WIDE ANGLE
The relevance of revolutionary Kartar Singh Sarabha
Varin der Pal Singh shuffle sa cross the rooms of the most famous address at S arab ha village in Ludhiana, Punjab. The sprightly elder in a is showing me around the quaint brick house of local hero Kart ar Singh Sarabha. When I ask him about the hefty square block of stone placed in the house, he raises his hands to swing an imaginary heavy object over his head, hinting at the physical prowess of the martyr. Two other curious visitors grip their on bar that is fixed to the stone, but they puff and pant and soon give up. Strange ly, I am not inclined to dismiss the old man’ s claims after he has given a brief account of the revolutionary who inspired freedom fighter B ha g at Singh.
Kartar Singh Sarab ha was a he roof the movement set off in 1913 by the Ghadar Party, which launched an armed revolt against the British in India. His home is now a shrine that houses his garlanded statue amid paintings of Sikh religious gurus, his belongings, and photographs and texts offering vignettes of his personal history and that of the G had ar movement. Though he was barely 19 when he was executed in Lahore on November 16, 1915, for the people of his village, the teenage martyr is “Babaji”, a venerated father figure.
For decades, the Naujawan Bharat Sabha, a leftist organisation founded by Bhagat-Singh, has diligently preserved his memory. Recently, when it felt that an attempt was being made to usurp his legacy, it swung into action to thwart the move.
This was soon after an alleged attempt on the life of former Jawaharlal Nehru University( J NU) student U mar Khalid in New Delhi in August. Two Haryana youths, Naveen Dalal from Jhajj ar and Darvesh Shahpur from Jind, who said they were members of cow protection groups, posted a video on Facebook claiming responsibility for the attack. In the video, they said the attack was meant to bean “Independence Day gift” to the nation and pledged to surrender in S arab ha, the marty r’ s village, two days later.
The bra zen video caught the attention of the N au jaw an Bharat-Sabha, which immediately mobil is ed youths from across Punjab. They stood guard at S arab ha from dawn to dusk on August 17, the said date, determined not to let the two men enter the village. The men were later arrested by Delhi Police.
The road to S arab ha village from Delhi cuts to the left, off the highway to the industrial city of Ludhiana, and runs past crisscrossing canals, and lush green paddy and sugar cane fields. Most roadside sign age herei sin the G ur muk hi script.
Kart ar Sing h’ s home is open to all in the day. There are not many visitors on a humid afternoon with an overcast mon soon sky. But in this well-kept village, which is over three centuries old and has a population of over 5,000 largely Grew al J at Sikhs, stories of the marty rare on everyone’ s lips. The hero worship is evident from the commemorative entrance and exit gates, a memorial park, a school, an Ayurveda college and hospital, a sports club or shop so fall hues named after him.
In a large ground near the entry point, schoolchildren wind up practice sessions in preparation for an annual event organised by the local club in November to commemorate the revolutionary’ s death anniversary.
Harmandeep Kaur, who plays football with her friends, says ,“Two people who were supposed to come here were arrested before they could but I don’ t know why .”
Shehzad Singh, a higher secondary school student, recalls police presence in the village for two days when members of the N au jaw an B ha rat S ab ha came to protest. He, too, isn’t aware of what transpired in Delhi earlier, but says ,“This village won’ t allow criminals to pay tribute to Sh a heed K art ar Singh .”
Not far from the sports facility are the memorial park, the hero’ s statue on ac ho wk and the hospital. The red, saffron and green flag of the G had ar Party—representing Sikhism, Hinduism and Islam—with crossed sword sat the centre, flutters in the park which also has a memorial.
The bus ts of three other G hadar item art yrs from the village —Rul ia Singh, Prem Singh and Teja Singh Safri—are placed on a raised platform. K art ar Sing hf ind sp lace separately inside a building that includes an open library and a meeting hall.
