Bhagat Singh: Martyr of Lahore - The Times of India
Neel Kamal,TNN | Mar 23, 2015, 02.29 PM IST
When religious fundamentalism is trying to bulldoze every minority in Pakistan and whitewash history and memories, we find a tiny secular, progressive and democratic minority in Lahore, which believes in common Punjabi heritage and culture and has tried to reclaim the legacy of Bhagat Singh, the non-Muslim hero who lived and died in the walled city.
'We'll fight to the finish'
For most, Shadman Chowk is just a footnote in history, but it isn't just that. For, that was where Bhagat Singh was hanged along with Rajguru and Sukhdev. To keep memories of that sacrifice alive in a country that has been shying away from recognizing Bhagat Singh as its martyr, activists have been demanding that it be renamed as Bhagat Singh chowk. One of those spearheading the struggle is Diep Saeeda, founder director of Lahore-based NGO Institute for Peace and Secular Studies (IPSS).
Fifty four-year-old Diep, a graduate from Columbia University, was among those who first raised the voice to rename the roundabout in the heart of Lahore after the martyr. The roundabout had come up after the central jail made way for modernization.
"We started the campaign way back in 1999 and I wrote to the government of Punjab after we located the place of hanging while researching jail documents. In 2005, I submitted another application to convert Bradlaugh Hall School building into Bhagat Singh museum," says Diep.
She never forgets that night from 2012, a day before Bhagat Singh's martyrdom day. Diep along with her daughters had spray painted the words 'Bhagat Singh Chowk' on the roundabout. They had reclaimed their hero. Their eyes had welled up. Their hearts had skipped a few beats. The next year, during one such demonstration in 2013, when the district administration had announced to rename the chowk, members of a religious group came to them all of sudden and beat them up. She admits that she thought the incident would garner them support. "Sadly, it did not happen so. But we still are determined to fight to the finish and will gather at Shadman Chowk with Bhagat Singh portraits shouting slogans to rename it after the martyr this year too," she says.
Taking people's hero to people
For Shafiq Butt, a cultural and rights activist, Bhagat Singh is not just an individual who fought for people's causes, but an institution in himself. This admiration made Shafiq (47) convince theatre groups in organizing a Lok Boli Mela (festival of mother tongue) in 2008 in the small town of Jaranwala, a stone's throw away from Bhagat Singh's birthplace, Chak Number 105, and devote it to Bhagat Singh. With the martyr as the central figure of the literary fest that continued for 5 days, it turned out to be the only event in rural Pakistan where Bhagat Singh was talked about freely and remembered by intellectuals as martyr of the sub- continent without any fear.
"The mela was one of the biggest events ever organized on Bhagat Singh in rural areas of Pakistani Punjab. I had to face many threats after organizing it," says Shafiq, who hails from Sahiwal. "Scores of artists, writers, poets, intellectuals, rights activists participated in the fest and paid tributes. Prolific and progressive writer Afzal Tauseef enlightened youth about the ideals of Bhagat Singh and stressed upon the need to adopt those ideas," he recalls.
"Memories of the martyr have not faded from the minds of people even 84 years after he attained martyrdom and the urge to see the world as envisaged by him is intact even in conservative Pakistan where talking about Bhagat Singh is a sin," he says.
Theatre of assertion
When votaries of Punjabi language were being termed as anti-state, young men and women came together and formed independent alternative theatre groups in the late 1980s. Punjab Lok Rahs and Punjab Lok Sujag were formed with an aim to use theatre for political expression during the repressive regime of Zia-ul-Haq. These youths, mainly students, were concerned about the military oppression of arts and cultural activities in Pakistan and wished to cherish a society that doesn't discriminate on basis of gender, regards democratic values, offers equal economic opportunities to all.
