ah dekho Pannu kidhan hamla bol dinda dusrey bande te

Our sikhs should be ashamed if they still believe in the caste system.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=PTv4JmeznnQ

Yaar jadon tusi thread da nau rakh dinney aa
"plz check it"
"pls read this"
"fariyaad..."

Jehda banda dekhda peya ohnu kuch pata ni lagda ki kithey aa...  Tuhade sareya aggey benti hai ke jo thread di main line hai (ja jis naal sanu sareya nu pata hove ess thread vich ki hai)... ohi ohda topic rakheya karo

Ess taran samaan labhna bahut saukha hojanda, mera jakeen kareyo!

haha I found this really interesting... yaar mein vi ehde waang Kurta Chadra lahke hi ghumda hunna (bhavein lok jo marji kehn, apni ankh kayam rakhidi), ess layi mein eh article ethey paa reha...


He proudly wears Punjabi attire
Sarbjit Dhaliwal
Tribune News Service



Chandigarh, August 31
In every society, there are only a handful people who dare to tread uncommon paths. Balkaur Singh, who retired today as excise and taxation officer of the Punjab government, after putting in 33 years of service, is one such person. Of the nearly 6 lakh employees of the Punjab government, he maintained a distinct identity.

He did not wear pants and shirt unlike most senior and junior babus in Punjab and many other parts of the country, even once during the entire tenure of service. And he did not even wear a kurta and pyjama while on duty. Without bothering about self-imposed protocol by babus, Balkaur Singh wore the traditional Punjabi dress, chadar, kurta and tilledar jutti during the period of his entire service. He was the only employee of the state government who attended top-level official meetings in the traditional attire.

Before joining service as an inspector in 1975, Balkaur did his postgraduation in English and Punjabi as a regular student from Panjab University in the early 1970s. He sat in the class room in the traditional Punjabi dress without bothering about what other students and teachers felt about his dress. “My colleagues and other students in the university and during service in the excise department used to taunt me, but I did not bother as I always feel proud of my Punjabi identity,” said Balkaur Singh.

A brief comment made by an English couple in 1966 changed his life forever. He was so hurt by the comment that he decided not to wear “pants and shirt” ever again. “The British couple was sitting in front of our college at Sirsa. Out of curiosity, I along with other students went to see them as we had never seen such people,” said Balkaur Singh. “As far as language and dress is concerned we are still ruling India,” said the Englishman. “Listening to that remark I felt so humiliated that I decided not to wear the attire given to us by Englishmen,” said Balkaur, who also holds postgraduation degrees in philosphy, sociology and psychology.

He says public life is dominated by thugs, corrupt and dishonest people. Bureaucrats and other government officials take pleasure in harassing common people. Hypocrisy has become way of life. Ruling classes of all hues are dishonest to people to whom they pretend to serve, he says. “As I had to guts to confront dishonest people, no one asked me to do anything illegal. I tried my best to serve small traders and businessmen honestly and never harassed them. In fact, I tried to help them. I spared those who committed mistakes inadvertently, but never spared those who have been dodging the government by using influence and their status”, he adds.

Balkaur says, “I will now promote Punjabi culture and expose hypocrites, who in the name of serving and promoting Punjabi culture are playing their own politics”.

The article below is a good introduction to the contributions of Sikhs to Indian Independence.  Although some believe that Sikhs should not celebrate Indian Independence, for it has not given the Sikhs the rights that they fought for, I believe that if not celebrate, we should recognize and celebrate our shaheed brothers and sisters that fought in all the movements/morchas.
- GS

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Mainstream, Vol XLVI No 35
Sikhs in the Freedom Struggle

Tuesday 19 August 2008, by K S Duggal

The last to lay arms and foremost to raise them against the British, the Sikhs of Punjab may not figure prominently in the galaxy of freedom fighters led by Mahatma Gandhi barring Shaheed Bhagat Singh, who, too, was consistently disowned by Bapu, but the contribution of the Sikh people to the freedom struggle is no mean.

It is believed in all quarters that but for the intrigues in the post-Ranjit Singh’s Sikh hierarchy and the malicious strategy of the White man, the Sikhs could not have been defeated in 1849 the way they were. Despite this undeserved ignominy, there were ever so many incidents of defiance of the foreign rule by the Sikh soldiers and political activists. However, an organised peaceful crusade was launched by Baba Ram Singh Nandhari (he is addressed as Satguru Ram Singh by his followers) in 1869. It was essentially a socio-religious movement which became “a dynamic political force” in due course. They protested against cow slaughter, advocated widow re-marriage, would have nothing to do with the British educational institutions, even the mail and tap water. They wore spotless khadi and were devoted to meditation with woollen rosary.

