Partitions, memories and reconciliation

Bitter memories of partition, whether lived or learnt through narration, continue to haunt the survivors, perpetrators and their descendent generations, writes Satya P. Gautam while hoping that in the new millennium the common Punjabi heritage in its composite totality will guide our future destiny

(photograph by Margaret Bourke-White for Life magazine)

I am one of the post-midnight, post-partition generation, born during the early fifties of the last century. My infancy and childhood were spent in our village Masaania, almost a kilometre’s walk from the railway station, Shaam Chauraasi. The railway station on the Jalandhar-Hoshiarpur railway track was named after the famous but relatively distant village, a pilgrimage sight for the lovers of classical music. The families, living with the tradition of classical music for generations, had to leave the village with the partition of Punjab. However, the brothers Salaamat Ali-Amaanat Ali from the Shaam Chaurasi Gharana carried the family tradition with them to West Punjab in Pakistan.
My grandfather told me that before the partition of the Punjab in 1947, most inhabitants of the villages in our rural neighbourhood were Muslim. I was also told that till the eve of the partition, none of the three major religious groups of Punjab – the Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs – had ever expected its partition or fragmentation. The partition came without being sought or asked for by the Punjabis. And yet it brought with it a baffling lunacy manifested in the worst forms of mystification, chaos, arson, turmoil, calamities of rape, eviction, dislocation and refuge. The bitter memories of this madness, whether lived or learnt through narration, continues to haunt the survivors, perpetrators and their descendent generations.
The people of Punjab passed through a rather slow but gradual transition from being a predominantly oral community to becoming a marginally literate one during the late 19th and earlier decades of the 20th century under the colonial regime. Of course, it must not be forgotten, and indeed we constantly need to remind ourselves time and again, that this historic period of transition had presented complex and unprecedented challenges for which we could not prepare ourselves. The opportunity created by the spread of literacy could have been a significant step for the development and enrichment of Punjabi language and culture. Unfortunately, our ancestors unwittingly collaborated to metamorphose this possibility into a disaster.
During this period, the religious and social elite of each of the three denominations tried their utmost to get their own preferred (religious) scripts accepted or imposed as the exclusive official script of the Punjabi language and as the medium of instruction in schools. This contest and rivalry resulted in a widespread mutual unfriendliness and acrimony to the point that both the Muslim and Hindu elite unwisely disowned Punjabi and made the mistake of professing Urdu and Hindi as their respective languages. In the name of the democratic principle of respecting the majority view, the colonial administration decided on the use of Urdu as the medium of instruction in schools and local official language for administrative purposes in the colonial Punjab. Thus the teaching and learning of Punjabi became marginal in the formal education system.
With the departure of the British and the partition of Punjab, the question of choosing an appropriate Punjabi language script resurfaced among the Hindu and Sikh leaders in East Punjab. It served as a source of fallacious claims on the part of a majority of the Hindu social elite and resulted in the reorganisation of the state into Punjab and Haryana in 1966. In West Punjab, Urdu continued to be the medium of instruction and administration as it had been declared the official language of Pakistan despite dissenting voices raised in East Pakistan.
The issue of the significance of Punjabi language and culture resurfaced in West Punjab only after the formation of Bangladesh as an independent nation state. The other Pakistani sub-nationalities, such as Sindhis, Baluchs and Pushtoons too had started demanding the recognition and use of their respective languages for educational and administrative purposes in their provinces. Soon Sindhis, Baluchis and Pashtoons had mustered courage to launch struggles for the protection of their respective national languages and cultures. It may sound ironic that Urdu, the national language of Pakistan, was the language of muhajirs (migrants from Delhi and United Provinces), and not of any local people in Pakistan.
