Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Kanshi Ram’s 95-yr-old mother battles the personal and political
Telephone lines are dead in Kanshi Ram’s Ropar village home, family waits for TV, press updates on his health
KHAUSPUR/ BUNGA SAHIB, ROPAR, SEPT 18: At age 24, Darbara Singh, a welder, went to attend a meeting of employees at Guru Ravi Das Gurdwara in Chandigarh. The meeting, he was told, was being addressed by Kanshi Ram, co-founder of All India Backward and Minority Employees Federation (BAMCEF) and a rising star of the Dalit movement.
After the meeting, Darbara Singh walked to up to Kanshi Ram, touched his feet and hesitatingly said, ‘‘Do you know me’’? Kanshi Ram’s face said he did not know who the young man was. ‘‘I am your youngest brother,’’ Darbara Singh told him.
As tears rolled down their eyes, Kanshi Ram said: ‘‘You are not only the youngest but also the smallest.’’ That was late ’70s — and the first time Darbara Singh met his eldest brother.
As the Bahujan Samaj Party leader lies in a Delhi hospital after a brain stroke, a family in distant Ropar is switching on the TV and looking at the morning’s papers for news about the man who disappeared from their life one day and returned after two decades. Telephone lines are dead in the village and brother Harbans Singh — who is now in Delhi — has no way of letting the family know about Kanshi Ram’s health.
In fact, almost each member of the Ravidasi Sikh family in Ropar has a similar story of a bizarre reunion. Sister Swaran Kaur, who lives in Bunga Sahib near Anandpur Sahib, says: ‘‘At the residence of a common friend in Chandigarh, we met veerji (elder brother). The host pointed towards me and asked, ‘Do you know her?’’’ Kanshi Ram did not recognise her.
Those were years of agony for his mother, 95-year-old Bishan Kaur. ‘‘For 18 years, I did not know where my son was. Our registered letters to his Poona office came back. We were told he had proceeded on five years leave. Later someone said he had quit,’’ she says. The family heard all sorts of stories — some said he had gone abroad, some said he had disappeared. Finally, 18 years after he left for Poona, to join Department of Defence Production after completing his BSc, the family came to know that he was organising employees’s conferences. ‘‘One such conference was at Nagpur, and I went to meet him,’’ the mother says.
Yet, he refused to come back to his village fearing that family and emotions would divert him from his cause. ‘‘He even refused to get married, though he was engaged to a girl from Balachaur,’’ says his mother. He returned after 23 years — to attend the bhog ceremony when his father Hari Singh died. By then he was a Dalit leader on the move — who would soon launch the Dalit Soshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti (DS4) in 1981 and the Bahujan Samaj Party in 1984.
Darbara Singh and Harbans Singh, a peon at the local Industrial Training Institute, stay at Khuaspura in Ropar. Darbara is now a welding contractor at Ropar Thermal Plant and runs a furniture shop as well.
Kanshi Ram used to visit them once in a while. The last time he stayed with his mother was during the Himachal Pradesh elections early this year. And when the ancestral house was renovated three years ago, Mayawati had come to inaugurate it.
Though there have been offers and opportunities, the family kept away from political limelight. Darbara Singh says he was offered a Congress ticket by former Chief Minister Beant Singh. Villagers wanted him to be sarpanch. But Darbara refused.
‘‘I am committed to the cause and according to my brother’s instructions, will not accept any party post or contest elections’’.
Bishan Kaur has not been feeling well for the past three days and has been complaining of weakness. ‘‘It’s because of brother’s illness,’’ says daughter Swaran Kaur with whom she stays. But the mother waits, with a photograph of Kanshi Ram and Mayawati waving to supporters at a rally behind her.
KHAUSPUR/ BUNGA SAHIB, ROPAR, SEPT 18: At age 24, Darbara Singh, a welder, went to attend a meeting of employees at Guru Ravi Das Gurdwara in Chandigarh. The meeting, he was told, was being addressed by Kanshi Ram, co-founder of All India Backward and Minority Employees Federation (BAMCEF) and a rising star of the Dalit movement.
After the meeting, Darbara Singh walked to up to Kanshi Ram, touched his feet and hesitatingly said, ‘‘Do you know me’’? Kanshi Ram’s face said he did not know who the young man was. ‘‘I am your youngest brother,’’ Darbara Singh told him.
As tears rolled down their eyes, Kanshi Ram said: ‘‘You are not only the youngest but also the smallest.’’ That was late ’70s — and the first time Darbara Singh met his eldest brother.
As the Bahujan Samaj Party leader lies in a Delhi hospital after a brain stroke, a family in distant Ropar is switching on the TV and looking at the morning’s papers for news about the man who disappeared from their life one day and returned after two decades. Telephone lines are dead in the village and brother Harbans Singh — who is now in Delhi — has no way of letting the family know about Kanshi Ram’s health.
In fact, almost each member of the Ravidasi Sikh family in Ropar has a similar story of a bizarre reunion. Sister Swaran Kaur, who lives in Bunga Sahib near Anandpur Sahib, says: ‘‘At the residence of a common friend in Chandigarh, we met veerji (elder brother). The host pointed towards me and asked, ‘Do you know her?’’’ Kanshi Ram did not recognise her.
Those were years of agony for his mother, 95-year-old Bishan Kaur. ‘‘For 18 years, I did not know where my son was. Our registered letters to his Poona office came back. We were told he had proceeded on five years leave. Later someone said he had quit,’’ she says. The family heard all sorts of stories — some said he had gone abroad, some said he had disappeared. Finally, 18 years after he left for Poona, to join Department of Defence Production after completing his BSc, the family came to know that he was organising employees’s conferences. ‘‘One such conference was at Nagpur, and I went to meet him,’’ the mother says.
Yet, he refused to come back to his village fearing that family and emotions would divert him from his cause. ‘‘He even refused to get married, though he was engaged to a girl from Balachaur,’’ says his mother. He returned after 23 years — to attend the bhog ceremony when his father Hari Singh died. By then he was a Dalit leader on the move — who would soon launch the Dalit Soshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti (DS4) in 1981 and the Bahujan Samaj Party in 1984.
Darbara Singh and Harbans Singh, a peon at the local Industrial Training Institute, stay at Khuaspura in Ropar. Darbara is now a welding contractor at Ropar Thermal Plant and runs a furniture shop as well.
Kanshi Ram used to visit them once in a while. The last time he stayed with his mother was during the Himachal Pradesh elections early this year. And when the ancestral house was renovated three years ago, Mayawati had come to inaugurate it.
Though there have been offers and opportunities, the family kept away from political limelight. Darbara Singh says he was offered a Congress ticket by former Chief Minister Beant Singh. Villagers wanted him to be sarpanch. But Darbara refused.
‘‘I am committed to the cause and according to my brother’s instructions, will not accept any party post or contest elections’’.
Bishan Kaur has not been feeling well for the past three days and has been complaining of weakness. ‘‘It’s because of brother’s illness,’’ says daughter Swaran Kaur with whom she stays. But the mother waits, with a photograph of Kanshi Ram and Mayawati waving to supporters at a rally behind her.
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