Where do mem­o­ries re­side when there are no memo­ri­als? Do memo­ri­als help us re­mem­ber, or do they also make us for­get what is not memo­ri­alised in them? What the Body Re­mem­bers, and What Is Memo­ri­alised in Con­crete? Does ren­o­va­tion cre­ate ‘new old mem­o­ries’? Preser­va­tion Vs Ren­o­va­tion Vs Memo­ri­al­i­sa­tion. WSN pre­sents Se­nior jour­nal­ist and ace TV host SP Singh’s Daleel -a con­ver­sa­tion with renowned the­atre di­rec­tor, play­wright and art critic Dr Sahib Singh and Cul­tural Stud­ies ex­pert Dr Sakoon Singh, au­thor of ‘In the land of the lovers: A Pun­jab Qis­sa’. 

Memo­ri­als are ap­par­ently con­structs con­ceived, de­signed and ex­e­cuted in such a way so that fu­ture gen­er­a­tions re­mem­ber, learn and are in­spired by his­tor­i­cal mile­stones of the past — the sac­ri­fices made, the mis­takes com­mit­ted, the lessons learnt, the achieve­ments scored.

But where do mem­o­ries re­side when there are no memo­ri­als? Also, how does one deal with the peren­nial prob­lem that memo­ri­als freeze mem­o­ries? And that raises a per­ti­nent ques­tion: Do memo­ri­als help us re­mem­ber? Or do they also make us for­get what is not memo­ri­alised in them?

Se­nior jour­nal­ist SP Singh raises this per­ti­nent ques­tion about what and how much can be memo­ri­alised in con­crete, and how does it com­pare with what Shauna Bald­win calls “What the Body Re­mem­bers”? How must we pre­serve that blood-drip­ping mem­ory of Hindu-Sikh-Mus­lim unity, the re­silience of our peo­ple in the face of brute power, the legacy of re­sis­tance, and the in­spi­ra­tional dis­tance of a few yards from Sri Dar­bar Sahib, Am­rit­sar?

Jal­lian­wala Bagh – A stark, un­even ground sur­rounded by res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial ar­eas where hun­dreds of in­no­cent Pun­jabis – men, women and chil­dren – were mas­sa­cred by British Gen­eral Regi­nald Dyer. Its Dis­ney­fi­ca­tion-Mc­Donald­i­s­a­tion is aimed more at turn­ing it into a chic tourist-mag­net, play­ing havoc with his­tory. While there have been some fee­ble protests, even those re­mained fo­cussed on ask­ing for mi­nor al­ter­ations in the new-look Bagh.

               

Much big­ger ques­tions beg for our at­ten­tion. Does ren­o­va­tion cre­ate ‘new old mem­o­ries’? We need to grap­ple with this preser­va­tion ver­sus ren­o­va­tion ver­sus memo­ri­al­i­sa­tion quag­mire.

Were there other ways of memo­ri­al­is­ing Jal­lian­wala Bagh? Re­mem­ber how the Span­ish Civil War is memo­ri­alised? Pi­casso just painted “Guer­nica,” and it brought world­wide at­ten­tion to what Nazi Ger­many and Fas­cist Italy did in that Basque Coun­try town in north­ern Spain. Few visit Guer­nica, the town; al­most every­one knows about the paint­ing, and the paint­ing is one of the strongest sym­bols of peace and a state­ment against Nazism, Fas­cism. Hi­roshima or Dres­den or Mo­sul or Aleppo must not be­come tourist des­ti­na­tions, nei­ther should have Jal­lian­wala Bagh be­come one. Both, Guer­nica and Jal­lian­wala Bagh must con­tinue to sym­bol­ise what un­just wars and regimes can do to in­no­cent peo­ple.

Much big­ger ques­tions beg for our at­ten­tion. Does ren­o­va­tion cre­ate ‘new old mem­o­ries’? We need to grap­ple with this preser­va­tion ver­sus ren­o­va­tion ver­sus memo­ri­al­i­sa­tion quag­mire.

It is eas­ier to un­der­stand the prob­lem with ref­er­ence to the on­go­ing farm­ers’ move­ment. At some point in time, some­one would/​could/​should try to memo­ri­alise the en­tire An­dolan. What could it be? A mural? A mu­seum? A sculp­ture? A paint­ing? What all would it in­clude? Huge crowds of farm­ers mov­ing to Delhi? Young men pulling down po­lice bar­ri­cades? Wa­ter can­nons di­rected at el­derly farm­ers? The Singhu bor­der? The hordes of armed po­lice? The crowds of women in yel­low du­pat­tas march­ing for­ward? Young women tak­ing to the mi­cro­phone? The trac­tor trol­leys do­ing their magic? Peo­ple stuffed like sar­dines in­side trol­leys in bone-numb­ing win­ter? The desi gey­sers? Men and women liv­ing in road­side hut­ments?

The daily dance of death and fear? The loom­ing shadow of Covid? The nails em­bed­ded onto the roads? The toll-free plazas? The guy turn­ing the noz­zle of the wa­ter can­non? The ten­sion be­tween Shambhu bor­der and the main stage?

Tor­ren­tial rains turn­ing the en­tire An­dolan site into a hell­ish af­fair? Women pi­lot­ing trac­tors? The trac­tor march? The Jan­u­ary 26 fi­asco? The hate rus­tled up against the farm­ers? The ep­i­thets of Khal­is­ta­nis? The slurs of Nax­alites? The daily dance of death and fear? The loom­ing shadow of Covid? The nails em­bed­ded onto the roads? The toll-free plazas? The guy turn­ing the noz­zle of the wa­ter can­non? The ten­sion be­tween Shambhu bor­der and the main stage? The split within the Singhu bor­der protest? The strong but sep­a­rate show at Tikri bor­der? The drama of par­leys at the Vi­gyan Bhawan? Even if you in­clude all of these, a thou­sand more strands will be left out.

And those will be very valu­able mem­o­ries – left out of memo­ri­al­i­sa­tion.

Now, imag­ine, how much we must have for­got­ten about the Jal­lian­wala Bagh of 1919, and how lit­tle we froze in con­crete!

The body re­mem­bers. The body polity for­gets.

We will never be able to re­call the great sac­ri­fice of Ratto and Bugga Ma­hasha Rat­tan Chand and Chowdhry Bugga Mall – if this is how we memo­ri­alise 1919. Do you know who were they? 

It is time to find out. Or our mem­o­ries will go down the well of for­get­ful­ness.

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