It was in such a scenario that the Punjabis in West Punjab realised that they had unwittingly allowed themselves to letting their own language almost vanish by default. This belated concern for Punjabi language and culture gathered momentum and inspired the launching of the Lok Virsaa movements during the early ’70s in western Punjab for rehabilitating Punjabi language to its rightful place. This struggle though moderate was effective in slowly achieving its main goals by the beginning of the present century. It is no longer an offence to speak Punjabi in the Punjab Legislative Assembly. Steps have also been initiated to teach Punjabi in the Shahmukhi script in schools from class three onwards in West Punjab.
It may not be wrong to conclude that the 20th century was a century of tragedies for Punjabi language, culture and people. The Punjabis not only divided themselves on the question of a script, but sections of Muslims and Hindus went to the extreme of disowning their language for privileging their preferred scripts. The negative fallouts of this scripted acrimony continue with us in a variety of facades and pretexts even today. Punjabis, across the borders and religious denominations, will have to make a concerted effort to protect Punjabi language and culture from future erosion and decline, particularly given the privileging of other languages in the processes of globalisation and economic development.
With an unanticipated partition of the Punjab, western Punjab became part of the newly constituted state of Pakistan while eastern Punjab remained in India, forcing a devastating dislocation of populations in a manner that further intensified the bitterness and lingering hostilities. The violence of partition generated deep feelings of terror, fear, hostility, hatred and other negative emotions among its victims and perpetrators. At the depths of despair and madness, on both sides of the divide, the ‘Other’ was seen and projected as the greatest and possibly the most dangerous enemy, one that had to be pulled down as effectively and as soon as possible.
On our side, we were taught in schools that the Muslims had partitioned the great country, fragmenting it into antagonistic pieces which could survive only with the decimation of the other. That the partition had become a reality as a result of an agreement between leaders of the Indian National Congress and Muslim League was rarely mentioned. It was the people of Punjab who had to actually live with the reality of the partition of their land, culture and language. Perhaps the same can be said about Bengal and Kashmir. Of course, a large number of people from other parts of the Indian subcontinent too had been dislocated and brutalised as a result of the partition. The officially and socially designed image of the Pakistani Muslim was a negative stereotype of a lurking brutal trespasser waiting to kill and reduce to rubble whatever came his way.
I had shifted from my village to the city for further education after completing class three in the village school. Our house, in the city of Jalandhar, was located in Bazaar Nauhariyan. At the end of the bazaar were the tall and impressively elegant minarets of Imam Nasser’s mausoleum. Till the mid-sixties, every alternate year an enormous number of devotees would come from across the border to pay homage to the saint during the urs of Imam Nasser. Among the devotees were my grandfather’s friends and acquaintances who invariably visited our house to share their old feelings of friendship, affection, nostalgia and delightful gifts. Their warmth, zeal and friendliness left me confused, as their behaviour was in total contrast to what we were taught at school and through the newspapers.
The designed image of the average Pakistani Muslim in the mainstream media in Punjab was extremely negative but the people I met were worth admiration and emulation. These conflicting images and feelings generated an intense desire to some day go across the border and see things for myself. I had grown up without any narratives of my kith and kin having been forcibly displaced from West Punjab. Consequently, my desire was never rooted in the feeling of going back to the land of ancestors that so many of the descendants of displaced families from West Punjab have shared with me.
