ABSTRACT
12 October 2011: Three members of the little known Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena (Bhagat Singh Revolutionary Army) attack lawyer Prashant Bhushan in his chambers in the Supreme Court. One of the assailants claims that the attack is in retaliation for Prashant Bhushan’s endorsement of a referendum in Jammu and Kashmir. The description of the group on Facebook says:
A team of guys who are crazy for nation, those who can do anything for Nation. A task force against traitors, anti nationals & corrupts. A team of people, those who are ready to take any action to teach anti nationals & traitors.
A team of guys those who can die for the nation & ........... oooppssss srrry. Not die we are dying frm last 1000 years, first Mughals killed us then Britishers killed us & now the tratiors [sic] inside the Nation are killing us. Now we will not die, if we will die, then who will give right treatment to the traitors & anti nationals. time has come to give reply to the peoples those who are trying to divide my nation from kashmir to Arunachal. I think indication is Enough. then why are you waiting. Join us & become threat for Anti nationals & Traitors.
‘Khoon se khelenge Holi gr vatan mushkil me hai, sarfroshi ki tammana ab hmare dil me hai’ [With blood we shall play Holi when the homeland is in peril/the desire for sacrifice is now in our heart] 1
What is most striking about this brief manifesto of the Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena is its acknowledgement of its own departure from the moment of Bhagat Singh. The ‘ooopsss srrry’ urges us to note the jettisoned patriotic move (‘We are willing to die for the nation’) against which these ‘guys’ protest by presenting, in a familiar argument, the majority as the threatened minority. The passage presents as self-evident a ‘we’ extending from pre-Mughal times to the present, as well as the proprietary claim of this ‘we’ to an undivided nation. Its focus on survival—not just physical survival but also the survival of identity—marks a significant turn. On the one hand, the Sena presents itself here as inheriting the legacy of Bhagat Singh, but on the other, it also announces its rejection of that legacy.