Desh Bhagar Yadgaar Hall was built in the memory of Gadar movement and other revolutionaries in the late fifties .

Located on GT road in the Civil Lines area near BMC Chowk, the foundation stone of the memorial was laid by Gadhar Party member Baba Amar Singh Sandhwan, on November 17, 1959, the 45th martyrdom day of freedom fighter Kartar Singh Sarabha. Subsequently, the president of the Gadar Party Baba Sohan Singh inaugurated the building a few months later.

Over three acres were purchased by the Desh Bhagat Yadgaar Committee from a lawyer Rai Bahadur Badri Das at a cost of Rs. 70,000 in 1955. The money for the project came from people and not a single paisa came from the government, said Mr Gurmeet Singh secretary ,cultural wing of the Yadgaar Hall.

There is an interesting story about how the committee came into existence. Those gadaries (revolutionaries), whose capital punishment had been converted into life imprisonment in 1914-15 after the failure of first gadar, took over in 1923 the Sikh Qaidi Parivar Sahayak Committee (Sikh Prisoners’ Aid Committee) in 1923 and renamed it as `Desh Bhagat Parivar Sahayak Committee’ under the patronage of Sant Baba Wasakha Singh.

The committee looked after the welfare of the suffering families of the revolutionaries thrown into prisons or hanged or sent to Andaman Jail commonly known as Kale Paani. In 1947, its members decided to form a new committee `Desh Bhagat Yadgaar Committee’ and transferred the entire fund of Rs. 23,000 to the new organisation.

Again Sant Baba Wasakha Singh was elected as the first president of Yadgaar Committee and its members contributed Rs. 45,000 for it.

When Baba Wasakha Singh expired, the gathering assembled to pay tributes to him at Dadher in Amritsar and at Desh Bhagat Yadgaar Hall committee ground in Jalandhar on December 14, 1957 and January 5, 1958 ,respectively. The eminent personalities gathered there appealed for donations for the construction of the monument and the money started pouring in. Gadhari Baba Bagh Singh and Amar Singh Sandhwan donated Rs. 1,06,000 and Rs. 61,000 for the purpose.

A Gadhari museum is set up in the Yadgaar Hall where the photographs of over 250 gadaris and other revolutionaries have been displayed. The revolutionaries whose photographs have been exhibited in the museum included those hanged in the Lahore Conspiracy Case, Burma Conspiracy Case, Babbar Akali Movement, Naujwan Bharat Sabha Case, Gadar Movement, Kuka Movement, Harding Bomb Case and Pagri Sambhal Movement.

The pictures of more gadaris were being acquired ,said Mr Gurmeet Singh.

Apart from the museum, the Yadgaar Hall complex has an auditorium, a library of rare books and manuscripts. Besides a hall for public functions and commercial exhibitions, a smaller public lecture hall , some dwelling rooms have been added.

The spaces were rented out to traders, trade unions, said Mr. Gurmeet Singh, adding that no amount had been fixed for that. The committee did not charge even a single paisa from the needy organisations struggling for their rights like the Pendu Mazdoor Union.

The Yadgaar Hall complex is run and controlled by the trustees of Desh Bhagat Yadgaar Committee which functions independently under a written constitution. Presently Baba Bhagat Singh Bilga is the president of the committee and Comrade Gandhrav Sen is its secretary.

The Yadgaar Committee has been organising `Mela Gadari Babeyan Da’ every year in the complex from October 28 to November 1 to commemorate the contributions made by the gadaries since 1992. Besides the Yadgaar Committee publishes two bi-annually magazines `Heritage’ in English and `Virsa’ in Punjabi. 

Shree Baba Harballabh Sangeet Mahasabha will hold three-day annual music competitions from tomorrow at the Devi Talab Mandir. The music contests will begin tomorrow at 10 am. The contests will be held in three categories --vocal, instrumental, non-percussion and instrumental percussion. The contests are open for musicians in two age groups, juniors ,13 to 19 and seniors 19 to 25. Time for the junior participant will be 6 to 8 minutes and for the senior 8 to 10 minutes.

