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WHY AM I AN ATHEIST?

T. Kumar, FPRM-3

(Partly adapted from an essay by Bhagat Singh with the same title, viz., “Why Am I An Atheist?”, published in January issue of Frontline, 2003)

“Socialism is a question of Atheism, a question of building a tower of Babel, consciously rejecting the help of God. The objective over here is not to reach unto heaven but to bring down heaven to earth.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

Most of us know that Shaheed Bhagat Singh was hanged to death at the tender age of 23 and that he popularised the slogan - “Inquilab Zindabad”. But what most of us don’t know is that he was a convinced atheist and a socialist in the classical Marxist tradition. Here we will analyse an essay written by him in his prison cell a few days before he was hanged.

Bhagat Singh writes in “Why Am I An Atheist?”:

I am of the opinion that the concept of ‘God’ was used by certain dominant interests to perpetuate their social hegemony using the institution called ‘religion’. The empirical proof of this is that no religion advocates to its adherents that they should revolt against their mortal king. The British are now ruling India not because God wills it but because the textile mill owners of Manchester will it. The British don’t rely on God to suppress us but on the police, the militia and the other coercive instruments of State power.

We are now seeing the most virulent of all crimes against humanity - the WHY AM I AN ATHEIST? T. Kumar, FPRM-3 (Partly adapted from an essay by Bhagat Singh with the same title, viz., “Why Am I An Atheist?”, published in January issue of Frontline, 2003) exploitation of an entire nation by another. Where is God? What is he doing? Is he a Nero who fiddles while Rome burns? Or is he a Chengiz Khan? We don’t need this kind of God. Down with him! My belief in atheism does not arise from a personal fancy but because I believe that the concept of ‘God’ is incompatible with our common struggle for a just world order.

Personally, I understand that a faith in God would make the circumstances of my harsh life seem less painful to me and would enable me to face death more easily. A bit of religious mysticism will add a poetic touch to my impending death at the gallows. But I don’t need any spiritual intoxication to face death because I am a realist. I neither have a fear of death nor a faith in God.

Coming back to the present, a few years ago five Hindi films were released on the life and times of Bhagat Singh. This renewed focus on an important historical figure seems to be a welcome development, but the sad truth is that these films cater to an erroneous and populist notion of patriotism, that is, the Hinduised version of patriotism that assumes a rabid anti-Pakistan and anti- Muslim dimension. This has become possible because a strong element of Hindutva ideology, which is currently dominant in many parts of the country, is based on an unscientific and ahistorical understanding of Sikhism as the sword arm of Hinduism, and so as a corollary, this gives rise to the false assumption that the Sikhs are no more than Hindus with turbans. Though the Sikh Khalsa under Guru Gobind Singh arose as a militant protest movement against the Mughals, Sikhism as a religion has its roots in the Bhakti and Sufi movements of the fifteenth century, which emphasised Hindu–Muslim unity and the universal brotherhood of mankind.

In these films, Bhagat Singh is depicted as a god-fearing Hindu–Sikh spiritualist who resorts to a jingoistic kind of heroic, individualistic patriotism. This is nothing but a patent disrespect to the memory of that martyr. For instance, it has been historically documented that when the jailor came to take him to the gallows, Bhagat Singh was reading a work by Lenin. But in these films he is shown to be reading the Bhagawad Gita. Here it is not being implied that the Gita should not be read or that it is not valuable in its own right. The Gita may be dear to many spiritual adherents of Hinduism. It may also have many insights into the human condition which may have a seminal philosophical value. But why distort history to support a parochial point of view?

Bhagat Singh was also not under the thrall of any adventuristic, heroic, or individualistic ideas of the James Bond type. He was a member of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army (HSRA), which included revolutionaries such as Chandra Shekhar Azad, Bismillah, Ashfaquallah Khan and Raj Guru. All the members of the HSRA were conscious of the need for organising a revolutionary party of the Indian people that would act as the vanguard of the historic struggle against British imperialism. In no way were the HSRA members thinking of themselves as Robin Hood-type ‘heroes’ of the freedom struggle. Out of the five films released, the only movie that depicts the true story of Bhagat Singh in a sober and realistic vein is the one by Rajkumar Santoshi.

We have to remember that Bhagat Singh lived and died not for the cause of 85 crore Hindus and Sikhs but for a cause dear to 650 crore humans—the cause of human liberty and social justice. And he did this not out of a disproportionate sense of individual heroic adventurism but out of a profound scientific understanding of his own life’s purpose during that particular epoch of history.