The ancestral home of Indian socialist revolutionary
Shaheed Bhagat Singh has been the pride of Khatkar Kalan village in Nawanshahr
for over a century now. But a few know that the house was built in 1858 by
Bhagat Singh’s great-grandfather Fateh Singh, who named it as ‘Deewan Khana’,
as he would hold a darbar at the house to impart justice to the people of his
village. Besides, he used to encourage
people and tell them that governments may come and go but their problems will
find solutions if they earmark them jointly.
It is said that after the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh,
the East India Company officials started suppressing the people, so to protect
themselves; people took arms in their hands. During the 1857 revolt, the
British government requested Fateh Singh for help against the rebels, but he
refused to oblige. “Since then, the house has been the epitome of great values
and resistance to the colonial rule exhibited by the family”, said Prof
Jagmohan Singh, Ludhiana-based nephew of Bhagat Singh.
Prof Singh said it was after a great struggle that he
managed to get the house converted into a protected monument in the 1980s, as
many then questioned the fact the house had a connection with Bhagat Singh,
claiming that he never visited the place. The truth is though Bhagat Singh was
born and brought up in Faisalabad (now in Pakistan), he used to visit the house
regularly, along with his grandfather Arjan Singh. He had many fond childhood
memories associated with the house, Prof Singh said.
Throwing light on his struggle to protect the house, Prof
Jagmohan said: “While portraits of Bhagat Singh have made their way to the
offices of politicians, especially those from Punjab, who make a beeline to
Khatkar Kalan village on every birth or death anniversary of Bhagat Singh’s or
during elections, the martyr gets effaced from their memories in a matter of
days.”
A
walk through the past
As per information it was till 1975, Bhagat Singh’s
mother lived in this house. It was then in 1982, the house was declared a
monument under the Punjab Ancient and Historical Monuments and Archaeological
Site and Remains Act 1964. After the family handed it over the responsibility
of Government to keep it as national monument. But the legendary freedom
fighter’s house was relatively ignored for a long time. Sources say it was
first in 2005 when the chappar (sewer pond) found at the front of Bhagat
Singh’s house was converted into a memorial park but the structure of the house
was not touched and one of its walls remained in a bad shape and paint on its
lower walls worn away owing to dampness.
Prof Jagmohan Singh said, “The Department of
Archives/Culture used to be mostly out of funds whenever they approached them
for restoration. It was like we have to beg the government for grants even though
the house’s upkeep should have been its job.” It was only in 2015, the
department of cultural affairs, archaeology and museums for the first time
started to restore the house since it was handed over to it in 1984 by the
family. Before that, the local panchayat used to take care of the house. The
house was restored at a cost of Rs 42 lakh by the state government, he added.
Sharing an old instance, Prof Jagmohan recalled that in
2017 when then Punjab tourism minister Navjot Singh Sidhu went to the village
to take stock of the ongoing museum work at the village, he handed over a
cheque of Rs 2.5 lakh from his ministerial funds to then deputy commissioner
Sonali Giri, in favour of Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) as the
state government miserably failed to clear the power bills of freedom fighter
Bhagat Singh’s house and of the memorial park. “Such was the plight of the
house and ignorance of the state government”, he said.
The
house now
It was in July 2015, the state government hired a Chandigarh-based
private firm to carry out the restoration work at the house in a way that it
could attract more and more visitors. The restoration work was completed in
2016 and the roofs, which were in a dilapidated condition earlier, were removed
and replaced with new ones keeping the original form.
The walls of rooms, kitchen are now repaired with a
special technique to strengthen them by restoring their historical value. The
floors of the building were restored and its level has been raised. Old doors and
windows are replaced with new ones. Special cabins for displaying the
belongings of the martyr and his family have been made so that these are not
damaged by visitors by touching them frequently. The house has got a complete
facelift and is one of the most visited places in Punjab.
Message
from Prof Jagmohan
“As the country remembering Bhagat Singh on his 90th death anniversary today, this
year, let’s all pledge to bring the change he dreamt of and instead of holding
rallies, political events, we follow his ideology in true spirits.
Taking the message from this house people should
strengthen Gram Sabha. Bhagat Singh raised the slogans of Inquilab Zindabad and
Samrajwaad Murdabad, but the country’s leaders and some parties were limiting
his message and thus restricting his ideology”, he said.
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