Ram Prasad Bismil, poet and freedom fighter, remembered on his birth anniversary

New Delhi:

Ram Prasad Bismil, poet and freedom fighter, is being remembered on his 123rd birth anniversary today. Leaders across the country tweeted on the icon who died young after being sentenced to death by British colonial rulers.

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, BJP leader Vasundhara Raje Scindia and the Congress’s Manish Tewari were among those who paid their tribute.

Ram Prasad Bismil was born in Shahjahanpur in 1897. He was sentenced to death by the British for what was known as the “Kakori conspiracy”. He was hanged on December 19, 1927, at the age of 30.

He was associated with the Arya Samaj and was inspired by books written by Swami Dayanand Saraswati. Born to a civic body worker, he was forced to drop out of school because of the lack of money. But that did not kill his passion for reading and poetry.

Bismil became a member of the Hindustan Republican Association at an early age. It was here that he met freedom fighters like Chandra Shekhar Azad, Ashfaqullah Khan, Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru and others.

On August 9, 1925, Bismil, Ashfaqullah Khan and their associates stopped a train at a town called Kakori, just before Lucknow, and looted cash boxes of the British government. Over 40 freedom fighters were arrested after the historic event.

The freedom fighter is also appreciated for his literary legacy.

Ram Prasad Bismil’s collection of poems – ‘Man Ki Lahar’ and ‘Swadeshi Rang’ are well known. The famous lines “Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamare dil mein hai, dekhna hai zor kitna baazu-e-qatil mein hai” written by Urdu poet Bismil Azimabadi, for young freedom fighters, were Ram Prasad Bismil’s war cry.

Bismil also translated books from regional languages.