Was Gandhi's fight for Bhagat Singh sincere or tokenism before the British?
Chander MohanJyotsna Mohan
TIMESOFINDIA.COM
Aug 16, 2025, 12:36 IST IST
An excerpt from 'Pratap: A Defiant Newspaper' revisits Gandhi's uneasy role in the trial and hanging of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev, a moment that exposed deep ideological rifts and tested the Mahatma's moral authority
In India's Independence movement, two names that existed like parallel tracks were Mahatma Gandhi and Bhagat Singh who although immersed in the same cause had a vastly different approach to freedom. Gandhi believed in non-violence. Bhagat Singh felt that spilling blood for the cause was perhaps inevitable.
This is probably why Gandhi's efforts to save the lives of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev from the death sentence are not very convincing although some historians say it was not Gandhi's battle to fight. Nevertheless, after the freedom fighters were sent to the gallows, he faced a backlash across the country with black flags shown perhaps for the only time to the Mahatma at the Congress session in Karachi.
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