Also, without experiencing the misfortune of being displaced, I had heard the horrifying stories of the circumstances in which the Muslims were made to depart East Punjab at the time of the partition. I often wondered whether fellow Punjabis from across the border carried similar negative ideas about us. During the early sixties, a relative was the medical officer incharge of a veterinary hospital at Jhabaal near the Indo-Pak boundary. Unlike the subsequent barbed wire fencing the then boundaries were invisible but for the presence of the militia doing guard duty besides manning the check posts. The villagers from the other side would bring their cattle for treatment to our side as that was more convenient. There was little evidence of the hostility or hatred that I had feared. There was no difference between them and us except in dress and accent.
Having inculcated an interest in literature and music during my school days, I came to learn that our literary, musical and cultural heritage was inconceivable without celebrating the composite culture of pre-partition Punjab. The Sikh Gurus and Sufi saints had shown the path of a constructive synthesis, drawing on positive elements from diverse sources and traditions for celebrating the ideals of equality and unity among human beings. They had questioned the restrictive and exclusionary boundaries of caste, creed, gender and religion. Their message, articulated in the form of musical poetry, had sustained the spirit of collective well-being among Punjabis for centuries. This spirit is likely to remain not only impoverished and weak but perpetually threatened unless a large majority of the people of the two fragments of Punjab start appreciating and celebrating the magnificence of the common heritage across political boundaries.
As of now, the political boundaries have come to stay. We have to learn to live with them. Any talk of breaking the boundary, like the breaking of the Berlin Wall, is neither intelligible nor acceptable to the forces that have become dominant across the borders. This was well articulated by a member of the Pakistan National Assembly whom we met when we went to Kasoor to pay our tribute to Baba Bulley Shah.
‘As Punjabis, we may like the opening of borders and the free movement of people, goods and services across the borders for the mutual benefit of Punjabis. But this will be resisted tooth and nail by all those whom it does not suit. Forces in Mumbai, Karachi and Dubai, having their vested interests to protect, will make it difficult, if not impossible, for Delhi and Islamabad to allow the winds of mutual cooperation and constructive support to blow between Patiala and Lahore, Amritsar and Kasoor, the two sides of Punjab.’
During the World Punjabi Conference held at Lahore in January 2004, a leading member of the East Punjabi delegation made an enthusiastic but indiscreet speech about the dismantling of borders and breaking of walls. In response, the chief minister of West Punjab aptly pointed out that, ‘Once the brothers fall apart and split their ancestral property, they find it hurtful or embarrassing to face each other. The walls that they construct to break up what their ancestors had built together, make them alienated and inaccessible. If they are gentle, they sidestep one another to avoid confrontation. Otherwise, antagonistic confrontation is the constant concern on both the sides.
‘With the passage of time, as the past memories of antagonism begin fading, they may start meeting each other but would hesitate to knock at the door of the other for seeking help or support. If they are fortunate, such an eventuality would encourage them to begin thinking of opening a window in the wall, which they may now see as a common one, for making interaction and exchange convenient and easier. But if one of the brothers, in his hurry or rashness to undo the unfortunate split, starts speaking of breaking the wall, it brings only apprehensions, fears, ill-will and bitter enmity rather than restoring old amity.’
The cautionary remarks of Parvez Elahi need to be seen in the light of another significant aspect of social life that we found in Lahore during our visit for this conference. Though the anglicised Lahorians have named the old Gwal Mandi as Food Street, we were guided by the receptionist at our hotel Shah Taaj that we first go to Luxmi Chowk and then ask the way for Dharampuri to see the all night eating shops for ourselves. On the way we came across buildings and institutions which continue to carry their pre-partition non-Muslim identities. I was curious whether any attempt had been made to change the old names. I was told that though new Islamic names had been given, public memory and habits proved to be more resilient than the votaries of change. It is not surprising that the fate of attempts to change the names of Ropar and Mohali on this side of the border as well was similar. Let us wish and hope that in the new millennium it will become possible for us to make our common Punjabi heritage accessible to all of us in its composite totality to guide our future destiny.

