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Toorks in The House of Nanak:
Part II

SARBPREET SINGH

 

 

 

Continued from yesterday …



PART II

The Partition of Punjab and the subcontinent into newly created India and Pakistan in 1947, is one of the greatest tragedies of modern times and one of the most shameful episodes in the history of Colonialism.

Millions lost their lives and many more had their way of life, which had been preserved for generations, completely destroyed.

The ‘children of Mardana’ suffered greatly too.

In December 2009, I was in Delhi shortly after making a presentation on “Gurmat Sangeet: The Sikh Musical Tradition” at the World Parliament of Religions in Melbourne, Australia.

As I am wont to do whenever I visit Delhi, I went to the Rakab Ganj Gurdwara to pay my respects to the doughty Gyani Dyal Singh ji, Principal of the Rakab Ganj Kirtan Vidyalay (school).

Gyani Dyal Singh is a stalwart who, as a young man, had rubbed shoulders with the rababis of Harmandar Sahib when he was employed there as a dilruba (a bowed string instrument, traditionally used in gurmat sangeet) player.

Over the years I have had many conversations with Gyani Dyal Singh about the rababis, particularly Bhai Taba, a contemporary of Ustad Ghulam Hussain Shaggan’s father Bhai Lal, who was also employed at Harmandar Sahib.

Both Bhai Lal and Bhai Taba had a vast repertoire of ancient gurmat sangeet compositions that had been passed down from generation to generation within the families of the ‘Children of Mardana’.

Both Bhai Lal and Bhai Taba migrated to Pakistan after the partition of Punjab in 1947. Sardar Gian Singh Abbotabad, who was a wealthy businessman in Delhi and a purveyor of arms and ammunition (!), was an ardent practitioner of gurmat sangeet. Over the years, he too had collected a large repertoire of traditional compositions that he wished to record and document for posterity.

Sardar Gian Singh was inspired to write a book documenting old compositions and not being much of a theoretician, he was advised to employ young Dyal Singh to parse the compositions and document for what eventually became the canonical work, “Gurbani Sangeet”.

Bhai Taba was asked to return to Delhi, where he spent many hours in sessions with Gyani Dyal Singh, who would ask him to sing and then capture the melodies using the format invented a few decades earlier by Pandit Vishnu Narain Bhatkhande.

Bhai Taba much appreciated the employment. All the rababis had to live in much reduced circumstances after leaving Amritsar. The Sikhs had been forced out of newly carved Pakistan where there was no patronage or support for their art.

Furthermore, Bhai Taba had been blessed with a large family and had, I believe, nine young daughters whose marriages and their attendant expenses were a cause of constant worry for him. He also found support and patronage at Bheni Sahib, where he spent considerable time teaching Namdhari musicians innumerable old compositions that had been passed down in his family.

Thus a large part of the repertoire that the ‘Children of Mardana’ had preserved, were propagated and documented for posterity.

In the days when Bhai Taba lived and sang in Amritsar, he would often be invited to the homes of prominent Sikhs to teach their children. A young woman called Jaswant Kaur was one of his students; she spent sixteen years studying with him. After he left for Pakistan, the young woman got married and made a career in the police.

When Bibi Jaswant Kaur was widowed and after ensuring that her daughters were well settled, she took up residence in Delhi at Gobind Sadan, the dera of Baba Virsa Singh.

Four years before my visit with Gyani Dyal Singh at Rakab Ganj, I had learned about Bibi Jaswant Kaur and had gone to visit her at Gobind Sadan. I met a sprightly 85-year old woman who had spent the last 35 years of her life singing the sublime compositions that she had received from the ‘Children of Mardana’, at Gobind Sadan.

She regaled me with anecdotes about Bhai Taba, Bhai Chand, Bhai Lal, Bhai Nasira, Bhai Santu and other rababis that she had listened to in her youth and spoke of them with love and affection. She was also kind enough to sing several old compositions that I recorded and published on the Gurmat Sangeet Project website. [http://www.gurmatsangeetproject.com/Pages/JaswantKaur.asp]

When I went to visit Gyani Dyal Singh in 2009, I mentioned to him that my next stop was to be Gobind Sadan to pay my respects to the last living link to the great rababi tradition in gurmat sangeet. Gyani ji’s ears perked up when I mentioned the name of Bibi Jaswant Kaur’s ustad (mentor).

It seemed incomprehensible to me that these two stalwarts, both intimately linked to the tradition of the rababis, both sharing a deep sense of affection for Bhai Taba, had lived in Delhi for the last 40 years and never met!

Gyani ji got into a taxi with me and with Bhai Kavinder Singh, one of his students who played the tabla and had visited Gobind Sadan with me four years earlier, in tow, we proceeded to visit with Bibi ji.

