Brick by brick

Amarjot Kaur

Cutting through lengthy administrative procedures, most of which dance attendance to the tunes of bureaucrats and politicians, Chandigarh-based social worker Sanjeev Rana’s initiative Ek Eint Shaheed Ke Naam calls out to the masses.

Translating to ‘one brick in the name of a martyr’, this initiative is a crowd-funding of sorts to construct tangible memorials in the honour of martyrs who sacrificed their lives while fighting for the nation. “I am calling out for one brick per person. Though I am aware that the local government and the Army promise to support the martyr’s family, there are often too many slips between the cup and the lip. Also, what bothers me is that there is no tangible memory in the honour of these martyrs,” he says.

Tribute to a martyr 

For now, Rana is busy getting an akhara made at village Kheri Man Singh in Karnal. The land on which it is being constructed is a private property of Ram Meher, who lost his life a month while fighting the naxalites in Chattisgarh. “His family told me that he wanted an akhara to be constructed here on this land. So far, we got a brick each from Haryana MP Kavita Jain, OSD Bhupinder Singh and DGP Vigilance of Haryana Parminder Rai, among many others,” he says.

Rana has previously been associated with initiatives like Aao Chalein Gaon Ki Oor, where he invited groups of people to celebrate their anniversaries and birthdays along with the village folk. The idea of Ek Eint Shaheed Ke Naam is a result of his empathy towards the families of martyrs. An event, particularly the commemoration of Chandigarh’s Shaheed Lt. Col. Bikramjit Singh’s death anniversary, affected him the most.  “I have known Bikramjit’s family for a long time. He lost his life in 2013 and the family advertised the commemoration of his death even in the newspapers. It was attended by only 22 people; most of them were his family members.” 

Noble aim

He shares that the construction material is currently being stacked at Singh’s house. Meanwhile, he is also using public spaces, like parks, to construct memorials in the name of martyrs. He has received a go-ahead to construct a memorial at Pehowa, Kurukshetra, for Sushil Kumar, a CRPF jawan, who lost his life in November 2016. “We received a green signal from the deputy commissioner of Kurukshetra, Sumedha Kataria,” he says.

However, Rana’s expectations from Chandigarh administration are not very high. He says that most babus often turn down his request, even to meet and talk about the martyrs. “We have so many parks and roundabouts in the city, which can always be named after martyrs, like the YPS Chowk that has now been named after Shaheed Lt. Col. Bikramjit Singh, but all they want to do is commercialise things. Look at the roundabouts in the city—they are all in the care of big businesses,” he signs off.

amarjot@tribunemail.com