Bhagat singh why i became an atheist

He wrote an essay between October , , months before his hanging, in response to an inmate who tried to convince him of God's existence but failed. The fellow inmate criticized Singh saying, "You are giddy with fame and have developed an ego that is standing like a black curtain between you and God. Bhagat Singh acknowledged that the cause of his lack of belief in God is a matter of debate.

It is questionable if the lack of belief in the existence of an omnipresent, omniscient God resulted from his arrogance and vanity. He accepted possessing human follies like pride and said that he was a human and nothing more. Any human, he said, could not claim to be more than a human. In his essay titled, " Why Am I An Atheist ", the freedom fighter claimed that his 'friends' complained about him being bossy, boastful and wanted others to have opinions like his.

Singh mentioned in his essay that some of his friends said that the Delhi Bombing and the Lahore Conspiracy had shot him to fame, and it was fame inhibiting his belief in God.

To counter that, he mentioned that he believed in atheism even when he was an unknown figure. He substantiated, saying that a college student does not possess any extraordinary qualities that make him anything more than a human.

Indeed, he was a favourite of some of his teachers, but others did not like him. He was never hard-working or studious if that was something to be proud about. The icon lived with his father, for whom God was an all-prevailing entity, and Singh believed that his ideals motivated his cause of liberating the nation. During the days of the Non-Cooperation Movement, Singh was admitted to the National College, and even though he grew sceptical about the religious polemics, he still was a staunch believer.

Despite failing to convince himself of the efficacy of any religion, he considered himself a believer at that time. Open your eyes and see millions of people dying of hunger in slums and huts dirtier than the grim dungeons of prisons; just see the labourers patiently or say apathetically while the rich vampires suck their blood; bring to mind the wastage of human energy that will make a man with a little common sense shiver in horror.

Just observe rich nations throwing their surplus produce into the sea instead of distributing it among the needy and deprived. There are palaces of kings built upon the foundations laid with human bones. This is my question. You are silent. All right. I proceed to my next point. You, the Hindus, would say: Whosoever undergoes sufferings in this life, must have been a sinner in his previous birth.

It is tantamount to saying that those who are oppressors now were Godly people then, in their previous births. For this reason alone they hold power in their hands. Let me say it plainly that your ancestors were shrewd people. They were always in search of petty hoaxes to play upon people and snatch from them the power of Reason. Let us analyse how much this argument carries weight! Philosophy of Jurisprudence Those who are well versed in the philosophy of Jurisprudence relate three of four justifications for the punishment that is to be inflicted upon a wrong-doer.

These are: revenge, reform, and deterrence. The Retribution Theory is now condemned by all the thinkers. Deterrent theory is on the anvil for its flaws. Reformative theory is now widely accepted and considered to be necessary for human progress. It aims at reforming the culprit and converting him into a peace-loving citizen. For the sake of argument we agree for a moment that a person committed some crime in his previous birth and God punished him by changing his shape into a cow, cat, tree, or any other animal.

You may enumerate the number of these variations in Godly Punishment to be at least eighty-four lack. Tell me, has this tomfoolery, perpetrated in the name of punishment, any reformative effect on human man? How many of them have you met who were donkeys in their previous births for having committed any sin?

Absolutely no one of this sort! I do not have any intention to bring this unutterable trash under discussion. Do you really know the most cursed sin in this world is to be poor? Yes, poverty is a sin; it is a punishment! Cursed be the theoretician, jurist or legislator who proposes such measures as push man into the quagmire of more heinous sins.

Did it not occur to your All Knowing God or he could learn the truth only after millions had undergone untold sufferings and hardships? What, according to your theory, is the fate of a person who, by no sin of his own, has been born into a family of low caste people? He is poor so he cannot go to a school. It is his fate to be shunned and hated by those who are born into a high caste. His ignorance, his poverty, and the contempt he receives from others will harden his heart towards society.

