Skip to main content

Five day campaign in Mumbai slums to commemorate Bhagat Singh's birthday

By Harsh Thakor 
On the 28th of September 2022, Naujawan Bharat Sabha - Maharashtra and Stree Mukti League Maharashtra celebrated the 115th birth anniversary of the great revolutionary martyr Bhagat Singh in Mankhurd, Mumbai with great vigour and pomp. Around 50 persons participated in a demonstration and rally with a cultural programme .With intense attention people observed the proceedings in the basti area.
The program was the culmination of a 5-day campaign in different slum settlements of Govandi-Mankhurd under the name of Shaheed Bhagat Singh Smruti Sankalp Abhiyan. Over the course of 5 days, activists of NBS and SML organized a sustained and concentrated campaigns in the areas of Rafiq Nagar, Khadi, Gautam Nagar, Zakir Hussain Nagar, Sathe Nagar and Lallubhai Compound. Through slogans, revolutionary songs, music and a satirical play (Safdar Hashmi’s Desh Ko Aagey Badhao), the life and thought of Bhagat Singh was projected to the working people of Mankhurd.
Speaking about the relevance of Bhagat Singh today, NBS and SML activists said that it was Bhagat Singh who first propounded what freedom should really mean for the country: Bhagat Singh said that we must demand freedom for the bottom 90% of the people, not just the top 10%; and that we must extinguish exploitation of people by both domestic and foreign exploiters. While by foreign exploiters, Bhagat Singh referred to the British, he also emphasized the need to overthrow of the domestic exploiters, the Tatas, Birlas and the Wadias and the like who built their empires by collaborating with the British, ruthlessly exploiting workers and brutally suppressing any resistance. Bhagat Singh dreamed of an India where workers and peasants would unite in anger to break their chains, would kick out the capitalists, capture state power in their own hands and create the foundation for an egalitarian society, where exploitation of any human being by any other would become impossible. 
Bhagat Singh and his comrades saw it as the imperative task of the youth, the most energetic and capable section of the masses, to invest every ounce of their energy to knit this radical change. They had formed Naujawan Bharat Sabha in 1925 with the purpose of recruiting sensitive and strong-willed young men and women into a well knit army for this heroic struggle. NBS today is embarking on continuing this historic mission. Speaking at various places in Govandi-Mankhurd, activists of NBS stated that the dismal state of government schools, colleges and hospitals in the country, the intensifying scale of unemployment, hyper inflation, ascendancy of communalism as well as rising instances of violence against women and caste atrocities the general sense of helplessness prevailing among the public remind us that we are not liberated , that our freedom is being continuously hampered by the Ambanis, Adanis, Tatas and Birlas in whose interest the whole country is being turned into an imperialist egg., with their virtual monopoly. 
They pump massive amounts of money into the electoral process to ensure that only those individuals and parties who champion their interests get elected. They exercise a complete monopoly over the media organizations, which only publishes news which promotes their prospects,. The police and the army act as their instruments to mercilessly supress working people who pose a threat to their profits. The politicians act as agents of the capitalist class, sit in the parliament and draft laws to snatch working people’s rights, ensure unemployment stays high so that wages remain low. There is no path for progress, freedom and human emancipation in such a world. Only the rebellion of the youth can transform a society trapped in such a morass of stagnation and decay and perform the task of transforming this oppressive system into an egalitarian social order. The wise and courageous sons and daughters of the working people will have to come forward and take the message of revolution to every house and to every person from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, from Assam to the Gulf of Kutch. They will not only have unite and fight for their rights, but they will have to participate in the struggle for justice of every section of the society. They will not only have to serve the toiling masses but become one with them by becoming a part of their lives and their struggle.
Speaking about the program of the NBS, the activists said that the main slogan of NBS is Equal Education for All and Employment for All. NBS is raising people’s consciousness of their democratic rights like right to healthcare, water, electricity etc. and lead struggles to obtain them. NBS has formulated a programme of continuous campaigns for a new revolutionary enlightenment among the youth through the channels of libraries, study circles, publicity campaigns, pamphlets, magazines, books etc. financed through public contributions. It is arming them with the weapons of a scientific temperament and the correct historical perspective. NBS is running wide publicity campaigns against alcoholism, dowry system, caste system, untouchability and all social evils. But all this is not sufficient. 
The activists said that the task of NBS is to knit all these struggles and campaigns together to construct a broad platform to overthrow the brutal anti-people capitalist system and establish an egalitarian social order. This was the dream of our martyrs. Speaking to the public, the activists of NBS and SML appealed to the youth to join Naujawan Bharat Sabha pledge their to the struggle to build a free India, the India of Bhagat Singh’s dreams. NBS collected hundreds of voluntary financial contributions during the 5 day program in which many individuals praised the activists for carrying out such a program. Many dozen people also provided their contact details expressing a wish to join the organization.
I was impressed with this programme from a qualitative viewpoint admiring the tenacity of the organisers and activists to confront the Neo-fascism prevailing today. Majority of the participants were under 25 .It is admirable that the organisation in a very systematic manner organised a preparatory campaign and conducted a programme in accordance or in tune with the ground reality. Also impressive participation of female students. It reflects the resurrection of youth in the revolutionary democratic fold. It is admirable that these groups are at grassroots level creating class consciousness with dedicated mass work., in Mumbai, which is the very egg of imperialism. Such youth constitute the best sons of our country to emancipate our country from the yoke of imperialism and Hindutva fascism and is of importance for Bhagat Singh’s ideas to be brought to the forefront by connecting his ideology with the day to day struggle of the masses.
---
Harsh Thakor is a freelance journalist who has covered mass movements around India