From classical epics to quick response street skits, from foreign adaptations to improvising those that came from within the community, the canvas of Lok Rahs and Lok Sujag is diverse, but it is Chippan Ton Pehla, a play based on the ideology and life of Bhagat Singh and his last days in prison, what they are synonymous to in Pakistan. The play was received best during stagings at Shadman Chowk protests. Written by Indian playwright Davinder Daman, the play is directed by Huma Safdar and has often renewed the resolve of Bhagat Singh aficionados in Pakistan to carry on the struggle despite threats from religious fundamentalists.
The plays are being staged not just in Lahore, but also in remote areas of Sahiwal and Faislabad towns.
Four decades with the martyr
Zubair Ahmad discovered Bhagat Singh in 1975. "I was 17 years old and part of a young writers group. We celebrated Bhagat Singh in Cheeni Restaurant Mall Road, Lahore. Tahir Yasoob sang Bhagat Singh's Ghori and the function was presided over by Abdullah Malik, a known Pakistani communist leader," recalls poet and fiction writer Zubair Ahmad.
The love for Bhagat Singh that began in teenage carried on to the other side of life and Bhagat Singh became a mainstay at Kitab Trinjan, a book store, the responsibility of managing which was wrested in Zubair. To promote Punjabi language was one of the main ideas, including publishing new writers, transliterating and publishing books of writers from East Punjab and organizing conferences of Punjabi writers and book festivals all over Pakistani Punjab.
Promoting Bhagat Singh's ideology was natural. Publishing Why I Am An Atheist was the most natural step. Besides, there were books on the martyr by Pakistani writers.
"A lot of writers like Sheikh Azaz, Najm Hosain Syed, Mian Saleem Jahangir, Afzal Ahsan Randhawa and Ahmed Saleem have paid tributes to Bhagat Singh through their plays, poems and books. Oxford University Press Pakistan has also published a book about Bhagat Singh, which was quickly sold," he recalls. The book store closed down in 2009 without any specific reason. But it stirred many a minds and introduced many a Pakistanis to the collective hero of the two countries.
The man who made it possible
Noor Ul Amin Mengal was chief of district administration when it was announced to rename Lahore's Shadman Chowk after Bhagat Singh two years ago. When the government sanctioned Rs 8 crore to restore the martyr's native village Chak 105 Bangay of Jaranwala last year and announced to turn the village into a model village, he was district coordination officer of the area.
Forty-year-old Mengal, belonging to 28th batch of Pakistan Administrative Services, has not paid much heed to the fundamentalist fringe elements. "People of Bangay take pride in the fact that Bhagat Singh was born there. I too studied deeply about the people's hero and tried to do something for the place," he had said when the government sanctioned finds for the village last year.
"I got a chance to work for the place deeply associated with the martyr. I took pains in restoring the carving in the roof of the house built more than 100 years ago, to its original shape without altering the design.
Conservationists were involved. They studied the old pattern of the building very minutely and tried to give it the original shape. The government had in the past notified 45 assets in the area and two of them belonged to Bhagat Singh and I took extra care in preserving these," he says while talking to TOI.
The rebel publishers
Just like East Punjab, literature based on Bhagat Singh remains immensely popular among the residents of Lehanda Punjab, as Pakistani Punjab is popularly known among Punjabis. University students and Left wing activists remain most staunch devotees of the martyr in Pakistan too. The credit for this also goes to Suchet Kitab Ghar being run by Lahore-based couple Saqib Maqsood and Faiza Ra'ana. They stock books on Bhagat Singh which are a great hit among those wanting to read up on the freedom struggle movement.
Saqib and Faiza have translated several books of Bhagat Singh in Punjabi script of Shahmukhi, which is read in Pakistan. "Bhagat Singh is a hero for Pakistanis as well and many come looking for books on him," said Maqsood.
The books that have helped in bringing Bhagat Singh into public domain in Pakistan include those written by contemporaries of the martyr, including 'Amar Shaheed Dia Yaadan' (Memories of Legendary Martyr) written by then Lahore-based librarian Raja Ram Shastri of Dwarka Dass Library, where Bhagat Singh used to spend a lot of time reading up world literature.
