An insider's view of Bhagat Singh amidst global rise of 'sectarian, fascist forces'

By Vidya Bushan Rawat*

The revolutionary ideals of Shaheed Bhagat Singh have become more than relevant in today's time. It is beyond the imaginations of many how a man who just lived 23 years of his life had so much of idealism. In his prime time, he spent his life in jails under difficult circumstances.
Yet, Bhagat Singh was a voracious reader. His family had a long history of dedication for the nation. In today's time, people discuss so many things and have been divided between icons as if these heroes of our movements were fighting against each other.
Bhagat Singh is a role model for peace building, for socialism and secularism in India as well as South Asia. To know about the life and time of Shaheed-e-azam Bhagat Singh, I spoke to Prof Jag Mohan Singh, a very well known historian now dedicated to social movements and intellectual discourse of our freedom movement.
Prof Jag Mohan Singh belongs to Shaheed Bhagat Singh's family and his mother Biwi Amar Kaur, was the younger sister of Bhagat Singh. He has done extensive research on Bhagat Singh, but that apart he is also part of the family hence has definitely have more information on Shaheed Bhagat Singh than anyone else.
I think many of the information and explanations by Prof Jag Mohan Singh about Bhagat Singh are extremely new, particularly in today's time when we see the rise of sectarian fascist agenda globally and failure of the democratic forces to come together.
In such a scenario Bhagat Singh's ideals have become more relevant today and all secular socialist democratic forces must join hand together to forge a common agenda against global corporate control over resources and communal-casteist agenda being fixed by the ruling forces.
The conversation is lengthy but it gives a complete detail of the making of Bhagat Singh, the Gadar movement and the background of Bhagat Singh's family. Listen to this complete conversation of with Prof Jag Mohan Singh here:

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