Jail Note Book of Shaheed Bhagat Singh

[Mandeep Kaur Guraya]

Page 22

Martyrs :-------

" The man who flings his whole life into attempt , at the cost of his own life, to protest against the wrongs of his fellowmen , is a saint compared to the active and passive upholders of cruelty and injustice , even if his protest destroy other lives beside his own.Let him who is without sin in society cast the first stone at such a one . " P 281

Lower Class :-----

While there is a lower class I am in it,

While there is a criminal element I am in it,

While there is a soul in jail I am not free.

Engene B Dabs 144

One against all :- [ Charles Fourier 1772-1837]

The present social order is a ridiculous mechanism ,in which portions of the whole are in conflict and acting against the whole. We see each class in society desires, from interest , the misfortune of the other class , placing in every way individual interest in opposition to public good. The lawyer wishes litigations and suits , particularily among the rich; the physician desires sickness .(The latter would be ruined if every body died without disease, as would the former if all quarrells were settled by arbitration.) The soldier wants war ,which will carry off half his comrades and secure him promotion; the undertaker wants burials;monoplists and forestallers want femine ,to double or treble the price of grain; the architect , the carpenter, the mason , want conflagration, that will burn down a hundred houses to give activity to their branches of business.

p 202

 

[Mandeep Kaur Guraya]

Page 23

New Gospel

" Society can overlook murder , adultry or swindling; it never forgives the preaching of a new gospel.

p327 Fredric Harrison

: 0 :

Tree of Liberty

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

Thomas Jefferson 332

: 0 :

Chicago Martyrs :------

Say them ,that the man erred grievously, if his eror had been ten times as great , it ought to have been wiped from human recollection by his sacrifice.......

Granted freely that their idea of best man of making a protest was utterly wrong and impossible , granted that they want not the best way to work . But what was it that drove them into attack against the social order as they found it? They and thousands of others that stood with them were not bad men nor depressed nor blood thirsty, nor hard hearted , nor criminals nor selfish , nor crazy. Then what was it that worked a complaint so bitter and deep seated...........

No one ever contemplated the simple fact that men do not bend themselves together to make a protest without the belief that they have something to protest about and that in any organised state of society a widespread protest is something far garve enquiry.

Charles Edward Russell 333

: 0:

 

[Mandeep Kaur Guraya]

Page 24 Will of a Revolutionary

" I also wish my friends to speak ittle or not at all about me , because idols are created when men are praised , and this is very bad for the future of the human race. Acts alone , no matter by whom committed , ought to be studied , praised or blamed.Let them be praised in order that they may be imitated when thy seem to contribute to the commonweal.Let them be censured when they are regarded as injurious to the general

well being, so that they may not be repeated.

I desire that on no occasion whether near or remote , nor for any reason what so ever , shall demonstration of a political or religious character be made before my remains, as I consider the time devoted to the dead would be better employed in improving the conditons of the living most of whom stands in great need of this."

{ Will of Francisco Ferrer , Spanish educator

1859-1909 Executed after the Bacelona riots

by a plot of his clerical enemies.}

: 0 :

Charity:

" Come follow me ." Said Jesus Christ to the rich youngmen.

To stay in his own set and invest his fortune in works of charity ,would have been comparatively easy. Philanthropy has been fashionable in every age. Charity takes the insurrectionary edge off of the poverty. Therefore the philanthropic rich man is a benefactor to his fellow magnates and is made to feel their gratitude; to him all doors of fashion swing. {But jesus issued a veto.} He denied the legitimacy of alm-giving as a plaster for the deep lying sore in the social tissue. ...... Philanthropy as a substitute for justice - he would have none of it. Charity is twice cursed - it harden him that gives and soften him that takes. It does more harm to the poor than exploitaton , because it makes them willing to be exploited . It breads slavishness which is moral suicide. The only thing Jesus would permit a swollen fortune to do was to give itself to revolutionary propaganda in order that swollen fortune might be forever after impossible............

