Chandrashekhar Azad – The Revolutionary Icon
Faheem Aamer
“Revolutionaries never throw weapons. We will fight and continue to fight till the end.”
These words were spoken when the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association’s Action Committee planned to bomb the Delhi Assembly. The British colonialists mockingly called him the “shape shifter,” but the terror of his actions still shakes the heart of the British Empire.
Chandrashekhar Azad was born in the village of Bhavra in Jhabua district, which is now in present-day Madhya Pradesh. He was born to Jagram Devi and Sitaram Tiwari in a humble household. His father, Sitaram Tiwari, had migrated from Badarka village near Unnao in the Kanpur district to Bhavra. Chandrashekhar Azad was one of the five children born to Sitaram Tiwari, but he was the only one who survived.
Azad received his primary education in his village of Bhavra but moved to Mumbai at the age of twelve to earn a living through odd jobs. From there, Azad moved to Banaras and enrolled in a Sanskrit school. This was in 1921, during the time of Gandhi’s Non-Cooperation Movement, and Azad was part of it. As a result of this movement, Azad was sentenced to 15 lashes, but with each lash, Azad shouted “Long live Mahatma Gandhi.” After enduring the lashes, Azad was severely injured. His revolutionary nature did not allow him to seek treatment at the jail hospital but preferred treatment from a fellow revolutionary doctor.
On February 4, 1922, after the Chori Chora resistance, when Gandhi withdrew the Non-Cooperation Movement, Azad lost faith in Gandhi and the Congress’ policies. It was a time that Sachindranath Sanyal (Sanyal Babu) had formed the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) with old revolutionaries, and Azad joined it. This group included famous revolutionaries like Ashfaqullah Khan, Ram Prasad Bismil, Roshan Singh, Rajendra Lahiri, and others. On August 9, 1925, the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) looted the British government’s treasury at Kakori station. Following this incident, the British Empire was shaken, and they indiscriminately martyred several Indian citizens, even those who had no connection to the Kakori incident. Ram Prasad Bismil, Roshan Singh, and Rajendra Lahiri were arrested. They were hanged on December 17th to 19th in various jails in Uttar Pradesh, but Azad and Kundan Lal could not be captured.
After the hangings, the British government believed that there was no threat to the British Empire from the revolutionaries. However, this complacency was shattered when Chandrashekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh, along with their comrades from the “Naujwan Bharat Sabha,” joined revolutionary forces. This group was working like any other Azad-led group, but on September 8 and 9, 1928, a momentous convention was held at Kotla Feroz Shah Grounds in Delhi, where they renamed their party to the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA). Now, this group had taken the form of a revolutionary party. Azad was appointed as the armed wing commander of HSRA with the code name “Balraj,” and Bhagat Singh was appointed as the commander of the political and intellectual front.
During this convention, it was decided to form a people’s democratic party consisting of students, workers, and peasants under the HSRA as it is as Pakistan Inqlabi Party in Pakistan. However, the brutal violence during the “Simon Go Back” protest by Lala Lajpat Rai led to a change in the party’s direction.
Lala Lajpat Rai’s martyrdom was considered a “national insult,” and when the Congress, Hindu Mahasabha, and All India Muslim League resorted to cowardly silence to appease the British Empire, the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) decided to avenge. This was not a conventional feudal revenge but a way to make the British Empire believe that enough was enough, and the people of India would no longer sit idly by but respond to imperial oppression with force.
The HSRA planned the assassination of Scott (James A. Scott). Chandrashekhar Azad led this action, which was scheduled for December 17, 1928. According to the plan, Jai Gopal was to identify Scott, Bhagat Singh and Rajguru were to carry out the attack, while Sukhdev was to provide cover, and Chandrashekhar Azad and Bhagwati Wohra were responsible for safely escorting the comrades out of Lahore.
On December 17, 1928, this action took place outside the SSP office in Lahore. Jai Gopal misidentified Scott, and Saunders was shot instead. When Chandrashekhar Azad was escorting his comrades away from the scene, Inspector Chanan Singh followed the revolutionaries. Azad warned Inspector Chanan Singh that this was a war of revolution, and he did not want to raise his weapon against any Indian or the general public. However, when Chanan Singh aimed his gun, Azad was forced to fire, and the treacherous Chanan Singh met his end. This warning was written in Inspector Chanan Singh’s posthumous statement.