Bibi Jaswant Kaur was now almost 90 years old, but still as sprightly as ever. She insisted on serving us fruit and fussing over us. What a treat it was, to breathe the same air as these giants and listen to them talk about the great rababis of yesteryear and their art!

Bibi ji, though gracious and hospitable, was not cowed down one bit by Gyani ji, who had quite an intimidating personality and was quite capable of being a curmudgeon!

The conversation got around to the departure of the rababis from Amritsar and their fate in Pakistan. Both of them expressed great sorrow at the fact that the rababis, who had once been the pride of Amritsar, were largely reduced to penury after the partition of Punjab and India. There was no patronage or support for their music and gradually many of them were forced to take on low paying menial occupations just to survive.

Bhai Lal, the father of Ustad Ghulam Hussain Shaggan, who had a solid grounding in classical music as well as gurmat sangeet, was one of the few exceptions. He continued to sing, albeit not primarily his gurmat sangeet repertoire and music, and managed to survive and thrived with his family.

The others were not so fortunate and their art atrophied and crumbled, though in recent years, we have had the pleasure of listening to some of their descendants sing gurmat sangeet compositions. The glory days of the ‘children of Mardana’, alas, will never return.

On one topic, however, there was sharp disagreement between Bibi ji and Gyani ji. Gyani Dyal Singh held onto the opinion that the rababis left Amritsar largely because they were somewhat bigoted Muslims who felt that their place was in the Islamic nation of Pakistan.

Bibi ji, who was there and was very close to Bhai Taba had a completely different perspective. According to her, the horrific events surrounding the partition of Punjab, when innumerable innocent Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims lost their lives in a frenzy of communal bloodletting, created an environment in Amritsar that was very hostile to the Muslim rababis.

The Sikhs had suffered too, at the hands of Muslims in what was going to become the nation of Pakistan, and there was intolerance and bigotry in the air. In this new polarized climate, the grieved Sikhs on the street would simply not tolerate the presence of ‘Toorks’ in the holy precincts of Harmandar Sahib anymore.

The rababis had reason to fear that their livelihood and indeed their lives would be in jeopardy.

The ‘Children of Mardana’, whose presence at the Harmandar Sahib had been described by Edmund Candler a scant five decades earlier, collected their belongings and left to embrace an uncertain future.

As I watched the video recording of Ustad Ghulam Hussain Shaggan singing the slok over and over again, I was impelled to share my thoughts about my personal, albeit tenuous, connection to the ‘Children of Mardana’. I cannot but help admire them. For to me, the notion of devout Muslims offering devotions, generation after generation, at the most prominent place of worship in Sikhism, bespeaks the catholicism of an era long gone.

Something that Guru Nanak, the preceptor and master of Bhai Mardana, would have perhaps appreciated and been proud of.

CONCLUDED

Please CLICK here for shabad by Ustad Ghulam Hussain Shaggan in Raag Malkauns.

December 27, 2013

 

Conversation about this article

1: T. Sher Singh (Mount Forest, Ontario, Canada), December 28, 2013, 8:04 AM.

As a pre-teen growing up in Patna -- the city of the Takht Sahib marking the birthplace of Guru Gobind Singh -- I became attached to kirtan in a big way because of the constant influx of the best raagis in Sikhdom. I had my favourites early on, and one of them was Bhai Lal ji from Pakistan and his jatha. My sisters had by then begun studying both classical music and kirtan, and were able to benefit from lessons from the very best. Bhai Lal ji and his jatha would very graciously agree to extend their visit each time by staying with us in Patna Junction -- about 15 miles from the old city where the Takht Sahib was located -- in order to teach my sisters, and to regale us every morning and evening with kirtan in our home. Needless to say, I feasted in the fare that we were thus blessed with. Years later -- approx 8 years ago -- I found myself in Lahore on a visit, and was introduced to a delightful group which met weekly to sing and discuss Punjabi poetry ... the primary component of which was, of course, gurbani. The entire gathering was Muslim but unabashedly reveled in shabad kirtan. I would be on cloud nine whenever I was able to attend their weekly sessions. On one such occasion, after the evening was over and we were partaking of langar (yes, that's what they termed it!), I cornered one of the singers, an elderly gentleman, and got into a conversation with him. By the by, I asked him if he could help me track down the whereabouts of a kirtaniya I remembered only as "Bhai Lal ji", or his family, and explained my connection. The old man went silent, his eyes searching my face for a few moments, before he spoke: "I am his son ... and sadly, he's no more!" Bhai Lal had passed away several decades ago. Thank you, Sarbpreet ji, for reconnecting me after all these years with both father and son.

