In the heart of Kasur, Bulleh Shah rests in his tomb. He is commonly perceived to be a spiritual leader and not an intellectual, and many people who wish to be buried in his courtyard pay hefty amounts of money for a small piece of land. Only the rich and powerful can afford to do that. Next to the room where Bulleh Shah is buried, under a Waan tree, are the graves of the handful of people who get to share their final resting place with one of Kasur's most famous sons. One of the graves has a white marble tombstone that reads 'Nawab Muhammad Ahmad Khan Kasuri'.

Nawab Muhammad Ahmad Khan Kasuri belonged to the powerful Pathan family that helped Babur win the decisive battle of Panipat in 1525 CE, according to Sir Lepel H. Griffin's Punjab Chiefs. For their loyalty they were given property and titles in Bengal. Later, during the reign of Akbar, they came and settled in Kasur. According to folk legend, members of this community played a pivotal role in moving the Shariat courts of that time against the Sufi of Kasur, Bulleh Shah. It was felt that his popularity and revolutionary ideas were a threat to their power. Later, upon their insistence, the qazis of Kasur refused to perform the final prayers for Bulleh Shah and ordered that he be buried outside of the city. Eventually the entire city settled around the tomb of Bulleh Shah, according to the same folk tradition. Ironically, Nawab Muhammad Ahmad Khan Kasuri found a resting place at the feet of the very man his family had cursed as an apostate and banished from the city.

According to Iqbal Qaiser, a Punjabi poet from Kasur, the greatest injustice done to Bulleh Shah was not by the Kasuri family but by his own devotees. Bulleh Shah was a revolutionary, a political activist, a humanitarian, and an intellectual, a man who wanted to improve the lot of humanity. However, after his death, a cult developed around him and turned him into a divinely inspired saint, stripping him of his human strengths and fallacies. The dogmatism that has developed around his personality, his religiosity, and his tomb over the years was, ironically, the very thing Bulleh Shah had mocked and criticized in his lifetime. During his frequent travels between Lahore and Kasur, Bulleh Shah stopped often at a ground in the village of Amar Sadhu and rested under a Banyan tree, according to Dhondla Chanan, a book by Iqbal Qaiser. Later a mosque was built to mark the spot. The name of the mosque is Bulleh Shah Masjid, and it still exists in Chungi Amar Sadhu.

But Bulleh Shah had this to say about mosques and their keepers:

Dharam Sal dhardwaye rehnde, Thakar daware thug,

Wich maseet kosete rehnde, ashiq rehan alag

Traders (or those who cheat) live in Dharam Sal, Frauds in Thakar daware,

T he uneducated live in the mosque, and lovers stay aloof

In South Asia it is almost inevitable that personality cults will develop around individuals loved by the people. And another such individual is Shaheed Bhagat Singh. Born into a Sikh family of freedom fighters in a small village in the outskirts of Lyallpur, Bhagat Singh was imbued with ideas of political and religious freedom from the start. He came to Lahore for his higher studies and enrolled in the National College, founded by the Indian nationalist leader Lala Lajpat Rai; and he lived in the Bradlaugh Hall, situated on the Rattigan Road. Bhagat Singh was hanged on the 23rd of March, 1931, along with his communist comrades, Sukhdev and Rajguru, for murdering one J.P. Saunders, DSP of Police, and bombing the Central Legislative Assembly. The 'native' trio had decided to kill J.P. Saunders to avenge the death of Lala Lajpat Rai, who had been killed by a British official during a protest against the Simon Commission in 1928.

The long trial at the Lahore High Court against the three accused turned Bhagat Singh into a hero overnight. His vocal opposition to British imperialism and the colonial system of justice became the voice of the masses. His death by hanging made him a legend.

A couple of years ago I visited his ancestral village of Banga. I was told that in front of his primary school there was an empty ground;now it was covered with filthy water. Here was a statue of Bhagat Singh, and every year on the 23rd of March people from various parts of undivided India used to gather here to commemorate this son of the soil. The occasion was always a festival, with the usual dhols and stalls. It all came together when I saw Ajoka's play Mera Rang De Basanti Chola.

The play looks at the last days of Bhagat Singh and his comrades inside the camp jail. It brings to light different aspects of Bhagat Singh's personality, such as his refusal to seek justice from the British judicial system, his disdain for the conservative religious practices of India and his atheism. Most interestingly, the play unites the seemingly disparate stories of Bulleh Shah, Bhagat Singh, Nawab Ahmad Khan Kasuri and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Fittingly, this grand story is narrated by an Untouchable man called Bhoga who remains an Untouchable even after becoming a Muslim and living in Pakistan.

A hallmark of Ajoka is its ability to weave traditional and modern styles of theatre: backdrops, lights, stories and prepared scripts, all modern theatre techniques, are joined here with the traditional forms of swang and nautanki. According to Shahid Nadeem, the chief playwright at Ajoka, "The theatre of our region (as opposed to the Victorian form) is a celebration of all forms of performing arts: music, dance, painting, interaction with the crowd, etc." And, in keeping with tradition, all these aspects are part of Mera Rang De Basanti Chola. At one point in the show, Bhagat Singh says from behind the bars of his prison cell: "Inqilab!" and a voice from the crowd responds with a cry of "Zindabad!" And throughout the play, in between dialogues, musicians and singers walk onto the stage and sing about Bhagat Singh while dancing their way around.

The theme of the play comes from Majeed Sheikh's article Bhagat Singh and the Circle of Blood, published in DAWN on 8th April 2002. In the article Sheikh recounts a folk tale that he used to hear as a child: in it the ghost of Bhagat Singh roams around the tomb of Sufi saint Baba Shah Jamal, and in some versions Bhagat Singh's ghost is seen talking to the ghost of Shah Jamal, who assures the former that he will avenge his death. This makes sense: Bhagat Singh was hanged in the Lahore Jail; and the Shadman Chowk, near the tomb of Baba Shah Jamal, was then part of the Lahore Jail, the gallows situated where today the roundabout stands. At this spot Bhagat Singh, along with his comrades Rajguru and Suhdev, was scheduled to be executed. But Singh's revenge for the murder of Lal Lajpat Rai and his bombing of the Central Legislative Assembly had already made him a folk hero, and no magistrate of the time was willing to supervise his hanging. In desperation the British approached the Honorary Magistrate of Kasur, who happened to be Nawab Muhammad Ahmad Khan Kasuri. He supervised the execution of these freedom fighters. Years later, in 1975, Nawab Kasuri was shot to death at the same roundabout by unknown gunmen. In the FIR that was registered by his son at the Ichhra police station, the then Prime Minister of Pakistan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, was accused of ordering the murder. In 1979 Mr Bhutto was hanged for this very murder.

The play brings all these stories together by referring to popular landmarks that still stand. It mentions the Bradlaugh Hall, where Bhagat Singh studied; the Camp Jail, where Singh spent the last days of his life; and Shahdman Chowk, where Bhagat Singh was hanged and where later Nawab Kasuri was murdered. Finally it makes a connection between Bhagat Singh and Bulleh Shah, both radicals who were condemned in their lifetimes by ruling elites and later acquired cult followings among the people, and tries to reconcile their struggles, which are otherwise separated in our minds by space and time.

Haroon Khalid lives in Lahore

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HAM NE MANA JANG KARI HEY SIR PPHOTAIN GEY KHOON BAHEY GA KHOON MAIN GHAM BHE BEH JAIN GEY HAM NA RAHAIN GHAM BHI NA RAHEY GA

Posted: Friday, September 09, 2011 by muhammad sharif from kallur kot