The Fate­hgarh Sahib Sha­heedi Jor Mela -An­nual Fate­hgarh Sahib­Mar­tyr­dom Fair turns the city into Bas­anti, with the Sikh masses draped in their best Sikhi at­tire and the spirit of Sikhi ooz­ing the air. A visit by the unini­ti­ated to this an­nual pil­grim­age cen­tre can be an eye-opener as to where the Sikhs de­rive their strength from. A reg­u­lar par­tic­i­pant for the last many years, poet-artiste Gurleen Kaur de­scribes the pi­ous at­mos­phere for WSN read­ers in text and pho­tos.

FATE­HGARH SAHIB -THE FORT of vic­tory. Truth over­tak­ing false­hood. Chardikala sub­du­ing ha­tred. The Sikh Com­mon­wealth ver­sus the tyranny of the Moghul rule. That is what it stands for.

Sway­ing with the mass of hu­man­ity bathing in the spirit of the supreme sac­ri­fice of the two chil­dren of the Sikh Tenth Mas­ter Guru Gob­ind Singh at the Sha­heedi Jor Mela -Mar­tyr­dom Fair is an ex­pe­ri­ence I give to my­self every year for the last many years. With the thou­sands of devo­tees who throng the his­toric shrine where 9-year-old Zo­rawar Singh and 7-year-old Fateh Singh were bricked alive and their grand­mother Gu­jri Ji killed in the Thanda Burj -the Cold Tower, I im­bibe the spirit of the Khalsa in­ter­min­gling with the San­gat.

The Sikh com­mu­nity em­braces the val­our, the sac­ri­fice, the vic­tory of the four sons of Guru Gob­ind Singh Ji, the golden his­tory that taught us to be strong and pa­tient and never give up on our faith and prin­ci­ples even in most try­ing and dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions. As we walk through the San­gat to pay obei­sance, every brick around us re­minds us to fight against in­jus­tice, at the dusk of every year.

Sikhs have been birthing war­riors who stand up fright­en­ing the dev­ils, time and again bring­ing the dawn with bright light for the com­ing gen­er­a­tions and join­ing the pre­sent ones to their roots again even af­ter thou­sand at­tempts to up­root them by the en­e­mies and ad­ver­saries. The pre­sent Farm­ers Mor­cha should also be seen in this per­spec­tive.

The whole en­vi­rons of Fate­hgarh Sahib and the throng­ing San­gat seemed to be re­it­er­at­ing, “The Khalsa will live till eter­nity and will keep bloom­ing in the world of evils like the lo­tus in a swamp and the ones try­ing to de­stroy them, will be de­stroyed them­selves.”

In the re­mem­brance of the two younger sons of Guru Gob­ind Singh, the an­nual con­gre­ga­tion is or­gan­ised at Fate­hgarh Sahib where Fateh Singh Ji and Zo­rawar Singh Ji, were bricked alive in a wall when they were asked to give up their re­li­gion by Mughal em­peror Wazir Khan. They re­fused, say­ing “We do not care for worldly wealth. We will not give up our re­li­gion at any cost.”

Sikh San­gat from dif­fer­ent re­gions of In­dia and across the world par­tic­i­pate in this con­gre­ga­tion. Peo­ple from the vil­lages of Pun­jab travel to this place in Trac­tor-trol­leys to pay homage to the mar­tyr­dom of Chhotte Sahibzade -the younger sons of the Tenth Mas­ter.

Not only the Gur­d­waras, but a good num­ber of houses be­come tem­po­rary inns for vis­it­ing rel­a­tives or even un­known devo­tees who have come to be part of the Sha­heedi Jor Mela. . Though, it was ex­pected that the num­bers may be less due to the COVID19 pan­demic, but that did not seem to have any ef­fect and thou­sands gath­ered with en­thu­si­asm and de­vo­tion.

The holy am­bi­ence is up­lift­ing. Re­li­gious hymns can be heard every­where on the streets, in the lan­gars. Tur­ban tu­to­r­ial camps and movies on the mar­tyrs donned the en­tire pa­rade.

The win­ter cold seemed to be pro­vid­ing much-needed nu­tri­tion to the throng of hu­man­ity, many of whom had de­cided to go to the Farm­ers Mor­cha in Delhi at the con­clu­sion of the An­nual Mar­tyr­dom Fair.

The San­gat -young and old were recharged with the spirit of the mar­tyr­dom of the two young war­riors, their de­ter­mi­na­tion reaf­firmed with the mes­sage of the Guru per­co­lated into the veins of one and all that, “No no one can weaken you, in­flu­ence you, or force you to change your re­li­gion and your iden­tity if you have faith, in Akal Pu­rakh -God Almighty.

I have been par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Jor Mela for many years and every year I wit­ness some­thing re­mark­able. This time, as I was ob­serv­ing the events along the sides of the road, I heard po­etry be­ing re­cited from one of the tents by two girls. They were de­scrib­ing the his­tory of these days through their po­etry in a very melo­di­ous voice. As I en­tered the tent, I no­ticed an old man ex­plain­ing the mean­ing of the words in the po­etry to his grand­chil­dren. I felt so happy and grate­ful that the legacy is be­ing passed from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion.

There is no short­age of Wazir Khans to­day. Op­pres­sion con­tin­ues -bla­tantly and in­sid­i­ously. My par­tic­i­pa­tion this year con­firmed that the legacy of the supreme sac­ri­fice per­vades through the young gen­er­a­tion and like the Sahibzadas, this would be fought tooth and nail.