SHAHEED BHAGAT SINGH

Good morning everyone. My name is Nishitha and I will be speaking about

Shaheed Bhagat Singh. He was one of the most prominent and renowned
freedom fighters of India. This legendary revolutionary was born on the 28th of
September, 1907 in the village of Banga in the Lyallpur district of Punjab in
what was then British India and is today Pakistan. He was born in a family that
was fully involved in the struggle for Indian Independence. His father, Sardar
Kishan Singh, and uncle, Sardar Ajit Singh both were popular freedom fighters
of that time. Both were known to support the Gandhian ideology. Therefore,
loyalty towards the country and the desire to free it from the clutches of the
British were inborn in Bhagat Singh.
In 1928, the British government set up the Simon Commission to report on the
political situation in India. Many Indian political parties boycotted the
Commission because there were no Indians in its membership, and there were
protests across the country. When the Commission visited Lahore on 30
October 1928, Lala Lajpat Rai led a march in protest. Police attempts to
disperse the large crowd resulted in violence. The superintendent of police,
James Scott, ordered the police to lathi charge to control the mob and
personally assaulted Lala Lajpat Rai, who was injured. Lala Lajpat Rai died of a
heart attack on 17 November 1928. Doctors thought that his death might have
been hastened by the injuries he had received. When the matter was raised in
the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the British Government denied any role
in his death. This incident left Bhagat Singh enraged and therefore he planned
to take revenge of Lala Ji’s death. So, they plotted to kill James Scott soon
after. However, in a case of mistaken identity, the plotters shot John P.
Saunders, an Assistant Superintendent of Police, as he was leaving the District
Police Headquarters in Lahore. Later he and his associates bombed the Central
Legislative Assembly in Delhi. Police arrested them, and Bhagat Singh
confessed his involvement in the incident. During the trial period, Bhagat Singh
led a hunger strike in the prison. He and his co-conspirators, Rajguru and
Sukhdev were executed on the 23rd of March 1931.