One should not interpret the word “Revolution” in its literal sense. Various meanings and significances are attributed to this word, according to the interests of those who use or misuse it. For the established agencies of exploitation it conjures up a feeling of blood stained horror. To the revolutionaries it is a sacred phrase.
Interpretation
Revolution has different meanings depending on who interprets it, influencing its perception positively or negatively.
Bhagat Singh emphasizes that the term 'Revolution' is subject to varied interpretations based on the perspective of the observer. For those in positions of power, the word evokes fear and horror associated with violence, while for revolutionaries, it symbolizes a revered struggle for change and justice. This duality reflects how language can be manipulated to either inspire or intimidate, depending on the agenda of the speaker.
In practice
In a speech about social justice, one might quote Bhagat Singh to emphasize the varied meanings of revolution.
Non-violence is backed by the theory of soul-force in which suffering is courted in the hope of ultimately winning over the opponent. But what happens when such an attempt fail to achieve the object? It is here that soul-force has to be combined with physical force so as not to remain at the mercy of tyrannical and ruthless enemy.
Those revolutionaries who have, by chance, escaped the gallows should live and show to the world that they cannot only embrace gallows for the ideal but also bear the worst type of tortures in the dark, dingy prison cells.
Love always elevates the character of man. It never lowers him, provided love be love
A rebellion is not a revolution. It may ultimately lead to that end.
They may kill me, but they cannot kill my ideas. They can crush my body, but they will not be able to crush my spirit.
Our entire family is replete with sentiments of patriotism. Uncle Swarna Singh left for his heavenly abode in jail in 1910, two or three years after my birth. Uncle Ajit Singh is leading the life of an exile in foreign countries.
We cannot choose freedom established on a hierarchy of degrees of freedom, on a caste system of equality like military rank. We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.
I am Envy...I cannot read and therefore wish all books burned.
At the supreme moment of his dying Jesus so identified himself with men and the depths of their predicament and agony that no man can now sink so low that God has not gone lower.
But it is the bane of psychology to suppose that where results are similar, processes must be the same. Psychologists are too apt to reason as geometers would, if the latter were to say that the diameter of a circle is the same thing as its semi-circumference, because, forsooth, they terminate in the same two points.
Perfect people don't exist. And perfect people, if they existed, would be very boring. It is imperfection that keeps life interesting.
It is true that we are called to create a better world. But we are first of all called to a more immediate and exalted task: that of creating our own lives.
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