Supposing that he commits a sin, who shall bear the consequences? God, or he, or the learned people of that society? What is your view about those punishments inflicted on the people who were deliberately kept ignorant by selfish and proud Brahmans?

If by chance these poor creatures heard a few words of your sacred books, Vedas, these Brahmans poured melted lead into their ears. If they committed any sin, who was to be held responsible? Who was to bear the brunt? My dear friends, these theories have been coined by the privileged classes. They try to justify the power they have usurped and the riches they have robbed with the help of such theories.

He will willingly help you in the process. I ask why your omnipotent God does not hold a man back when he is about to commit a sin or offence. Why did He not kill war lords? Why did He not obliterate the fury of war from their minds?

In this way He could have saved humanity of many a great calamity and horror. Why does He not infuse humanistic sentiments into the minds of the Britishers so that they may willingly leave India? I ask why He does not fill the hearts of all capitalist classes with altruistic humanism that prompts them to give up personal possession of the means of production and this will free the whole labouring humanity from the shackles of money. You want to argue the practicability of Socialist theory, I leave it to your Almighty God to enforce it.

Common people understand the merits of Socialist theory as far as general welfare is concerned but they oppose it under the pretext that it cannot be implemented.

Let the Almighty step in and arrange things in a proper way. No more logic chopping! I tell you that the British rule is not there because God willed it but for the reason that we lack the will and courage to oppose it.

Not that they are keeping us under subjugation with the consent of God, but it is with the force of guns and rifles, bombs and bullets, police and militia, and above all because of our apathy that they are successfully committing the most deplorable sin, that is, the exploitation of one nation by another. Where is God? What is He doing?

Is He getting a diseased pleasure out of it? A Nero! A Genghis Khan! Down with Him! Now another piece of manufactured logic! You ask me how I will explain the origin of this world and origin of man. Charles Darwin has tried to throw some light on this subject. Study his book. You will get a satisfactory answer. This topic is concerned with Biology and Natural History. This is a phenomenon of nature. The accidental mixture of different substances in the form of Nebulae gave birth to this earth.

Study history to know this. The same process caused the evolution of animals and in the long run that of man. This is the briefest sketch of this phenomenon. Your next question will be why a child is born blind or lame even if he was not a sinner in his previous birth.

This problem has been explained in a satisfactory manner by biologists as a mere biological phenomenon. According to them the whole burden rests upon the shoulders of parents whose conscious or unconscious deeds caused mutilation of the child prior to his birth.

You may thrust yet another question at me, though it is merely childish. The question is: If God does not really exist, why do people come to believe in Him? Brief and concise my answer will be. As they come to believe in ghosts, and evil spirits, so they also evolve a kind of belief in God: the only difference being that God is almost a universal phenomenon and well developed theological philosophy. However, I do disagree with radical philosophy. It attributes His origin to the ingenuity of exploiters who wanted to keep the people under their subjugation by preaching the existence of a Supreme Being; thus claimed an authority and sanction from Him for their privileged position.

I do not differ on the essential point that all religions, faiths, theological philosophies, and religious creeds and all other such institutions in the long run become supporters of the tyrannical and exploiting institutions, men and classes. Rebellion against any king has always been a sin in every religion.

Origin of God As regard the origin of God, my thought is that man created God in his imagination when he realized his weaknesses, limitations and shortcomings. In this way he got the courage to face all the trying circumstances and to meet all dangers that might occur in his life and also to restrain his outbursts in prosperity and affluence.

God, with his whimsical laws and parental generosity was painted with variegated colours of imagination. He was used as a deterrent factor when his fury and his laws were repeatedly propagated so that man might not become a danger to society. He was the cry of the distressed soul for he was believed to stand as father and mother, sister and brother, brother and friend when in time of distress a man was left alone and helpless. You go against popular feelings; you criticise a hero, a great man who is generally believed to be above criticism.

