Sukhdev & the house we nearly lost

As a society — and as a nation — we have never been particularly good at preserving the memory of our icons. Their words fade, their homes crumble, their sites disappear, and into that vacuum we pour mythology. This failure cannot be blamed entirely on colonial rule. While British indifference and hostility account for many losses during the freedom struggle, what explanation do we offer for our negligence after Independence?

Punjab, more than any other region, produced martyrs who quite literally kissed the noose. We recite their names with pride, but what have we preserved of their lives — of the spaces they inhabited, the rooms where they were born, the lanes they walked in? Beyond a handful of exceptions, the answer is painfully little.

We speak of Kartar Singh Sarabha, Madan Lal Dhingra, Amir Chand, Avadh Bihari, Bhai Bal Mukund, Kanshi Ram, Dr Mathura Singh, Babu Harnam Singh, Khushi Ram — and then, inevitably, Bhagat Singh. His ancestral house has been preserved; a museum stands in his name; a memorial exists at Hussainiwala, where the ashes of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and Sukhdev were secretly disposed of by the colonial state. Yet history is not sustained by a single monument. It survives through a network of places that together narrate a life. And no telling of Bhagat Singh is complete without his closest comrade and friend — Sukhdev.

Sukhdev was born on May 15, 1907, in Naughara Mohalla, in the old city of Ludhiana. The mohalla derived its name from nine houses built in a cluster by Thapar families near the city’s commercial hub. Over time, many members of these families migrated to the canal colonies, particularly to Lyallpur (now in Pakistan), following economic opportunity. Lala Chint Ram, a cousin of Sukhdev’s father Ram Lal, established a business there and called Ram Lal to join him. Together, they set up a commission agency in the grain market.

Tragedy struck early. Ram Lal died in 1910. Sukhdev’s younger brother, Mathra Das, was born three months later. Sukhdev was raised by his Tayaji, Lala Chint Ram, alongside his cousins — Parkash Chand, Gauran Devi, Krishna, Jaidev, and Krishan Lal. Among them, it was Gauran Devi, older than Sukhdev, who virtually brought him up.

A statue of the martyr in the courtyard of the house in Naughara Mohalla, Ludhiana. Tribune photo: Himanshu Mahajan

Despite this rooted family history, Sukhdev’s birthplace slipped into neglect — so complete that it required a public interest litigation to rescue it from oblivion. In 2007, advocate HC Arora filed a PIL in the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking protection of Sukhdev’s ancestral house. He was moved by an article titled ‘Sukhdev’s house picture of neglect’ published in The Tribune’s Spectrum (March 18, 2007), and supported his petition with earlier Tribune reports from 2000 and 2006.

The petition also noted that the Shaheed Sukhdev Yadgar Committee, Ludhiana, had placed a statue of the martyr outside the house and reconstructed its front portion, thereby saving it from collapse.

Before following the legal trail further, it is necessary to recall who Sukhdev was — not in legend, but in the words of those who condemned him. Justice GC Hilton, who pronounced the sentence of death, described Sukhdev as a central figure of the revolutionary movement in Punjab.

According to the tribunal, Sukhdev recruited members between 1927 and 1928, served on the Central Committee, headed the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association in Punjab, and was privy to plans ranging from the Punjab National Bank raid to the assassination of JP Saunders. He participated in bomb-making at Agra and Lahore and was fully aware of the decision regarding the Assembly bomb.

The judgment stated without ambiguity that Sukhdev was “the brain of the conspiracy”, while Bhagat Singh was “his right arm”. His guilt, the court said, was no less than Bhagat Singh’s — and for that reason, he too was sentenced to be hanged by the neck till death. One may contest the legality of the tribunal and reject its political premise. Yet, even hostile testimony converges with what comrades later affirmed: Sukhdev was the organisational lynchpin of the movement in Punjab.

He did not merely recruit; he sustained. Housing, clothing, food, travel, books, bomb-making material — he arranged everything, often with no money in hand. His cousin Gauran Devi later recalled, with affection and bewilderment, that he was perpetually short of funds, never embarrassed to ask for help, and constantly collecting clothes for “friends” who had already used up the last lot. He borrowed from many — Lala Lajpat Rai, Bhai Parmanand, and others — because the organisation had to function. Sukhdev himself later explained that the group deliberately avoided dacoities, choosing instead riskier political actions. After the Saunders assassination, he noted candidly, the problem of funds largely disappeared.

