Nehru, Savarkar and Bhagat Singh… Know The Revolution and Jail Terms

Savarkar and Armed Revolution

According to reports,Young Savarkar was an advocate of armed revolution against the British through weapons. Perhaps this was the reason why he called the 1857 military revolt as India's first freedom struggle.Then he took intellectual action against the British by writing a book titled 'First War of Independence of 1857'. He was also greatly influenced by the Italian revolutionary Mazzini. He also translated Mazzini's biography into Marathi. He was also sentenced to the Cellular Jail in Andaman only for his involvement in the conspiracy to assassinate British officer Jackson.

Savarkar was arrested from London on 13 March 1910 in this case. He was tried in India and sentenced to life imprisonment on 30 January 1911. He reached the infamous Cellular Jail in Andaman on 4 July 1911. There he stayed for a total of 9 years 10 months. During this staying,he wrote an apology six times. However, there is a difference of opinion among historians about when he wrote his first apology after reaching jail.

Vikram Sampath, who wrote the biography of Savarkar in two volumes, believes that Savarkar wrote the first mercy petition in 1913. According to Ashok Kumar Pandey, who wrote the book 'Savarkar Kala Pani and After', Savarkar wrote his first mercy petition only six months after reaching Andaman. Niranjan Takle, who did special research on Savarkar, is quoted by the BBC as saying that he had written his first apology within a month and a half of reaching the Cellular Jail.

Teen Murti Bhawan in Delhi, was the residence of India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Later ,it was converted into a museum in his memory. Now, it is also known as Nehru Memorial Museum. According to the information received from the same museum, Nehru had been in different jails a total of 20 times in his life. He spent nearly nine and a half years of his life in prison. A large part of the prison sentence was rigorous.

When Nehru was arrested for the first time on 6 December 1921, he was to be jailed for six months along with a fine of Rs 100. But Nehru refused to pay the fine. Similarly, in 1930, he had to spend an additional five months in jail for not paying the fine. He was in jail for the shortest 12 days and the maximum for 1,041 days. However, he never got out of jail after apologizing.

Bhagat Singh called himself a prisoner of war

On 8 April 1929, Bhagat Singh along with his companions threw a bomb in the Central Assembly of Delhi. After this, raising slogans of 'Inquilab Zindabad', 'Imperialism Murdabad', he handed himself over to the police as per the strategy. Bhagat Singh spent almost two years in jail. Meanwhile, he also did a 116-day hunger strike for the rights of the prisoners. On 23 March 1931, the British government hanged Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev 12 hours before the scheduled time.

Bhagat Singh never apologized to get out of jail or to avoid hanging. On the contrary, he was demanding a punishment worse than hanging. In a letter to the Governor of Punjab dated 20 March 1931, he expressed his desire to go to war with him.