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The Ghadar Party Martyrs Memorial, popularly known as Desh Bhagat Yaadgar, is located on the old GT Road, near BMC Chowk, in Jalandhar. The memorial comprises a double-storey building incorporating a large exhibition hall, conference and reading room, a library and some residential rooms along with later addition of a community hall and gardens. This memorial building is managed by Desh Bhagat Yaadgar Committee. Its sole aim is to preserve the Ghadar party’s legacy through time. It throws light on the Ghadar party’s revolutionary spirit and struggle for the downtrodden, for economic justice and self-determination. Its facilities are open for social gatherings, seminars, protest marches and peoples’ causes for social change.
About The gallery
The memorial has a very large exhibition hall (90 ft by 60 ft) with 212 portraits of Ghadar heroes displayed thematically. Portraits, busts, relics and memoirs of Indian patriots and revolutionaries, who played a prominent role in the freedom struggle, are displayed in this gallery also called ‘Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna Museum’. It has the portraits of legends, including Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna, Sham Singh Attariwala, Lala Lajpat Rai, Laxmi Bai, Mangal Pandey, Lala Har Dyal, Madan Lal Dhingra, Kartar Singh Sarabha, Udham Singh, Banta S Sanghwal, Diwan Mool Raj, Jawala Prashad and Begum Hazrat Mahal.
The Ghadar movement organised by Punjabi immigrant workers in California with its headquarters at 5 Wood Street, San Francisco. The movement was formally launched in 1913 with a weekly newspaper, Gadar. The genesis of the movement came from the fact that most Punjabis were facing harsh immigration laws, restrictive and discriminatory policies and social exclusion by the white community and they felt humiliated. So, Lala Har Dayal came to the fore to organise a rebellion in the form of Ghadar Party dedicated to the liberation of India from the imperial rule. At the old site in San Francisco, a new building stands now that preserves the legacy.
The site where Shadman Chowk stands today in Lahore was where the gallows of the martyrs stood (as in this old picture on display in the hall). Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were executed at this road junction on March 23, 1931. Shadman Chowk is at the centre of Shadman Colony. The colony was built after the Pakistani authorities demolished the historic jail of Lahore in 1961, where many freedom fighters, including Kartar Singh Sarabha and many of his comrades of the Ghadar Party, were executed in 1915.
The Gadhar party flag has three horizontal red, yellow and green rows with a pair of white swords crossed over it. The flag remains raised on its building. The flag is also hoisted over other memorial sites related to the Ghadar movement, including at Kartar Singh Sarabha’s house. The flag is hoisted amid a flag song sung during the Ghadari mela by the chief guest every year.
The last Ghadarite
A book sale counter called ‘Baba Bhagat Singh Bilga Book House’ falls just at the entry of the Desh Bhagat Yadgar Hall. The counter is named after Baba Bhagat Singh Bilga, who was the last Ghadarite to pass away and a native of Bilga village in Jalandhar. Baba Bilga was 101 years old, when he passed away.
A copy of the epic Heer written by Sufi poet Waris Shah, which was possessed by Shaheed Udham Singh and bears his signatures, on display at DBYH. The copy was in the possession of a UK-based NRI, Sohan Singh Cheema, a native of Cheema Khurd village in Jalandhar, till the 1980s. His father Babu Karam Singh Cheema reportedly met Udham Singh in 1937 in UK and handed him over the copy before killing General Dyer. Udham Singh, who used to fondly read the Heer, but was executed on July 31, 1940, in a prison in North London over murder charges. The family handed over the copy to the yaadgar committee. The copy is on display in the museum since October 2009.
Among the busts of freedom fighters on display, is the one of woman revolutionary Durgavati Devi, popularly known as Durga Bhabhi. She helped Bhagat Singh and Rajguru escape via train after Saunder’s killing. She was the wife of Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) member Bhagwati Charan Vohra. Other members of the association also referred to her as Bhabhi and she became popular as Durga Bhabhi in Indian revolutionary circles.
The bust of Pt Kishori Lal, a freedom fighter from Punjab who worked with the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association, has been placed at the centre of the museum. He was born in 1912 at Dharampur village of Dasuya tehsil, Hoshiarpur. At the age of 16, he joined the Naujawan Bharat Sabha and came in contact with Bhagat Singh, founder of the sabha. He was involved in the bomb-making unit and was arrested in 1929 along with Sukhdev. After the Lahore Conspiracy Case in 1929, he faced 18 years of jail sentence. He passed away in a road accident in Jalandhar in 1990.
Jalandhar HQ founded in 1959
Post Independence, as a majority of Ghadarites were Punjabis, they felt that the main memorial to the Ghadar heroes should be in Punjab. This site was chosen in Jalandhar and the construction of the memoir was started by buying a prime land in 1955. Its foundation stone was laid on November 17, 1959, by a Ghadar veteran Amar Singh Sandhwan after which the construction work began. A Ghadari Babeyan Da Mela showcasing freedom struggle in the form of plays, seminars and book sales is now held here in October end every year.
Chest plundered by Ghadarites
As Ghadarites associated with Kartar Singh Sarabha were planning a revolt in Punjab, a meeting of the Ghadar party was held at Ladowal near Ludhiana. It was decided in the meeting to commit robberies in the houses of the rich and wealthy to meet the shortage of funds for an armed action. The chest on display was plundered during one such raid. Also, two Ghadarites — Waryam Singh and Bhai Ram Rakha — are known to have died in a bomb blast in the raid.
Portrait of Bibi Gulab Kaur
A portrait of Bibi Gulab Kaur, a Ghadarite, hangs in the gallery of the DBYH. She was born in 1890 in Bakshiwala village of Sangrur. Gulab Kaur kept a vigil on party printing press in the guise of a journalist. Carrying a press pass in hand, she is known to have distributed arms to the Ghadar party members. Gulab Kaur remained engaged in distributing freedom literature, delivering inspiring speeches and making others join the Ghadar party. She went to the Philippines after her marriage with an intention to move to the US. She sailed back to India with 50 other Ghadarites and remained active in the villages of Kapurthala, Hoshiarpur and Jalandhar to mobilise the masses. She was sentenced to two years’ jail in Lahore for ‘seditious acts’.
Skeletons from Ajnala well-preserved
Human skeletons of 282 soldiers, who were executed by the British, excavated in April 2014 from an abandoned well known as ‘Kalian Wala Khu’ (black people’s well), Ajnala, have been kept in a glass box at the DBYH museum. The well was excavated by locals and the remains are of soldiers of the First War of Independence, who had rebelled against the East India Company in 1857. They were executed (most of them shot in the head) and buried in the well on August 1, 1857. The Hindu and Muslim soldiers rebelled against the British East India Company over fears that gun cartridges were greased with animal fat forbidden by their religions.
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