What distinguished him most was his indifference to personal comfort. Revolutionary Shiv Verma remembered that Sukhdev clothed others before himself. A fellow prisoner in Lahore Central Jail recalled his laughter, warmth, and delight in feeding and clothing comrades while remaining personally indifferent to hardship.

Organisation, however, was not his only trait. He was also impulsive, even whimsical. Once, fearing that the tattoos on his arm — his name and Om — could endanger the group, he applied nitric acid to burn them away, badly injuring himself. Asked why he had done something so reckless, he replied that he wanted to test the threshold of his capacity to bear pain. On another occasion, he drank half a bottle of brandy simply to understand why people liked it so much. Intensity, stubbornness, humour, generosity — these contradictions made him human.

In 1922, Sukhdev passed matriculation from SD High School, Lyallpur, and enrolled at National College, Lahore, against his guardian’s wishes. There he met Bhagat Singh, Yashpal, and Bhagwati Charan Vohra. It was here that the friendship between Sukhdev and Bhagat Singh was forged. They read deeply — history, literature, political thought, economics — and argued endlessly. Shiv Verma later wrote that apart from Bhagat Singh, no one had studied socialism more seriously than Sukhdev. While Bhagat Singh and Vohra shaped ideology and articulation, the arduous and unglamorous task of building and running the organisation fell largely on Sukhdev.

It was also Sukhdev who exercised one of the most consequential judgments in the movement’s history. Bhagat Singh was not the first choice for the Assembly action. It was Sukhdev who insisted that he be sent. He understood, with exceptional clarity, that the bomb itself was not the climax; the courtroom would be. The act was meant to open a space for argument, not destruction, and for that trial of words, reason, and moral authority, Sukhdev believed only Bhagat Singh was fully equipped.

In urging his closest friend toward an action that could end only in imprisonment or death, he made a decision that reshaped the movement’s public meaning — and, in time, the course of history.

Returning to the PIL, the Punjab government, in its affidavit, admitted the historical facts and stated that the house had been declared a protected monument under the Punjab Ancient and Historical Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1964. The court, noting that the purpose of the writ had been served, disposed of the petition on July 17, 2007.

Yet crucial questions went unasked. Who were the “relatives” allegedly opposing the protection mentioned in the State affidavit and recorded in the judgment? Sukhdev and Mathra Das were Ram Lal’s only sons. Mathra Das, who later settled in Hapur, died issueless, though he and his wife had adopted a daughter. There is no record of her ever being contacted. Nor were the descendants of Lala Chint Ram or brother Baliram — many of whom were traceable — consulted.

Matters grew murkier. In May 2008, The Tribune reported that the house had finally been notified as protected, but that the Shaheed Sukhdev Thapar Memorial Trust objected, claiming it had vacated the tenant and spent money on restoration. The trust’s president expressed anger at the government’s move, even though he did not legally own the property.

A room in the martyr’s house in Naughara Mohalla, with his portrait and that of his mother, Ralli Devi. Tribune photo: Himanshu Mahajan

Initially, only the ground floor of the three-storey house — the two small rooms and narrow passage where Sukhdev was born — was protected. The structure, built of small bricks with thick walls and a wooden roof, stood firm but remained vulnerable to weather and neglect. Full protection came only in November 2014, when the entire building was notified as a protected monument.

Even now, preservation without access remains largely symbolic. Naughara Mohalla lies deep within the congested old city. For years, a proposal to acquire a narrow strip of land to create access from Chaura Bazaar remained trapped in administrative limbo. Only in 2021 did the process finally move forward. After surveys, objections, and a writ petition dismissed on merit, compensation has at last been paid. Demolition — and access — now appear imminent.

The question, however, will always remain: do we act while memory still breathes, or do we become wise only after time and neglect have taken their toll? Sukhdev’s birthplace survives — not because we were vigilant, but because someone intervened in time.

The story of this house is not merely about bricks and notifications. It is about how close we came to losing a crucial chapter of our revolutionary past — and how easily we might still lose others.

What the story of Sukhdev’s birthplace ultimately exposes is not merely administrative delay or legal confusion, but a deeper cultural failing: our inability to recognise political labour unless it announces itself through spectacle. Sukhdev did not leave behind grand declarations or manifestos bearing his name; he left behind networks, structures, friendships, and decisions whose consequences outgrew their authors. It is perhaps for this reason that his memory, like his house, remained tucked away in a narrow lane — difficult to reach and easier to forget.

Preserving such spaces is not an act of piety, but of historical honesty: an acknowledgement that revolutions are sustained not only by those who speak most memorably, but also by those who organise, endure, and disappear into the work itself.

— The writer is an author and publisher