Sunday, January 28, 2001		Lead Article

Makers of modern Punjab
Birth centenaries of Kairon, Sobha Singh and Rarewala fall this year
By Tarlochan Singh

THE nations that honour their heroes and cherish their memories, not only link the past with the present but are also able to work out an agenda for their future. That being so I propose to present a bird’s-eye view of the life and achievements of three great Sikhs — Partap Singh Kairon, Gian Singh Rarewala and Sobha Singh — born in 1901, whose memory we must keep alive. Punjabis shall remain eternally beholden to them, for they are, in more ways than one, among the makers of modern Punjab.

Partap Singh Kairon (born on October 1, 1901), though highly educated, was essentially a middle-class agriculturist. He emerged just at the right time to serve Punjab, with his administrative ability and depth of knowledge of the problems confronting Punjab, soon after Partition.

The first thing as Development Minister of Punjab that Kairon accomplished was to undertake the consolidation of land holdings. It was a national policy to do so. But while vested interests frustrated such efforts in other states, Kairon brooked no opposition while implementing this policy. The result was there for everyone to see. Within years, Punjab once again became a food-surplus area, ultimately regaining its position as the granary of the country. In fact, the affluence that we see in Punjab today is due to this one single factor and the credit for it goes to Kairon.

Then, who can forget the contribution that he made towards building Chandigarh and Bhakra Nangal Dam. These were colossal projects, particularly at that point of time. A time came, when all the Indian contractors engaged for the Chandigarh project gave up, saying that they neither had the resources, nor the expertise to go ahead with it. But Kairon had already announced a deadline to shift the offices from Shimla to Chandigarh. And he did not favour any postponement. He, therefore, entrusted the job to the Public Works Department and had it finished to the satisfaction of the experts in the time allotted.

As a US-returned graduate he understood the fact that even though agriculture was the mainstay of people, the future prosperity of the state lay with industry. He was the first one to industrialise a full-fledged township called Faridabad close to the national capital.

In short, he was not only an administrator but was also a visionary of the highest order. The role that he played after the debacle of the Indian Army in NEFA in 1962 is simply unforgettable. He lent a lot of support to Prime Minister Nehru who was badly shaken by the perfidy of the Chinese.

Now we come to Sardar Rarewala, who was born on December 16, 1901. A blue-blooded Patiala aristocrat, Rarewala was a great lover of books. He was very much at home amongst scholars, scientists, philosophers and academicians. He had no basic inclination to be part of the power politics that started dominating the political scene after Independence. But being the maternal uncle of the Maharaja of Patiala, he was asked to head the Cabinet after the formation of PEPSU.

The most memorable thing about Sardar Rarewala is that in the first elections held under the new Constitution, in PEPSU, the Congress was defeated and so he headed a coalition of political groups to form the government. The Akali party was the major partner in this coalition. In fact, it was the very first successful coalition experiment in India as also the only non-Congress government in the entire country. This arrangement however was not acceptable to the Centre, so it used the Article 356 for the first time in India to dismiss the Rarewala ministry in PEPSU.

After the merger of PEPSU with Punjab, which was in a way a political step to scotch the possibility of Akalis coming into power, Rarewala, appreciating the exigency of the new political reality, joined the Congress and remained a member of the state Cabinet off and on for many years. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who was always positively inclined towards sophisticated and educated aristocrats, perhaps, would have chosen Rarewala to head the Punjab Cabinet. This made Rarewala the target of many political conspiracies hatched by his arch rival Kairon who was already in the saddle. Kairon’s main fear was that since Rarewala was also close to the Akalis, he could become Chief Minister of the state. He met the same treatment at the hands of Justice Gurnam Singh who had been appointed judge of PEPSU High Court with help of Rarewala. Justice Gurnam Singh, however, became Rarewala’s worst enemy after the formation of Punjabi Suba.

It is also the time to remember Sobha Singh (born on November 29, 1901), the artist who brought Punjab and the Sikhs into the mainstream of Indian art. In those days, there were two main schools of painting: the Bengal school which combined abstract and even folk with the real; and the realist school headed by Raja Ravi Verma. At that time, calendar art was greatly in vogue and mainly the German printers catered to the Indian market. Sobha Singh excelled in this genre of art and specialised in Sikh themes. In fact there is hardly a Sikh home in Punjab which is not adorned with Guru Nanak’s painting by Sobha Singh. The printing presses produced thousands of copies of this masterpiece and created a world market for Sobha Singh’s Sikh paintings. The Ravi Verma’s school went for almost photographic description of the object. But Sobha Singh’s uniqueness laid in the fact that he invested his paintings with a character. For example, his Guru Nanak painting is grace and compassion personified. Similarly, his painting of Guru Gobind Singh at the finis terra, which means after he had almost reached the dead end, is a remarkable depiction of chardi kala. Among his other paintings, the one depicting Sohni Mahiwal rising to heaven is an unrivalled piece of art.

However, Sobha Singh was not a man of the world. He led the life of a rishi. He left the rough and tumble of Punjab and settled in the enchanting settings of Andretta in Kangra hills. Andretta thus became a place of pilgrimage for all lovers of Indian art in general and Sikh art in particular.

All Punjabis should plan a suitable programme with the full participation of the Punjab Government, to celebrate the centenaries of these three stalwarts. Seminars and exhibitions on their life and works should be held and postal stamps should be issued in their memory.