From fading ink to print, Bhagat Singh's life to be on bookshelves
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Bathinda: Bundles of loose papers, yellowed with time and the ink fading on them, tell the story of the enigma and legend that's Bhagat Singh. These scattered bits of an unfinished biography by the freedom fighter's brother Ranbir Singh were shown to the public at the inauguration of a Bhagat Singh Memorial Hall at a pre-Partition-era public library on Sunday, and will now be turned into a book.
Written mostly in Urdu, the papers were collected from Bhagat Singh's nephew -- Major General Sheonan Singh (retd), Vir Chakra, a hero of the IPKF Operation – and are now the treasured collection of Rampura Phul town of Bathinda, some 200km west of Chandigarh.
A professor has decided to have them translated and published in English, Punjabi and Hindi.
Ranbir Singh was only 6-7 years old when Bhagat Singh kissed the gallows on March 23, 1931.
He began chronicling Bhagat Singh's life in the early 1940s, tracing his life from his childhood at Chak 105 Bangay to his youth and the events leading to his sacrifice in 1931. Ranbir also collected documents pertaining to his trial.
After Ranbir's death in 1988, his wife handed over some of the documents to Bhagat Singh's comrade Shiv Verma, a revolutionary and Kaala Pani survivor. Eventually, the papers passed to the hands of Ranbir Singh's son Major General Sheonan Singh (retd), a Para Commando who is himself a Special Forces legend after leading a 28-hour firefight against overwhelming numbers of LTTE terrorists.
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Speaking to TOI, Sheonan Singh said: "I had seen my father taking notes in Urdu for years, writing down accounts from family members and acquaintances, and from documents procured from authorities or court. He used to talk to elder brothers and sisters and those who knew Bhagat Singh to learn more and more about him. As I got busy in my work with Indian Army, I could not keep much track of all this."
"After the demise of my father, my mother got to know that Shiv Verma was writing about the freedom struggle and freedom fighters, and needed authentic documents.
We handed some of the documents from the collection to him. Later these were handed over to Chandigarh-based publisher Harish Jain and now Prof Chaman Lal has got them," Singh told TOI.
Bhagat Singh's niece Gurjit Kaur (daughter of Bhagat Singh' sister Parkash Kaur) attended the event at the library and was overwhelmed with emotion when she leafed through the documents for the first time on Sunday.
"Even though my maternal uncle had jotted down these a long time ago and these remained with my cousin, I am seeing these for the first time," she told TOI.
Prof Chaman Lal said, "Ranbir Singh though wrote a lot but couldn't preserve each and every note due to which the work remained incomplete and could not be given the shape of a biography or a memoir."
"As I can read Urdu to some extent, and by using the services of those who know Urdu well, I will minutely go through these papers and will bring out whatever Bhagat Singh's brother Ranbir Singh noted down and will try to bring those documents in public domain," added the professor.
Harish Jain said after going through the documents, they published a book in Punjabi and now want to publish one in English.
'Build Society On Bhagat Singh's Ideals'
Bhagat Singh's niece Gurjit Kaur Gurjit Kaur, speaking about a govt plan to set up heritage street at Khatkar Kalan, said we need to go through the ideals of Bhagat Singh, who wanted equality. Instead of setting up such things, govts need to work on building a society as per the ideals of Bhagat Singh and ensure quality and affordable education and healthcare in everyone's reach.
She also criticised the state govt for its land pooling policy.
Gurjit Kaur inaugurated the Bhagat Singh memorial hall at the public library, set up in 1939 at Rampura Phul town of Bathinda. It will have on its shelves historical books about freedom struggle and revolutions across the world. Prof Chaman Lal has provided hundreds of books for the memorial hall along with eminent writer Baldev Singh Sadaknama and journalist Baljit Balli. Freedom fighter Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew had visited this library in 1953.
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