Author: Prabhakar Pathak
Today marks 351 years since 11 November 1675, the day Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur was executed at Chandni Chowk on the orders of Emperor Aurangzeb. The reason is well recorded.
A delegation of Kashmiri Pandits, led by Pandit Kirpa Ram, had travelled to Anandpur Sahib seeking protection from forced conversion. The Guru agreed to go to Delhi. Before him, three of his companions, Bhai Mati Das, Bhai Sati Das and Bhai Dayala Ji, were put to death. India remembers him as ‘Hind di Chadar’, the shield of Hind, because he gave his life so that others could follow their own faith.
The story usually stops there. It should not, because there is a second chapter that took place only a few hours later, and it involves a trader from a village on a hill that now holds the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
The evening after
The Emperor’s order was that the Guru’s body be left where it fell, so that the city would learn what defiance cost. That evening a storm blew through Delhi. Bhai Jaita, who is also known as Bhai Jiwan Singh, picked up the Guru’s head and began the journey to Anandpur Sahib. The body remained, and its fate was decided by Lakhi Shah Banjara.
Lakhi Shah was born on 4 July 1580 in Raisina, then a village on the outskirts of the city. He belonged to the Banjara community and was one of the more prosperous merchants of his day. He held land in Raisina, Malcha, Narela and Barakhamba, all of which are familiar names in Delhi today, and he worked as a contractor with easy access to Mughal officials.
That access mattered. When he arrived at Chandni Chowk with his son Nigahia, in a bullock cart loaded with bales of cotton, the soldiers saw a merchant’s cart and let it through. The Guru’s body was lifted under the cotton and carried to Raisina.
The real difficulty was the cremation. A pyre in the open would have sent smoke across the neighbourhood and brought the soldiers within minutes. Lakhi Shah took the only course available. He placed the Guru’s body inside his house and set the house on fire. To anyone watching, a Banjara’s home was burning. Inside, a saint was being cremated with dignity. The ashes were collected in an urn and buried at the spot.
Lakhi Shah later travelled to Anandpur Sahib and informed the nine-year-old Gobind Rai, the future Guru Gobind Singh, that his father’s last rites had been performed. He died in 1680. Gurdwara Rakab Ganj Sahib, near Parliament House, stands on that ground.
A hill with two histories
The site has a second claim on our attention. In 1911 the British decided to move their capital from Calcutta to Delhi, and the village of Raisina was chosen for the new Viceroy’s House, which is the building we now call Rashtrapati Bhavan. The chosen ground lay beside the Rakab Ganj shrine. In May 1913 the construction authorities demolished part of the gurdwara’s boundary wall to clear the way for the planned road.
The reaction was slow at first, since Delhi’s Sikh population was small, but it spread through Punjab. By December 1913, Delhi’s Sikhs had held their first procession in the city.
Telegrams of protest from Singh Sabhas reached the Chief Commissioner. The agitation continued for years, and the Government eventually altered its road plans so that the shrine was preserved. The wall was rebuilt in 1920-21. In other words, the ground on which a Banjara had burned his house for a Guru was later defended against an empire, and the empire redrew its map.
The community behind the cart
Lakhi Shah’s community has a history of its own. For centuries Banjara caravans carried salt, grain and cloth across forests, valleys and deserts, in an economy that had no highways, no railway and no insurance. Armies on the march depended on their supplies. Wherever a tanda, a moving settlement of families, carts and cattle, camped for long, wells and rest houses came up. They were traders, carriers and builders, and few communities did more to knit the subcontinent together.
The colonial state repaid that service with suspicion. The Criminal Tribes Act of 1871 branded entire communities as criminal by birth, and the Banjaras were among those affected. The Act was repealed in 1952, and the communities were called ‘denotified’. Yet many families still struggle with the consequences.
A community that was always on the move often has no fixed address, no land papers and no proof of identity, which are exactly the documents that welfare schemes ask for. The Centre set up a development and welfare board for denotified, nomadic and semi-nomadic communities in 2019 and launched the SEED scheme in 2022. The intention is good. The test is whether the last family in the last settlement actually receives its benefit.
A shared heritage
This episode belongs to Hindu society as a whole. The Sikh Panth arose to defend dharma against Mughal oppression and is a part of Hindu Dharma. The Kashmiri Pandits asked for protection, the Guru gave his life, Bhai Jaita carried the head to Anandpur, and a Banjara gave the body a dignified farewell. No one in this chain asked whether the person they were helping belonged to their own caste or sect. The Banjara community is part of that society, and Lakhi Shah’s deed is its contribution to a common cause.
Service on the ground
The tradition of quiet service that Lakhi Shah represents continues in many settlements today.
Swayamsevaks of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the organisation Sewa Bharati work in nomadic and marginalised settlements, running evening classes and sanskar kendras where children who have dropped out of school return to study. Health camps are held, and women are trained in tailoring, embroidery and handicrafts and helped to form self-help groups so that households can earn for themselves. Volunteers also help families obtain Aadhaar cards, bank accounts and certificates, without which they cannot reach Government schemes.
The aim is self-reliance. Families are encouraged to stand on their own skills rather than depend on charity, and the work is not done on the basis of caste or creed. Publishing settlement-wise figures would allow the public to judge the results and strengthen trust in the effort.
A message for the young
Young Indians learn much of their history from short videos. Before sharing a story, ask where it is recorded, in which text and by whom. Sit with an elder from a nomadic settlement near you and record their account, because those voices will not be around forever.
Then turn pride into practice. Teach a child, help a family obtain its papers, or spend a holiday in a settlement and see how the descendants of the people we praise are living now. Lakhi Shah did not publicise what he did. Do something useful this month that you do not post about. Lakhi Shah asked for no honour, no office and no recognition. He protected a saint’s dignity and paid for it with his own roof. The least a grateful city can do is know his name.
The writer is a social worker who studies nomadic communities in the Delhi region and has over 20 years of experience in the media