Friday 3 October 2014

Why I am an Atheist-27th September 1931-The People-Lahore scanned print


There are two kinds of confusion on this essay. Rightists attack this essay by saying that is interpolation by 'lefties', whereas leftists are confused about its original print. No handwritten manuscript is yet found of many writings of Bhagat Singh, including this one. Marxists.org still carries it as translation from Punjabi, whereas this essay was penned originally in English and its first print is safe in Nehru Memorial Museum and Library(NMML), New Delhi. During partition days, for some years its original print was not transferred from Lahore, so there is reference to the effect that this essay was re translated in English from its Tamil translation done by Comrade P. Jivanandam, at the behest of Periyar way back in 1934, perhaps the first ever translation of this essay, before even Hindi or Punjabi translations were done. Tamil translation published as booklet in 1934 has run into more than 30 editions by now. Here the original first print is being reproduced in scanned form, which is also included in my 2013 book from Aakar Delhi-Understanding Bhagat Singh, which was released by Prof. Randhir Singh. This print carries the small note of assigning the copyright to Bhagat Singh's father S. Kishan Singh from whom editor got the copy and permission to publish. This shuts the mouth of those RSS type rightists, who dub this essay as interpolation of 'leftists'. Alas! to the sorrow of these rightists, Bhagat Singh indeed himself was a confirmed 'Leftist'!





3 comments:

Unknown said...

Are this real snapshots? I want original hard copy of this newspaper. Can you help me find one?

Anonymous said...

I have same question... Are these available to public in any museum?

Anonymous said...

same question