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"It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match'd with an agèd wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me."

Thursday, March 23, 2006

A hero and a martyr

This morning, I saw this photo pinned to the cubicle of a colleague. Curiosity overcoming the better of me, I asked him if the person in the picture was Bhagat Singh. My colleague replied in the affirmative, and being a native of Punjab, said in a fit of patriotism that today marked the 75th anniversary of the martyrdom of Shaheed Bhagat Singh.

All I knew about Bhagat Singh was that he tried bombing an assembly of something, and failed and was caught and put to death. I confess that I was in the wrong, as these articles from Wikipedia and Kamat's Potpourri would prove. Also, I didn't know that Rang de Basanti has a strong link to the revolutionary sardar.

An interesting sidelight

The article on Kamat's Potpourri has the following lines, which I found very relevant to today's burning(?) issue.

Instead of finding the root cause for discontent of Indians, the British government took to more repressive measures. Under the Defense of India Act, it gave more power to the police to arrest persons to stop processions with suspicious movements and actions. The act brought in the council was defeated by one vote. Even then it was to be passed in the form of an ordinance in the "interest of the public."
Petty politicians never change, huh?

3 Comments:

Blogger Balaji said...

ivanunga (politicians) eppovume ippadithaan... i'm reminded of that core computer (V.I.K.I) in I Robot movie, that programs all robots to detroy man-kind for the benefit of man-kind itself :))

3/23/2006 06:52:00 PM  
Blogger Silly Sally said...

"Rang De Basanti" - Indeed has a very strong link to this reputed warrior of Indian Freedom, without which the MOVIE wouldnt have been a super-duper hit lifting-off the box-office to unimaginable heights and not to mention enlightening the souls of todays youth abt what really this man Bhagat Singh did for the "Swaraj India" that we are living in today!

3/25/2006 10:51:00 PM  
Blogger Aparna S Mallya said...

Yep, that movie is a must watch.

3/26/2006 10:45:00 PM  

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