A tidy village with tarmacked roads and concrete houses, S arab ha has a considerable exp at population. Many of them come to the village every November when sports and cultural events pay tribute to the martyrs. Kulje et Singh, a village elder who runs a welding shop, rues that the songs sung on the occasion are becoming vulgar and say nothing about the heroes. Dev Sarab ha, a native of the village, sat on hunger strike in Delhi’ s Sh a heed Park this March, demanding national hero status for K art ar Singh. He has raised the demand several times. While he was in Delhi, he says one of the men accused of attacking Khalid met him and posed with him for pictures. Later, he found that the men intended to surrender in the village. “Firing at anyone is wrong. We should wage an ideological fight instead. But, it’ s also not fair to stop someone from paying a visit to K art ar Sing h’ s home, which is sacred to all ,” he adds.
Kartar Singh Sarab ha was born on May 24,1896. After his father died when he was still a child, one of his paternal uncles who held a government job took him under his wing in Orissa, which was then apart of Ben gal Presidency. In Cut tack, he went to Raven shaw Collegiate School, where freedom fighter Sub has Chandra Bose was among his peers.
In 1912, K art ar Sing h’ s family sent him to the University of Berkeley. During that period, most Indian sin America were Punjab is who went to the West Coast in search of employment, and worked in timber factories and railway workshops in cities such as Portland, St John, Astoria and Everett, writes former J NU professor Ch am an La lina mono graph on K art ar Singh. Indian labour facing racism in the US and Canada united, and formed the G had ar Party in San Francisco in 1913.
Over a hundred people were marty red and more than 315 were sentenced to life in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands during the movement, which also drew revolution aries from Bengal, Maharashtra, southern India and Bhopal. The Ghadar Party dissolved in 1947. Kart ar Sing hp lay ed a key role in bringing out a newspaper, Ghadar, which was published in multiple languages. He also trained in aeronautics and faced the Lahore Conspiracy Case trial over the G had ar plan to overthrow the British with a pan-India mu tiny in 1915. Bhagat Singh, whose father and uncle s were members of the G had ar Party, always carried a picture of K art ar Singh in his pocket. It was found on him the day he was arrested.
L al say that after Independence, the Congress under played the role of revolutionary movements such as G had ar .“They felt these revolution aries should be given a space but their ideas should not spread. The state just uses their heroism or patriotism as emotional tools to consolidate its hold on the people .”
The attempts of right-wing elements toappropriate the legacy of figures like B hag at Sing hand Kartar Singh, he says, are only meant to propagate illiteracy and ignorance. K hal is tani groups, too, have attempted to reduce them to Sikh symbols, he adds .“There is only one photograph of K art ar Singh, foun din the G had ar archives of Berkeley University. He wore no turban. His turbaned image is an imagined painting .”
Kartar Singh, meanwhile, continues to inspire. A film on him, Sarabha: Cry for Freedom, is in the making and is due for release in May 2019. Its director, Indian-born British Kavi Raz, says ,“I am interested in showing his transformation from a child of 16 to one of the most inspirational revolution aries of the early 20 th century .”
For the men who are fierce ly opposed to allowing bigoted criminal sin S arab ha village, G had ar meant a call for “sampoornaazaadi”(
total freedom ). Raminder Patiala, Punjab unit president of the N au jaw an B ha rat S ab ha, says, “The Ghadar Party had its own scientific secularism, where religion was a private matter of an individual .” He adds ,“The nationalism propagated by the B ha ra ti ya Jan at a Party is Br ah mini cal. Anti imperialist national is mis real nationalism .” By imperialism he means economic exploitation of people and resources.
The visitors’ book at K art ar Sing h’ s home shows that Shahpur, one of the accused in the Khalid case, had come here on August 3, ostensibly to seek the hero’ s blessings.
A run Kumar, member of a rights group who was among those guarding the village on August 17, says the duo wanted to become heroes by exploiting K art ar Sing h’ s name .“But this ,” he adds ,“is Punjab, where even Alexander had to retreat .”
A FILM ON KARTAR SINGH, SARABHA: CRY FOR FREEDOM, IS IN THE MAKING AND IS DUE FOR RELEASE IN MAY 2019