Amritsar being the holy city, cow-slaughter was forbidden in it. But later not only was it permitted, the ban lifted, an abattoir was established next to the Golden Temple. This infuriated the Nandharis who butchered many a butcher in the town. At this the British without due enquiry had 65 Nandharis tied with the barrels of cannons and blown to bits. Baba Ram Singh had no hand in it, but the British availed of this opportunity and deported him to Rangoon on January 18, 1872. The technique of non-co-operation adopted by Mahatma Gandhi is preceded by the Nandhari crusade by boycotting British institutions and trying to be self-sufficient with the native ways and means.

Again the Gurdwara Movement of the Sikhs (1921-24) was the beginning of the national struggle for freedom. This has been accepted by more than one Indian national political leader.

Pandit Moti Lal Nehru:

I salute the Akalis who have started the struggle for freedom and are fighting for it.

Pandi Madan Mohan Malaviya:

Guru Ka Bagh Morcha has given birth to the freedom movement which must lead us to Swaraj.

Lala Lajpat Rai:

Freedom is our birthright. The Akalis are the legitimate sons of Mother India who are fighting for her.

Dadabhai Naoroji:

The Sikh brothers have shown us the way to freedom; no one can keep us slaves any more.

Master Tara Singh:

I would not mind if you, instead of standing with the Congress, boycott it and stand in front of it in the fight for India’s freedom. But if you boycott the Congress and stand in the back lane, it will be a shame for our community.

According to the eminent historian, Dr Ganda Singh, 500 Sikhs were killed in the Gurdwara Movement and 30,000 courted arrest, the fines paid amounted to Rs 10,00,000.

It was Master Tara Singh’s intervention, when he pulled down the Muslim League flag atop the Punjab Assembly at Lahore and tore it which saved half of the Punjab for India; otherwise the entire Punjab would have gone to Pakistan with River Yamuna as the dividing line between India and Pakistan.

The total contribution of Sikhs in India’s struggle for freedom is revealing:

Out of 121 patriots hanged 93 were Sikhs. Of the 2626 awarded life-imprisonment 2147 were Sikhs. Of the 1300 martyred in Jallianwala Bagh 799 were Sikhs.

Considering that the Sikhs were hardly 1.5 per cent of the total population of India at the time, their sacrifices amounted to 90 per cent. No wonder that Sardar Baldev Singh, a representative of the Akalis, was invited to greet the country on the national network along with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohammad Ali Jinnah when freedom came. And then started the slow but sure process of ignoring the Sikh people, forgetting their valiant contribution in bringing about the freedom. They are just one of the minority communities today.

♦

THE next landmark in the Sikh struggle for freedom was the agitation launched against the Punjab Colonisation Act, 1907, under which the government sought to enhance land revenue and water charges in the canal irrigated areas. There was widespread agrarian unrest with bloodshed in all important towns like Lahore and Rawalpindi. It was during this agitation that one Banke Dyal wrote the famous song—Pagdi sambhal jatta, pagdi sambhal oye! (Mind your turban, O tiller of the land, mind your turban!) It became a popular patriotic song with the freedom fighters and continues to be sung even today. Sardar Ajit Singh and Lala Lajpat Rai were prominent among the leaders of this movement. They were expelled from the country and imprisoned in Mandalay in Burma. After their release Ajit Singh went to Canada and joined the Ghadar Party of which he became and outstanding leader in due course.

The Ghadar Party was started by Sohan Singh Bhakna under the inspiration of Lala Hardyal. They pledged to end British rule in India through an armed revolution and set up a Republic of India guaranteeing liberty and equality to all its citizens. They set up their headquarters in San Francisco. They had their own weekly journal called Ghadar. With a view to retaining the secular character of their organisation, they made it a point not to discuss religion in their meetings; it was considered strictly a personal affair. They would also not observe any restrictions in the matter of diet. Soon they were to be joined by Kartar Singh ‘Sarabha’, Dr Mathura Singh and Jawand Singh who were later hanged in India. The party established its branches in a number of towns in America and Canada and also in Shanghai, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Thailand and Panama. They also gave a select band of its members training in arms.

