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Sukhdev Thapar: The Shadowed Intellectual of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association

Harshvardhan Tripathy

March 23, 2025 marks the 94th death anniversary of freedom fighters Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev Thapar and Rajguru, who were hanged on this day in 1931 for their involvement in the Lahore conspiracy case.

Whenever the discussion of Indian revolutionary movement, and of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) in particular crops up, it is Bhagat Singh who is identified as the main figure of the organisation, at the expense of people like Bhagwati Charan Vohra, Chandrashekhar Azad, Bijoy Kumar Sinha and many others who played equally important role. This bias has its root in the general human behavior of privileging the spectacular over the everyday and mundane.

Sukhdev Thapar is one such often overlooked figure, whose thoughts on the freedom movement and socialism shaped the ideology of the HSRA.

Sukhdev’s tryst with patriotism began from a young age

Known as “villager”, “peasant/gawar,” “swami”, and “Dayal” in the revolutionary circle, and fond of wearing “gajara (flowers)” around his wrists and neck while eating corn, Sukhdev Thapar was born into an Arya Samaji family on May 15, 1907, in present-day Ludhiana.

His father passed away when he was three years old, and he was raised by his uncle, Achint Ram, an anti-colonial activist associated with the Indian National Congress who was imprisoned several times. Besides being a member of the INC, Achint Ram was also involved in farmers’ agitation, social reform especially among the “untouchables”, and Hindu-Muslim unity campaigns.

Growing up in an anti-colonial and social reformist milieu, the seeds of patriotism and an anti-British attitude were planted in Sukhdev’s heart and mind at a very impressionable age. While still in school, Sukhdev distributed reading materials from his own pocket money to children in a Dalit village who were denied access to education, and was actively involved in helping people who were affected during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.

Sukhdev’s first direct encounter and act of defiance against the British occurred in the year 1919. In 1919, Punjab was under martial law after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. During the martial law administration, a British military officer came to receive salute in the Sanathan Dharm school where Sukhdev was receiving education.

Students were made to fall in line and salute the officer, but Sukhdev refused to salute – an act for which he was reprimanded. After completing his matriculation in 1922, Sukhdev joined the National College in Lahore, where he came into contact with his future comrades such as Bhagat Singh, Yash Pal, Ganpat Rai, and others.

The National College was founded by Lala Lajpat Rai in 1921, as an alternative to British-controlled institutions, promoting nationalist ideals and space for discussion of revolutionary politics. Initially Sukhdev was part of the Congress backed Satyagraha League in the college but soon after coming in contact with Bhagat Singh and Bhagwati Charan Vohra under the tutorship of teachers like Jaichandra Vidyalankar and principal Chhabil Das, this band of youngsters was transformed from ordinary students into dedicated revolutionaries.

Sukhdev and Bhagat Singh soon became good friends and together they played a crucial role in reviving the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA), which had gone dormant following the Kakori Conspiracy Case and established the Naujawan Bharat Sabha in 1926 as mass organisation of the HRA. In popular memory, as well as in the academic circles it is Bhagat Singh who is regarded as having played the pivotal role in the transition of Hindustan Republican Association into HSRA with the goal of overthrowing the British and establishing socialism in India.

However, the fact is that both Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev jointly proposed changing the name of the HRA to HSRA and adding ‘Socialism’ to the party’s programme in the historic meeting that was held on 8-9th September 1928 at Firoz Shah Kotla, Delhi. This proposal was then seconded by revolutionaries such as Shiv Verma, Bejoy Kumar Sinha and Surendra Pandey; all of them from present day Uttar Pradesh. In the same meeting Sukhdev was made the organisational secretary of the HSRA in Punjab province.

Sukhdev was a brilliant organiser. Under his leadership the Punjab unit of the HSRA and the Naujawan Bharat Sabha was able to spread its wing as far as Karachi and North West Frontier Provinces. He was able to recruit new member in the party, and always took care of basic necessity of party members and logistics. He also played an instrumental role in planning the assassination of Saunders, because of which he was named the prime accused in the Lahore Conspiracy Case whose official name was “Crown Vs. Sukhdev and others”.

The judgement in the Lahore Conspiracy Case reads; “Sukhdev may be said to have been the brains of the Conspiracy while Bhagat Singh was its right arm…. He was backward in taking part himself in acts of violence but he must be held responsible for those acts to the execution of which his brain and organising power made an important contribution”. The court also held Sukhdev as responsible for having played instrumental role in the Punjab National Bank dacoity, and the bombing of assembly hall in Delhi.

