Question

In his prison cell, Bhagat Singh wrote a pamphlet in response to him being accused of vanity by not accepting God in the face of death. What is the title of that pamphlet?
A) Why I am an atheist
B) Why India wants freedom
C) India’s struggle
D) Jai Hind Jai Bharat

Answer 1

Hint: Bhagat Singh was an Indian socialist revolutionary of the Indian Independence Movement. His acts of patriotism against the British made him a fierce freedom fighter, he was executed at the age of 23.

Complete answer: Bhagat Singh was born in September 1907 in Banga, Punjab. He was a folk hero of the Indian struggle for freedom. In December 1928, he along with his Rajguru shot a British police officer Saunders in Lahore who was on probation for British superintendent James Scott, who was responsible for the murder of Lala Lajpat Rai. In April 1929, he and his other associate Batukeshwar Dutt exploded two bombs inside the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi. They threw leaflets, shouted slogans and allowed the higher authorities to arrest them. In prison, he started a hunger strike demanding better conditions for Indian prisoners he was convicted and hanged in March 1931 at the age of 23. He was in disbelief of the Hindu-Muslim riots that took place and could not understand the reason for their fight as initially they were together in the fight against the British. He abandoned his religious beliefs as he thought it to be a hindrance in the freedom struggle for independence and began studying the work of atheist revolutionaries.
When he was in prison in 1930-1931 his inmate Randhir Singh tried to convince Bhagat Singh of the existence of God and when he failed to do so, he said to Bhagat Singh you have developed an ego which is standing between you and God. In his defence, he wrote an essay titled as ‘Why I am an Atheist” to address whether his atheism was born out of vanity, in his essay he defended his own beliefs and said he was a firm believer of God but could not understand people’s beliefs and myths. He said that religion made death easier, but also believed that unproven philosophy was a sign of weakness.
Thus, option A is the correct answer.

Note: After Bhagat Singh’s death on 23 March 1931 his essay Why I am an Atheist was published on 27th September 1931 in Lala Lajpat Rai’s English weekly journal The People.