NAUJAVĀN BHĀRAT SABHĀ, association of the Indian youth, was established at a convention held on 11-13 April 1928 at Jalliāṅvālā Bāgh in Amritsar at the instance of the management of the radical journal Kirtī including men like Sohan Siṅgh Josh and Bhāg Siṅgh Canadian. Like the Kirtī Kisān Sabhā it aimed at creating a youth wing of peasants and workers with a view to ushering in revolution in the country and overthrowing British imperial rule. Another organization with the same name already existed in Lahore involving mainly the collegians of the city. The Sabhā had been active between March 1926 and April 1927, but this was a secret network not known to many outside of Punjab capital.

         The first conference of the Naujavān Bhārat Sabhā took place in Amritsar in 1928 coinciding with the political conference of the Punjab Congress Committee. It was presided over by Kedārnāth Sehgal. The conference set up a sub-committee, consisting of Sohan Siṅgh Josh (Chairman), Rām Chander, M.A. Majīd, Ehsān Ilāhī, Professor Chhabīldās, Gopāl Siṅgh Qaumī and Harī Siṅgh. The second conference of the Sabhā was held on 22-24 February 1929 in Lahore under the presidentship of Sohan Siṅgh Josh. The resolutions adopted censured, in the severest terms, the government for making indiscriminate arrests of the youth following the murder of J.P. Saunders, Deputy Superintendent of Police on 17 December 1928, sought the repeal of the Arms Act and applauded the Ghadr heroes. On the last day of the conference, a portrait of one of the Ghadr leaders, Kartār Siṅgh Sarabhā, was formally unveiled and his supreme sacrifice in the cause of the nation's freedom eulogized. After a period of suppression by government, the Gāndhī-Irwin pact (1931) which was to lead to the abandonment by the Indian National Congress of the civil disobedience movement without securing the release of the youth involved was concluded. The hanging of Bhagat Siṅgh, Rājgurū and Sukhdev on 23 March 1931 on charges of murdering J.P. Saunders earned the Sabhā another short lease. The Naujavān Bhārat Sabhā and the Kirtī Kisān Sabhā held a joint session on 29 March in Karāchī and led out a procession castigating especially Mahātmā Gāndhī for what they described as his betrayal of the youth. The Sabhā was declared unlawful by government on 10 September 1934 under section 16(I) of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1908, after which it practically ceased to exist.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

  1. Kirtī. May 1928
  2. Tara Chand, History of the Freedom Movement in India.
  3. Arjan Siṅgh, Shahīd de Bol. Delhi, 1962
  4. Jagjīt Siṅgh, Ghadr Pārṭī Lahir. Delhi, 1979

Sohan Siṅgh Josh