Arya Samaj had a great impact on Bhagat Singh

I read articles/ columns by the writers of different shades on the Shahidi Divas 23rd march. On this day, Bhagat Singh, Raj Guru and Sukh Dev were hanged to death for waging war against the British, for the freedom of the country. But, no body touched Arya Samaj’s influence on Bhagat Singh.


Fact of the matter is that Bhagat Singh had grown up in Arya Samaj influence. His grandfather, Arjun Singh, was a follower of Swami Dayananda Saraswati. It is worth mentioning here that his grandfather enrolled him in the Dayanand Anglo Vedic High School, an Arya Samaji institution ( at that time) which instilled in him a deep sense of patriotism to eventually take up the struggle for India's independence.

. If Bhagat Singh, after founding Naujwan Bharat Sabha in 1926, raised voice against un-touchability, birth ordained caste system and echoed equality of all human being i.e. all human being are born equal, it was mainly because of the influence of Arya Samaj. He drew lot of inspiration from Lala Lajpat who himself was a staunch Arya Samajist. Arya samaj at Hissar is raised with the donation of Lala Lajpat Rai. And eventually what triggered in Bhagat the fire of revenge against British rule was the assassination of Lala ji at Lahore when he was leading the protest march against Simon Commission in 1929.

Today when we are in 2012 and the story of freedom struggle is like any other epic to our present generation, if our leaders and writers undermine the contribution of Arya Samaj in the freedom struggle of India, they are right because Arya samaj, the institution with the glorious past is itself in deep coma. Today its identity is for instant marriages, sanskars and rituals karmkand, promotion of Sanskrit and Hindi, thanks to people who made deep inroads in to the institution after 1947 for vested interests. Situation has come to a pass when linking Bhagat Singh with Arya Samaj is considered to be a sacrilege but history can’t be erased so easily. “ Eighty percent of the persons who sacrificed their lives for freedom struggle, were either Arya samajist or got inspiration from Arya Samaj” these words of Sita Ram Ramiyya, the first speaker of Indian Lok Sabha will perhaps make the future generations to revisit Arya samaj and its founder Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati.


Bhartendu Sood

Chorus for Bharat Ratna to Tendulkar

Chorus for Bharat Ratna to Tendulkar

Ever since Tendulkar scored his 100th century, once again voices are being raised to award him with Bharat Ratna. All I want to say is that emotions should not cloud this important decision and in doing so the claims of other illustrious like Rahul Dravid, Ledel Peas ( the winner of 13 grand slams, last being in Australia this year) and many others should be kept in mind.

Bhartendu Sood