M ahatma Gandhi might be the foremost figure of the freedom movement for most Indians, but political firebrands like Bhagat Singh are finding a connect with the youth 70 years on. While Singh might be best known for his revolutionary activities, he also had a visionary intellect and profound ideas on the involvement of youth in governance, at least that’s what an organisation in Bengaluru believes, and it is this aspect of Singh that they are trying to familiarise the youth with.
Saurav Kumar (25), from Bihar, is the co-founder of the organisation. A microbiologist by profession, Saurav works at Endosoft, and devotes a lot of his spare time in the organisation’s activities. Saurav and the other founder, Aditya Chatterjee, initially began something called Bhagat Singh Study Circle, which was later renamed Bhagat Singh Youth Movement (BSYM). Talking about his ideological guru Singh, Saurav says, “The people who had a vision for the society were a handful of youth comprising leaders like Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad, Ram Prasad Bismil and Ashfaqulla Khan. Among them, Singh had a visionary intellect, as shown by the notebook he maintained in the jail. We wanted to start a small forum to propagate Singh’s idea of an independent India where there is equality irrespective or religion, caste, creed or gender.”
Saurav believes a misconception has been created with a flawed image of a revolutionary – that of a young man with a pistol in hand. “But Singh was a young man with a pen in his hand. He went on a hunger strike for the rights of political prisoners.” And it is this very side of Singh that Saurav wants to propagate among the youth.
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