Bonck White Clergyman born 1874 p 353

 

[Mandeep Kaur Guraya]

Page 25

Fight for Freedom

The power of armies is visible thing

Formal and circumscribed in time and space

But who then limits that power shall trace

Which a brave people into light can bring

Or hide ,at will ,- for freedom combating

By just revenge inflamed? No foot may chase,

No eye can follow , to a fatal place

That power that spirit whether on the wing

Like strong wind , or sleeping like the wind

Within its awful caves ----- from year to year

Spring this indigenous produce far and near;

No craft this subtle element can bind,

Rising like water from the soil , to find .

In every nook a lip that it may cheer,

{ W. Wordsworth}

 

[Mandeep Kaur Guraya]

page 26

THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE

I.

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
‘Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!’ he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

II.

‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Some one had blunder’d:
Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

III.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

IV.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder’d:

 

[Mandeep Kaur Guraya]

page27

Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre-stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

V.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

VI.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder’d.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

{URDU }

Dil De To Iss Mizaaj kai Parwardigar De

Jo Gam kee Ghari Ko Bhee Khushi se Gujar De



Sajaa Kar Mayyiat-e-umeed naakami kePhoolon Se

Kisi Hamdarad ne Rakh di mere toote hue Dil main



Chherh naa ai Farishte ! tu zikre ghame -Jaanaanaan

Kyon yaad dilaate ho Bhulaa Huaa Afsaanaa

 

[Mandeep Kaur Guraya]

page 28

Birth right

We’re the sons of that baffled

crowned and mirtes tyranny,

They defied the field and scoffold,

For their birth - rights - so will we !

[ J Campbell ]

: 0 :

Glory of the Cause

Ah! not for idle hatred , not

For honour , fame , nor self’applause,

But for the glory of the cause,

You did, what will not be forgot.

[ Arthur Chough ]

: 0 :

Immorality of soul : -

For you know if you can once get a man beleiving in immorality there is nothing more left for you to desire ; you can take everything in the world he owns - you can skin him alive if you please - and he will bear it with perfect good humour.

[ Upton Sinclair 403 c j ]

: 0 :

God Tyrants

A tyrant must put on the appearence of uncommon devotion to religion.Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider God - fearing and pious. On the other hand , they do less easily move against him , beleiving that he has the gods on his side.

[ ................. ]

 

[Mandeep Kaur Guraya]

page 29

Soldiers & Thought

If my soldiers were to begin to reflect ; not one of them would be in the ranks.

[ Fredrick the Great ] 502 { 366 new ed}

: 0 :

The Noblest Fallen

The Noblest have fallen , they were buried

Obscurely in a deserted place.

No tears fell over them

Strange hands carried them to the grave

No cross , no enclouser , and no tomb stone tell

Their glorious names.

Grass grows over them , a feeble blade

bending low keeps the secret,

The sole witness were the surging waves ,

which furiously beat against the shore

But even they the mighty waves could

Not carry farewell greetings to

The distant home.

[ V N Figner]

: 0 :

Prison

There were no stars , no earth , no time ,

No check , no change , no good , no crime,

But silence , and a stirless breath,

Which neithr was of life nor death.

[ The Prisoner of Chillon}

 

[Mandeep Kaur Guraya]

Page 30

After Conviction

During the moments which immediatly follow upon his sentence , the mind of the condemned in many respects resembles that of aman on the point of death. Quiet and as if inspired he no longer clings to what he is about to leave , but firmly looks in front of him, fully conscious of the fact that what is coming is inevitable.

[ V N Figner ]

: 0 :

The Prisoner

It is a suffocating under the low dirty roof;

My strength grows weaker year by year :

They oppress me , this stormy floor,

This iron chained table ,

This bed of steel , this chair , chained

To the walls , like boards of grave .

In this eternal dumb , deep silence

One can only consider oneself a corpse.

" N . A . Morozov"

: 0 :

Naked walls , prison thoughts ,

How dark and sad you are!

