fucked up. I don't know what the hell did James Frey (Author: A million Little Pieces) think, but I am sure this life is a f****d up place and all I can afford is to be getting f****d each day and night. This is what my destiny is.

A tryst with an Innominate Stranger

He smiles as I do. As I keep staring at him, he gets embarrassed in some time. The smile on my face reflects on his face too, but suppressed in its content, trying to smother or feign a pain or anguish. Now, as I try to move away, he implores my presence in the scene. I turn back and stare deeper into his eyes, the request drips not from his lips but from his eyes, and drenches my soul.

Tuesday 12 August 2008

Fear - Our bane or saviour.

Fear as wordweb describes is - An emotion experienced in anticipation of some specific pain or danger (usually accompanied by a desire to flee or fight).
However, its usually accompanied by our desire to flee rather than fight. Escaping from the situation which we conjure up in our minds as the possible outcome, is our oft repeated action. While it may seem to act as our safety valve that protects us from undertaking risky ventures, its the same factor that prevents us from breaking our shells and venturing into the road less traveled. Each fear that we have is based upon certain presumption or notion that we develop. Each fear has its own irrational logic behind it. Its this logic that comes to our mind and inhibits its power to overcome the fear. Its this logic , which has to be fought and extricated from its roots , from our minds , to allow ourselves discover a fearless incarnation of ourselves.

Try to conquer your fear by confronting it face to face and defeating it of its own logic. Each fear that we have kept nourishing within us has inhibited our growth in that direction. Its only by breaking its shackles that we can know what is it that was unexplored up til now, which was hidden from our eyes by this veil of our fear. Fail we may, but it is just one step towards breaking its shell away, if only we are assiduous in our effort .

The reward of winning our fear is unknown to us and it can be only experienced after we overcome it. We can't understand what we dont know that we dont know. Its only by treading on this land that we can feel it. Lets over come our fears. Try one for yourself today.

Remember , an unexplored land awaits there to celebrate your victory. Victory stands tall behind your fear.