2: Sangat Singh (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), January 02, 2014, 7:47 AM.

It was in March 1945 in Sujabad (District Multan, now in Pakistan) which had then a large population of Sikhs, including sehajdharis. They had organised a samagam (convention) under the auspices of Sant Sangat Singh ji of Kamalia. Among the other speakers and raagis was Syed Pritpal Singh, originally Syed Mushtaq Hussain Mirpuri who had converted to Sikhi, now a much sought-after speaker. For the full account on him, please read the sikhchic.com piece, "A Man of God Sans Religion" by Bhai Harbans Lal. Among the famous raagis was Bhai Chand's jatha. On the day of his arrival in Sujabad, quite carelessly there was no one to receive the jatha at the railway station when that evening they had their programme to perform kirtan. When they did not appear at the appointed hour, Sant Sangat Singh asked why the jatha hadn't come. He was told that they had felt slighted that no one had met the jatha on arrival, and have now refused to perform kirtan. Sant Sangat Singh smiled and said: "Bhai Mardana would on occasion get upset and Guru Nanak would cajole him. Bhai Chand is a gurghar da kirtaniya, let's all go to him and ask his forgiveness." They went with a number of Sikhs in tow. When Bhai Chand saw Sant ji himself there, he immediately melted and accompanied him to do the kirtan as arranged. (Ref. Kathrian Santa Vol 2, p219). Some two years later in 1947, the same Bhai Chand was expelled from india and told to go to Pakistan and we thus lost a legacy of Guru Nanak.

3: Bhai Harbans Lal (Dallas, Texas, USA), January 06, 2014, 1:07 AM.

Sarabpreet ji, I read with great interest your well-researched essay on the great raagis of the Rababi tradition and the overwhelmingly appreciative comments from many readers. You brought afresh to mind many old and very pleasant memories. I have many reminiscences of these lovers of Guru Nanak song and music who impacted so many of us. In my childhood I had the good fortune to listen to Bhai Chand in person during his many visits to the Pothohar areas. Guru Nanak himself picked Bhai Mardana to start the tradition of the rababi singers, and his first ever gurbani keertanias. I see a divine hand in this choice as Guru Nanak was to launch dissemination of divine wisdom applicable to people of all ethnicities. Guru Nanak was born in a Hindu family so he had to pick many associates from Muslim communities to attract mixed and universal audiences. Bhai Mardana was the second prominent Sikh of Guru Nanak after Rai Bullar who were the earliest ones to recognize Guru Nanak as the prophet for the coming ages and thus became a Sikh of Nanak. Guru Nanak's Sikhs were either Muslim or Hindu as those were the predominant communities around at that time. Whether they were Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist, once they touched the feet of the great prophet they became Sikhs even though all of them continued to practice the prevalent social customs of the contemporary society, that is, birth and death rituals. By the way, the first Sikh martyr was originally a Muslim. The Amir (Shah) of Mecca received word that Rukn-ud-din had adopted Nanak as his murshid (Guru). He asked the Mullahs to issue a fatwa, branding Rukn-ud-din a kafir (non-believer). Rukn-ud-din was declared a kafir, and his murshid, Nanak Shah, also a kafir. Rukn-ud-din was punished by thirty lashes and then locked in a box without food for eleven days. Then his face was painted black while parading him through the streets of Mecca, ending with his being hanged upside down. Finally he was buried to his neck in sand and stoned to death. All of it because of his turning Sikh. My point is that the Guru attracted followers from all backgrounds; many of them turned to be great Sikhs without changing their public identities. Your essay reminded us of those traditions and guidelines the Gurus established. It is another thing that our current leadership has failed in its responsibility to take care of them when they needed help. They repeatedly do not miss the chance to show us their lack of understanding of the Guru's teachings.

4: Jai (Alaska, USA), October 14, 2014, 6:33 PM.

This is a beautiful yet sad story. The devout Sikhs, the Muslim rababis and all who are disciples of the Guru, when you truly have listened to the words of Guru Nanak, all divisions melt away and then one reaches the place that Guru Nanak first uttered when he returned from his revelation: " Na koi Hindu, na koi Mussalman - There is no Hindu, there is no Muslim." Tears always well in my eyes when I remember these words, for in these words, Nanak taught us the greatest truth. To God, there is no distinction of religion; all people are one and his creation. The wonderous Lord, Waheguru, is beyond all religions.

5: Ruby Bedi Bhopal (Glasgow, Scotland), September 19, 2016, 6:13 PM.

Totally blown away after reading these articles on the origin and history of the rababis, their dreadful fate during 1947, and the accounts of reunion with Sikh members in later years. Would like to know more about the rababi schools in Ludhiana, as my maternal relations live there.

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Part II"









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