Roshan Singh

Roshan Singh was born on 22 January 1892 in the village of Nabada in Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh to mother Kaushalya Devi and father Thakur Jangi Singh. Thakur Sahib had started learning sword, gun, mace etc. from childhood. They were so proficient in shooting that they could easily kill even a flying bird. Even in wrestling, the good guys were dusted off in a jiffy. Along with being courageous, he used to do a lot of exercise due to which his body became very strong. The feeling of patriotism was instilled in me since childhood.

Mahatma Gandhi led the non-cooperation movement in 1921-22. From the very beginning, Roshan Singh went around the villages of Shahjahanpur and Bareilly districts and spread the message of Swaraj to the villagers. Thousands and lakhs of Indian youth, who took a direct front from the British rule, had been put in jail or were being put in jail because of that movement.

Freedom-hungry 31-year-old Bahadur Roshan Singh snatched the gun of a British policeman in Bareilly district who had opened fire on the crowd there. After his arrest, he was sentenced to two years “rigorous imprisonment. It was in the Central Jail Bareilly that he met Pandit Ramdulari Trivedi of Kanpur, who was then serving a six-month sentence for the non-cooperation movement launched in Pilibhit. After being released in 1924, Thakur Roshan Singh joined the same Republican Association which was led by revolutionaries Pandit Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaq Ullah Khan, Rajendra Nath Lahiri. The enemies of the British rule of the freedom-loving and black-willed whites would get along with these heroes and make plans to overcome the lack of funds for the struggle for freedom. They took the route of plundering the revolutionaries of Ireland. This action was called action by the party. The first dacoity in the name of action was committed in Bamrauli, a village in Pilibhit district, on Christmas Day, December 25, 1924, by Baldev Prasad, a sugar merchant and usurer. In the first dacoity, Rs. 4000 and some gold and silver ornaments fell into the hands of the revolutionaries, but a man named Mohan Lal Pehalwan, who had challenged them, was killed by a single bullet fired from the rifle of the infallible shooter Roshan Singh.

Then on August 9, 1925, the passenger train was stopped near Kakori railway station and the government treasury was looted. They were arrested on September 26, while Thakur Roshan Singh had no direct role in the Kakori case. Yes, he resembled Keshav Chakraborty, who was involved in the scandal. Keshav Chakravarty did not fall into the hands of the white government, so he was captured and Roshan Singh was sentenced to death like Ramprasad Bismil, Rajendranath Lahiri and Ashfaqullah Khan in the context of ‘Kakori Kanda’ rejecting every argument.

On hearing the sentence, he uttered ‘Omkar’ in the court and then fell silent. The first night he slept for a few hours. Then he prayed to God. In the morning after retiring from toilet etc he took bath regularly and meditated. He spent some time in reciting ‘Gita’, then told the watchman – ‘Come’. He prostrated himself in his cell and walked towards the hanging house with ‘Gita’ in his hand. He kissed the noose and then shouted ‘Vande Mataram’ three times. Chanting the ‘Veda Mantra’, he hanged himself on December 19, 1927.

On December 6, 1927, he wrote a letter to his friends from jail that I am going to be hanged soon. I firmly believe that after ending the painful journey of the world, I am now going to live a comfortable life. It is written in our scriptures that the man who gives his life in the war of religion has the same speed as the sages and sages who do penance in the forest. ‘