The activities of the Ghadar Party received a great fillip by what has come to be known as the Kamagata Maru episode. It inspired the Ghadarites and steeled their hearts against the Ferringhi. They were determined to throw away the foreign yoke and prepared themselves to make any sacrifice for this cause.

The Kamagata Maru was the name of a Japanese ship engaged by Baba Gurdit Singh for transporting Indian emigrants to Canada. There being widespread unemployment at home, more and more enterprising Punjabis sought to go abroad. Canada being a member of the Commonwealth, Indians were entitled to have free access to the country. However, at the instance of the British Government, Canada passed an Act preventing entry of the Asians. This was primarily directed against the Indians since they continued to allow Chinese and Japanese to immigrate in large numbers. The Sikhs would not have it. Accordingly, the Kamagata Maru with 376 passengers on board arrived at Vancouver on May 22, 1914. They were not permitted to land on the Canadian soil. The ship was stranded in the high seas. The passengers had no medicines. They even fell short of water. But the Canadian authorities would not relent. There was a skirmish with the local police when, it is alleged, fire was exchanged. The Government of Canada was not willing even to allow them provisions for the return journey. The Kamagata Maru sailed back after two months. The returning passengers were provided arms enroute at Yokohama and the leadership of Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna and Baba Gurdit Singh turned each one of the passengers into a hard core revolutionary. World War I having broken out in the meanwhile, the Kamagata Maru had a hostile reception when it touched Kolkata (Calcutta). There was a train waiting to carry the passengers to the Punjab. This was not acceptable to the self-respecting Punjabis, who wished to stay back at least in Kolkata and earn something, so that they didn’t have to go back home empty-handed. There was a confrontation in which eighteen passengers were slaughtered. However, twentyeight of them, including Baba Gurdit Singh, managed to escape. Baba Gurdit Singh remained underground for seven years until he surrendered himself to the police at Nankana Saheb, the birthplace of Guru Nanak.

The Ghadar Party continued to inject revolutionaries into Indian politics. It is said, out of 8000 returnees during 1914-18, the Government of India interned 5000 and restricted the movements of another 2500. The party had its sympathisers in the defence forces though due to lack of discipline and leadership it could not take any precipitate action. Nevertheless, the government was on their track.

The suspects were arrested. Among the 194 men taken into custody 180 were Punjabis. Most of them were Sikhs. They were charged with treason. As many as twelve were hanged. Some of the were imprisoned for life. Others were transported. And the rest were given various terms of imprisonment.

Considering that the Indian National Congress session at Madras in 1914 had its main hall decorated with the portrait of the British King and the Governor of the province was invited to grace the occasion with his presence, it was no mean achievement of the Ghadar Party to do all that it did. Its most significant contribution is that it made the Britishers realise that they could no longer take India for granted. They must negotiate with the Indian people and hand over power to them, maybe gradually.

♦

THE Great October Revolution of 1917 which overthrew the Czarist regime and brought the people to power in the USSR also had its salutary effect on the arrogant White rulers on whose empire, it was said, the sun never set.

The War was over but Punjab was in ferment. The forces being demobilised had 80,000 Sikh soldiers. Mahatma Gandhi had in the meanwhile assumed charge of the national leadership. A great believer in the good faith of the White man, he was dismayed to find that the British Government had no desire to part with power. He, therefore, gave a call for satyagraha.

On April 13, 1919, the holy Baisakhi day, consecrated by Guru Gobind Singh with the baptism of the Sikhs, large crowds assembled at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar. They included men, women and children. Brigadier General Edward Harry Dyer who had arrived in the town two days earlier with his force came to the scene, blocked the only exit and started firing on the unarmed innocent people with machine-guns ‘till his ammunition was exhausted’. The record says that 309 people were shot dead on the spot and many times that number were wounded. The Sikhs were again the largest in number to suffer casualties.

The people of Punjab went wild with anger. They set post offices and other government buildings on fire, massacred the White men who came their way, removed fish plates from the railway lines, cut telephone and telegraph wires. The entire Punjab was aflame. The government declared martial law and retaliatory measures were in evidence all over the province.

