On TV about Sikh authors

Many days ago, Associated News of India interviewed me about the contribution of Sikh authors to Indian culture. I spoke about Bhai Kahan Singh Nabha, Bhai Vir Singh, Khushwant Singh, Patwant Singh and also a new author, Ravinder Pal Singh. I had no idea about when the interview would be telecast.

Some days ago, I received a mail from Ravinder Pal Singh and he told me that the interview had been broadcast and was also available on the Net. He also corrected me –he was born in Kolkata and brought up in Orissa (and not Bihar). He also understands Bihari. I had reviewed Ravinder’s book I too had a Love Story, which has since become a bestseller.

You may like to read my earlier article on Bhai Kahn Singh Nabha or my tribute to Patwant Singh. I had also reviewed Rahul Singh’s book on his father, Khushwant Singh

“Personal histories are also social histories, since we human beings are social animals,” said Mrs Inderjit Kaur, as she released the book, “Darpan,” an autobiography of the late Risaldar Sunder Singh, which portrayed both the society and history of his times (1895-1990).

Pankaj Singh of the Browser, Mrs Baljit Gandhi, Brig Gobindar Singh and Mrs Inderjit Kaur at the book launch of Darpan

“Darpan”, means a mirror. The book is written in Punjabi, is a first person account of the life experience of the author. “The soldiers fought for the freedom of others in World War I. When they came back, they saw the need for freedom in their country, and as such many who had been loyal warriors of the British Raj and became prisoners in British jails,” said Mrs Inderjit Kaur, former Vice-Chancellor of Punjabi University Patiala and former Chairperson, Staff Selection Commission, New Delhi, who released the book at Lounge, Browser’s-8, Chandigarh, on Saturday, December 19,2008.

Brig Gobindar Singh and Mrs Inderjit Kaur and Mr Pankaj Singh of the Browser at the book launch of Darpan

As she punctuated her talk by quoting extensively from the book, she brought alive the book and its author for the audience. An unkindly reference to his uncle, the well-known freedom fighter, Baba Kharak Singh, by his senior prompted Risaldar Sahib to leave the British Army and in time, join the movement to free Gurdwaras from the control of the hereditary mahants, and also to free India from the British Rule. In over three hundred pages, the author narrates his experiences on the French and Mesopotamian fronts. He especially mentions Basra in Iraq and Kurdish areas.

Brig Gobindar Singh looks as Mrs Inderjit Kaur addresses the audience

The author’s narrative of active participation in the freedom struggle during the Akali movement of the early 1920s is noteworthy. Among the distinguished guest present today were Brig Gobindar Singh, nephew of and Mrs Baljit Gandhi, grand-daughter of the author. Mrs Devi Gobinder Singh read from the manuscript.

The chapter on Baba Kharak Singh, who had the distinction of having been the President of the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabhandak Committee, Amritsar, as also the president of the Pradesh Congress, Punjab, is especially noteworthy for the human face it gives a legendary historical figure..

“The book is also an honest account of the out sensitivities in human relations and tragedies that he faced as in individual faced in his life, said Mrs Inderjit Kaur, who spoke in Punjabi, “it is an absorbing read.”

Mr Pankaj Singh, the owner of The Browser, said that the book had come alive after Mrs Inderjit Kaur’s talk, which aroused interest for reading the volume among all who were present at the book release function.

Punjabi Tribune. Please click on the image for a bigger picture

The event was well covered in the local media, including, the Lifestyle section of The Tribune, the HT Live section of Hindustan Times and the Punjabi Tribune.

Please click here to see the Doordarshan documentary on Mrs Inderjit Kaur.

Please click here to read about another book release by Mrs Inderjit Kaur.

Please click here to read my article about Baba Kharak Singh

Reunions being forth memories of days gone by, inevitably tinged with a golden hue. The AYOSA, ably led by Jaspal Sekhon has been making valiant efforts to get the old boys and girls of the school together, and we meet on Saturday, in the evening, at North Park.

There will be a significant presence from by class—Gurpreet Bhattal, Rajbirinder Chahal, Tina and Sunil Jain, Birinder Gill, all live in Chandigarh and are keen golfers. No wonder, there will be an inter-house golf competition on Saturday morning at the Chandigarh Golf Club, where Birinder is the President. I can’t swing a club to save my life, and will happily join the gang in the evening.

Nostalgically, we remember those no longer with us—Satbir Virk, Narendra Singh and Winendra Kaleka, all of whom left us years ago. They were good people, but we were not destined to spend more time with their memories rather than them.

The other day, when our class-fellow, Ramjit Kaur visited us from the US, Gupi Bhattal dug up this old photograph that he had carefully preserved and showed it around. I have posted it online so that we can share it even more widely. Please click on it for a bigger picture.

I have also uploaded a Hi-Res picture which is a 5MB file. You can see each face if you enlarge it, you can also download it on to your computers!

