“Homage to Martyrs”

The movement gained a new dimension when centers of agitation were set up not only in the French enclaves in India but also in countries like Afghanistan, Canada, France, the USA, and the USSR. These were dedicated persons who set the example of sacrificing even their lives at the altar of freedom. The repressive measures of the British failed to crush the spirit of the revolutionaries. Theirs was a life of suffering, imprisonment, inhuman torture, and death. These revolutionaries had two objectives: to awaken the masses and to paralyze the administration. They achieved these objectives to a large extent, which eventually helped in the liberation of the country.

The Wahabis carried on a relentless struggle against the British, which could only be suppressed with difficulty. Similarly, the stiff resistance of the Kukas in Punjab (1872) resulted in many casualties and the deportation of their Guru to Rangoon. The Indian National Congress was founded in 1885. With its founding, the mainstream of Indian nationalism flowed gently. However, the partition of Bengal in 1905 lit a spark of revolutionary fervor, which raged into a conflagration almost all over the country. Independence of the motherland was the declared aim of the revolutionaries. They were not diffident in using arms to achieve their aim.

On the 50th anniversary of the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev, Chandra Shekhar Azad, Hari Kishan, and Mallappa Dhanashetty, the Indian Post & Telegraph Department joins the nation in paying homage to all the men and women, known and unknown, who laid down their lives so that India may be free.