Here come 'Putt Chamaran De'

The growing Dalit assertion in Punjab is now finding voice in Punjabi music too with singers coming up with songs of confidence and even pride in their Dalit identity, writes Jatinder Preet in The Sunday Guardian

For a state that has the highest level of concentration of Scheduled Castes (SCs) in any one state of India (28.9 per cent, as per Census 2001) this should not come as a surprise. But what has been revelatory is the passion and intensity of this celebration of the identity. According to conservative estimates as many as 2000 music albums celebrating Dalit identity have come out in market in last two years complete with music videos making a song and dance of it.
So we have Punjabi singers singing of ‘Majhbi, Valmiki, Chamaran de munde (Boys of Majhbi, Valmiki, Chamar castes)’ and audiences are lapping it up. So popular have these songs become that these are now being played in marriages and on festive occasions.
“We have danced enough on the songs that talked of pride of Jatts but now we have our own songs to dance to,” says Rajkumar, a young fan.
It is to this section of the Dalit youth that the songs are being belted out that talk of ‘Ankhi Putt Chamaran De (Proud Sons of Chamars)’ and ‘Gabru Sher Chamaran De (young Lions of Chamars)’. Most of these songs limit themselves to talk of the pride that sometimes border on conceit and vanity. A popular duet by Satveer Jyoti and Raj Dadral ‘Mai taan suneya mundean chamran de full charche (I’ve heard that there is talk of Chamar boys everywhere)’ is one in that category. At the same time Diljaan sings ‘Saddi Jaat Chamar Hai Sanu Sab Naal Pyar Hai (We are Chamars and we love everyone)’.
But with the catching up of the trend of such songs, ante is being upped. Vijay Momi’s song takes almost threatening tone ‘Panga soch samajh ke payo naal chamara de (Think before messing up with a Chamar).’
However, what remains common in these songs is the assertion of a separate identity like that in the song of Roop Lal Dhir - ‘Ikmuth ho kaum de sheran ne wakhri hond banayi (Together lions of the community carved a separate identity for themselves).’
Raj Dadwal, a popular singer who writes his own songs, sees nothing wrong in making a song of the status of the community. It is not against any other caste or community, he emphasises adding “Through this assertion of our identity we are only trying to exhort our fellow-community people to shed their self-consciousness as only that can lead to their true emancipation.”

Diamonds that were not forever

Heera Mandi of Lahore is no longer the same. Nirupama Dutt writes about the forbidden yet most sought-after bazaars where women sold their many talents then and now

(Photograph by Noor Mohammad Khan)

Come evening and they would be out in their balconies in the finest of silks and jewels. Their eyes would be lined with kohl and their lops red with dandasa, bark of the walnut there and the most fragrant of eastern perfumes or itars would fill the air. They were known as diamonds and such was their glitter that the whole street would seem studded with stars. These were the courte sans of Heera Mandi of Lahore in the years before Partition in 1947.

Heera mandi was to Lahore what Chowk was to lukcknow, Sonagachi to Calcutta and Bhaindi Bazar to Bombay. These forbidden yet most sought-after bazaars where women sold their many talents were known as kothas. In these abodes lived women, many of them very talented artists, who were nevertheless social outcasts living on the fringes of the society. Interestingly, this place was first known as Tibbi Bazar. And this name is recorded in a Punjabi tappa : Tibbi waliye la de paan ni Teri Tibbi de vich dukan ni

Next it came to be known as Shahi Mohalla and only later did it get the name which lasts till date--heera mandi.

Not all the women on the street traded in flesh. There were three distinct categories: the singers, the dancers and then the most unfortunate ones who sold their bodies for a living.

Selling their produce in Lahore happened to stray into Heera Mandi on their way back. Looking at the beautifully turned out belles, one said to the other: Je rab dhian deve tann aithe deve. Kinj ranian ban baithian ne (if God is to bless one with daughters it should be here. Seen how they sit like queens).

The tale is touching for it reflected the paradox of the society. No one would wish their daughters to reach Heera mandi, yet the lives of daughters of respectable homes were not so evidable either. It was a restricted dumb existence. In some ways the women on the street were more liberated-- they could dress well, dance, sing and live. The patriarchal society divided women thus.
There are still a few old-timers of West Punjab who remember heera mandi in its days of splendour and recall tales which they had heard. Bhag Singh, a Punjab writer and man of culture, goes nostalgic recalling that famous bazaar. He says: "I belonged to Peshawar but when in Lahore for hockey matches with my college students, a few of us would sneak into Heera mandi. It could not be told then for I may have been thrown out of the house in disgrace. I remember having seen the dance of Jaana Mashooq’’.

