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Title: Regarding Suicide
Author: Bhagat Singh
Date: 1930
Language: en
Topics: suicide, letter, India
Source: http://www.shahidbhagatsingh.org/index.asp?link=regarding_suicide
Notes: [Hearing of the case was over. Judgement was expected any day. Sukhdev expected life transportation for him. To him the idea of remaining in jail for 20 years was repulsive. He wrote to Bhagat Singh that in case he (Sukhdev) is convicted for life he will commit suicide. He stood for release or death; no middle course.  Bhagat Singh’s reaction to Sukhdev’s letter was very sharp. Serve, suffer and live to struggle for the cause — that was his stand. “Escaping from hardships is cowardice”, he said. This letter privides one more window to peep into the martyr’s mind.]

Bhagat Singh

Regarding Suicide

DEAR BROTHER,

I have gone through your letter attentively and many times. I realise

that the changed situation has affected us differently. The things you

hated outside have now become essential to you. In the same way, the

things I used to support strongly are of no significance to me any more.

For example, I believed in personal love, but now this feeling has

ceased to occupy any particular position in my heart and mind. While

outside, you were strongly opposed to it but now a drastic change and

radicalisation is apparent in your ideas about it. You experience it as

an extremely essential part of human existence and you have found a

particular kind of happiness in the experience.

You may still recollect that one day I had discussed suicide with you.

That time I told you that in some situations suicide may be justifiable,

but you contested my point. I vividly remember the time and place of our

conversation. We talked about this in the Shahanshahi Kutia one evening.

You said in jest that such a cowardly act can never be justified. You

said that acts of this kind were horrible and heinous, but I see that

you have now made an about-turn on this subject. Now you find it not

only proper in certain situations but also necessary, even essential. My

opinion is what you had held earlier, that suicide is a heinous crime.

It is an act of complete cowardice. Leave alone revolutionaries, no

individual can ever justify such an act.

You say you fail to understand how suffering alone can serve the

country. Such a question from a person like you is really perplexing,

because how much thoughtfully we loved the motto of the Naujawan Bharat

Sabha — “to suffer and sacrifice through service”. I believe that you

served as much as was possible. Now is the time when you should suffer

for what you did. Another point is that this is exactly the moment when

you have to lead the entire people.

Man acts only when he is sure of the justness of his action, as we threw

the bomb in the Legislative Assembly. After the action, it is the time

for bearing the consequences of that act. Do you think that had we tried

to avoid the punishment by pleading for mercy, we would have been more

justified? No, this would have had an adverse effect on the masses. We

are now quite successful in our endeavour.

At the time of our imprisonment, the condition for the political

prisoners of our party were very miserable. We tried to improve that. I

well you quite seriously that we believed we would die very shortly.

Neither we were aware of the technique of forced feeding nor did we ever

think of it. We were ready to die. Do you mean to say that we were

intending to commit suicide? No. Striving and sacrificing one’s life for

a superior ideal can never be called suicide. We are envious of the

death of our Comrade Yatindra Nath Das. Will you call it suicide?

Ultimately, our sufferings bore fruit. A big movement started in the

whole of the country. We were successful in our aim. Death in the

struggles of this kind is an ideal death.

Apart from this, the comrades among us, who believe that they will be

awarded death, should await that day patiently when the sentence will be

announced and they will be hanged. This death will also be beautiful,

but committing suicide — to cut short the life just to avoid some pain —

is cowardice. I want to tell you that obstacles make a man perfect.

Neither you nor I, rather none of us, have suffered any pain so far.

That part of our life has started only now.

You will recollect that we have talked several times about realism in

the Rusian literature, which is nowhere visible in our own. We highly

appreciate the situations of pain in their stories, but we do not feel

that spirit of suffering within ourselves. We also admire their passion

and the extraordinary height of their characters, but we never bother to

find out the reason. I will say that only the reference to their resolve

to bear pain has produced the intensity, the suffering of pain, and this

has given great depth and height to their characters and literature. We

become pitiable and ridiculous when we imbibe an unreasoned mysticism in

our life without any natural or substantial basis. People like us, who

are proud to be revolutionary in every sense, should always be prepared

to bear all the difficulties, anxieties, pain and suffering which we

invite upon ourselves by the struggles initiated by us and for which we

call ourselves revolutionary.

I want to tell you that in jail, and in jail alone, can a person get an

occasion to study empirically the great social subjects of crime and

sin. I have read some literature on this and only the jail is the proper

place for the self-study on all these topics. The best parts of the

self-study for one is to suffer oneself.

You know it that the suffering of political prisoners in the jails of

Russia caused, in the main, the revolution in the prison-administration

after the overthrow of Czardom. Is India not in need of such persons who

are fully aware of this problem and have personal experience of these

things? It will not suffice to say that someone else would do it, or

that many other people are there to do it. Thus, men who find it quite

dishonourable and hateful to leave the revolutionary responsibilities to

others should start their struggle against the existing system with

total devotion. They should violate these rules but they should also

keep in mind the propriety, because unnecessary and improper attempts

can never be considered just. Such agitations will shorten the process

of revolution. All the arguments which you gave to keep yourself aloof

from all such movement, are incomprehensible to me. Some of our friends

are either fools or ignorant. They find your behaviour quite strange and

incomprehensible. (They themselves say they cannot comprehend it because

you are above and very far from their understanding.)

