Nationalism’s forgotten corner

Anirudh Gupta

Ferozepur, August 14

When Union Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman visited the National Martyrs Memorial at Hussainiwala here on August 12, she was overcome with emotion. Teary-eyed, the minister said Hussainiwala belonged to the freedom fighters who had sacrificed their life for their motherland. She could not have put it better.

It was in 1931 on the evening of March 23 at 7.30 pm that revolutionaries Bhagat Singh and his comrades Sukhdev and Rajguru were hanged to death at the Lahore Central Jail. Prison officials, fearing a revolt, secretly transported their bodies to Hussainiwala, breaking the jail’s rear wall.

It is believed that the bodies, dumped in sacks, were unceremoniously set afire in the dark of the night on the banks of the Sutlej. The following morning, residents of the area found the half-burnt bodies which they cremated after the last rites. It is at this site that the National Martyrs Memorial was later raised on the banks of the Sutlej, which has since changed course.

It took 37 long years for the nation to raise a befitting memorial to its gallant freedom fighters. Worse, more than five decades of its existence, the memorial is still struggling for the attention it deserves.

After Partition, the area in Hussainiwala enclave was marked as international border. Till 1961, the memorial site was part of Pakistan. It was owing to the country’s first PM Jawaharlal Nehru that it was transferred to India in exchange of 12 villages near the Sulemanki headworks in Fazilka.

Later, freedom fighter Batukeshwar Dutt was cremated at this site, as per his last wish. Bhagat Singh’s mother Vidyawati too was cremated here.

The stone for the memorial was laid in 1965 by YB Chavan, then Union Defence Minister. However, work could not commence because of the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war. “Little did these gallant sons of the soil know that soon India would be fighting not the British, but a nation carved out of it,” remarked Kulbir Singh Sidhu, a retired IAS officer, who was Deputy Commissioner, Ferozepur between 1999 to 2001.

The memorial was dedicated to the nation in 1968 by the then Punjab CM, Lachhman Singh Gill, who belonged to Ferozepur. He got the project completed in 40 days at a cost of Rs 1.84 lakh. During the second Indo-Pakistan war in 1971, Pakistani armoured troops attacked the place on the night of December 3. They ransacked the memorial and took away the busts of the three martyrs. These were later retrieved via diplomatic channels owing to the efforts of Swaran Singh Boparai, then Deputy Commissioner.

The busts were dumped into oblivion in one of the stores of the DC’s office until these were found inside an old trunk in 2000 by the then DC, Sidhu. The memorial was rebuilt in 1973 owing to the efforts of Giani Zail Singh, who was then Chief Minister, but drew scant attention subsequently.

Leaders from various parties have visited the memorial from time to time, promising it would be brought on the international tourist map. However, the promises have proved hollow. “Every year on March 23, ‘Shaheedi Mela’ is organised here. The leaders pay mere lip service and leave,” remarked a disappointed Jaswinder Sandhu, president of Shaheed Bhagat Singh Society.

The previous SAD-BJP government earmarked huge sums for new memorials in the state. Hussainiwala, perhaps, skipped the government’s attention. Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the memorial in 2015 but did not announce steps to develop it. Holding out hope, Punjab Local Bodies and Tourism Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu during his last visit here announced the Centre had agreed to spend Rs 10 crore on the National Martyrs Memorial. It is high time the memorial gets its due.