Punjab became the vortex of the political struggle. The Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore, relinquished his knighthood as a protest against the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. The Indian National Congress held its annual session at Amritsar in December the same year. It was attended among others by Mahatma Gandhi, Motilal Nehru, Madan Mohan Malaviya, Jawaharlal Nehru, C. F. Andrews, C. R. Das, Dr M. A. Ansari, the Ali Brothers and Hakim Ajmal Khan. Among the eminent Punjabi leaders who participated in it were Baba Kharak Singh, Lala Lajpat Rai and Sardar Sardul Singh ‘Caveeshar’.

The Sikhs now came to look upon Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru as their national leaders and started seeking inspiration from them. They were in the vanguard of the movement. The Sikh League held a meeting presided over by Sardar Kharak Singh in 1920. It was attended by Mahatma Gandhi.

It was about this time that the Sikhs launched what came to be known as the Akali Movement. Essentially aimed at taking charge of the Sikh shrines from the mahants—the hereditary custodians—and bringing about reforms in the rituals and elaborate ceremonials, the movement went a long way in politicising the Sikh masses and inculcating in them passion for independence.

The Gurudwara Reform Movement was a gruelling struggle. The vested interests would not like to part with the charge of the Sikh shrines, some of which had considerable landed property attached to them, apart from the income from the offerings which was no less substantial. The Sikhs had to launch morcha (agitation) after morcha. At times the fight was headlong with the government, while at others the government appeared to protect the hereditary custodians who were its protégés. In Delhi the government had demolished a wall of the historical Gurudwara Rakab Ganj where the Ninth Sikh Guru had been cremated. The Sikhs went wild. An agitation was launched. A shahidi jatha comprising Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus, who were prepared to be martyred, left for Delhi under Sardul Singh ‘Caveeshar’. The government came to its senses and restored the wall of the holy shrine.

After the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy, the hereditary custodians of the Golden Temple invited Sir Michael O’Dwyer and honoured him with a saropa. How could the community allow the charge of the Gurudwara to remain in the hands of such inveterate toadies? Accordingly another agitation was launched to take over the Golden Temple.

Mahant Narain Das of Nankana Saheb, the birthplace of Guru Nanak, was a debauch and a drunkard. He was pampered by the Britishers no less. A jatha of over 130 Sikhs who were visiting the Gurudwara were attacked with swords and spears by the goondas of the Mahant and massacred. Their dead bodies were sprinkled with kerosene and burnt on the premises. The leader of the jatha, Sardar Lachhman Singh, was tied to the trunk of a tree and lynched.

The tragic happening sent a wave of horror throughout the country. Mahatma Gandhi and the Ali Brothers visited Nankana Saheb. The government was alarmed. The charge of the Gurudwara was promptly handed over to a committee of the Sikhs.

The government, however, decided to appoint its own custodian for the Golden Temple. This was not acceptable to the Sikhs and the agitation continued. The agitators were sentenced to frightfully long terms of imprisonment. But there was no sign of the agitation abating anywhere. The Sikhs continued to protest and court arrests in hundreds and thousands.

At last the government was brought to its knees and the keys of the Golden temple were handed over to the Sikhs by the Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar at a huge congregation held in the town. This was described by Mahatma Gandhi ‘as the first victory in a decisive battle for independence’.

♦

BUT what brought unique glory to the Sikhs was the Guru Ka Bagh (The Guru’s Garden) which was no more than a barren tract with a wild growth of Kikar trees had been handed over to the Sikhs along with other shrines. However, Mahant Sunder Das changed his mind and would not allow the Sikhs to enter the premises. The Sikhs used to fell trees in the arid tract for fuel for the community kitchen. The Mahant sought police assistance and the Sikhs entering the so-called Bagh were arrested for trespass. The first arrest took place on August 8, 1922. This was followed by a chain of Sikh jathas visiting Guru Ka Bagh one after another and offering satyagraha. The jathas came from all over the Punjab. There was an endless stream of them. It was decided to be a non-violent agitation. The Sikhs would go unarmed; singing hymns, with hands folded and tried to enter the land which belonged to their Guru. The police, who were tired of arresting them, adopted new tactics under a British Superintendent of Police, named S.G.N. Beaty. They would beat the Sikhs mercilessly, pulling them by their hair, making indiscriminate lathi charges, breaking their bones and inflicting grievous wounds on them. With the name of God on their lips, the satyagrahis would fall down unconscious but they would neither defend themselves nor retaliate. Many died, a large number of them had to be hospitalised but there was no stopping the stream of jathas. Though propagated by Mahtma Gandhi, the Sikhs have non-violence in their blood. Two of their Gurus— Guru Arjan and Guru Tegh Bahadur—had given their lives as non-violent crusaders. The way the Sikhs conducted this satyagraha, and the barbarities perpetrated on them, roused the anger of the entire nation. The Punjab was a flaming cauldron. Every district tried to outdo the other. A jatha came from far-off Dhan Pothoar with Giani Gurmukh Singh ‘Musafir’ (who became the Chief Minister of Punjab in independent India) as one of the volunteers. A lot of literature came to be produced about the unprecedented persecution and valour of the non-violent satyagrahis.