After Saunders’ murder, the British Empire was shaken. Though their belief was already shattered when Bhagat Singh and his comrades threw a bomb in the Delhi Assembly under Bhagat Singh’s leadership on April 8, 1929. The bombs were thrown on empty benches in a way that no one was harmed. They presented themselves for arrest and handed over their weapons to the colonial guards. As per plan they continued their struggle from the jail. When the British Empire saw that the revolutionary struggle had intensified from the jail, they decided to hang Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and Sukhdev by the empty court. In this situation, Azad decided that Bhagat Singh and his comrades would be released on their way to court from jail.
Chandrashekhar Azad continued the struggle. His contact with Motilal Nehru, remained. Chandrashekhar Azad was a straightforward communist. This is the time when Lord Erwin’s statement was published in a Hindi newspaper that, “A communist can be best appreciated only if he is a dead communist”.
Azad never claimed to be a revolutionary intellectual. Whenever there was a need for political discussion, he would refer to Bhagat Singh. An example of this was when he asked Bhagat Singh to convince the chemistry professor to join the struggle. These were Azad’s organizational skills that made Jatin Das not only to become a hero in Bengal but also produced hundreds of revolutionaries who forced the British Empire to retreat to their homes, like Master Da, the Suriya Sen etc. In short, he was more of a rational revolutionary than an ideological one.
The exemplary pair of Chandrashekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh was like Stalin and Lenin, Ho Chi Minh and General Giap, or Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. However, the British Empire tried to spread negative propaganda that Chandrashekhar Azad was an illiterate person and had no connection with the youth. This negative propaganda led to the creation of traitors like Veer Bhadra Tiwari and Sukhdev Raj, who betrayed Azad afterwards.
Chandrashekhar Azad was surrounded by the British police near Alfred Park in Allahabad on February 27, 1931, around 9 a.m. Azad drove away Sukhdev Raj before protecting his life because he knew that the ruthless British Empire would not hesitate to take anyone’s life to get him. It was a moment of armed confrontation. Chandrashekhar Azad engaged in a fierce firefight with the heavily armed police until the last bullet, as he always said, “As long as I have my gun, I will remain Azad, and what will a man afraid of death fight for the freedom of the country?” He fought until his last breath and was martyred in Alfred Park, Allahabad, on February 27, 1931.
The firing had stopped, but the heavy police presence was still hesitant to approach Azad’s body for nearly two hours. The residents of Allahabad had gathered near Alfred Park, listening to the gunshots. The police were considering cremating Azad’s body there, just as those beasts had torn Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and Sukhdev’s bodies into pieces and thrown their ashes into the river. But it was a time of reckoning, and Azad’s body was in the midst of the seething of the people of Allahabad.
In Azad’s final rites, the wives of Jawaharlal Nehru, Kamala Nehru, Madan Mohan Malaviya’s paternal and maternal nephews (referred to as Nephew in history), Padma Kant Malviya (who was the editor of a newspaper named Abhidiyo), and Sachindranath Sanyal’s wife (Sanyal Babu, the founder of HRA) were present. They performed Azad’s last rites in the style of Khudi Ram Bose (1908) in Calcutta. Today, even the British pay tribute to this great and brave revolutionary.
In the village, Azad’s mother was in disbelief for a while that her brave son had been martyred. But in 1948, when Comrade Bhagwan Das Mahaur and Sadashiv Malhar Purkar brought Jhansi with the ashes of Jagrani Devi, she realized that her great son was no longer in this world. Jagrani Devi passed away in 1951, and Comrade Sadashiv Malhar Purkar was the one who lit her funeral pyre. Bhagwan Das Mahaur married the daughter of Master Radhar Narain in the same house in Jhansi where Chandrashekhar Azad used to spend a lot of time.
“As long as I have my gun, I will remain Azad, and what will a man afraid of death fight for the freedom of the country?” – Chandrashekhar Azad.