The first day, all categories of junior age group will participate. On December 21, participants of vocal and non-percussion categories from senior age group will compete. On the last day, contest will be held for percussion category from senior age group.

The main sammelan will begin on Friday with the performances of Ashwini Shankar and Sanjiv Shankar on the shehnai, Subha Saraf and Manoj Saraf will perform dhrupad and Pt Anindo Chatterjee will give a performance on the tabla. Pt Shriniwas Joshi, son of Pt Bhim Sen Joshi, will give a vocal recital.

On Saturday, Prof Alankar Singh, Ms Piu Sarkhel and Pt Chhannu Lal Mishra will give a vocal performance and Pt Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and Pt Salil V. Bhatt will perform on the Mohan Veena.

On the concluding evening, Pt Jasraj, Pritam Bhattacharjee, Roshal Lal Verma and Ms Ashwini Bhide Deshpande will give vocal performances. Purbyan Chatterjee and Shahshank will present a jugalbandi of the sitar and flute. Mehmood Dhaulpuri and Fakhruddin Dhaulpuri will present a harmonium and sarangi jugalbandi. Gurdev Singh Namdhari, will perform on the sarod. 

Tiny-tots of Innocent Hearts School perform their item during the annual cultural show on Saturday. — Photo by S.S. Chopra

Varsha, a student of Sain Dass A.S. Senior Secondary School, Panj Peer, has got the first rank in state-level handwriting contest organised by the Punjab School Education Board at Mohali recently. More than 2000 students from across the state participated in the contest. Varsha managed to attain the top rank. The school administration has congratulated her on her achievement.

Declamation contest

A declamation contest in English was organised at Sanskriti KMV School. Students from Classes I to VI participated . The topic were: “Should Afzal Guru be hanged or not”, “Life in a concrete jungle”, “School: A second home” and “Life without books”. From sub-juniors, first position was shared by Parul Khanna and Naman Khanna. In juniors, first position was shared by Sumeet Uppal and Anmol Sethi.

Pact signed

CT Group of Institutions has signed an MoU with Oracle Corp ,US ,for providing technical skills from academic inputs to its students under Workforce Development Programme of the software company. An MoU in this regard was signed by Mr Raja Dasgupta, Senior Manager (education), Oracle India Ltd and Mr Manbir Singh, MD, CT Group of Institutions. The students of the institution would reap the benefits of Oracle certification in the form of increased salary, better job opportunities, increased IT professional productivity, said the MD.

Annual function

“Awakening”, annual function of Ambika Modern School, was organised on Saturday. Students presented a cultural show. Mr Avtar Henry, Minister for Industries, Commerce and Environment, was the chief guest. Mr Mankaran Bhandari, chairman, and Ms Navita Puri, principal, were present.

Placement

Accenture, an IT company, held a joint campus placement camp at Lovely Institutes on Sunday. Nearly 145 candidates from 14 colleges took part in the preliminary round. Group discussions and interviews were held in the second phase. Besides others, two students from BD Arya College have been selected by the company and will be called for training soon.

With the town recording Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM) as high as 492 micrograms per cubic metre-more than twice the permissible limit of 200 micrograms per cubic metre- residents have become vulnerable to a number of ailments.

Sources said that the amount of SPM in Phagwara remained around 400 micrograms per cubic metre for the past one year. SPM is believed to carry toxic and carcinogenic matter that may alter the immune system, reduce visibility and cause many long-term respiratory disorders, even lead to premature death.

Asked about the cause for such alarming and consistent levels of SPM in the town, a Punjab Pollution Control official put the blame on the poor condition of the roads and vehicular pollution.

Asked about the levels of carbon monoxide (CO), the official said, "We don't have the infrastructure to measure the levels of CO."