70 years of Independence: Remembering martyr Shivaram Rajguru, India’s beloved son

As India is going into its 71st year of independence on 15 August, lets not we forget the sacrifices made by revolutionaries who brought about this glorious day to our motherland and one such brave heart was Shivaram Rajguru.

Rajguru was born on 24 August 1908, in a Deshastha Brahmin family at Khed in Maharashtra. At a very early age, Rajguru was deeply affected by the atrocities committed by British administration on people of India and this led him to join revolutionaries for India’s cause of freedom. 

The revolutionary came to Varanasi where he learned Sanskrit and other Hindu religious scriptures and became associated with Hindustan Socialist Republican Army (HSRA). 

Rajguru was an admirer of the great Maratha King Shivaji and believed in his guerrilla tactics of warfare. The great revolutionary was a good shooter and was gunman of HSRA too. Besides this, he was known under the pseudonym of Raghunath.

Rajguru, along with Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev was hanged on March 23, 1931 for conspiring to kill British police officer John P Saunders, though the initial plot was to kill superintendent of police James Scott to avenge the death of leader Lala Lajpat Rai caused by lathi charge during protest against Simon Commission.  

So on December 18, 1928, Rajguru, along with Sukhdev and Bhagat Singh shot Deputy Superintendent of Police, J.P. Saunders in Ferozepur.

After this incident, Rajguru went into hiding in Nagpur. However while travelling to Pune, he was finally arrested. 

The trial against the trio of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru was nothing short of a mockery on part of the British judicial system. 

On May 1, 1930, Lord Irwin gave the directive for a special tribunal consisting of Justice J Coldstream, Justice Agha Hyder and Justice GC Hilton to carry out the legal proceedings in Saunders murder case.

The tribunal was given the power to proceed without the presence of the accused denying normal legal rights.  

Sadly on October 7, 1930, the trio of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru was sentenced to be hanged till death. 

The hanging took place a day before on March 23, 1931, in Lahore central jail. The bodies of the great martyrs were cremated on the banks of the River Sutlej. 

The love for India and for the cause of its freedom made them martyrs at very young age. Like his comrades, Rajguru was just 23 when he was hanged. 

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