To Make the Deaf Hear (HB)

This is a path-breaking work on the political life and times of Bhagat Singh and his associates, and the organizations of which they were a part – the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) and the Naujawan Bharat Sabha. It highlights many hitherto neglected aspects of the evolution of Bhagat Singh as a national hero, including the definite shift towards socialism in his outlook. This is also among the best works on the revolutionary nationalists and their role in India’s freedom movement. Documents and short writings crucial to understanding the essential core of their ideology and programme are included as appendices. This is that rare book of history that scholars and the general reader alike could enjoy and appreciate, and which no student of modern south Asian history can do without. Above all, it describes incredibly well those momentous decades of the 1920s and early 30s when the left-radical agenda came to occupy a huge space on the Subcontinent.

CONTENTS

Preface

Essays

Chapter One: Programme and Ideology of the Early Revolutionaries
Chapter Two: Towards a Revolutionary Programme and Socialist Outlook
Chapter Three: Trials, Congress and the Revolutionaries
Chapter Four: Ideology and Programme of the HSRA
Chapter Five: Conclusion

Appendices

A – The Reading list of Sardar Bhagat Singh

B – Some important Statements and Writings of Bhagat Singh

To Make the Deaf Hear: Notice of Hindustan SocialistRepublican Association (Army)

Statement in the Sessions Court (Read out by Mr Asaf Ali)
Why I Am An Atheist
Introduction to The Dreamland
To the Young Political Workers

C – Some important documents

Manifesto of the Hindustan Republican Association
Manifesto of the Naujawan Bharat Sabha
Philosophy of the Bomb: Manifesto of the Hindustan

D – Socialist Republican Association

Glossary
Bibliography
Index

Front cover: Bhagat Singh with Batukeshwar Dutt. The couplets in Urdu, in Bhagat Singh’s handwriting, are from his prison diary. Back cover: young Bhagat Singh. Pictures courtesy Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi.