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Title: The Revolutionary
Author: Bhagat Singh
Date: 1st January, 1925
Language: en
Topics: Revolutionary Anarchism, manifesto, India
Source: Retrieved on  2020-05-07 from http://www.shahidbhagatsingh.org/index.asp?link=revolutionary
Notes: This manifesto of the Hindustan Republican Association was written by Shachindra Nath Sanyal somewhen in December 1924. It was distributed in almost all the major cities of north India in the night between December 31, 1924 and January 1, 1925.

Bhagat Singh

The Revolutionary

Justice to every man Free of cost, be the High or low, rich or poor.

Equal real opportunity to every man, be he high or low, rich or poor.

An organ of the Revolutionary Party of India,

1^(st) Jan., 1925,

Vol. I

(Every honest Indian should read the whole of it and circulate it among

his friends.)

Manifesto of Revolutionary Party of India

“CHAOS IS NECESSARY TO THE BIRTH OF A NEW star.”’ And the birth, and is

passing through that inevitable chaos and agony. Indians shall play

their destined role, when all calculations shall prove futile, when the

wise and the mighty shall be bewildered by the simple and the week, when

great empires shall crumble down and new nations shall arise and

surprise humanity with the splendour and glory which shall be all its

own.

This new power, which is shaking the world from its very depths, this

new spirit which is working miracles behind the scene, is also

manifesting itself in the young blood of India and is taking the shape

of a movement which is despised and ignored by the wise and the learned,

and is being described as the wild dreams of a few mad men. This

remarkable movement is the revolutionary movement in young India. The

revolutionary movement has unnerved the weak, has inspired the robust

and healthy, and has confounded the worldly wise and the learned. This

movement can never be crushed just as much as the coming of the spring

can never be thwarted. It will never die out until it has fulfilled the

mission for which it has taken its birth. Tyrants will oppress it, the

faithless will taunt at it, and the confounded will denounce it, but

thoughts and ideas can never be crushed by the sword, and the noble

impulse that has taken birth in the very depths of out being can never

be ignored, nor taunted.

This revolutionary movement is the manifestation of the new life that

has taken birth in the Nation. To denounce this life is to denounce

one’s own understanding.

Twenty years of ruthless repression has not been able to crush it.

Scathing denunciation by the renowned public leaders has not been able

to arrest its steady growth. The movement stands mightier today than

what it was before. The prospects of this revolutionary party were never

so bright as they are today. This future is assured.

Let no Indian deny the existence of this revolutionary party in order to

denounce the repressive measures of the foreign rulers. The foreigners

have no right to rule over India and therefore they must be denounced

and driven out. Not that they have committed any particular act of

violence or crime. There are the natural consequences of a foreign rule.

This foreign rule must be abolished. They have no justification to rule

over India except the justification of sword and therefore the

revolutionary party had taken to the sword. But the sword of the

revolutionary party bears ideas at its edge.

The immediate object of the revolutionary party in the domain of

politics is to establish a federal Republic of United State of India by

an organized and armed revolution. The final constitution of this

Republic shall be framed and declared at a time when the representatives

of India shall have the power to carry out their decision. But the basic

principles of this Republic will be universal sufferege and abolition of

all system which make the exploitation of man by man possible, e.g. the

railways and other means of transportation and communication, the mines

and other kinds of very great industries such as the manufacture of

steel and ships all these shall be nationalised. In this Republic the

electors shall have the right to recall their representatives, if so

desired, otherwise the democracy shall become a mockery. In this

Republic, the legislature shall have the power to control the executives

and replace them whenever necessity will arise.

The revolutionary party is not national but international in the sense

that its ultimate object is to bring harmony in the world by respecting

and guaranteeing the diverse interests of the different nations. It aims

not at cooperation between the different nations and states and in this

respect it follows the footsteps of great Indian Rishis of the glorious

past and of Bolshevik Russia in the modern age. Good for humanity is no

vain and empty word with the Indian revolutionaries. But the weak, the

coward and the powerless can do no good either to themselves or to

humanity.

With regard to the communal question, the revolutionary party

contemplates to grant whatever rights the different communities ma

demand, provided they do not clash with the interests o other

communities and they lead ultimately to hearty and organic union in

different communities in the near future.

In the domain of economic and social welfare the party will foster the

spirit of cooperation on as large a scale as possible. Instead of

private and unorganised business enterprises, the party prefers

cooperative union.

In the spiritual domain the party aims at establishing the truth and

preaching it that the world in not Maya, an illusion to be ignored and

despised at, but that it is the manifestation of the one individual

soul, the supreme source of all power, all knowledge and all beauty.

The revolutionary party has its own policy and its own programme. It

cannot for obvious reasons divulge all its secrets. But when it will

become quite sure that the Govt. happens to know more than our own

people, then the public will also be informed of its plan and methods

without any hesitation at will.

This revolutionary party pursues the policy of cooperation when possible

and dissociation where necessary with the Congress and its different

parties. But this party views all constitutional agitation in this

country with contempt and ridicule. It is a mockery to say that India’s

salvation can be achieved through constitutional means, where no

constitutions exists.

It is a self-deception to say that India’s political liberty can be

attained through peaceful and legitimate means. When the enemy is

determined to break the peace at his own convenience, the fine phrase

“legitimate” loses all its charm and significance when one pledges

himself to maintain peace at all costs.

Our public leaders hesitate to speak in plain terms that India wants

complete autonomy free from foreign control. They perhaps are ignorant

of the fact that nations are born through the inspiration of great

ideals. The spiritual ideal which hestitates to accept the spirit of

complete autonomy can hardly be called spirititual, though it may

seemingly appear the most unmistakable terms and to place before the

nation an ideal worth the name.

The ideal before us is to serve humanity in an organized way. The ideal

can never be realised by India so long as India remains British India.

In order that India may realise her ideal she must have a separate and

independent existence. This independence can never be achieved through

peaceful and constitutional means. Even a child can understand that the

laws that govern British India are not made by Indians, nor can they

have any control over them. British India can never be transformed into

a federal republic of the United State of India through the British laws

and constitution. Young Indians, shake off your illusion, face realities

with a stout heart, and do not avoid struggle, difficulties and

sacrifices. The inevitable is to come. Do not be misguided any more.

Peace and tranquility you cannot achieve by peaceful and legitimate

means. The following memorable words of a great English author Mr.

Robertson may serve to make the wise men of India wiser still:

“The movement and programme of reform was mainly the achievement of

Irish and Protestant leaders, to whom British statement had revealed the

fatal secret that England could be bullied but not argued into justice

and generosity” (English Under Hanoverians, p. 197).

Indian public leaders are still ignorant of this fatal secret, or else

they are foolishly wise to remain ignorants.

The wise men of India say that it is absurd to cherish the hope that

India can be reconquered by force of force of arms, though they forget

that it is equally or more absurd to believe that a handful of

Englishmen have kept under subjugation by the force of arms, though they

forget that it is equally or more absurd to believe that a handful of

Englishmen have kept under subjugation by the force of arms one-fifth of

the whole human race. Posterity may well doubt the authenticity of this

fact that a handful of Englishmen even ruled over India for a century;

it is so inconceivable.

A few words more about terrorism and anarchism. These two words are

playing the most mischievous part in India today. They are being

invariably misapplied whenever any reference to revolution arises to be

made, because it is so very convenient to denounce the revolutionary

under that name. The Indian revolutionaries are neither terrorists nor

anarchists. They never aim at spreading anarchy in the land and

therefore they can never properly be called anarchists. Terrorism is

never their object and they cannot be called terrorists. They do not

believe that terrorism alone can bring independence and they do not want

terrorism for terrorism’s sake although they may at times resort to this

method as a very effective means of retaliation. The present Govt.

exists simply because the Foreigners have successfully been able to

terrorise the Indian people. The Indian people do not love their English

masters, they do not want them to be here; but they do help the

Britishers simply because they are terribly afraid of them and this very

fear resists the Indians from extending their helping hands to the

revolutionaries, not that they do not love them.

The official terrorism is surely to be met by counter-terrorism. A

spirit of utter helplessness pervades every strata of our society and

terrorism is an effective means of restoring the proper spirits in the

society without which progress will be difficult. Moreover, the English

masters and their hired lackeys can never be allowed to do whatever they

like, uninterrupted, unmodested. Every possible difficulty and

resistance must be thrown in their way. Terrorism has an international

bearing also, because the ardent enemies of England are at once drawn

towards Indian through terrorism and revolutionary demonstrations, and

the revolutionary party has deliberately abstained itself from entering

into this terroristic campaign at the present movement even at the

greatest of provocations in the form in the form of outrages committed

on their sisters and mothers by the agents of a foreign government,

simply because the party is waiting to deliver the final blow. But when

expediency will demand it, the party will unhesitatingly enter into a

desperate campaign of terrorism, when the life of every official and

individual who will be helping the foreign ruler in any way will be made

intolerable, be he Indian or European, high or low. But even then the

party will never forget that terrorism is not the object, and they will

try incessantly to organize a band of selfless and devoted workers who

will devote their best energies towards the political and social

emancipation of their country.

They will always remember that the making of nations requires the

self-sacrifice of thousand of obscure men and women who care more for

the idea of their country than for their own comfort or interest, their

own lives or the lives of those whom they love.

Sd/-V.K.

President, Central Council,

R.P. of India.