look news india
In Pakistan, the issue of naming a crossroads after Shaheed Bhagat Singh is gaining momentum. A retired officer of the Pakistani Army had given a statement that Bhagat Singh was not a revolutionary but a criminal and terrorist. He was hanged along with two of his companions for the murder of a British police officer. On the basis of this statement, the administration of Punjab’s capital Lahore has decided to name Shadman Chowk after Bhagat Singh and install the martyr’s statue. There are also devotees of Shaheed Bhagat Singh in Punjab who have been wanting to make Shadman Chowk a memorial of Shaheed Bhagat Singh for a long time. Shadman Chowk is adjacent to the wall of Lahore’s District Jail and it is in this jail that Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were kept captive.
He was hanged there on 3 March 1931. In the year 2018, Lahore High Court had approved changing the name of Shadman Chowk to ‘Bhagat Singh Chowk’. After this the extremists of Pakistan started Jihad. There is an old demand that this intersection should be named after Shaheed Bhagat Singh, but the comments and court action against Bhagat Singh have definitely started a war of words between the two countries. In the emerging Punjab, Bhagat Singh was being condemned as a terrorist and criminal rather than a revolutionary.
The Punjab government, which claims to follow the footsteps of Bhagat Singh, is also targeting Pakistan. However, the Central Government has not yet made any comment. Shaheed-e-Azam is becoming the center of two different ideologies between the two countries. When Bhagat Singh was fighting for the independence of his country, there was no Pakistan.
Bhagat Singh fought his battle with a special mindset. This also includes shooting British officer Saunders and throwing a bomb in the British Parliament. He did both these tasks keeping his ideology as the main one. The aim of Shaheed-e-Azam was only to achieve the independence of the country. The Indian government should talk to the Pakistani government and clarify its stand. Bhagat Singh was born on 28 September 1907 in Banga, now Lyallpur in Pakistan and now in Faisalabad district. Border lines came later, earlier everything was normal.
Bhagat Singh’s grandfather Arjan Singh came from Khatkar Kalan village in Nawanshahr district of Punjab around 1899. Bhagat Singh studied at the National College, Lahore and joined the revolutionaries. He had to go to jail several times and endure torture. If Bhagat Singh did everything in the interest of one country then how can there be two ideologies about him? The issue here is not to write the name of the martyr on any intersection but to maintain his dignity.