M.L. Koser, founder of the Pracheen Kala Kendra, also recounts a secret visit or two to the marketplace of diamonds. Men would put cotton buds soaked in itar behind their ears, wear a bracelet of fresh jasmine flowers and go to the kotha allowed to them by their status. I was young and attracted to the arts, being a dancer in the making myself, I never had the courage to enter a kotha. But the cinema halls in these areas used to present the dances of nautch girls during night shows’’, recalls Koser.
An advertisement for the special film shows which would include live song and dance performances, by cinema houses like Minerva, Grown and Rose would read thus: "Adhai aane mein teen maze’’. The performers would be from the lower rungs because the high class tawaifs never played to the gallery. Their mujra was only for the royalty, nobility and rich business class.

The well-known tawaifs were women of learning, culture and dignity. Many of them were trained in music by the best ustads of the time. In turn these women made great contribution to music and dance. Sardar Bai of Lahore was a famous singer who had learnt music from Ustad fateh Ali Khan. Pointing out their dignity as women, Bhag Singh says: "They were queens of etiquette or saleeka as we call it. If a customer passed out after having one too many while listening to ghazals, they would put him in a giest room and the lady of the house would keep his purse with her, lest the servants took away some money and it would be returned to him the next day.’’

Tawaif was a word in Persian synonymous with ganika in Sanskrit. The oriental system was one of codification and the world’s oldest profession was no exception even here there was an order of merit and excellence. A ganika was a woman who had achieved excellence in arts, intellect and etiquette. The fames Amrapali, the nagar-badhu of Vaishali, was a ganika at her best.
A ganika came from the Hindu tradition and a tawaif from the Muslim tradition with patronage coming from Mughal courts. It was Aurangzeb who tried to bury forever the arts of music and dance. In Punjab the religious reformist movements lent a harsh blow to the dignity and profession of singers and dancers. The Arya Samaj and the Singh Sabha lehar condemned them. And so even Hindu and Sikh women who joined this profession took up muslim names. The decline of princedom and withdrawal of royal patronage was responsible for royal patronage was responsible for many of these artists being forced to sell their bodies.
Heera Mandi of Lahore was the cultural centre of Punjab, the very hub of performing arts in their glory, but other cities and towns top had tawaifs. Patiala, Amritsar, Malerkotla, Ludhiana, Jagraon, Ambala and even the small town of Balachaur had some of the legendary tawaifs.

With partition, most of these women migrated. Flesh trade continues in Punjab but kothas are no longer there. A low-level of entertainment continues by disco dancers of orchestra groups but these artists have no roots in the classical traditions of dance and music.

These women from different parts of the country were pioneering artistes on the radio, the stage and films. Among them were Begum Akhtar, Noorjehan, Malika pukhraj, Zohrabai Ambalewali, Amirbai Kamataki, Kamla Jharia, Shamshad Begum, Khurshid and even the greatly acclaimed Girija Devi.

A sarangi player of Chandigarh, Ismail Bechain, had the privilege of playing sarangi in his early youth with some of the well-known bais of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Among them was the great singer Mushtari bai of Agra Gharana. She could sing the three saptaks and play magnificently the harmonium and the tabla. And such was her status that if an ordinary man tried to get to her, she would waive him off by saying "pehale meri baal banana wali se baar karo aur phir mujh tak aao" (first talk to my hair dresser and then come to me).
At barimam, near Rawalpindi, there used to be an annual cultural festival of tawaifs for which preparations would be made all year round. The best of music and dance would be available to all as these performances were not restricted to nobility.
Prof yashpal, Reader, Department of Music, panjab University, Chandigarh, Says: "The kotha tradition made the most significant contribution to contemporary Hindustani music and dance. There were patrons of great musicians-Munnijan bai of Heera mandi, Lahore, financed and supported ustad Amir Khan in his early career. Ustad Amir khan is known as the famous exponent of the Kirana Gharana of Indore. He later married Raeena, daughter of Mushtari bai. In the entire music world if anyone is asked who was the woman behind his success, the answer is : Munnija of course."

Then and Now
Heera mandi still exists in Lahore but the glory of the old world is gone. The diamonds that were traded here were not forever but the legends remain.

From a cultural hub that nurtured many an artiste, Heera Mandi has changed into a ghetto that thwarts the spirit of women.

