More than 70 years after they were lodged in the Cellular Jail at the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Punjab wants to honour its freedom struggle heroes. The state lawmakers on Monday batted for giving a dignified space for the Punjabi freedom fighters and martyrs in the narrative of Port Blair’s Cellular Jail, earlier known as Kalapani.
To ensure that the echo of their supreme sacrifices will be heard loud and clear thousands of kilometers away, Punjab Vidhan Sabha unanimously accepted the recommendations of the House Committee to prominently mention about the Punjabis and Sikhs’ contribution in the light and sound show presented at Cellular Jail, to name a road in Port Blair and one of the 350 islands after a Punjabi martyr, to install statues of Punjabi freedom fighters and martyrs outside Cellular Jail, among others.
The House panel, headed by the Congress MLA from Ajnala Harpartap Singh Ajnala, was constituted by the Speaker Rana KP Singh on December 12, 2018, to seek a report on the supreme sacrifices made by the Punjabis in the freedom struggle at Andaman and Nicobar islands along with other facts.
Pointing that the Punjabi freedom fighters have been sidelined in the Cellular Jail Museum and the Light and Sound programme that is staged there every evening, the Committee urged the Punjab Government to take up with the authorities of Andaman and Nicobar islands to ensure that the names of Punjabi freedom fighters and martyrs be prominently mentioned along with their pictures in the show.
The report listed the names of Udham Singh (Gaddar Movement), Sohan Singh Bhakna (Gaddar Movement), Amar Singh Engineer of second Mandalay Conspiracy Case, Babbar Gian Singh or Babbar Movement, Lahina Singh Mistry of Kuka Movement, Indian Independence League president Dr Diwan Singh, besides those who were sentenced to Kalapaani including those punished under martial law, guilty under Amritsar alliance bank action case and national bank action case, among others.
The Committee also urged the State Government to prepare a light and sound show or a laser show on all the Punjabis and Sikhs sentenced to Andaman and Nicobar and present it at the Jang-e-Azaadi memorial, at Kartarpur in Jalandhar by allotting a separate space for the same.
“The show must have all the names and photographs of all the freedom fighters and martyrs along with their brief life history. A special gallery, by the name of “Freedom Fighters and Martyrs of Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Kalapaani island)” should also be set up showing their pictures, names along with their complete address so that our current and future generations must know about these brave hearts,” recommended the panel.
Ajnala, while presenting the report, informed the House that the panel held 22 sittings and “also visited the Cellular jail, Andaman and Nicobar Islands…We are presenting the report after deep research into various sources, contacting the subject experts, besides going through related books and documents”.
The committee also comprised Congress MLAs Barindermeet Singh Pahara, Kulbir Singh Zira, and Tarsem Singh DC; Aam Aadmi Party MLA Kanwar Sandhu, SAD MLA Gurpartap Singh Wadala, BJP MLA Som Parkash (later replaced by fellow party MLA Dinesh Singh Babbu after his election to the Parliament).
Notably, the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, while concluding the discussion on the Governor Address in February 2019, had suggested that the state may have a memorial built in the memory of many Punjabis who have sacrificed their lives for the country while serving sentence in the Cellular Jail.
The state Jails Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, in November 2018, had raised the issue with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the then Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh by writing a detailed letter demanding a dignified space for Punjabi freedom fighters in the narrative of Cellular Jail.
Randhawa, in his letter, had sought the Prime Minister’s intervention “to preserve this national heritage in the right perspective”, while demanding to rectify the “distortions in history”. He had demanded that the names of all the freedom fighters from Punjab deported to Andaman should be displayed, along with photographs. The Light and Sound programme should be recast to reflect the totality of the situation in a balanced way with the addition of Punjab’s contribution to the freedom struggle in the context of Kalapani, he had added.
In fact, the Shiromani Gurudwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) had also taken up this issue with the Andaman and Nicobar authorities, in May 2017, with its then Lt Governor Prof Jagdish Mukhi assuring to name three roads in Port Blair after Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh, Shaheed Dr Diwan Singh Kalepani and Shaheed Madan Lal Dhingra, revisiting the light and sound show, among other things.
Going by the record available, out of 121 freedom fighters who courted gallows, 93 were Sikhs. Similarly, out of 2,646 freedom fighters sentenced to life imprisonment, no less than 2,147 were again Sikhs.