"In the cultural space of Punjab, Bhagat Singh facilitates an ‘interaction’ among the Punjabis, despite the borders and the boundaries that colonial politics has bequeathed to them….Bhagat Singh’s martyrdom begot the motif of ‘wedding with death’ in the literary culture of Punjab. The virgin-martyr, Bhagat Singh, provided the Punjabi poets with a ‘style’ i.e. composing a marriage song of a martyr, called ghori in Punjabi. The image of Bhagat Singh, as constructed in Punjabi literature, is a form of literary resistance to the imperialist hegemony." --  Ishwar Dayal Gaur

While reading Martyr as Bridegroom: A folk representation of Bhagat Singh by Ishwar Dayal Gaur, I was lost in my own memories of celebrating Bhagat Singh day in 1976 in the now defunct Cheney’s Lunch Home on the Mall Road, Lahore. That day a group of young writers that had formed a literary organisation, Naye Ufaq, was holding its weekly meeting at Cheney’s Lunch Home which is near Pak Tea House. The meeting was presided over by veteran communist intellectual Abdullah Malik; and the late Yasoob Tahir came all the way from Bahawalnagar to mesmerise the audience with his magical voice by singing the ghori of Bhagat Singh:

Aao ni sahiyo ral gaviye ghorhiaan/ Janjh te hoyee aa taiyaar ve haan/ Maut kudi nu viyahun challya/ Bhagat Singh Sardar ve haan/ Painti crore tere janjhi ve ladeya/ Paidal kyee aswaar ve haan..

We were all very young at the time. I was hardly 18 and most of us in the audience knew nothing about Bhagat Singh except that he was oft compared to Che Guevara and that he went to the gallows singing the song ‘mera rang day bassanti chola maa’. I remember that right across Cheney’s was the office of AfRasia, a religious right-wing magazine. The editor of the magazine was Abdul Qadir Hassan, who in a very strong column condemned our literary organisation; he labelled us ‘anti-Pakistani,’ ‘Indo-Soviet agents’ and whatnot.

Four decades later, not much has changed -- the space for Bhagat Singh has further shrunk.

However, reading Gaur’s book on Singh, it can be seen that on the other side of the Wagah border, there is a huge amount of work conducted on Singh. Despite the fact that Singh was born on the Pakistani side of Punjab, was educated here and took his last breath in Lahore, we have not produced many books on Singh except perhaps a booklet by Sibte Hassan and two books by Ahmad Saleem, published in the 1970s. A recent book by Zarin Fatima titled Sarfaroshi ki Tamanna Aur Bhagat Singh is a useful addition.

It is striking that Pakistan couldn’t even name a public square after Singh, but in the Indian Punjab, he is a big icon, highly revered and recognised, second only to Guru Nanak.

There are many Bhagat Singhs, the secular, the socialist, the nationalist, the terrorist, the national terrorist, the patriotic, the atheist, Shaheed-e-Azam, the Sardar Sandu Jatt , the religious , of Bollywood and lastly a folk hero. Gaur’s book is unique in the sense that he constructs Singh as he was imagined by our folk poetry and places him in a true socio-historical perspective of the collective Punjab.

Singh’s life can be broadly divided in two phases: his life and struggle before arrest and his life as prisoner in Lahore Central Jail. Even before his hanging, he had become a legend and poets began idolising his determined spirit even in the face of death. This stirred the poets’ imagination and inspired the people. A Punjabi poet, Gurpal Singh Noor versifies: "The immortal legend of Bhagat Singh sprouted from the soil/whom the waters of the five rivers respect and adore."

The story of how he became a part of people‘s collective unconscious so fast and then remained as source of inspiration and an icon of martyrdom lies in the life and times of Bhagat Singh. The 1920s and 1930s were the times of defiance and resistance. Starting from the first Lahore conspiracy case where revolutionaries of Ghadar party were hanged in 1915/1916, leading up to the massacre at Jallianawala Bagh in 1919 and till the hanging of Bhagat Singh and his comrades Sukhdev and Raj Guru on March 23, 1931, we witness much political activities. It is said that more than 20 political organisations from the right and left were working at that time.

Singh has been irrevocably placed in the literary tradition of Punjabi non-conformism and resistance against religious, political and social patriarchal high-handedness. For Gaur he was Saloka of Farid, Bani of Baba Nanak, Kafi of Bulleh and Qissa of Waris. He is listed among other martyrs like Guru Arjan Dev, the fifth guru, Guru Teg Bahadur, the ninth Guru and finally ‘outlaw’ martyr Dullah Bhatti who was hanged by Akbar in Lahore. Bhagat also shares his rebellion with ‘lover’ martyrs: Heer-Ranjha, Sassi Punnun and Sohni-Mahiwal.

A lot of tappy (folk couplets) bolian, qissay, marhian and a ghori were written by poets about Bhagat Singh. Every year books, plays, movies and poems continue to be written about him. Ghori is a song, sung by women at the marriage ceremonies, it literally means ‘mare’. Marriage and martyrdom are important motifs in Punjab’s history and culture. The young martyr was conceived as a bridegroom and tributes were paid to him by poets.

The following ghori was sung by a poet named Tair in 1932 to observe Singh’s first death anniversary. About 1 lakh people gathered in Lahore to hear Tair, a tongawalla.

Come on sisters/Let us sing together the songs of marriage, the ghorian/ The wedding procession,Janj, has got ready./Sardar Bhagat Singh,the patriot is about to repair/To marry Death, the maiden/for a solemn bath/Bhagat Singh, you have turned gallows into a wicker-mat,khara/And, like a bridegroom, you have seated yourself cross-legged on it./Have a bath with a pitcher brimful of tears/And put on a solemn red thread,mohli,dyed in blood/O bridegroom./Thirty five core people/Join your wedding procession/Many are mounted/Many are on foot./Attired in the black/The wedding procession has proceeded/ ‘Tair’ is too ready for the same.’

In this poem Najm Hosain Syed, shows how Bhagat Singh is never exhausted.

Hun te aa gye aan/Lambhey keekan rahiye/Yaari Teri Sadi koi nhi/ (Aiwein tainu jhooth pye kahiye)/Tera sada jutt vair da ei/Eha raah Milan da torhey/Sanu khabre aje Saar nhi/Koi jitt poori jitt nhi/Haar koi poori haar nhi/Hun te aa gye aan/Jioon marno marr jiwano koi bahar nhi/
(Jawabi parchi Bhagat Singh Di Sukhalle Jamati De naan)

Now we have arrived/ why remain on the sidelines? /We are no friends of yours. / (Just don’t want to tell you a lie.)/We are joined in animosity./Perhaps this is the only way we can meet./We may not know much./No success is a total success,/Nor any defeat a complete defeat./Now we have arrived./Where no one lives outside of dying, and no one dies outside of life/

[Reply letter of Bhagat Singh to his affluent class fellow]

Last month was Bhagat Singh’s 109^th death anniversary