For centuries, Heera Mandi in Lahore nurtured some outstanding performing artistes, including the famous Noorejahan, Khurshid, Shamshad Begum, Mumtaz Shanti and many others. Most of the early film actresses for pre-Partition Lahore cinema came from the kothas of Heera Mandi. The art of music in Punjab was confined to the streets of the courtesans with Heera Mandi taking the lead as the largest settlement in the cultural capital of the state in undivided Punjab.

Looking back and recalling a well-known courtesan Tamancha Jaan, Pran Nevile, a chronicler of Lahore, says, "My maiden visit to Tamancha Jaan’s salon at Heera Mandi was in 1945 with my friend Saeed Ahmed. We were seated on white sheets spread out on carpets with gaav takias (bolster pillows) supporting our backs. The room was fragrant with fresh flowers and incense sticks. The music played and Tamancha Jaan sang in her sonorous voice enchanting our young hearts."

However, those days are gone by for classical arts are no longer to be found in the kothas of Heera Mandi. It is a leg shake and more to popular music and flesh trade that have become the hallmarks of these streets in the shadow of the imposing dome and minarets of the pink stone of the Badshahi Masjid.

The only reason for the elite to visit the area unabashed is the restaurant that painter Iqbal Hussain has made in the haveli, which was the salon of his mother, aunts and elder sisters. Called the ‘Cuckoo’s Nest’, it is decorated with the paintings of the Heera Mandi done by Hussain and also quaint arty knick-knacks as well as statuettes of Virgin Mary, Buddha and Hanuman.
During a recent visit to Pakistan, we visited one of the salons in the company of some Lahoris. No longer are the white sheets, gaav takias nor incense sticks to be found there, neither the melodious unfolding of the ghazal. What one finds is very different and sad.

In the first salon behind the ‘Cuckoo’s Nest’, we find four girls with painted faces sitting on a sofa facing the outer door vacant eyed. Our escort says in embarrassment, "These ladies have come from Hindustan and want to talk to you." We are quickly pushed in and the door banged shut. The four young girls with made up faces spring and line themselves against the wall. The oldest of them must be just 25 and the youngest is barely 14. The musicians sitting on the floor start singing a loud pop-Punjabi number and the oldest joins them in the not-so-melodious singing. The second oldest quickly wears anklets on her feet and starts doing a cabaret number of sorts in her back body-clinging synthetic shirt and straight pajama. The two younger ones with garishly made-up faces stand glued to the wall, afraid and awkward. It is a moment of relief that the song ends and the haggling for money ends and a toughie opens the door. Outside a crowd of the street boys have gathered to see the strange women coming to watch mujra.

Little wonder that sadness marks the paintings of Hussain even when his subjects are wearing red and gold. A set of paintings under the title of "Silent Fears" have been made into cards by a Lahore-based NGO that is doing work against AIDS. In another very telling painting "Privacy", two women in rose-pink nightgowns lie in repose on a rumbled blue bed-spread. "Reflection" is another sad painting in which girls are shown against a mirror, depicting a perpetual wait for better times. Many of these women are called out to dance parties where they do a striptease and are often raped and even their earnings are stolen from them.

Hussain paints the plight of these women with despair and despondency. "Many land here from rural areas because their parents couldn’t marry them off for the reason that they didn’t have money to give them customary dowry," the painter says, "Some try to break out of their vicious lives of poverty to make more money as sex workers only to find a stark and harsh reality of such an existence."

Hussain’s own mother Nawab and aunts migrated from the Nimmanwali Haveli in the Dharampura Bazaar of Patiala to Heera Mandi. He would have been yet another street boy of the notorious colony if he did not have a talent for drawing. Now he looks after all the women of his family and his own children are getting good education. But such breakthroughs are rare. Hussain says, "I think if I hadn’t been painting, I would have committed suicide."

Hussain has been active in getting women to escape these environments if they can. He also plans to open a food street like the one in Gwalmandi that women have options to start other business.

