Punjab's nominated CM Bhagwant Mann will take oath as the Chief Minister at the place where Shaheed Bhagat Singh used to come with his grandfather in his childhood. Due to the outbreak of plague, Bhagat Singh's family moved from Khatkar Kalan to Lyallpur.
Bhupinder Singh Bhatia, Ludhiana. After the historic victory of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the Punjab Assembly elections, Khatkar Kalan, the native village of Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh in Nawanshahr, has once again come into the limelight. Newly elected Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann is going to take oath here on March 16. The ancestral house of Shaheed Bhagat Singh is still present in Khatkar Kalan, which is maintained by the Archaeological Department. Along with this, the Punjab government has also built a huge memorial and museum here. This monument is spread over an area of 11 acres.
Bhagat Singh was born in Lyallpur (now Banga in Faisalabad, Pakistan) and brought up there, but he used to come to his native village Khatkar Kalan during his childhood holidays with his grandfather Arjun Singh. Yadvinder Singh, grandson of Kulbir Singh, the younger brother of Bhagat Singh, says, 'Due to the outbreak of plague in Khatkar Kalan, the British government had allotted land in Lyallpur to the people of the village, so that they could cultivate there and support their families.' Due to the plague, the family of Bhagat Singh left Khatkar Kalan and went to Lyallpur.
Bhagat Singh's family kept fighting against the oppression of the British from the very beginning. His grandfather Arjun Singh was one of the founding members of Arya Samaj. His three sons Kishan Singh, Ajit Singh and Swaran Singh were also involved in the freedom movement. Ajit Singh is known for the 'turban handle jatta' wave.
Bhagat Singh's father Kishan Singh had three sons. Bhagat Singh, Kulbir Singh and Kultar Singh. When Bhagat Singh was in jail and was sentenced to death, he wrote a letter to his mother Vidyavati (Mother of Punjab), 'You don't come to take my body. Send Bhai Kulbir Singh, because you will cry after seeing my dead body. Kulbir Singh later became MLA from Firozpur and then settled in Delhi. Bhagat Singh's mother Vidyavati also started living with son Kulbir and he also died there.
Khatkar Kalan became Khatgarh
The history of Khatkar Kalan is also interesting. The ancestors of Bhagat Singh's great-grandfather Fateh Singh lived in Narli, Amritsar. He was once on his way to Haridwar to immerse the ashes of a member of his family, and stayed at a zamindar's inn in Jalandhar.
The zamindar fixed the marriage of his daughter in the family of Fateh Singh. The zamindar gave him a lot of land in dowry (khat). The place where this land was given is now called Khatkar Kalan. The 77-year-old son of Bhagat Singh's sister Amar Kaur, Prof. Jagmohan Singh says, 'At that time it was called- 'Khatya'. That is, what did you earn?
Our elders used to say 'Garh Khattaya'. That means earning land. For this reason this place was named Khatgarh, which later came to be known as Khatkar Kalan. Veteran Pandit Ram Murti Shastri, who was a Sanskrit teacher at Government Senior Secondary School in Banga, also says that this land was given to Bhagat Singh's family as a dowry.
Bhagat Singh's great-grandfather had built the existing house
Fateh Singh, great-grandfather of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, who lived in Khatkar Kalan, built a house here in 1885. It was called Diwan Khana. It was built for this purpose, so that the people coming and going can stay here. When people asked why they were getting it built, they said that the governments would come and go, but there should be a place for the people.
Yadvinder Singh tells that there are two rooms on the terrace at this place. When Bhagat Singh used to come to Khatkar Kalan, one of them used to stay in the room. Now this entire house has been declared as a heritage. Bhagat Singh's maternal grandmother is in Moranwali near Garhshankar (Hoshiarpur), where there is a memorial of his mother Vidyavati.
How did the name Bhagat Singh get?
According to Yadvinder Singh, the day Bhagat Singh was born, his father Kishan Singh and uncle Ajit Singh were released from Burma jail. Bhagat Singh's grandmother used to say that it is very bhagaan wala (lucky). Father and uncle have been released on its birth, hence it should be named Bhagat Singh.
His sister Amar Kaur was very much in love with Bhagat Singh. When Bhagat Singh was imprisoned in jail, he had prepared a handkerchief for his release, which is still used by his nephew Prof. Jagmohan Singh has it.
Lyallpur's bunga was one of the 3490 chaks settled by the British.
According to IAS officer RK Kaushik, the second argument behind leaving Khatkar Kalan and going to Lyallpur is that after the British occupied Punjab in 1849, Chenab, after clearing the forests around Jhelum river and settled 3490 chak (villages), so that here By producing more and more grains, they can be supplied in their country and other countries in their occupied colonies.
Then the biggest problem was to be settled in these chaks. Then the British settled the cultivating castes in Punjab, including Jatt Sikhs, Rajputs, Saini Kambojs, Dogras, in two districts of Mintgumri and Lyallpur, between 1600-1600 Chak. With the intention of settling the people, the family of Sandhu Jatt gotra of village Khatkar Kalan (now in Nawanshahr) of Banga tehsil of Hoshiarpur was settled in 104 Chak (Banga, Lyallpur).
Then Bhagat Singh's great-grandfather and grandfather moved to 104 Chak from Khatkar Kalan. He had gone from Banga tehsil of Hoshiarpur, so there also he added the word Banga to his Chak. Bhagat Singh was born there, but he used to visit Khatkar Kalan frequently with his grandfather Arjun Singh.
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