What happens? No one will answer your arguments in a rational way; rather you will be considered vainglorious. Its reason is mental insipidity. Merciless criticism and independent thinking are the two necessary traits of revolutionary thinking. But, what makes his essay really stand out were two hard-hitting questions that he asks about God's existence:.

If, as you believe there is an Almighty, Omnipresent, Omniscient God, who created the earth or universe, please let me know, first of all, as to why he created this world? This world which is full of woe and grief, and countless miseries, where not even one person lives in peace.

If he's bound by any law, he's not Omnipotent. Nero burnt one Rome. He killed a very limited number of people. Hecaused only a few tragedies, all for his morbid enjoyment. But what is his place in history?

Nero: the tyrant, the heartless, the wicked. Concluding his write-up with a well-defended argument, Bhagat Singh urged people to rise above religious convictions and move forward on the path of reality, rather than finding comfort in mystical entity.

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. It is evident from his essay that Bhagat Singh recognised the potentiality of religion as a source of arousing the spirit of patriotism. While he was often torn by serious conflicts about his beliefs, he could find consolation in prayers and meditation while he was in prison. However, rationality overtook self-delusion and Bhagat Singh decided to stand on his own and depend upon the power of his own knowledge.

After many days of conversation with the police officials I guessed that they had some information regarding my connection with the Kakori party and my other activities in connection with the revolutionary movement. They told me that I had been to Lucknow while the trial was going on there, that I had negotiated a certain scheme about their rescue, that the after obtaining their approval, we had procured some bombs, that by way of test one of the bombs was thrown into the crowd on the occasion of Dussehra in They further informed me, in my interest, that if I could give any statement throwing some light on the activities of the revolutionary party, I was not going to be imprisoned but on the contrary set free and rewarded, even without being produced as an approver in the court.

I laughed at the proposal. It was all humbug. People holding ideas like ours do not throw their bombs on innocent people. And after much sympathetic talk with me, imparted to him the extremely sad news that if I did not give any statement as demanded by them, they would be forced to send me up for trial for conspiracy to wage war in connection with Kakori Case and for brutal murders in connection with Dussehra bomb outrage.

And he further informed me that they had enough evidence to get me convicted and hanged. In those days I believed - though I was quite innocent - the police could do it if they desired. That very day certain police officials began to persuade me to offer my prayers to God regularly, both the times. Now I was an atheist. I wanted to settle for myself whether it was in the days of peace and enjoyment alone that I could boast of being an atheist or whether during such hard times as well; I could stick to those principles of mine.

After great consideration I decided that I could not lead myself to believe and pray to God. No, I never did. That was the real test and I came out successful. Never for a moment did I desire to save my neck at the cost of certain other things. So I was a staunch disbeliever; and have been ever since. It was not an easy job to stand that test. In God, man can find consolation and support.

Without Him man has to depend upon himself. At such testing moments, vanity-if-any-evaporates and man cannot dare to defy the general beliefs. If he does, then we must conclude that he has got certain other strengths than mere vanity. This is exactly the situation now. Judgment is already too well known.

Within a week it is to be pronounced. What is the consolation with the exception of the idea that I am going to sacrifice my life for a cause? A God-believing Hindu might be expecting to be reborn as a king, a Muslim or a Christian might dream of the luxuries to be enjoyed in paradise and the reward he is to get for his suffering and sacrifices.

But, what am I to expect? I know that the moment the rope is fitted around my neck and the rafters removed from under my feet, will be the final moment, the last moment. I, or to be more precise, my soul as interpreted in the metaphysical terminology shall all be finished there.

Nothing further. A short life of struggle with no such magnificent end, shall in itself be the reward, if I have the courage to take it in that light. That is all Society has to fight out this belief as well as was fought the idol worship and the narrow conception of religion.

Similarly, when man tries to stand on his own legs and become a realist, he shall have to throw the faith aside, and to face manfully all the distress, trouble, in which the circumstances may throw him.

That is exactly my state of affairs. It is not my vanity, my friends.