The primary Veer Bal Diwas underlines the truth that in India, it’s tales that make reminiscences. It’s these reminiscences that make folks historical past. This historical past, in flip, will get ignored by skilled historians of a positivistic inclination. Politicians who’re delicate to the a number of undercurrents that movement unseen in each society, handle to make use of such histories to succeed in out to folks. Reviling these reminiscences as myth-making doesn’t wipe them out or cut back their energy.
Over 30 years in the past, when Punjab was firmly within the grip of terror and Chandigarh was in perpetual lockdown, the December trimester break at Punjab College launched me to a novel characteristic of Punjabi society. Whereas everybody else was celebrating Christmas and planning a heat welcome to the New Yr, there have been some elders — particularly amongst households that got here from Punjab villages neighbouring Chandigarh — who gave up sleeping on beds and abjured widespread comforts for a whole week. It was only a small interval of personal grief, not one thing that any outsider was supposed to note. On quizzing, one mom mentioned: “It’s to recall the sacrifice that the sahibzadas made to save lots of all of us.”
For these unfamiliar with the context, that is the time of the 12 months when temperatures in Punjab are near freezing and full weeks go by with out the solar. But, few talked about what they had been endeavor. The elders merely spent somewhat extra time in prayer and infrequently, narrated numerous tales of the good Gurus, particularly concerning the battle of Chamkaur Sahib and the psychological power proven by the 2 younger sons of Guru Gobind Singh. “Sahibzadas” is how they had been addressed.
Temporary visits to the then small gurdwara at Fatehgarh Sahib throughout that interval launched me to a folks reminiscence that was each disturbing and awe-inspiring. Historians had written briefly about them. The state authorities had ignored them. It was largely individuals who retold the tales to one another and thus saved them alive. To them, it mattered little that historians had not researched the occasions round these reminiscences or that these in energy had ignored them.
In naked element, the story is one thing as follows: Wazir Khan, the Mughal governor, administered territories between the rivers Yamuna and Sutlej. In December 1704, in the course of the reign of Aurangzeb in Delhi, the tenth Guru of the Sikhs and his entourage of some hundred had been attacked as he made his method out of the hill fastness that’s in the present day referred to as Anandpur Sahib. Within the melee that adopted, referred to as the Battle of Chamkaur Sahib, the 2 elder sons of Guru Gobind Singh had been killed and the 2 youthful ones aged 6 and 9 years, received separated. The Guru himself escaped, helped by two Pathans, Ghani Khan and Nabi Khan, and finally took shelter in the home of an area Muslim chief.
The youthful boys, together with their 81-year-old grandmother, Mata Gujri, took shelter with a servant who betrayed them to the Mughals. They had been now saved in a naked draughty room within the fort at Sirhind whereas the Mughals took their time to resolve about their future. Three weeks later, Wazir Khan made them a suggestion. Convert to Islam, or else…
He provided to spare their lives in the event that they had been to just accept Islam.
The boys refused.
Wazir Khan ordered that they be bricked in, alive. That date is etched into the reminiscences of Punjab. It was what’s now referred to as the twenty seventh of December, 1704.
Mata Gujri died of shock.
Over the subsequent few years, Aurangzeb handed away. His empire rapidly crumbled and Banda Bairagi took over a lot of japanese Punjab. In the summertime of 1710, Banda killed Wazir Khan on the Battle of Chappar Chiri, a small village on the outskirts of what’s now referred to as Chandigarh and took management over the territories of Sirhind.
The chamber the place the Sahibzadas had been bricked in, the Bhora Sahib, turned a spot of pilgrimage for everybody. Ultimately, a gurdwara got here up round it. These days folks assemble annually within the final week of December to recollect the struggling and sacrifice of the household that held up the dignity of their faith and refused to succumb to an oppressive Islam. The gathering is just not known as a “Jor mela”, actually a coming-together-fair. Relatively, it’s known as “Jor Mel”, the event for everybody to place their heads collectively to consider the sacrifices made by the sahibzadas and the gurus and learn how to lead a extra moral life.
As with all residing traditions, this story too is significantly undocumented. Maybe for that motive alone, the advanced messages underlying it stay alive, particularly the necessity to retain psychological power within the face of adversity and a robust moral dedication to 1’s beliefs. Embedding it within the nationwide calendar of India within the type of Veer Bal Diwas makes it accessible to the complete nation. The prime minister, after all, hopes that this might additionally carry to the younger a message about dedication to the motherland, to 1’s beliefs, and moral residing. In spite of everything, the younger do must have hope and develop the psychological power to not give in to adversity. It might be too simplistic to think about that embedding a reminiscence from Punjab into the nationwide consciousness will end in Punjabi votes for the BJP within the subsequent common elections.
The author is professor of Historical past at Panjab College
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