It surprised Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of non-violence, the most. He was amazed to find vindication of his technique of political warfare coming from the most unexpected quarters, the brave people of Punjab. Several national leaders, both Hindus and Muslims, came to Punjab to see with their own eyes the way the satyagraha was being conducted. Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, a staunch Hindu who was at one time President of the Indian National Congress, witnessed the manner in which the disciplined soldiers of the Sikh community suffered barbarities for the cause dear to their heart and was moved to say:

I cannot resist asking every Hindu home to have at least one male child initiated into the fold of the Khalsa. What I see here before my eyes is nothing short of a miracle in our whole history.

C.F. Andrews, a Christian missionary and an associate of Mahatma Gandhi, also visited Punjab during the satyagraha. This is what he reported:

There were four Akali Sikhs with black turbans facing a band of about a dozen policemen, including two English officers. Their hands were placed together in prayer. Then an Englishman without provocation lunged forward the head of his lathi, bound with brass, and struck the Sikh at the collarbone with great force. He fell to the ground, rolled over and slowly got up once more to face the same punishment till he was laid prostrate by repeated blows. Others were knocked out more quickly. It was brutal in the extreme. I saw with my own eyes one of those policemen kick in the stomach a Sikh who stood helplessly before him. I wanted to cry and rush forward. But then I saw a police sepoy stamping with his foot an Akali Sikh hurled to the ground and lying prostrate … The brutality and the inhumanity of the whole scene was indescribably increased by the fact that the men who were hit were praying to God and had taken a vow (at the Golden Temple) to remain silent and peaceful in word and deed. I saw no act or look of defiance. It was a true martyrdom, a true act of faith. It reminded me of the shadow of the cross.

There were ever so many similar morchas. Guru Ka Bagh was followed by what has come to be known as the Jaito Morcha. Jawaharlal Nehru also joined hands with the agitating Sikhs here and courted arrest along with a number of prominent national leaders. Nehru made the following observation on the occasion on September 25, 1923:

I rejoice that I am being tried for a cause which the Sikhs have made their own. I was in jail when Guru Ka Bagh struggle was gallantly fought and won by the Sikhs. I marvelled at the courage and sacrifice of the Akalis and wished that I could be given an opportunity of showing my deep admiration of them by some form of service. That opportunity has now been given to me and I earnestly hope that I shall prove worthy of their high tradition and fine courage. Sat Sri Akal.

The Sikhs of Punjab never allowed the White rulers any respite. They kept them engaged with one morcha after another. And these agitations produced a galaxy of eminent freedom fighters who earned a great name in the national struggle for India’s Independence. Some of them are: Baba Kharak Singh, Master Tara Singh, Sardar Pratap Singh Kairon, Giani Gurmukh Singh ‘Musafir’, Sohan Singh ‘Josh’, Sardar Sardul Singh ‘Caveeshar’, Giani Zail Singh, Sardar Hukam Singh, Sardar Gurdial Singh Dhillon and Darshan Singh Pheruman.

While the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee set up to take charge and look after the Sikh Gurudwara accepted the cult of non-violence, at the same time there were certain elements amongst the Sikhs who organised themselves as underground terrorists. Among them the Babar Akalis were perhaps the most virulent. Their members were drawn from the Ghadar Party and soldiers on leave. They issued a cyclostyled bulletin called Babbar Akali Doaba. They became a terror for the administration in Jullundur Doab for a while. They were led by Havildar Major Kishan Singh Bedang and Master Mota Singh. But sooner than later they were rounded up, six of them including Kishan Singh Bedang were condemned to death and the rest were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment.