A revolutionary intellectual

It was the legislative assembly bomb case which made Bhagat Singh a household name in the then colonial India, and later this popularity was carried over in the post-independence period. Moreover, it is only Bhagat Singh who has left behind a significant number of writings which was collected and published by his comrade Shiv Verma which made him the ideologue of the revolutionary movement in the post-colonial period.

However, if we take a more microscopic view of the revolutionary movement, we come across the fact that Bhagat Singh was not alone in shaping its ideological foundations, strategising its actions, or sustaining its organisational framework. Sukhdev, apart from being a good organiser was also a well-read activist, who perhaps had a photographic memory.

As Shiv Verma writes in his recollection; “…after Bhagat Singh, if any comrade had read and meditated the most on socialism, it was Sukhdev.” Jaidev Thapar, Sukhdev’s younger brother, who was also a part of the organisation, states that he often saw Sukhdev and Bhagat Singh engaged in heated debates and discussions on anarchism and Marxism. The reading list of Sukhdev comprised of literature on socialism, revolutionary movements in the West, Marxism, nationalism, and political science. He was very fond of certain books like Terence J. MacSwiney’s ‘Principles of Freedom’, Marx’s ‘Civil War in France’, and Bukharin’s ‘Historical Materialism’.

Unlike Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev was not very fond of writing, despite of having worked in the Urdu newspaper ‘Bande Maatram’ for a short time. Sukhdev has left behind just five short articles/letters, out of which one was addressed to Mahatma Gandhi, one to his uncle, and three to his comrades. Sukhdev’s engagement with Gandhi took place in the immediate aftermath of the Gandhi-Irwin talks in 1931, when Gandhi appealed the revolutionaries to halt their politics, while he was trying to appeal for some clemency for the revolutionaries. This exchange revolved around two key issues: the question of strategy and tactics, and the broader meaning of being a revolutionary.

Sukhdev’s engagement with Gandhi was part of a broader intellectual and political debate within the revolutionary movement – one of its most pressing concerns was to define: Who is a Revolutionary? This concern was necessitated by two-pronged attack on the revolutionary movement from two different quarters centered on the question of legitimacy of violence in the anti-colonial struggle.

The first attack came from the colonial machinery which regularly labelled the revolutionaries as “terrorist” in an attempt to justify their brutal repression of anti-colonial struggle, and gloss over their own systematic, structural and psychological violence inflicted upon the Indian masses.

The second critic came from Mahatma Gandhi who rejected the use of force/violence as a tool in the anti-colonial struggle and consistently asked the revolutionaries to shun the path of violence. Gandhi also chided the revolutionaries for being impatient, misguided and mistaken. Revolutionaries like Sachindranath Sanyal, Manmathnath Gupta engaged with Gandhi over these questions immediately after the formation of the Hindustan Republican Association in 1924. During the time of the HSRA, this debate was undertaken by Bhagat Singh and Bhagwati Charan Vohra, and Sukhdev.

When Sukhdev questioned Gandhi

Written under the pseudonym “Aneko me ek” (One of the Many) Sukhdev questioned Gandhi’s appeal for temporary suspension of the revolutionary movement. For Sukhdev, this appeal by Gandhi meant that the latter did not regard the revolutionary movement as a legitimate political movement but merely as an impulsive and misguided reaction driven by anger and frustration rather than a well-thought-out struggle for independence and social transformation.

Responding to Gandhi’s emotion laden appeal, Sukhdev compared the revolutionary movement with the INC and stated that just like the INC is bound by its Lahore resolution to fight for complete independence, the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association, too is bound to carry their struggle for the establishment of socialist republic which is not a half-way house. For Sukhdev, the decision to terminate or halt any movement or form of struggle led by any political entity, was a matter of strategy or tactics and not an ideological or sentimental matter.

Probably borrowing from Stalin’s 1924 work titled ‘Fundamentals of Leninism’, Sukhdev asserted that “Revolutionary struggle assumes different shapes at different times. It becomes some times open, some times hidden, some times purely agitational and sometimes a fierce life and death struggle….it is the considerations of the peculiar needs of different times that force the leaders to change their tactics.”

In the same article, Sukhdev further challenged Gandhi’s perception of revolutionaries, questioning whether he too subscribed to the common conservative belief that they were irrational and driven solely by a desire for destruction.

