Chandigarh, April 26 -- Reducing Bhagat Singh to a single ideological label does injustice both to the man and to Marxism itself, historian Salil Misra said at a public forum here on Saturday, arguing that the revolutionary, who was hanged at 23, is best understood as a "thinker in unfinished dialogue with ideas," rather than someone who can be confined into rigid categories.

The forum, titled 'Reckoning with Bhagat Singh in the Battle of Ideas', was organised by Adara 23 March, a forum named after the date of Bhagat Singh's martyrdom in 1931, and the Punjab Solidarity Group at People's Convention Centre, Sector 36-B. Eminent Punjabi poet Swarajbir and historian Sumail Singh Sidhu also addressed the gathering.

Misra structured his addre...