Key slice of Kuka history gathers dust in Pak

Amaninder Pal

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 10

Even as Punjab government is organising state-level function on Friday to observe the 200th birth anniversary of revered Satguru Ram Singh, letters written by the Namdhari leader and files related to the Kuka Movement lie unexplored at Peshawar’s State Archives in Pakistan.

The letters were seized by the British during the Kuka uprising. Namdhari leaders and scholars claim that the documents were not shifted to India after Partition and even their copies were not available anywhere, leaving researchers unaware about the content of the letters and British files.

They said all efforts to bring the documents back had remained futile due to strained India-Pakistan relations.

Jaswinder Singh, Delhi-based researcher who authored several books on the Kuka Movement and traced several documents related to the uprising, said that hardly anybody was aware about these documents even after more than six decades post-Partition.

“Around the mid-1980s, I chanced upon an entry in a register in the National Archives, New Delhi, that had a reference about these documents. Thereafter, in 1992, I along with British-based Namdhari scholar Surjeet Singh Jeet consulted India Office Library, London, where a book on the State Archives of Pakistan confirmed about the existence of these documents”, said Jaswinder Singh.

Published by Cambridge University Press in 1969, “Guide to National and State Archives In Ceylon, India and Pakistan”, had reference that till 1948, the documents were lying in the Central Record Office, Peshawar. The documents included “letters written by Baba Ram Singh in 1878-89 in Gurmukhi” and “papers concerned with Kuka cult”.

Besides, the guide also states that “confidential files, including extensive record on Kuka outbreak from 1848-80” did also exist in the Government Record Office, Lahore (Pakistan).

“I am not sure whether copies of original Lahore files were ever made or not. But it is confirmed that a copy of the Peshawar documents is not available,” added Jaswinder.

Surinder Singh Namdhari, vice-chairman of Kuka Martyrs’ Memorial Trust, said, “For the past over two decades, we are trying that these documents should be brought to India as they certainly have great historical value. We have requested the Union government several times to approach Pakistan, but to no avail. We will continue our efforts.”