His paintings at first created controversy but now these are appreciated and one of his works fetched phenomenal amount at an auction at Sotheby’s. At the ‘Cuckoo’s Nest’ hangs a portrait of a local woman with her wrists and ankles bound in penitence at Muharram. Hussain says that his subjects always break into tears as he paints them.

Deprived of support from other men, they often turn to him for help because he is the one who flew over the ‘Cuckoo’s Nest’. Iqbal Hussain has done for this red light area in visuals what Saadat Hasan Manto had done in words.

How Punjab was won

Akalis leds a virulent agitation seeking a Punjabi speaking state as the boundaries of provinces were being redrawn after independence but it took a tragic course as here language was inextricably mixed with religion, writes Inder Malhotra in The Indian Express

While language as the basis for redrawing India’s political map was accepted generally — even if it was enforced belatedly in the case of Maharashtra and Gujarat (IE, May 3) — Punjab remained a conspicuous exception to the rule. Since Partition in 1947, it had been a tri-lingual state, embracing what are now Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, and so it remained in 1956, in accordance with the recommendations of the States Reorganisation Commission that had rejected the demand for a Punjabi Suba (Punjabi-speaking state), backed by a vigorous, often virulent, agitation by its sponsors. There was, however, a powerful reason for the SRCs, and even more Jawaharlal Nehru’s, refusal to accept it.
For, this was the only case in which language was inextricably mixed with religion. The demand was confined to the Akali Dal, a party only of the Sikhs that claimed to be the “sole spokesman” all Sikhs even though a large number of them, especially those converts from the Scheduled Castes, called Mazhabis, supported the Congress which had no difficulty in defeating the Akalis at the polls. On the other hand, the Akali party and its towering leader, Master Tara Singh, had an impressive hold on the caste of Jats, dominating the Sikh community. No less formidable was their unshakeable control of the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee that runs all the Sikh shrines with their vast income. Before 1947, the Akali doctrine was that the danger to the Sikh faith was from Muslims. After 1947, the Hindus became the main threat to the Sikh Panth.

As his frustration increased, Tara Singh upped the ante. His movement became more and more violent, even militant. And then he gave it unabashedly secessionist overtones, confirming the opinion of those who had always said that Punjabi Suba was but a cover for a Sikh-majority state as a prelude to an “independent Sikh state”. However, if Akali communalists were inflammatory, Hindu communalists (largely though not entirely belonging to the Jan Sangh, the forerunner of the BJP), also acted irresponsibly and accentuated the communal divide. To undercut the demand for a Punjabi-speaking state, they persuaded the Hindu Punjabis to declare Hindi their mother tongue in the 1961 census — an issue complicated by complete disagreement between the two communities over the use of gurmukhi script.

After the bifurcation of bilingual Bombay in 1960, Akali fury escalated. Many others also felt that Punjab’s exclusion from the pattern prevalent in the rest of the country was unfair. Ajoy Ghosh, the last general secretary of the undivided Communist Party of India, went to see the prime minister and argued that the denial of a Punjabi-speaking state “smacked of discrimination”. “I envy you, Ajoy”, replied Nehru. “You don’t have to run the country and keep it in one piece. It is my responsibility to do so. Sikhs are a fine people but they are led by separatists and fanatics. I can’t hand over a state to them on Pakistan’s border. But such things are not permanent. As national integration proceeds, we will surely have a Punjabi-speaking state”. (Source: Ghosh to Nikhil Chakravartty, Nikhilda to this writer.)

It was clear that Nehru had decided to dig his heels in even while Tara Singh and other extremist Akali leaders were fuelling Sikh discontent and anger. The prime minister was happy that in Pratap Singh Kairon he had a chief minister in Punjab who was both competent and secular and thus able to contain the Akalis, if necessary by coming down heavily on them. By the start of the Sixties, however, Kairon had started losing his shine because of the greed and high-handedness of his sons (a blight that has felled many a politician in the subcontinent). Nehru earned some opprobrium for his constant defence of Kairon but eventually had to order a judicial inquiry against his favourite chief minister. Soon after Nehru’s death, Kairon had to resign because of the inquiry commission’s findings against him. The consequent political chaos in Punjab was the Akalis’ opportunity.

