The yellow turban image has gained extra traction with the Aam Aadmi Social gathering (AAP) prominently displaying it in a number of workplaces
The yellow turban image has gained extra traction with the Aam Aadmi Social gathering (AAP) prominently displaying it in a number of workplaces
A well-liked, a lot circulated image of freedom fighter Bhagat Singh in a yellow turban relies on a 1975 portray. In actuality, the revolutionary, who was solely 23 when he was hanged on March 23, 1931, by no means wore a yellow turban, say historians.
In reality, stated historian Chaman Lal, there are solely 4 identified images of Bhagat Singh — as a toddler after which as a scholar at Lahore’s Nationwide School in a white turban, in police custody in Lahore the place he’s seen with open hair sitting on a cot, and a fourth with trimmed hair and hat.
The yellow turban image has gained extra traction with the Aam Aadmi Social gathering (AAP) prominently displaying it in a number of workplaces. Whereas social gathering chief Arvind Kerjriwal has been photographed with Dalit icon B.R. Ambedkar and Bhagat Singh within the body, its new chief minister in Punjab, Bhagwant Mann, has stated photos of the 2 will probably be prominently displayed in State authorities workplaces.
One of many well-known image of Bhagat Singh donning a hat.
“There are solely 4 actual images of Bhagat Singh. As an alternative of placing a kind of on the authorities workplaces in Punjab, the administration selected an image based mostly on a portray by artist Amar Singh in 1975, and commissioned by Giani Zail Singh, then chief minister of Punjab,” Mr. Lal, the creator of a number of books on Bhagat Singh, informed PTI.
“There isn’t any ban on work. You should use it at houses or public conferences, however not at authorities workplaces or official functions. Additionally, when you do not use it for different historic figures, together with Mahatma Gandhi, Subas Chandra Bose, Sardar Patel, then why use painting-based images for Bhagat Singh?” he requested.
These fictional photographs of Singh constructed round folklore, which Mr. Lal termed “romanticised artworks”, weren’t at all times this widespread.
Until the Nineteen Seventies, he stated, the preferred image of Singh was the one among him in a hat. It was taken on April 3, 1929 —5 days earlier than he and B Okay Dutt hurled bombs within the Central Meeting, now referred to as Parliament Home, in Delhi.
Mr. Lal additionally recalled how a statue of the liberty fighter carrying a hat, unveiled in 1974 by then chief minister Zail Singh in Punjab’s Nawanshahr (now Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar) district, was later changed by the Shiromani Akali Dal authorities. The brand new statue portrayed him in a turban.
“Until 1975, all around the world—and India—there was no different {photograph} than the one exhibiting him carrying a hat which was being printed. It is just after id politics got here into play and the race began amongst political events to indicate him as a Sikh, a Jatt and whatnot that the painting-based {photograph} got here into prominence,” added Mr. Lal, who can also be honorary adviser to the Bhagat Singh Archive and Useful resource Centre in Delhi.
Singh was born in a Sikh household, which additionally had ties with the Arya Samaj. Later in life, he dissociated himself from any faith and referred to as himself an atheist.
Famous historian S. Irfan Habib referred to as out Punjab Chief Minister Mann and different political events for attempting arduous to make Singh a Sikh determine via “false images”.
“Mann (the CM) by no means wore a ‘pagri’ (turban) until he got here into politics, however now if he desires to put on it, it’s his alternative and we’re not questioning that.”
“However do not attribute your yellow turban to Bhagat Singh is what we’re saying. He has nothing to do with the color yellow. It was by no means his alternative, he has by no means written something on it, and nor do we’ve any {photograph} of him carrying one,” Mr. Habib stated.
The “determined makes an attempt” by successive State governments to indicate revolutionaries from Punjab as Sikhs have led to a distortion of photographs of different revolutionaries—and atheists—as effectively. These embody Udham Singh and Kartar Singh Sarabha, claimed Mr. Lal.
Sarabha, a hero of Bhagat Singh, was among the many youngest martyrs of the 1914-15 Ghadar motion. Uddham Singh assassinated Michael O’Dwyer, the previous lieutenant governor of Punjab in British India in 1940, to avenge the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh bloodbath.
‘Uddham Singh photograph additionally not actual’
Based on Mr. Lal, images of Uddham Singh used usually are not actual, and the depiction of Sarabha carrying a turban can also be false.
The one identified {photograph} of Sarabha is from the College of California at Berkeley (UCB) and does not present him carrying one.
And what’s being finished to Udham Singh’s picture is worse than Bhagat Singh, Mr. Lal added.
“None of Udham Sngh’s actual images are used. He seldom wore a turban and did not have a beard. Even the statue that the administration put up on the Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, is fake, and statues at his hometown in Punjab are ugly to say the least,” he stated.