The Sikhs make fine soldiers. They are as loyal as they are valiant. They got themselves enlisted in large numbers both at the time of World War I and World War II. But after the Wars were over when they found that the Britishers had no desire to part with power, they fought them tooth and nail. They were scandalised to find that the Britishers would deny them the freedom for which he made them fight in far-off lands. They fought the war of India’s independence shoulder to shoulder with the rest of their countrymen, whether they were Hindus or Muslims, Biharis or Bengalis. n

The author, a distinguished writer, is a former Member of the Rajya Sabha; he is also the President of the Punjabi Writers Meet.

reference: http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article891.html

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Punjab to get centre for performing arts
CM to finance auditorium in memory of Harpal Tiwana
Tribune News Service



Chandigarh, August 8
Punjab is set to start a Centre for Performing Arts with friends and relatives of noted theatre artiste-director Harpal Tiwana persuading state Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to support the move to build an auditorium in his name in Patiala.

Noted actor Om Puri, who described Harpal Tiwana as the person who gave him
his first break, said the late actor-director had seen him perform at the Khalsa
College in Patiala.

“He asked me if I would like to perform for his Kala Manch. I said yes but told him I was working as a laboratory assistant for Rs 125 per month and could not let go of the pay.” Puri said Tiwana immediately took him on as an assistant at Rs 150 per month. “The National School of Drama (NSD) and films came much later,” he added.

Puri, who was here along with Gurdas Mann, Hansraj Hans, Pammi Bai, Dolly Guleria, Bhagwant Mann and other members of the Harpal Tiwana Foundation, impressed upon the Chief Minister to fund the construction of an auditorium as well as Centre for the Performing Arts to give an appropriate tribute to a person who exemplified Punjab and Punjabiyat.

Besides a number of noted singers, the Chief Minister’s brother in law Amarjit Singh Sidhu and Akali leader Surjit Singh Rakhra also backed the issue.

Sidhu said how Tiwana was like his elder brother and how he took the responsibility of managing the stage during performances at the Mohindra College in Patiala.

Tiwana’s wife Neena and son Manpal, the force behind the Foundation, spoke about the need to have a theatre of international standard in Punjab.

They said the Punjab government needed to come forward to make this possible, adding governments in other states had helped theatre groups establish auditoriums.

The Chief Minister surprised everyone on the occasion by saying the government was ready to construct the entire auditorium at its own cost.

“We will spend the entire money,” he said, adding he had been feeling for some time that the performing art was not getting its due in the state.

While urging the Harpal Tiwana Foundation to make a project report for the new centre, the CM also requested acclaimed singer Hans Raj Hans to form a committee to lay the ground work for the creation of a Sangeet Academy in Ludhiana in memory of late ‘Voice Of India’ star Ishmeet Singh. He also released a book “Oa Jo Si - Harpal Tiwana, Kala ate Zindagi” on the occasion.

ref: http://www.tribuneindia.com/2008/20080809/punjab1.htm#3





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WITH the death of Harpal Tiwana, Punjab has lost a bright star in its theatre and film firmament. Born in 1935, Harpal was the son of the late Jagir Singh Tiwana, the famous hockey player of Punjab, who was also a distinguished police officer of Patiala state and a poet of the Urdu language. Harpal was studying in MA (English) at Government College, Ludhiana, when he got admission to the National School of Drama, Delhi. He was the first Punjabi student to join this course scholarship from the Punjab Government of late Partap Singh Kairon.

There he learnt the art of acting and directing under the guidance of E.Alkazi, world renowned teacher of drama. Like his teacher, Harpal too earned fame by staging plays in many states of India and in foreign countries like Canada, Russia, America, England, Lebanon, Kuwait, Italy, Tunisia, Algeria, Iraq, Syria and Jordan. Apart from social plays, he staged dramas related to the Sikh history, like Dr Harcharan Singh’s “Hind di Chadar” and “Chamkaur di Garhi” etc.

He produced and directed some Punjabi films. Among them, “Laung da Lishkara” and “Diva Bale Saari Raat” were very successful. “Laung...” was also written by him. This film, free from the vulgarity generally ascribed to Punjabi films, proved to be a box-office hit. It ran for 24 weeks and 25 weeks at Amritsar and Ludhiana, respectively. It was also shown to Indian and French film-goers with sub-titles in Hindi and French. Its cast included Raj Babbar, Om Puri, Mehar Mittal, Nina Tiwana, Nirmal Rishi, Gurdas Maan, Harpreet Deol, Sukhvinder Sohi and introduced Harpal Tiwana’s son Manpal and daughter Luna.