Clarifying the revolutionary perspective, he wrote…. “I do not think that you also share the general conservative notion that the revolutionaries are devoid of reason, rejoicing in destruction and devastation. Let us inform you that in reality the case is quite contrary. They always consider the pros and cons of every step they take and they fully realise the responsibility which they thus incur and they attach greater importance to the constructive phase of the revolutionary programme than any other, though in the present circumstances they cannot but occupy themselves with the destructive part of their programme”.

Use of revolutionary actions to galvanise public support

This paragraph clearly shows that Sukhdev presented the “revolutionary self” as calculative, objective and oriented towards their goal, instead of being irrational, emotional and devoid of any objective.

In another letter, addressed to his comrades, Sukhdev asserted that the plan to assassinate Saunders was a purely political action which perfectly aligned with the desires of the masses after the death of Lala Lajpat Rai. The ‘action’, was also meant to attract the masses towards the revolutionary party, as the party affixed posters claiming the responsibility of the act.

As Sukhdev writes: “Our idea was that our actions should fulfill the wishes of the public and should be in response to those grievances (not redressed by) the government so that they might attract public sympathy and support. With this in view we wanted to infuse revolutionary ideas and tactics in the public and the expression of such ideas looks more glorified from the mouth of the ones who hands on the gallows for the cause. Our idea was that by coming in direct conflict with the government we would be able to frame a definite programme for our organisation”.

Through this statement, Sukhdev emphasised that revolutionary actions were not merely acts of retribution but strategic efforts to galvanise public support and shape a broader political movement, and in this regard, he criticised the spate of bombings and armed actions that has spread in the Punjab and Bengal province after the judgement in the Lahore Conspiracy Case was out.

Sukhdev called these “actions” devoid of any ideological goal and propaganda value; “I do not understand what was the significance of these actions. So far as I think such actions have not caused special awakening in the public. If it was any for the purpose of terrorising, I would like you to let me know how far have these actions been successful. In the connection I would not praise the Chittagong actions.”

Sukhdev wrote that if the revolutionary movement wanted to become a force to be reckoned with, it was necessary to make people aware of the true meaning of revolution. He emphasised the need to clearly define the slogan ‘Inquilab Zindabad’, explain its relevance to the masses, and outline how it could be realised. If the revolutionaries failed to do so, he warned, the slogan would lose its significance, just as Gandhi’s slogan of ‘Swaraj’ had.

To achieve this, Sukhdev proposed two key measures: a) developing a stable organisation consisting of both an open mass movement and a secret underground network, and, b) establishing a dedicated media/press to promote the revolutionary cause. To further these objectives, he suggested the creation of a ‘Central Red Revolutionary Party’ in Punjab, with the clearly defined goals of setting up local branches, recruiting new members, and propagating the revolutionary program.

However, according to Sukhdev, the most important factor for the success of the revolutionary movement were the workers. He stated that merely shouting the slogan ‘Inquilaab Zindabad’ did not make a person revolutionary. He critiqued those who joined the revolutionary movement just to experience the collective effervesce created with the cry of ‘Inquilaab Zindabad’; those who saw the revolutionary organisation as a venue to experience the adrenaline rush.

Sukhdev identified two key elements for a person to qualify as a revolutionary; a) acquisition of knowledge about revolutionary ideology, tactics and nature of struggle and, b) self-sacrificing devotion. Borrowing the term ‘professional revolutionary’ from Lenin, Sukhdev stated that only those people who made a consistent effort to acquire revolutionary education and engaged in revolution as a profession were qualified to be called revolutionaries; otherwise, they were just sympathisers. For Sukhdev, revolution was not just a passing passion but a lifelong commitment – it was serious business with no place for armchair intellectualism or sentimentalism.

A shared ideological and intellectual milieu between Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev

It is important to point out that much of the matters discussed by Sukhdev in his letters are similar to the contents of the letters written by Bhagat Singh. For examples, the content of the last two letters is similar in content to Bhagat Singh’s “Message to Young Political Workers”, while the content of the letters addressed to Gandhi is similar to Bhagat Singh’s letter to the Governor of Punjab written immediately after judgment in the Lahore Conspiracy Case was pronounced.

The difference between them lies in the details and language of the topics discussed. These similarities suggest a shared ideological and intellectual milieu not only between Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev, but also within the broader revolutionary movement, particularly among the members of the HSRA. The letters of Sukhdev, who was hanged along with Bhagat Singh and Rajguru on March 23 1931, show that the HSRA was not the brainchild of one single person, but a product of collective effort; a result of intense debate, discussion, deliberation and collaboration among its members.

