Chandra Shekhar Azad Birth Anniversary - Daily Current Affairs for UPSC

India celebrated the 118^th birth anniversary of Chandra Shekhar Azad on July 23rd this year.

He was born on 23 July 1906 in Bhabra, Madhya Pradesh.
His father Pandit Sitaram Tiwari was a gardener and his mother Jagrani Devi was a homemaker.
He went to Sanskrit Pathshala, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh for higher Studies.

He joined the Non-cooperation movement (1921) at the age of fifteen.
At age 15, Azad received his first punishment when the British sentenced him to 15 whiplashes. After this, he assumed the title “Azad” and became known as Chandra Shekhar Azad.
He joined the revolutionary organization Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) in 1924.
HRA was formed in 1924 as a radical revolutionary organization under the aegis of Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqulla Khan, Sachindra Nath Bakshi, Sachindranath Sanyal, and Jogesh Chandra Chatterjee.
In 1925, he participated in the Kakori Conspiracy to fund the HSRA’s operations.
Recently, the Uttar Pradesh Government has renamed ‘Kakori Kand’, to ‘Kakori Train Action’.
Later, in 1928, with the support of Bhagat Singh, he reorganised HRA as the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army (HSRA).
In 1928, he was involved in the assassination of British police officer John Saunders to avenge the death of Lala Lajpat Rai.
On February 27, 1931, surrounded by police at Alfred Park in Allahabad, he took his own life rather than be captured, embodying his commitment to freedom.

His views regarding the freedom struggle had changed considerably he had pondered over the failure of the revolutionary movement to give a definitive shape to the freedom struggle despite many sacrifices.
He argued that a maximum number of members of the revolutionary party should work among the peasants and workers and a select few of them trained in armed struggle in accordance with the future needs of the movement.