How heavy to tie a prisoner in active,

And dream of years of feedom

" Morozov"

: 0 :

urdu " Tujeh jibah karne kee khushi mujhe marne ka shok

Meri Bhee marji wohi hai jo mere siad kee hai

 

[Mandeep Kaur Guraya]

Page 31

Everything here is so silent , lifeless , pale

The years pass fruitless leaving no trace;

The weeks and days drag on heavily,

Bringing only dull bored in their suite.

[Morozov]

: 0 :

Our thoughts , grow dull from long confinement;

there is a feeling of heaviness in our bone;

The minutes seem eternal from torturing pain,

In this cell , from steps wide.

: 0 :

Entirly for our fellow we must live,

Our entire selves for them we must give,

And for their sakes struggle against ill fate.

[Morozov]

Came to set me Free ;--

At least men came to set me free;

I asked not why and recked not where,

It was at length the same to me ,

Fettered a fetterless to be,

I learned to love dispair.

And thus when they appeared at last,

And all my bonds aside were cast,

These heavy walls to me had grown

A hermitage ---- and all my own.

[The Prisoners of Chillon]

{Ed. by Lord Byron }

 

[Mandeep Kaur Guraya]

Page 32

‘And from on high we have been honoured with a mission !

We passed a severe school , but acquired higher knowledge

Thanks to exile , prison , and a bitter lot,

We know and value the world of truth and freedom!

[ Prisoners of schulesselburg ]

: 0 :

Death and Suffering of a child ;-

A child was born , he committed consciously neither bad nor good actions. He fell ill he suffered much and long , untill he died in terrible agony . Why? Wherefore ? It is eternal riddle for the philosphers.’

: 0 :

Frame of mind of a Revolutionary : ----

He who has ever been under the influence of the life of Jesus , who was borne in the name of an ideal , humiliation , suffering and death; he who has once considered Him as an ideal and his life as the prototype of a disinterested love - will understand the frame of mind of the revolutonary who has been sentenced and thrown into a

tomb for his work on behalf of popular freedom."

[ Vera N Figner ]

: 0 :

Rights : ---

Don’t ask for rights , take them. And don’t let any one give them to you .A right that handed to you for nothing has something the matter with it. It’s more than likely it is only a wrong turned in side out.

 

[Mandeep Kaur Guraya]

Page 33

No Enemies?

You have no enemies you say ?

Alas! my friend the boast is poor;

He who has mingled in the fray

of duty , that the brave endure,

Must have made foes! If you have none,

small is the work you have done.

You ‘ve hit no traitor on the hip,

You ‘ve dashed no cup from perjured lip,

You ‘ve never turned the wrong to right,

You ‘ve been a coward in the fight.

[ Charles Mackey 747 ] {ed. now cry for justice 493(1996)}

: 0 :

Child Labour

No fledgling feeds the father bird !

No chiken feeds the hen,

No kitten mouses for the cat -

This glory is for men.

We are the Wisest , Strongest Race -

Loud may our praise be sung !

The only animal alive

That lives upon its young !

[ Charlotte Perkins Gilman ] { now C F J p442}

 

[Mandeep Kaur Guraya]

Page 34

No Classes ! No Compromise !!

( George D. Herron)

Under the Socialist movement there is coming a time and the time may be even now at hand , when improved conditions or adjusted wages will no longer be thought to be an answer to cry for labour; yes when these will be but an insult of the common intelligence. It is not for better wages, improved capialist conditions or a share of capitalist profits that the Socialist movement is in the world; it is here for the abolition or wages and profits and for the end of capitalism and private capital. Reformed political institutions boards of arbitration between capital and labour ,philanthropies and privilages that are but the capitalist’s gifts- none of these can much longer answer the question that is making the temples ,thrones and Parliments of the nation tremble. There can be no peace between the man who is down and the man who builds on his back. There can be no reconcilliation between classes; there can only be end of classes. It is idle to talk of goodwill untill there is first justice, and idle to talk of justice untill the man who makes the world possesses the work of his own hands. The cry of the world’s workers can be answered with nothing save the whole product of their work.

(George D. Herron)

 

[Mandeep Kaur Guraya]

Page 35

Wastes of Capitalism

Economic estimates about Austrelia by Theodore Hertzka (1886)

Every family = 5-roomed 40 ft sq House to last for 50 years

Workers’ workable age : 16 to 50

So we hve 5,000,000.

