“There is no crime that Britain has not committed in India. Deliberate misrule has reduced us to paupers, has ‘bled us white’. As a race and a people we stand dishonoured and outraged. Do people still expect us to forget and to forgive? We shall have our revenge – a people’s righteous revenge on the tyrant. Let cowards fall back andcringe for compromise and peace. We ask not for mercy and we give no quarter. Ours is a war to the end – to Victory or Death. LONG LIVE REVOLUTION!”
– Bhagat Singh and Bhagwati Charan Vohra (Philosophy of the Bomb)
“An oppressed class which does not strive to learn to use arms, to acquire arms, only deserves to be treated like slaves.”
– Lenin (The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution)
The question of violence has always been central to revolutionary movements, their strategies, and political goals. While the state always verbally denounces violence, its basic function is to continue subjugation of all the other classes through the use of armed forces.
Ahimsa vs. Revolutionary Violence
In the 1920s, the two ideological trends of the freedom struggle in India emerged. After the Chauri Chaura incident in 1922 when Gandhi suspended the non-cooperation movement, disillusioned with Gandhi’s non-violent tactics, the revolutionaries formed the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) that later became Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA). In 1925, Sachindra Nath Sanyal (a prominent revolutionary and co-founder of the HRA) and Mahatma Gandhi had a famous debate on the fundamental question of whether non-violence or revolutionary violence is an appropriate strategy for India’s struggle for independence. In a public letter, Sanyal criticised Gandhi’s nonviolence as unrealistic and ineffective. Gandhi responded in his journal, Young India, advocating ahimsa through civil disobedience and non-cooperation as the only moral, effective, and practical path to achieving freedom. Their public exchange reflected the deep ideological divide within the Indian independence movement. Gandhi argued that nonviolence was the only way to involve the entire population, ensuring sustained and widespread support. In contrast, Sanyal emphasised the urgency of immediate action to dismantle colonial rule, viewed violence as a pragmatic necessity in the face of British repression, and believed that such revolutionary acts could ignite the masses.
Gandhi’s Crusade against Revolutionaries
On 23rd December 1929, the HSRA bombed the special train of then Viceroy Lord Irwin, just outside Delhi (near Purana Qila) on the Delhi-Agra railway line. Two bogies were detached from the train as a result of the explosion, but the Viceroy escaped unhurt. Following this action, the Congress, under Gandhi’s leadership, launched a crusade against the revolutionaries. At the Lahore session of the Indian National Congress, Gandhi thanked God for the Viceroy’s narrow escape and proposed a resolution ‘condemning the cowardly deed of the misguided youth’. Despite Gandhi’s efforts, the resolution was passed by a narrow majority (a bare majority of 81 in a house of 1713, a victory that echoed like a defeat). Disappointed by this, Gandhi wrote ‘The Cult of the Bomb’ in ‘Young India’ on 2nd January, 1930 to condemn the revolutionaries. In the article, Gandhi accused revolutionaries of causing economic and social harm to the masses by provoking British repression, and alleged that acts of violence disrupt the momentum of the nonviolent movement, diverting attention and resources away from civil disobedience campaigns. He called upon the masses to isolate them.
The Philosophy of Bomb : A Marxist View on Revolutionary Violence
Challenging Gandhi’s critique of revolutionary activities, ‘The Philosophy of the Bomb’ was published on 26th January, 1930. It was written by Bhagawati Charan Vohra with Bhagat Singh finalising the draft in jail. It also exposed the capitalist-landlord class character of Gandhi and the Congress and showed their philosophy and political ideas did not represent the interests of the peasants and workers (broad masses) .
As HSRA interacted with peasants and workers much more organically, they were the true representatives of the masses. For them, the revolution was not only to overthrow British imperialism but also to end the exploitation of one class by another, to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, and to bring about Socialism. They wrote, “The revolution will ring the death knell of capitalism and class distinctions and privileges. It will bring joy and prosperity to the starving millions who are seething today under the terrible yoke of both foreign and Indian exploitation… Above all, it will establish the dictatorship of the proletariat and will forever banish social parasites from the seat of political power.” They identified the emancipatory role of violence on the psychology of subjugated people, “…terrorism is a phase, a necessary and inevitable phase of revolution…” as it “…instills fear in the hearts of the oppressors, it brings hopes of revenge and redemption to the oppressed masses, it gives courage and self-confidence to the wavering, it shatters the spell of the superiority of the ruling class and raises the status of the subject race in the eyes of the world.”
It showed that nonviolence can only bring some reforms, not freedom, and presented an analysis of the failure of different nonviolent movements of Congress (e.g., Non-Cooperation movement, Bardoli Satyagraha, etc.). It dismissed Gandhi’s claim that violence delays freedom and impedes progress, citing examples of revolutions (e.g., Russia, Turkey) to argue that armed struggle leads to progress and freedom. It refuted the notion that revolutionaries are misguided or deluded, and emphasised that their actions were guided by reason, conviction, and a deep sense of justice, not by blind fanaticism. It stated that moral authority stems from justice and righteousness, rather than adherence to nonviolence.
Bhagat Singh and Bhagwati Charan Vohra, as Marxists, viewed the question of revolutionary violence with a class lens. ‘The Philosophy of the Bomb’ shares significant ideological parallels with the revolutionary theories of Lenin regarding the use of revolutionary violence (and also with Frantz Fanon, who later presented similar ideas in the context of anti-colonial struggles). In ‘State and Revolution’ (1917), Lenin argues that revolutionary violence is essential to overthrow the bourgeois state and replace it with a dictatorship of the proletariat. Later, in ‘The Wretched of the Earth’ (1961), Fanon emphasises that violence is a response to the systemic violence of colonisation and a way to assert agency and dignity. HSRA comrades too saw violence as a tool to dismantle the imperialist state, seize the state apparatus, and pave the way for a socialist future. ‘The Philosophy of the Bomb’ justified violence as a tool to awaken national consciousness and inspire the masses to revolt. The ‘Philosophy of the Bomb’ not only counters Gandhi’s arguments but also presents the meaning of revolution and the kind of society they envisioned. It is a socialist future where the exploitation of workers and peasants would be eradicated, and this could be achieved only by capturing the state apparatus through revolutionary violence, a just violence directed against the oppressors to end the exploitation.