Comments

Post a Comment

TRENDING

Was Netaji forced to alter face, die in obscurity in USSR in 1975? Was he so meek?

  By Rajiv Shah   This should sound almost hilarious. Not only did Subhas Chandra Bose not die in a plane crash in Taipei, nor was he the mysterious Gumnami Baba who reportedly passed away on 16 September 1985 in Ayodhya, but we are now told that he actually died in 1975—date unknown—“in oblivion” somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Which city? Moscow? No one seems to know.
1 comment
»

Love letters in a lifelong war: Babusha Kohli’s resistance in verse

By Ravi Ranjan*  “War does not determine who is right—only who is left.” Bertrand Russell’s words echo hauntingly in our times, and few contemporary Hindi poets embody this truth as profoundly as Babusha Kohli. Emerging from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, Kohli has carved a unique space in literature by weaving together tenderness, protest, and philosophy across poetry, prose, and cinema. Her work is not merely artistic expression—it is resistance, refuge, and a call for peace.
Post a Comment
»

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.
59 comments
»

Asbestos contamination in children’s products highlights global oversight gaps

By A Representative   A commentary published by the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS) has drawn attention to the challenges governments face in responding effectively to global public-health risks. In an article written by Laurie Kazan-Allen and published on March 5, 2026, the author examines how the discovery of asbestos contamination in children’s play products has raised questions about regulatory oversight and international product safety. The article opens by reflecting on lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that governments in several countries were slow to respond to early warning signs of the crisis. Referring to the experience of the United Kingdom, the author writes that delays in implementing protective measures contributed to “232,112 recorded deaths and over a million people suffering from long Covid.” The commentary uses this example to illustrate what it describes as the dangers of underestimating emerging threats. Attention then turns...
Post a Comment
»

Authoritarian destruction of the public sphere in Ecuador: Trumpism in action?

By Pilar Troya Fernández  The situation in Ecuador under Daniel Noboa's government is one of authoritarianism advancing on several fronts simultaneously to consolidate neoliberalism and total submission to the US international agenda. These are not isolated measures, but rather a coordinated strategy that combines job insecurity, the dismantling of the welfare state, unrestricted access to mining, the continuation of oil exploitation without environmental considerations, the centralization of power through the financial suffocation of local governments, and the systematic criminalization of all forms of opposition and popular organization.
Post a Comment
»

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Rajiv Shah  Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".
51 comments
»

Echoes of Vietnam and Chile: The devastating cost of the I-A Axis in Iran

​ By Ram Puniyani  ​The recent joint military actions by Israel and the United States against Iran have been devastating. Like all wars, this conflict is brutal to its core, leaving a trail of human suffering in its wake. The stated pretext for this aggression—the brutality of the Ayatollah Khamenei regime and its nuclear ambitions—clashes sharply with the reality of the diplomatic landscape. Iran had expressed a willingness to remain at the negotiating table, signaling a readiness to concede points emerging from dialogue. 
Post a Comment
»

The kitchen as prison: A feminist elegy for domestic slavery

By Garima Srivastava* Kumar Ambuj stands as one of the most incisive voices in contemporary Hindi poetry. His work, stripped of ornamentation, speaks directly to the lived realities of India’s marginalized—women, the rural poor, and those crushed under invisible forms of violence. His celebrated poem “Women Who Cook” (Khānā Banātī Striyāṃ) is not merely about food preparation; it is a searing indictment of patriarchal domestic structures that reduce women’s existence to endless, unpaid labour.
Post a Comment
»

The price of silence: Why Modi won’t follow Shastri, appeal for sacrifice

By Arundhati Dhuru, Sandeep Pandey*  ​In 1965, as India grappled with war and a crippling food crisis, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri faced a United States that used wheat shipments under the PL-480 agreement as a lever to dictate Indian foreign policy. Shastri’s response remains legendary: he appealed to the nation to skip one meal a day. Millions of middle-class households complied, choosing temporary hunger over the sacrifice of national dignity. Today, India faces a modern equivalent in the energy sector, yet the leadership’s response stands in stark contrast to that era of self-reliance.
Post a Comment
»