The Press Council of India had decided that on the National Press Day, we would deliberate on ‘The changing face of Indian media’. The District Journalist’s Association, or the Zila Patarkar Parishad, Panchkula, had invited me to speak on this very topic on Sunday.

The Tribune Assistant Editor Roopinder Singh addresses mediapersons at the National Press Day celebrations in Panchkula on Sunday. Tribune photo: S Chandan

It’s always daunting to speak to one’s colleagues, and it became more so when I found that I was the only one who addressed them in English—the rest of the proceedings were largely in Hindi, where I have limitations, especially in speaking formally. The audience was multilingual and this proved no impediment.

The Tribune’s Chandigarh edition had a rather extensive report on the event. Please click here to read it.

When you see a little a discrete blue badge with its distinctive cogged wheel and gold bands, you know that you are meeting a representative or an organisation that has as its moto Service above Self.

Rotary International, with more than 32,000 clubs and over 1.2 million members world-wide, needs no introduction and when Man Mohan Singh, the hotelier and a Past President of the Rotary Club of Chandigarh, invited me to meet his fellow Rotarians and talk about Jaswant Singh’s book and the controversy surrounding it, I responded positively with delight.

Rotary Club of Chandigarh, India, RI District 3080, has the distinction of being the home club of Rajendra K. Saboo, who is the second Indian to rise to the high echelons of Rotary International, as President for the year 1991-92. Raja Saboo had joined Rotary in 1961. He also heads a foundation that gives the Tara Chand Saboo Excellence Awards In School Teaching, with which I have been involved since its inception.
Monday August 31st, was my first visit to the Sector 18 Rotary House. I met G.S. Lakhmana, the club President and others, including Neena Singh, who is doing great work as Director, Vocational Service (she has corrected me, that was last year, now she is Director Community Service). My talk presented me with an opportunity to present my point of view to this audience of opinion-makers.

From Website

Jinnah — India, Partition, Independence is the shorter version of the original title: “Structure of Freedom: Mohammad Ali Jinnah from ambassador to Hindu-Muslim unity to Qayadism of Partition.”
The message of Jaswant Singh’s book is hardly earth-shattering, and what it says something that has been said earlier, by many other authors and historians—Jinnah was certainly not the only person who was responsible for the partition of India. There were many currents—British post-imperial strategic interests, role of Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhai Patel many of the other political players of the time. Also, we must remember that often a sequence of events generates its own momentum such that even those who believe that they are shaping events are left as bystanders.
By censoring the book, the Gujarat government virtually granted it huge national sales—over 40,000 copies sold and more going by the day. The Constitution of India guarantees freedom of speech but places “reasonable restrictions”, “in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India or public order or morality.” This provision was grossly misused by the Gujarat government, and thus the order banning the book was struck down by the Gujarat High Court.
India has often been quick off the mark in banning books. It was the second country in the world (after Singapore) to ban Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. In 1989, I wrote about how I found it difficult and tedious to read the book, and after the talk some people walked up to me and said they too could not finish the tome.
It is extremely worrying that we are losing our tolerance to debate. Holding a dissenting opinion is taken as a revolt, and attacked vociferously. I have always been attracted by the philosophical triad: thesis—antithesis—synthesis, often attributed to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, though he credited Immanuel Kant, by favourite German philosopher.
We Indians, along with the Greeks, share a rich tradition of literary and philosophical dialogue as the very foundation of enriching and distilling knowledge. Today we have become ignorant to discourse, a very worrying state of affairs indeed.
The Rotarians stood out because of their eagerness to expose themselves to various points of view, and the questions they asked showed interest and inquisitiveness.
As a journalist, I have often been the person through whose eyes people see event. This time, the role was reversed and I am posting a report on the event by Rotary Open Hand magazine. I really don’t know if what I said warranted them saying: “It was a very interesting and enlightening talk put very aptly, which only a seasoned and knowledgeable journalist could handle and that too with such finesse.”
On a personal note, I have known from others for a long time that my friend Mukul Khanna’s father had a prominent role in the club. Perusing the club history, I found that he the late KJ Khosla, then member of Rotary Club of Patiala, was the Governor’s Special Representative, who helped organise the club during its inception. Yesterday, Mukul’s mother called me to say that she had found out that I spoke well at the club. While I am thankful for the complements that I had received, this call was really special!

In an unusual trip out of our home, my mother, Inderjit Kaur Sandhu, released the book Jat Sikh Women-Social Transformation: Changing Status and Lifestyle, by Amarinder Sandhu, at the Chandigarh Press Club on Saturday, August 30.

Amarinder has done extensive research on the subject and was particularly keen that my mother release her book, I suspect not only because of Inderjit Kaur Sandhu’s achievements, which are considerable—she was Vice-Chancellor, Punjabi University, Patiala (1975-1977), and chairperson, Staff Selection Commission (1980-1988), but also because she is considered an exemplar for Jat Sikh women.

