History of a Dramatic Trial

In 1996, AG Noorani in his important work, The Trail of Bhagat Singh: Politics of Justice, provided detailed insights into the trial of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev, albeit from a legal perspective. That Singh and his two comrades were victims of a travesty of justice that amounted to nothing short of judicial murder, was one of the core arguments of Noorani’s book. Following this study, a range of works focusing on the activities of Bhagat Singh and, by extension, the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA), came out in quick succession. Of the many books which have been published on these themes, those of Chaman Lal, S Irfan Habib, Chris Moffat, Kama Maclean, and Kuldip Nayar stand out for their fascinating details. These studies focused not only on the trial, but also on the political activities of HSRA. The work under consideration, Revolutionaries on Trial: Sedition, Betrayal, Martyrdom by Aparna Vaidik may be read in the same light. Vaidik’s study focuses primarily on the Lahore Conspiracy Case and its principal actors, viz., Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev. Unlike Noorani’s work, her study takes into account legal as well as historical perspectives.