Labour of 615,000 workers is sufficient to produce food for 22,000,000 people = 12.3% of labour

Including labour cost of transport ,luxuries need only 315,000 = 6.33% workers’ labour

That amounts to this that 20% of the available labour is enough for supporting the whole of continent. The rest 80% is exploited and wasted de to capitalist order of society.

 

[Mandeep Kaur Guraya]

Page 36

Czarist Regime & the Bolshevish Regime

Fraigier Hunt tells that in the first fourteen months of their rule ,the Bolshiviks executed 4500 men , mostly for stealing and speculation.

After the 1905 Revolution , Stolypin , minister of Czar caused the excecution of 32773 men

within twelve months.

[ p390]

[ Brass Check]

 

[Mandeep Kaur Guraya]

Page 37

Permanency of the Social Institutions

It is one of the illusions of each generation that the social institutions in which it lives are, in some peculiar ‘sense’, "natural " , unchangeable and permanent. Yet for countless thousands of years, social institutions have been successively arising , developing, decaying and becoming gradually superseded by others better adopted to contemporary needs.......

.... The question ,then , is not whether our present civilization will be transformed ,but how it will be trasformed?

It may be considerate adaption , be made to pass gradually and peacefully into a new form . Or , if there is angry resistance instead of adaption ,it my crash , leaving mankind painfully to build up a new civilization from the lower level of stage of social chaos and disorder in which not only the abuses but also the material, intellectual and moral gains of the previous order will have been lost.

P1 Decay of Cap. Civilization

:0:

 

[Mandeep Kaur Guraya]

Page 38

Capitalism and Commercialism :----

Rabinder Nath’s adress to an assembly of Japanese students :---

" You had your own industry in Japan ; how scrupulously honest and true it was, you can see by its products - by their grace and strength , their conscientiousness in details where they can hardly be observed . But the tidal wave of falsehood has swept over your land from that part of the world where business is business and honesty is followed merely as the best policy. Have you never felt shame when you see the trade advertisements , not only plastering the whole town with lies and exaggerations, but invading the green fields , where the peasents do their honest labour, and to hilltops which greet the first light of the morning?..... This commercialism with its barbarity of ugly decorations is a terrible menance to all humanity , because it is setting up the ideal of power over perfection . It is making the cult of self seekig exult in its naked shamelessness.................

 

[Mandeep Kaur Guraya]

page 39 ... Its movements are violent , its noise is discardently loud. It is carrying its own damnation because it is trampling into distortion. The humanity upon which it stands .It is strenously turning out the money at the cost of happiness......... The vital ambition of the present civilization of Europe is to have the exclusive possesion of devil.

:0:

Capitalist Society :

"The foremost truth of political economy is that everyone desires to obtain individual wealth with as little sacrifice as possible."

" Nassan Senior"

 

[Mandeep Kaur Guraya]

Page 40

Karl Marx on Religion :------

Man makes religion ; religion does not make man. Religion , indeed, is the self consciousness and the self feeling of man who either has not yet found himself or else ( have found himself) has lost himself once more. But men is not an abstract being squatting down somewhere outside the world . Man is the world of men , the state , society. This state ,this society produces religion, produces a perverted world consciousness, because they are a perverted world. Religion is the generalised theory of this world its encylopaedic compend , its logic in a popular form ........... The fight against religion is, therefore a direct compaign against the world whose spiritual aroma is religion

......................................

 

[Mandeep Kaur Guraya]

Page 41

continued from last page:------

Religion is the sigh of oppressed creature the feelings of a heartless world just as it is the spirit of inspiritual conditions. " It is the opium of the people"

The people cannot be really happy untill it has been deprived of illusory happines by the abolition of religion. The demand that the people should shake itself free of illusion as to its own condition is the demand that it should abondon a condition which needs illusion

The weapon of criticism cannot replace the critiism of weapons. Physical force must be overthrown by physical force as soon as it takes possesion of the masses.