What Bhagat Singh's ‘Why I Am an Atheist' taught me about my own belief

Indian Express

a day ago

'It is cowardly to seek shelter in the idea of God.' The words struck me, not just for their audacity, but because they were written by Bhagat Singh, the revolutionary I had long revered as a fearless martyr. They appear in Why I Am an Atheist, his now-iconic essay, penned from prison in the final months of his life.
To me, Bhagat Singh had always been a nationalist hero, not someone who would so boldly challenge faith. At first glance, the essay felt almost abrasive, a vain, unabashed dismissal of everything religion holds sacred. I scowled at what I perceived as Bhagat Singh's complete ignorance towards faith. What I as a believer considered to be a safe haven, the 'Shaheed-e-Azam' dubbed a mental crutch. But as I read more deeply, something unexpected happened: my mind, shaped by years of belief, began to stretch in ways I had not thought possible.
After reading Why I am an Atheist and his other works, there was one thing I knew for sure: Bhagat Singh was not the man we came to know through the rosy lunettes of told history. Before he knew that he was a freedom fighter, the 23-year-old revolutionary knew that he was an atheist, writing words that could make any firm believer of God look inward.
The textbook version of Bhagat Singh bears little resemblance to the man he believed himself to be. History books portray him as a fiery revolutionary figure, determined to free India from British rule. They recount his acts of defiance and his ultimate sacrifice, but rarely do they pause to examine the ideas that shaped him. His convictions, his intellect, and his inner conflicts are often lost beneath the weight of nationalist iconography.
The essay introduced me to the mind of a 19-year-old man who was not just driven by the sentiment of boyish rebellion amid the freedom struggle, but one who questioned power and sought logic. Bhagat Singh was not a man of fiery speeches but of precise words, he did not shout at you from the page, but spoke gently of his firm convictions until he faced death head on – without fear, without prayer, without illusion.
One of the most human moments in Bhagat Singh's collected writings is a letter he wrote to his father, Kishan Singh from jail. With his fate already sealed and death only months away, Bhagat Singh responded to his father's well-intentioned plea for clemency to the British authorities not with gratitude, but with sharp disapproval. It was the kind of defiance one might expect from any principled 23-year-old, but in Bhagat Singh's case, the stakes were unimaginably high. He saw his father's final attempt to save him not as love, but as weakness. 'Treachery,' he called it, refusing to compromise his convictions, even in the face of death.
'Father, I feel as though I have been stabbed in the back. Had any other person done it, I would have considered it to be nothing short of treachery. But in your case, let me say that it has been a weakness – a weakness of the worst kind.'
An outburst of this extent was something I never thought I would witness from the legendary Bhagat Singh. What books and movies portrayed was a sepia-tinted image of a great man who made the ultimate sacrifice. However, after reading this letter, I saw him as a 23-year-old man mocking his father's choice as a parent, convinced that he knows better.
In his letter to his father, Bhagat Singh angrily asserted that the last-ditch attempt to save his life diminished its purpose. He said he always wanted to be completely indifferent to the trial, saying that a politician should only defend himself from a political standpoint and never think about the legalities. Reading this letter was the first time I saw Bhagat Singh as a son and as a man with emotional depth.
The essay, penned within the walls of Lahore Central Jail beneath the shadow of his looming execution, was his response to his fellow comrades in arms, including Batukeshwar Dutt, who questioned his lack of faith and thought he became an atheist because of his vanity. In his essay, Bhagat Singh explains that his atheism did not stem from vanity or superiority, but from realism, critical thinking, and lack of fear.
Reading his essay, I came to the realisation that Bhagat Singh never viewed God as an evil idea, he was only against unconditional devotion. Bhagat Singh neither feared the consequences of his actions, nor did he fear death. He wrote that in his final days, after pondering for days, he chose not to pray. Most of faith is driven by the fear of what comes next, he explained, saying that once the noose is around his neck, he knows that his existence and his soul will cease to be.
He said that as opposed to popular belief, he did not become an atheist after he gained recognition as a revolutionary. Despite being raised by an Arya Samaji grandfather and a Sikh father, Bhagat Singh questioned faith since he was a young boy when he was unaware of the depth of the atrocities happening under British rule.
He looks back at difficult times in his life where he had the option to fall back on faith to spend his days in peace, but chose not to. This was not because of his ego but because he did not want to be trapped in a false narrative of fear and the promise of Divine rescue.
For him, belief in God was not always about devotion, it was often about fear. Fear of the meaningless, fear of suffering and fear of death. He saw that people chose faith as a comfort, and the outward display of religion was only to make one feel centred in a chaotic world, filled with the unknown.
One thing that resonated the most with me was that he did not challenge belief itself, but the involuntary reflex to believe without thinking. His atheism was not driven by anger, but by a refusal to be comforted by illusions.
As a believer, Bhagat Singh's words were deeply uncomfortable to read. My mind understood the logic but was constantly in a frenzy to counter his words, to no avail. His essay made me ask myself – how much of my own faith is authentic, unaffected by fear or habit?
Though somewhat offended at first, Bhagat Singh's atheism did not shake my belief, only illuminated it. His words made me realise that maybe I have always been somewhat of a sceptic. While I have never been a person who spent long hours at a temple or in a prayer, I did not spend those hours questioning the logic of faith either.
For me, religion was always more about my memories than the metaphysics. My faith lives in the Diwali pujas I prepared for with my mother, the diyas I carefully placed across the house as my sister painted Lakshmi Charan near our front door, the crackle of Holika Dahan fire as we circled around it as a family. My faith was never built through theology, but through ritual, repetition and love.
But now, Bhagat Singh's words made me question how much of a believer I actually was. Atheists have always been perceived as pessimists, mostly driven by rebellion, but such was not the case with Bhagat Singh. His version of atheism cuts through with precision of a scalpel. He chose to live, fight and die without Divine assurance, a clarity which is rare in most believers.
Bhagat Singh's atheism did not make me feel threatened, but challenged me in the best way. He made me aware of the quiet spaces where the line between faith and fear blur. My faith found a room for thought and growth in this atheism. He made me understand that the essence of belief is not blind comfort: it is to have conviction without compromise.