Punjab's Wadala remembers its poet Shah Mohammad

The memory of Shah Mohammad, who wrote "Jangnama"— his seminal Punjabi work of poetry that offers a first-hand account of the first Anglo-Sikh War that took place after the demise of the legendary Sikh ruler, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, is fading from public mind as successive governments have not bothered to take notice of his contribution to Punjabi literature.

Decades ago, a hall in Government Senior Secondary School and a village stadium were named after him. They are the only public installations which perpetuate his memory in his ancestral Wadala Veeram Bhoma village.

Principal of Government Senior Secondary School, Wadala Veeram Bhoma village, while showing a dilapidated structure in the school, said this was the only pre-Partition structure that has survived in the entire village. The school was taking care of the structure which was once a mosque. There once existed four mosques in the village which showed that it was a Muslim-dominated area before the Partition.

A contemporary of the Maharaja, the poet was born in 1780 and died in 1862.

He said the Punjabi poet, in his work, categorically held internal intrigues and British machinations responsible for the collapse of the Maharaja's kingdom after his death.

Aghast at palace conspiracies and intrigues following the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, he accurately presented the reasons for the end of the Sikh rule. In most appropriate words, he brought out the infighting among Sikh chieftains and the treachery perpetrated by the Dogras led by Dhyan Singh Dogra.

Shah Mohammad wrote that the Maharaja's legacy was such that he had created a secular kingdom that was equal for all communities. His many couplets showered praise over the composite Punjabi culture during the reign of the Maharaja, where Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims lived happily with each other. He cherished his reign saying that Punjabis were fortunate to live in that time.

Experts, after conducting a research, pointed out that close relatives of Shah Mohammad employed in Maharaja Ranjit Singh's army were his prime source of information. It was with their help that he could piece together a complete picture of the battle between the Sikhs and the British.

An admirer of the reign of the Maharaja, he graphically described how he brought out Punjab from sorrow and pain and made it a paradise. He credited his rule for the positive changes introduced in contemporary society.

His writings showed that Punjabi Muslims, who had earlier looked to Afghans and Pathans and were consequently betrayed by them, became a part and parcel of Khalsa Raj.

A few enterprising villagers have opened the Shah Mohammad Yadgari Charitable Trust which holds a festival in the name of Shah Mohammad once a year.

wuw