“Diva Bale Saari Raat” depicted the social problem of a Muslim family. Its cast included Girja Shankar, Preeti Sapru, Nina Tiwana, Nirmal Rishi, Mehar Mittal and Harpal Tiwana himself.

In film-making, Harpal was influenced by D.W. Griffith and Elia Kazan.

“Sanjhi Diwar” is Harpal’s first Hindi telefilm based on Santokh Singh Dheer’s famous Punjabi short story “Sanjhi Kandh”. Harpal Tiwana played the lead role of an elder brother in it. Dealing with a family feud, the film depicts the rural life in Punjab in its various aspects. It was telecast on the National Programme of Delhi Doordarshan.

Another job that Harpal took upon himself was to teach the new generations the techniques of drama and film. For this purpose, he had turned his residence (Jagir Estate) into a vast play-house and film studio equipped with the necessary apparatus. He taught his pupils stage and screen acting, direction and script writing. His wife Nina Tiwana assisted him in all this. His fondness for Punjabi culture is revealed to his visitors at home. His ‘play-house’ is not decorated with modern and sophisticated paraphernalia but with relics of an old Punjabi village life, like a cartwheel and churning pot etc. In this field, he was influenced by Dr M.S. Randhawa.

The list of his pupils is very long. It includes stalwarts of the Indian film screen Raj Babbar, Om Puri and Girja Shankar along with Desh Gautam, Nirmal Rishi, Sukhvinder Sohi, Mahindra Sandhu, Deepak Seth, Sailesh Prabhakar, Kuldeep Singh, Gurdeep Chauhan and many others.

He was very busy during his last days. After having staged the popular play “Ik Akkh, Ik Nazar” (related to Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s life and exploits) not only in his native land but also in England, Canada and America, he was turning the same into a movie now. The play is written by Kartar Singh Duggal, sponsored by the Department of Cultural Affairs Punjab and staged by Harpal Tiwana’s Punjabi Folk Theatre International (Regd). It was in connection with the shooting of this movie that he visited Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, and was involved in the fatal accident on the Jwalamukhi-Hoshiarpur road on May 19, 2002. He died at the spot along with an actress, Harpreet Kaur. His other two male companions sustained serious injuries.

His family, fans, pupils and the film and drama-loving public will miss this ever-smiling and dynamic personality. He had a discerning eye, high-pitched voice, heart of gold and zeal for living a happy and useful life.

He was awarded the title of Shiromani Film and Theatre Artiste by the Language Department, Punjab, and then became a member of its Advisory Committee.

He propagated the message of love, sympathy and unity in the world torn by hate, violence and sectarian trends.

Punjab: On the Front Lines of the Global Food Crisis
from: Mira Kamdar
Things That Go Bump in the Night
Posted Monday, Aug. 4, 2008, at 2:42 PM ET


The Courtyard. The courtyard of the home where I stayed

JAITU, FARIDKOT DISTRICT, India—Wrapped in a musky blanket under a fan that was frantically trying to beat the air free of mosquitoes, exhaustion was finally overtaking me when I vaguely felt something nuzzle my left hand. In theory, I was alone, deadbolted away from the family of six, who were sleeping outside on string cots so I could have the only bed in the only room of their home. At the second nudge, definitely mammalian, adrenaline flooded my body, sending me shrieking into an upright position. A rat scurried away.

I had traveled to this remote part of Punjab to try to understand India's agricultural dilemma. Squeezed between the relentless pressure to increase production and an environment stressed to the breaking point, the agricultural miracle brought to Punjab by the Green Revolution back in the 1960s was failing, the terrible costs of its success tearing at the fabric of Punjabi society. If Punjab couldn't find a way out of the current impasse, I didn't see how India, or the world as a whole, was going to feed a growing population in the face of environmental collapse and growing political instability fueled by scarcity.

The next morning, after tea with milk from the cow tethered out front, my host family's son Jitinder gave me a ride into town on the back of his motorcycle so I could attend a workshop on natural farming organized by Umendra Dutt, an agricultural activist who runs an organization called Kheti Virasat. Kheti Virasat's work focuses on raising awareness about the damaging effects of chemical pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, and overwatering, as well as the mass dislocation of people away from their land and communities into an urban-oriented economy that can't absorb them.