Speaking extempore and choosing to address the audience in Punjabi, the one and only woman Vice-Chancellor of a university in northern India, spoke about the early steps taken to empower women through education in the state, dating back to 1890 when Bhai Takhat Singh started Sikh Kanya Mahavidalya, Ferozepore. A boarding school for girls opened four years later and in Barnala by Bibi Pardhan Kaur, daughter of Baba Ala Singh, the founder of Patiala dynasty also started a school for women.

Education produced eminent daughters in Punjab include Serla Grewal (Government College for Women, Ludhiana), Kiran Bedi (Government College for Women, Amritsar) who rose to commanding heights.

Commenting on the book, she went into some detail about the survey and contrasted the lack of education and decision-making power among women in the area under study, with the rosy picture that had she had mentioned earlier. She also lamented that some parts of Punjab were still living in dark ages. She also criticised the morally reprehensible murder of unborn daughters of Punjab that had just not stopped.

Amarinder’s book is an important documentation of the changing face of rural Punjab, and was the subject of her PhD thesis. The book, published by Unistar Books, a Chandigarh-based company.

Meeting Amarinder’s PhD guide took me back to my younger days when I would visit my mother at the university at Patiala. “You used to come from St Stephen’s and visit Prof H S Gill’s house,” she remembered.

We also met many other friends after a long time. The book release was widely covered in the media. My friend Baljit Singh has made a video and I am trying to have that put on the Net too.

My mother’s day out was a memorable one.

Read report in The Tribune

An annual, low-key engagement this time of the year in Chandigarh is meeting participants of the Summer Program in Punjab Studies run by the dedicated Prof Gurinder Singh Mann. For the 13^th year, he has brought together a bright group of academics who have an interest in Punjab and its various aspects.  Prof Mann was at Columbia University when I lived in New York in the 1980s and I have fond memories of that time. Please click here to see my report on the group.

I have always had to share my mother with not only members of our family, but also thousands of her students, and many of her colleagues. She balanced her life in such a way that family got its time, even as her professional accomplishments demanded more and more from her. At times we wondered how she managed all that, but to children the jump from reading Superman comics to expecting a Supermother was a simple, almost a logical one.

We have reason to celebrate her life and accomplishments since Doordarshan has made a documentary on her in Punjabi, which lead to a renewal of ties with many, many old friends. Please click here to see the film, which was been broadcast many times over the DD Jalandhar and DD Regional channels since it was originally telecast in July 13, 2009.
TV critic Randeep Wadhera wrote about the programme and its subject  in the Saturday Extra section of The Tribune on August1.   Please click here to read his comments.

W H McLeod played a major role in establishing and popularising the academic study of Sikhism outside India. McLeod, who died in New Zealand, on July 20, 2009, at the age of 77, is not as widely known as he should have been. However, for all those who study the Sikhs, their religion and culture, he has been the major international scholar who has left behind a body of work on Sikhism which will be a source of reference to the coming generations of Sikh scholars. Please click here to read my article, a tribute published in The Tribune. It was also published in the Punjabi Tribune simultaneously. You can click here to read the Punjabi Tribune PDF file or here to read the English PFD file.

With the death of Ram Narayan Kumar in Kathmandu  on June 28, I lost a friend whose work inspired me. Many Punjabis also feel the same, because of the tireless manner in which he fought for human rights in the state, and outside it in India and abroad.

Ram Narayan Kumar (1956-2009)

I first met Ram in the 1980s because of my friend Nitya, who continued her association with Ram and his causes till the very end, often taking up the legal aspects of much of his work.

The book, Reduced to Ashes: The Insurgency and Human Rights in Punjab, written by Ram Narayan Kumar with Amrik Singh, Ashok Agrwaal and Jaskaran Kaur, is a one-of-a-kind documentation of those who had disappeared in Punjab during the 1980s.

Please click here to read a review of the book titled They did what CBI could not by A J Philip, former Senior Associate Editor of The Tribune.

Ram, Ashok, Nitya and others took many risks to get to the truth, and it was their dogged, focused quest that has brought some justice to the victims of Punjab Police atrocities through the National Human Rights Commission.

My association with Ram and his work continued over years, and every time he visited Chandigarh, we met, often over a meal. Last year, in April, Ram was kind enough to ask me to join him and speak at the release of his book Terror in Punjab: Narratives, Knowledge and Truth, where I also met Harsh Mander, a former civil servant dedicated to the cause of justice in Gujarat and Prof Abdulrahim P. Vijapur from Aligarh Muslim University.
I wrote about Ram in Punjabi, since it is the mother tongue of the people who really benefited from his work . Please click here to read my article, which was published on July 3, 2009, in the Punjabi Tribune. Its a PDF file.

For the English readers, I recommend Harsh’s article, An epic life, which was published in The Hindu on July 19, 2009.