In fact, if you feel that jail life is really humiliating, why don’t you

try to improve it by agitating? Perhaps, you will say that this struggle

would be futile, but this is precisely the argument which is usually

used as a cover by weak people to avoid participation in every movement.

This is the reply which we kept on hearing outside the jail from the

people who were anxious to escape from getting entangled in

revolutionary movements. Shall I now hear the same argument from you?

What could our party of a handful of people do in comparison to the

vastness of its aims and ideals? Shall we infer from this that we erred

gravely in starting our work altogether? No, inferences of this kind

will be improper. This only shows the inner weakness of the man who

thinks like this.

You write further that it cannot be expected of a man that he will have

the same thinking after going through 14 long years of suffering in the

prison, which he had before, because the jail life will crush all his

ideas. May I ask you whether the situation outside the jail was any bit

more favourable to our ideas? Even then, could we have left it because

of our failures? Do you mean to imply that had we not entered the field,

no revolutionary work would have taken place at all? If this be your

contention, then you are mistaken, though it is right that we also

proved helpful to an extent in changing the environment. But, the, we

are only a product of the need of our times.

I shall even say that Marx — the father of communism — did not actually

originate this idea. The Industrial Revolution of Europe itself produced

men of this kind. Marx was one among them. Of course, Marx was also

instrumental to an extent in gearing up the wheels of his time in a

particular way.

I (and you too) did not give birth to the ideas of socialism and

communism in this country; this is the consequence of the effects of our

time and situations upon ourselves. Of course, we did a bit to propagate

these ideas, and therefore I say that since we have already taken a

tough task upon ourselves, we should continue to advance it. The people

will not be guided by our committing suicides to escape the

difficulties; on the contrary, this will be quite a reactionary step.

We continued our work despite the testing environment of

disappointments, pressures and violence ordained by the jail rules.

While we worked, we were made target of may kinds of difficulties. Even

men who were proud to proclaim themselves to be great revolutionaries,

deserted us. Were these conditions not testing in the extreme? Then,

what was the reason and the logic of continuing our agitation and

efforts?

Does this simple argument not by itself give added strength to our

ideas? And, don’t we have instances of our revolutionary comrades who

suffered for their convictions in jails and are still working on return

from jails? Had Bakunin argued like you, he would have committed suicide

right in the beginning. Today, you find many revolutionaries occupying

responsible posts in the Russian state who had passed the greater part

of their lives in prison, completing their sentences. Man must try hard

to stick to his beliefs. No one can say what future has in store.

Do you remember that when we were discussing that some concentrated and

effective poison should also be kept in our bomb factories, you opposed

it very vehemently. The very idea was repugnant to you. You had no faith

in it. So, what has happened now? Here, even the difficult and complex

conditions do not obtain. I feel revulsion even in discussing this

question. You hated even that attitude of mind which permits suicide.

You will kindly excuse me for saying that had you acted according to

this belie right at the time of your imprisonment (that is, you had

committed suicide by taking poison), you would have served the

revolutionary cause, but at this moment, even the thought of such an act

is harmful to our cause.

There is just one more point which I will like to draw your attention

to. We do not believe in God, hell and heaven, punishment and rewards,

that is in any Godly accounting of human life. Therefore, we must think

of life and death on materialist lines. When I was brought here from

Delhi for the purpose of identification, some intelligence officers

talked to me on this topic, in the presence of my father. They said that

since I did not try to save of my life by divulging secrets, it proved

the presence of an acute agony in my life. They argued that a death of

this kind will be something like suicide. But I had replied that a man

with beliefs and ideal like mine, could never think of dying uselessly.

We want to get the maximum value for our lives. We want to serve

humanity as much as possible. Particularly a man like me, whose life is

nowhere sad or worried, can never think of suicide even, leave alone

attempting it. The same thing I want to tell you now.

I hope you will permit me to tell you what I think about myself. I am

certain of capital punishment for me. I do not expect even a bit of

moderation or amnesty. Even if there is amnesty, it will not be for all,

and even that amnesty will be for other only, not for us; it will be

extremly restricted and burdened with various conditions. For, us

neither there can be any amnesty nor it will ever happen. Even then, I

wish that release calls for us should be made collection and globally.

Along with that, I also wish that when the movement reaches its climax,

we should be hanged. It is my wish that if at any time any honourable

and fair compromise is possible, issue like our case may never obstruct

it. When the fate of the country is being decided, the fate of

individuals should be forgotten. As revolutionaries, we do not believe

that there can be any sudden change in the attitude of our rulers,

particularly in the British race. Such a surprising change is impossible

without through sustained striving, sufferings and sacrifices. And it

shall be achieved. As far as my attitude is concerned, I can welcome

facilities and amnesty for all only when its effect is permanent and

some indelible impressions are made on the hearts of the people of the

country through our hanging. Only this much and nothing more.