As it happened, another crucial change was also taking place in Punjab around the same time. From 1931 until then Master Tara Singh had been the uncontested, incontestable leader of the Akalis and, at one remove, of the Sikhs. No one could flourish in Akali politics without his patronage. Intriguingly, few of the protégés survived for long, though it usually remained debatable whether the follower had rebelled against Tara Singh or Masterji had cut him to size. In the early years of the Sixties, a new figure appeared on the Akali firmament that was different. As usual, he began as Tara Singh’s devoted disciple (the two went on alternate fasts for Punjabi Suba), later claimed near-equality with him and eventually replaced the redoubtable Master. His name was Sant Fateh Singh.

In 1965, Fateh Singh sent shock waves across the country by announcing that if Punjabi Suba were not conceded by a certain date, he would burn himself to death in the precincts of the Golden Temple. Well before the appointed date, the India-Pakistan War of that year loomed. Fateh Singh was persuaded to abandon his resolve. In return, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Nehru’s successor, appointed a cabinet committee to re-examine the issue, with Indira Gandhi as its chairperson. There is plenty of evidence to show that her mind was already made up in favour of accepting a Punjabi-speaking state. She appointed B.S. Raghavan secretary of the cabinet committee only after, in reply to her question, he had argued that the Sikh demand be accepted. Before the committee could complete its work Shastri died at Tashkent. As prime minister, Indira lost no time in deciding to trifurcate Punjab. She was much praised for her “boldness” and “maturity”. But the problem of dream city Chandigarh’s future remained.

She ruled that it would be the joint capital of both Punjab and Haryana, and itself be a Union territory. This was also welcomed as a “shrewd move”. In fact, it was to become one of the most explosive ingredients in the tragedy that overtook Punjab in the Eighties, and eventually took her life. Twenty-five years after her death the problem of Chandigarh persists.

Saraswati Samman for Patar

In a state which is struggling to ensure that its people do not forget their mother-tongue, the announcement of a Punjabi poet, Surjit Patar having been chosen for the prestigious Saraswati Samman, came as a welcome news.
The Saraswati Samman instituted by the K. K. Birla Foundation, is an annual award for outstanding prose or poetry literary works in any Indian language and carries cash prize worth Rs 5 lakh and citation.
Fittingly, Patar announced to dedicate his award to the mother-tongue and ‘the tradition of Punjabi poetry and language that began with Sheikh Farid and Guru Nanak. “I hope that through my work, I can return small part of this debt during my lifetime,” said the soft-spoken poet.
Congratulatory messages poured down from Chief Minister to readers from all over the country and abroad. His phone did not stop ringing till the battery conked down and his fan page on Facebook was choc-a-bloc.
The suave poet takes all the adulation with a grace and poise that is contrary to the image of a boisterous Punjabi. He portrays this image through the dulcet tones in which he sings his poetry and the lyrical language he employs even in his ordinary day to day talk. This is reflected in his poems, obviously. Replete with imagery drawn from nature as well as local metaphors and motifs he interweaves in his poems contemporary concerns and personal impressions effortlessly.
This has ensured a distinct literary identity for Patar who enjoys immense popularity with general public and high acclaim from critics at the same time.
He is the third Punjabi writer after Harbhajan Singh and Dalip Kaur Tiwana to get the Saraswati Samman, other recipients of which include Harivansh Rai Bacchan, Vijay Tendulkar, Sunil Gangopadhyay among others.
65 year old Patar, who retired as Professor of Punjabi from Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, has six books of poetry to his credit. He has also translated into Punjabi three tragedies of Federico García Lorca besides adaptations of plays from Jean Giradoux, Euripides and Racine. The celebrated poet has also been the recipient of Sahitya Akademi Award and Panchnad Puruskar by Bhartiya Bhasha Parishad, Kolkata in '99 besides having been conferred DLitt by Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar.

-JATINDER PREET