Why I am an Atheist

‘It is a matter of debate whether my lack of belief in the existence of an Omnipresent, Omniscient God is due to my arrogant pride and vanity’ – Bhagat Singh’s classic Why I am an Atheist, written in the year 1930, begins with these words. Later in the essay he says, “The epithet of vanity is always hurled at the strength we get from our convictions.” This 5,790 word essay was first published in People, a periodical brought out from Lahore, in September 1931. In the essay, Bhagat Singh, a revolutionary freedom fighter, a socialist in his beliefs, a powerful writer and a prolific journalist, begins by asserting that his atheism is the result of rational inquiry as opposed to vanity or pride. He had an “unswerving, unwavering belief in God” through childhood and his time at the National College, Lahore (which he joined at the age of 15), writes Professor Chaman Lal (honorary advisor, Bhagat Singh Archives & Resource Centre, Delhi Archives) in an article in the Economic and Political Weekly (September 15-21, 2007). In 1923, when Singh, who was born in 1907 in Banga village of Lyallpur district (now Faisalabad district in Pakistan), came to Kanpur, he joined the Hindustan Republican Association (renamed the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association in 1928 — he refers to it as the ‘Revolutionary Party’ in this essay). His comrades ranged from firm believers in god – such as Sachindara Nath Sanyal, the party’s founder – to those with more ambiguous views on the subject. His own convictions changed radically when he started to study these questions more seriously: “By the end of 1926, I was convinced that the belief in an Almighty, Supreme Being who created, guided and controlled the universe had no sound foundations.” So in this essay, Bhagat Singh asks the theists: why did this god create a world full of woe and grief? To the Hindus, he asks: “What is your view about those punishments inflicted on the people who were deliberately kept ignorant by selfish and proud Brahmans?” And finally, “I ask why He does not fill the hearts of all capitalist classes with altruistic humanism that prompts them to give up personal possession of the means of production and this will free the whole labouring humanity from the shackles of money.” The British did not rule India because God willed it, he writes, but “it is with the force of guns and rifles, bombs and bullets, police and militia, and above all because of our apathy that they are successfully committing the most deplorable sin, that is, the exploitation of one nation by another. Where is God? What is He doing?”Bhagat Singh believed, and wrote in this essay, that in the long run, all religions, faiths, theological philosophies and religious creeds become supporters of tyrannical and exploiting institutions, men and classes...