A Farmer on the Road. A farmer on the road

I braced myself as lightly as I could against Jitinder's body, conscious of being a woman perched behind an unrelated man in a strongly patriarchal culture, as we wove our way out of the dirt lanes of the village and onto a narrow asphalt road that cut through an endless sea of ripening wheat, passing bullock carts piled high with fodder, tractors clanking toward the fields. I hadn't ridden on the back of a motorcycle in a long time. It was exhilarating to feel the air whipping around my face, the throb and bob of the machine gripped between my legs. I could smell the green scent of the plants and hear the morning bustle of the birds. Farmers and laborers were already wading through the waist-high wheat, spraying pesticide by hand from backpack reservoirs.

When the Green Revolution arrived in Punjab, the "land of five rivers," India faced chronic food shortages. A combination of massive irrigation infrastructure mandated by the Indian state, new hybrid seeds, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides boosted yields to record levels over the following decades, saving India from the specter of mass famine. With just 1.5 percent of India's land area, Punjab produces 20 percent of the country's wheat and 12 percent of its rice. It provides 60 percent of the government's reserve stocks of wheat and 40 percent of its reserves of rice, the country's buffer against starvation.

Punjab's amazing productivity made it possible for India to feed most of a growing population that tripled from 350 million when the country became independent in 1947 to more than 1.2 billion people today. In 2001, India even began to export grain, though critics claim this impressive achievement was gained at the expense of India's poor.

Only two years later, in 2003, India had to reverse the funnel and import grain, something it had not done in decades. Every year since then, India has imported more and more of its food. Panic-buying by India is credited with helping to raise the price of wheat on global markets by more than 100 percent last year, causing prices to spike around the world, from pasta in Italy to bread in Russia.

In an era of global food scarcity, economic growth does not guarantee India the ability to buy as much food as it needs on the world market. And steps India has taken to liberalize its domestic grain market, a move hailed by some as a necessary corrective to a system riddled with inefficiencies and disincentives to production, may have contributed to the current food crisis by allowing agribusiness giants to siphon off huge quantities of grain.

Meanwhile, the tragic social and environmental costs of the Green Revolution are escalating, threatening a return of the political violence that took the lives of more than 25,000 Punjabis during the 1980s and '90s when a violent secessionist movement—fueled by profound social disruption caused by the Green Revolution, which dislocated small farmers—militated for an independent Punjab, which would be called Khalistan. The movement had religious overtones derived from Punjab's majority religion, Sikhism. The Indian state came down on the movement as hard as it could, culminating in June 1984 with an attack by the Indian army on Sikhism's most sacred site, the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was subsequently assassinated by her Punjabi Sikh bodyguards, after which thousands of Sikhs were massacred in retribution. The government, at the least, looked the other way.

The nasty side effects of the Green Revolution have gotten only worse in the years since. The irrigation canals are drying up. Water tables are sinking. According to a new report from Punjabi University in Patiala, pesticide levels, among the most elevated in the world, are being blamed for actually altering the DNA of Punjabis exposed to them.

Meanwhile, there aren't enough jobs or slots at the better schools and universities. Unemployment is high. The children of farmers, who've grown up with the tantalizing images of the new urban India paraded before them on television, have no desire to farm but no skills to do much else. Drug addiction, fueled by heroin transited from Afghanistan via Pakistan through Indian Punjab on its way to Europe and North America, is rampant, claiming an astonishing 40 percent of the state's youth and 48 percent of its farmers and laborers, according to one recent report.

Before my encounter with the rat, as I sat with my host family around the bed that would become mine for the night, Jitinder's father, Prem Kumar, proudly showed me a photograph of his father, a Communist rebel who eluded Indian government forces for years. "He was never caught," he exulted. "He fought in the tradition of Bhagat Singh," Prem Kumar added proudly, citing a local boy turned national hero who didn't hesitate to take up arms against the British in the early 20th century.

Prem Kumar explained to me that most of the land around the village was mortgaged to banks or private moneylenders. The water table keeps sinking, and the villagers are having trouble getting enough water to irrigate their fields. Prices for everything have gone up. Many people in the village are sick with cancer.

His 8-year-old granddaughter's playmate came over to visit with her grandmother.

"She lost her mother just two months ago," Prem Kumar explained.

"That's horrible," I replied. "What happened to her?"

"She had brain cancer," he replied. Looking at the girl cradled in her grandmother's lap, he sighed: "Such a beautiful child, like her mother."

It was true, she was a beautiful child. I looked into her big brown eyes and wondered what her future held.

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ref: http://www.slate.com/id/2196642/entry/0/