While Bhagat Singh’s writings and actions made him the most recognisable face of the HSRA, figures like Sukhdev, Bhagwati Charan Vohra, and others played equally vital role in shaping its ideology and programme geared towards the radical transformation of Indian society.

(Harshvardhan Tripathy is Assistant Professor, Sociology, University School of Liberal Arts, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University. Courtesy: The Wire, an Indian nonprofit news and opinion website. It was founded in 2015 by Siddharth Varadarajan, Sidharth Bhatia, and M. K. Venu.)

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‘Comrade Bhagat Singh, in This India, You Too Would Likely be Branded an Anti-National’

Vertika Mani

Dear Comrade,

Krantikari Salaam!

Ninety-four years have passed since this day in 1931, when the judiciary of British Raj convicted and gave you a death sentence. You were only 23 when you made the revolutionary sacrifice as a young blood for the Indian soil. It is the year 2025 now and all these months I tried to understand the ideas that you and other comrades had for India and I am writing to you to bridge the chasm of time between patriot comrades of then and now.

The chains of British rule had broken some 16 years after your death. India achieved independence in 1947. M.K. Gandhi, whom you respected for his commitment to the nation despite your ideological differences at several points, was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu militant, a member of the RSS, a Hindu far-right organisation. I wonder if you could have imagined this violent attack on the life of a person who spent his life advocating and propagating the importance of non-violence. He was killed by three shots of bullets in his chest.

A lot has changed ever since. I will come back to the present times. It is 2025 and we are living in a world shaped by neoliberal globalisation. India is now ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a political entity deeply intertwined with the same RSS whose member killed Gandhi. With all due respect, Comrade, quite possibly in this India, you too would likely be branded an “anti-national”, a label now used to silence dissent, to stifle the voices of those who dare to question the powerful.

Your words, your very existence, would be deemed a threat. Imagine, Comrade, your treatise, “Why I am an Atheist”, under the present regime, would be grounds for charges of “hurting religious sentiments”, potentially under Section 302 of the new Bhartiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS).

You might even face the wrath of a lynch mob, fueled by religious fervour, for daring to challenge the tenets of the holy Sanatan Dharma, an idea that Hindus have been manipulated to follow in an inebriated way.

The draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), originally enacted in 1967 to combat terrorism, has become a tool for suppressing dissent. You would likely be charged under its provisions too, alongside Section 152 of the BNS, for your “seditious” acts of speaking truth to power. The very slogans you cherished, “Krantikari Salaam” and “Inquilab Zindabad”, are now viewed with suspicion by our judiciary. Student activists who echo your calls for change in the conditions of common masses are languishing in prison, their voices silenced by the UAPA’s stringent provisions, a stark reminder of the Rowlatt Act you so vehemently opposed.

The irony, Comrade, is that these activists, unlike you, advocate for peaceful, democratic change. Yet, they face the same oppressive tactics you endured under British rule, but now at the hands of a legitimate power, our own elected government. Our Constitution, which guarantees fundamental rights like freedom of speech and assembly, is being eroded, its spirit violated. Among those silenced, among those branded “anti-national” are Umar Khalid and Gulfisha. So many of these youths were charged under the same sections of 120B IPC amongst others that you and your comrades were charged with. These students and their names, like yours, have become symbols of resistance in a time when dissent is criminalised.

Umar Khalid, a student, a scholar, dared to speak against a discriminatory citizenship law, a law that threatened the very fabric of our secular nation. For this act of conscience, he was imprisoned, his voice silenced, his potential extinguished. He, like you, was painted as a threat and was treated like a terrorist, a danger to the state. And then there is Gulfisha, a young woman, a student, who raised her voice against injustice, against the communal forces. For her act of resistance , she was thrown into the depths of our prisons, her life put on hold, her future stolen.

These young activists, Comrade, are the inheritors of your legacy. They are the ones who refuse to be silenced, who dare to challenge the status quo, who embody the spirit of change that revolution is.

The echoes of your Lahore Conspiracy Case resonate in the present-day Lucknow Conspiracy Case, but again, Comrade, unlike you these young innocent students were just exercising their legitimate right to peaceful protest but even then they are being subjected to interrogation and persecution by state agencies.

You see Comrade, the methods used by the state also have evolved with time. Instead of the gallows, the state employs prolonged incarceration, denying bail and subjecting activists to inhumane conditions. The long period of incarceration coupled with inhumanity where the process itself becomes the punishment is not only to kill the spirit of the dissenters inside the jail but also it is a bigger political signalling to tell the masses that if they dare become critical of the present system and regime they will end up in jails too.

