That Bhagat Singh Hat

A new book traces perhaps the earliest image of political propaganda in India.

- A new book traces perhaps the earliest image of political propaganda in India.

Bhagat Singh’s celebrity, over and above all other revolutionaries who gave their lives to the cause, has been a source of wonderment for some time. In the days after his execution, Jawaharlal Nehru wondered aloud how it was that “a mere chit of a boy suddenly leapt to fame”. He did not attend the gallows alone; his friends Sukhdev and Rajguru were hanged alongside him. Yet even in the months before his hanging, the condemned trio was frequently refer red to as ‘Bhagat Singh and others’. How can we explain his prominence over that of his fellow martyrs, or over important members of the HSRA (Hindustan Socialist Republican Army), such as Chandrashekhar Azad? Bhagat Singh’s hat portrait, and the extraordinary campaign around it, holds some of the answers.

The photograph is a fairly conventional studio portrait. The young revolutionary—he was 21 when he posed for the photograph—stares calmly into the camera, as if to defy the empire and the weighty charges about to be brought against him, namely, that he had “been engaged in conspiracy to wage war against his Majesty, the King Emperor, and to deprive him of the Sovereignty of British India...”.

Bhagat Singh knew these charges would lead to a death sentence, yet he stands cool and poised, a felt hat tipped on his head. The photograph has become an icon of defiant nationalism, widely refe renced in poster art and calendars, (and) a regular feature of the contemporary urban landscape, readily encountered on cars and hoardings, in bazaars, on posters and books.

The ubiquity of the image is such that it is frequently compared to Alberto Korda’s famous photograph of Che Guevara. Both were photogenic, capturing the romance, ideal ism and sacrifices demanded of the revolutionary.