It is a well-established fact that History is written from the perspective of the victor, making it a one-dimensional testimony of what transpired at a specific point in time & place. Thus, while for the British Imperial power, the tumultuous events of 1857 were a mutiny, for us, it is the celebrated 1^st War of Independence. Before being put down with unprecedented vengeance and ferocity, it ignited a spark of ‘freedom’ which continued to inspire generations to come, although, in the process, they sowed venomous seeds of communal discord, using their devious policy of divide and rule, which continue to haunt us to this day. Not surprisingly, the events instilled such fear in the minds of our forefathers that it was several decades before any credible stirrings for a fight to overthrow the yoke of imperialism were felt.

To take this a step further, while Bhagat Singh & his young comrades might have been labelled as terrorists/ militants/ extremists by the British, their lackeys and courts, we extoll them as valiant freedom fighters & martyrs, so much so, that more than a century after Bhagat Singh sacrificed his life for the liberation of the motherland, we are witnessing a massive surge in his following, especially in the youth. It is not difficult to gauge this- there is a proliferation of his photographs – on the rear of cabs & auto-rickshaws, trucks and buses, emblazoned on T-shirts, so on and so forth. Unfortunately, amid all this, certain misguided political dispensations have tried to usurp his legacy- wantonly playing with his persona- moral as well as physical.

In view of all this, what startled me, and raised my hackles was Rajmohan Gandhi’s book, Punjab: A History from Aurangzeb to Mountbatten. Otherwise, a well-researched and thoughtfully written book, his treatment of the life and times of Bhagat Singh is rather disappointing- in a tome of more than 400 pages, there are just a few lines- a cursory mention- about the heroes who fought for our freedom against all odds. Sadly, even in these lines, they are not feted as freedom fighters, but rather disparagingly, as delinquent and misguided youth, militant in their approach. Well, while all of us have the liberty or freedom to form our opinion, in a broader sense, it needs to be noted that sensitivities of a significant mass of our population don’t get hurt.

Because, if the Butcher of Amritsar became a celebrated hero among a section of his countrymen, hailed as “the man who saved India” a beneficiary of a fund of over £26,000 , then, we need serious introspection as to how we portray our martyrs for future generations, because, as I repeatedly quote the words of George Santayana- “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”