Your fight for the recognition of political prisoners continues. It is 2025 and there is still no law for the recognition of political prisoners. In fact, today they are labeled “Urban Naxals” and treated worse than common criminals. Stan Swamy, an 84-year-old tribal rights activist suffering from Parkinson’s disease, was denied bail and died in custody, his basic needs of a straw to drink water was ignored. GN Saibaba, a professor, endured years of solitary confinement, his health shattered and he died shortly after release. The conditions in Indian prisons remain abysmal, a testament to the state’s disregard for human dignity. Hunger strikes, like those you and your comrades undertook, continue, but with little effect. Rona Wilson and Professor Hany

Babu attempted to hold similar hunger strikes that you and your comrades underwent, but under the present regime, their efforts have largely been in vain.

Your concerns about labour rights are also as relevant today as they were in your time. The new labour codes introduced by the current regime erode the right to unionise and strike, promote long working hours and encourage contract-based employment instead of permanent jobs. The youth of India face increasing precarity, with little protection for their economic rights and well-being.

Your prophetic words about the exploitation of the Indian masses by “a handful of parasites” ring true in the context of the ongoing crisis in Bastar, Chhattisgarh. The indigenous Adivasi communities are being displaced and killed to facilitate the extraction of natural resources by corporate interests. The region has become a war zone, with the state bombing its own citizens and heavily militarising the districts with one lakh paramilitary forces deployed against the interests of its own citizens and its own land and natural resources.

In all this chaos, I turned to reading and understanding you. I heard you when you said, “Let us declare that the state of war does exist and shall exist so long as the Indian toiling masses and the natural resources are being exploited by a handful of parasites. They may be British capitalists or mixed British and or even purely Indian. They may be carrying on their insidious exploitation through mixed or even purely Indian bureaucratic apparatus.”

Amidst all this, the youth of India is frustrated. But the saga of our freedom struggles and our comrades like you give us hope. I am writing this to you because you are still alive in the Indian conscience, we just need to look around and rediscover the present through you and in that quest your letters have served the purpose of making the path sublime for present and future generations.

Amidst this darkness, your words offer a beacon of hope. Your message to the Punjab Students’ Conference – “Today, students are confronted with a far more important assignment…They have to awaken crores of slum dwellers of the Industrial areas and villagers living in worn out cottages, so that we will be independent and the exploitation of man by man will become an impossibility” – resonates with the youth of today. Your understanding of revolution, as a “spirit, the longing for a change for the better”, is crucial in these times.

As you said, “The spirit of revolution should always permeate the soul of humanity, so that the reactionary forces may not accumulate (strength) to check its eternal onward march.” Perhaps the Hon’ble Indian judiciary, in its deliberations, could contemplate the wisdom of these words. Your insights into the harsh realities of life imprisonment, as expressed in your introduction to L. Ram Saran Das’s “The Dreamland”, remain relevant. “Life imprisonment is comparatively a far lot harder than that of death” – the Indian legislature and judiciary could reflect on this, especially in cases where life imprisonment without remission is upheld. Your response to Sukhdev’s letter about suicide – “We did a bit to propagate these ideas, and therefore I say that since we have already taken a tough task upon ourselves, we should continue to advance it” – inspires us to carry on the struggle for justice.

Your warning about the “capitalists and exploiters, the parasites of society” who “squander millions on their whims”, is a stark reminder of the dangers of unchecked corporatism. The Indian state should heed your words in the context of Adani’s ruthless pursuit of profits and the exploitation of resources in Bastar.

And finally, your message to Sukhdev, “…man must have the strongest feelings of love which he may not confine to one individual and may make it universal,” speaks to the romantics like myself and so many of us, who believe in a better world.

Comrade, your words, your courage, still inspire us. On this 23rd day of March, we pledge to carry on your legacy, to fight for a just and equitable society, where the exploitation of man by man shall stand abolished.

Krantikari Salaam!

With unwavering respect and admiration,

A comrade from 2025.

(Vertika Mani is a human rights lawyer and activist working with Defenders Bureau on prisoners rights at Supreme Court, currently serving as Secretary, People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Delhi. Courtesy: The Wire, an Indian nonprofit news and opinion website. It was founded in 2015 by Siddharth Varadarajan, Sidharth Bhatia, and M.K. Venu.)