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Bhagat Singh’s image as a youthful martyr dominates public memory, yet his radical ideas on atheism, Marxism, and social justice are largely ignored. In an era of student protests over exams, unemployment, and institutional capture, revisiting his writings offers moral clarity and a blueprint for a more equal, accountable India.
As I watched muted celebrations of Bhagat Singh's 119th birth anniversary on 27 Sepetmber 2026, it occurred to me that I am older now than Bhagat Singh ever will be. The young Sikh revolutionary was hardly 24 years old when he was executed by the British colonial state inside the Lahore Central Jail on 23 March 1931.
In the decades since, his image has travelled far beyond the political and intellectual convictions that moved his life. He has become a symbol, reproduced on posters, depicted in films, invoked in speeches, and claimed by right-wing ideological movements that might find his atheism, Marxism, and uncompromising opposition to oppression rather inconvenient. Both Hindu nationalists and Gandhian liberals claim him as their own, but Bhagat Singh defied such categorisations during his life. He was a revolutionary, a nationalist, a communist, an anarchist, an atheist, and above all, a rationalist. It is easier to remember the revolutionary as a deified martyr than to reckon with the idea of a just and equal India he gave his life for.
As waves of youth mobilisation spread across the country from student protests in Punjab, Bengal, Delhi, and Bihar, what strikes me about Bhagat Singh's legacy today is how easily the radicalism of his revolutionary politics gets lost in the mythology of his martyrdom. While his face has become an enduring symbol of youthful resistance, the ideas that informed his politics have become harder to find in mainstream Indian politics. His Marxism, atheism, and opposition to class exploitation resist the convenient simplifications through which history is often remembered.
Across India, recent youth mobilisations over examination irregularities, unemployment, and institutional accountability have brought the need for a more articulate and ideologically informed youth politics back into public life. From students gathering at Jantar Mantar demanding transparency and accountability for irregularities in India's competitive exams to protests on university campuses against institutional takeover, individual grievances have increasingly become collective demands for a more accountable system. These movements are not necessarily united by a single ideology, nor should their demands be collapsed into one narrative, but they certainly expose a shared anxiety about the futures young Indians are being promised, and the material realities they must contend with.
An avid reader and incisive writer, Bhagat Singh continued to write during his imprisonment in Lahore in the months leading up to his execution. If anything, the certainty of death only lent his writing an urgency and moral clarity, sharpening the moral and ideological convictions that had shaped his revolutionary politics. His seminal essay, 'Why I Am an Atheist', was written in prison in early October 1930, smuggled out, and published in The People, a newspaper founded by Lala Lajpat Rai. His final political testament, 'To Young Political Workers', followed in February 1931 and was published posthumously.
It is important that we look to his writing for moral and political clarity, especially now, as Indian youth grow increasingly disillusioned with the democratic promise of India and the social contracts that bind the nation together. In 'Why I Am An Atheist', he wrote, "Society must fight against this belief in God as it fought against idol worship and other narrow conceptions of religion. In this way man will try to stand on his feet. Being realistic, he will have to throw his faith aside and face all adversaries with courage and valour." He called on Indians to "capture political power (...) by masses for the masses" in 'To Young Political Workers'.
Singh's vision extended beyond political independence to a radical restructuring of India's social and economic order. In 'To Young Political Workers', he also outlined a programme that included abolishing landlordism, relieving peasant indebtedness, nationalising land and industries, promoting collective farming, guaranteeing housing security, ensuring universal education, and reducing working hours to the minimum necessary. Throughout his written body of work, he insists on the necessity of thinking beyond the immediate struggle and imagines a society organised around the needs of ordinary people rather than the interests of a privileged few — an idea of India we must return to now.
A comprehensive archive of Bhagat Singh's writings is available here.
