The day Indian freedom fighter Bhagat Singh was hanged: A first-person account

This weekend will be observed as Shaheed Diwas or Martyr’s Day to commemorate the death anniversary of India’s bravest. In March 1931, Bhagat Singh, along with Rajguru and Sukhdev, was hanged by the colonial government during the British Raj. A nation mourned and yet, was never more determined in its fight for freedom. The sacrifices of the three revolutionaries laid the bulwark for the struggle for India’s independence that culminated on August 15, 1947.

Despite nearing a century since the hangings, Bhagat Singh remains like the silverware on the mantelpiece, relevant as the ideological symbol that gives strength against oppression even in contemporary India. Not many people had the fortune to come in close contact with the legendary freedom fighter. My grandfather Virendra, also a revolutionary, was, however, one of them. Excerpted below from the book Pratap, A Defiant Newspaper, is his account from March 23, 1931.