Basawon Singh

Basawon Singh or Basawan Singh also known as Basawon Sinha, (23 March 1909 7 April 1989) was an Indian independence activist and a campaigner for the rights of the underprivileged, industrial labourers and agricultural workers.

He spent a total of 18 and a half years in prisons in British India as a consequence of his support for independence and he was committed to democratic socialism.

Along with Yogendra Shukla, he was a founder member of the Congress Socialist Party in Bihar.

Among his revolutionary colleagues and friends he was called Lambad because of being very tall.

Basawon Singh was born in a poor farming family in Jamalpur (Subhai), Hajipur, Bihar on 23 March 1909.

An only son, he lost his father at the age of eight.

He had come from a small farmer's family.

At the age of ten he ran off to Hajipur to see and hear Mahatma Gandhi.

A brilliant student, he secured scholarships in both primary and middle schools.

Thereafter he joined Dighi High School.

He used to teach older boys for food and lodging.

His mother sold a bamboo every month for two rupees to meet his other school expenses.

Soon after joining the HSRA in 1925, Singh was rusticated from G. B. B. College, thus ending his formal education.

He was subsequently involved with Bihar Vidyapeeth at Sadakat Ashram in Patna, where he undertook intensive military training with a small group of youths.

Singh passed Matriculation Examination with a high first division in 1926 and began studies at G. B. B. College.

During last two years of school Singh came in close contact with revolutionaries, with Yogendra Shukla, the head of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army (HSRA), as his mentor.

Singh absconded in 1929 after the Lahore Conspiracy Case.

He was co-accused in the Bhusawal, Kakori, Tirhut and Deluaha conspiracy cases.

He carried on the movement along with Chandrashekhar Azad and Keshab Chakravarty.

He was sentenced to seven years in prison but escaped from Bankipore Central jail in June 1930 after three days.

He was re-arrested and sent to Bhagalpur Central Jail.

While at Bhagalpur, Singh undertook a fast unto death as a protest against what he thought were the prevailing inhuman conditions in jail.

He was released from jail in June 1936 because of his poor health but the city act was imposed on him to restrict his movement.

He violated the restrictions and was again arrested.

Singh studied subjects such as history, geography, political science, philosophy, social sciences and natural sciences during his imprisonments.

He had a photographic memory.

Singh was active in the trades union movement from 1936 until his death in 1989.

He joined the Congress Socialist Party in December 1936 and was appointed its labour secretary.

He established trade unions in the coal fields, sugar mills, mica mines and railways of Bihar.

He was active in AIRF from 1936, president of OT Railway Union from Agra to Nefa and NE Railway Mazdoor Union.

He formed Japla labour union in 1937, Baulia Labour union in 1937, organised the workers of Jamalpur Workshop along with Shivnath Bannerjee, formed the Gaya cotton and Jute Mill Labour Union, formed the Tata Collieries Labour Association along with Subhas Chandra Bose and went on to become the latter organisation's president when Bose left India in 1941.

He organised coal workers of Talcher with close co-ordination and support of Dukhabandhu Mishra (founder member of HMS union in Talcher coalfields), Rajgangpur (Orissa) and Satna (MP); established Mica Workers Union, Gomia Labour Union (Explosives), later these unions affiliated to HMS.

He was rearrested in April 1937 along with Jayaprakash Narayan, Benipuri and others in Patna for "unconstitutional" works for six months.

During the Second World War he was the first man in Bihar to be arrested under Defence of India Ordinance on 26 January 1940 in Husainabad, Palamu and released after eighteen months.

When she attended, on the 50th day of the fast, she blessed him.

People waited daily at the jail gate to receive Singh's body should he die.

All political prisoners in the jail were also on fast for the last few days in solidarity with him but on the 58th day he broke his fast after being informed by Gandhi that his demands had been met.

On the 12th day of the fast he was moved to Gaya Central Jail and kept in solitary confinement.

Soon he was shifted to the jail's hospital.

All efforts of forced feeding him failed, Sir Ganesh Dutt, the then minister of Bihar, asked Singh's mother, Daulat Kuer, to attend to urge him to give up his fast.