The reception given to a statue of the Maharaja was curious, even if deserved. I was acutely reminded of this injustice earlier this month when the installation of a statue of Punjab’s last indigenous ruler Maharaja Ranjit Singh at Lahore Fort on the occasion of his 180 th birthday attracted widespread attention, not least from fervent Punjabi nationalists. Unfortunately, he is not very well-known in the land of his birth, a village near Pind Daadan Khan in Jhelum in modern-day Pakistan. He led an eventful life which was turned around by the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy in Amritsar then as an ardent activist and freedom-fighter against British colonialism and as a witness to the Partition of India in 1947. Nanak Singh passed away in December 1971, just a couple of weeks after the humiliating surrender of Pakistani troops to India and the emergence of Bangladesh as an independent nation. ‘Khooni Vaisakhi’ By Nanak Singh, translated by Navdeep Suri, Harper Perennial, India
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