The supreme sac­ri­fice of younger sons of Guru Gob­ind Singh Zo­rawar Singh, aged 9-year-old Zo­rawar Singh and 7-year-old Fateh Singh,  along with their grandma -Mata Gu­jri Ji hap­pened at Sirhind. Two young, bloom­ing, bud­ding lives were con­sumed by a fa­nat­i­cal, my­opic and me-mighty at­ti­tude. In grat­i­tude, men­tor-writer Ka­mal Jit Singh Ahluwalia, in his inim­itable style and Chardikala -ever as­cen­dant vo­cab­u­lary de­scribes the sce­nario of the time of mar­tyr­dom. For those who are at­tempt­ing to un­der­stand the spirit of the Khalsa at the Farm­ers Mor­cha, a peep into the Sikh legacy will be a good guide.

YOU FIRST TOR­TURE THEM by putting them into the Thanda Burj -cold tower, near a rivulet with tem­per­a­tures plum­met­ing to sub ze­ros, with­out any warm cloth­ing, bed­ding, fam­ish­ing them with­out food and wa­ter, and each day for 3 days brow-beat­ing them with threats of a gory death if they do not heed.

And then one had the tenac­ity and au­dac­ity to cre­ate a pub­lic event of this in­sane act.

Lit­tle they re­al­ized that one can con­sume the hu­man body but no one has the power to con­sume the ever-ex­pand­ing hu­man spirit -a spirit that is en­com­pass­ing, evolv­ing, that is fresh and alive.

Fac­ing cer­tain death, cause they un­der­stood fully that death is the bride of the brave. Their spir­its were res­olute, firm, un­wa­ver­ing, they were af­fixed to the path of up­hold­ing right­eous­ness- prin­ci­ples that they be­lieved, lived and were will­ing to die for. This was the con­flict to up­hold the right to live with dig­nity, ho­n­our, val­our, self-es­teem, self-love, self-re­spect by liv­ing and think­ing be­yond them­selves.

They choose death rather than com­pro­mise -they rewrote re­de­fined, re­shaped and re­fined his­tory.

They choose death rather than com­pro­mise -they rewrote re­de­fined, re­shaped and re­fined his­tory.

Their spir­its were like the flight of the ea­gle -they be­lieved in them­selves, they fo­cused on the larger pic­ture and not get stran­gled, be­sieged in trans­ac­tions.

There was noth­ing like a sigh of an am­pu­tated spirit. There is no pros­thetic for that. That’s the cra­dle of a cen­tred be­ing -in­spi­ra­tional, im­mers­ing, ex­pand­ing and evolv­ing.

Mak­ers of man, cre­ators of lead­ers, be ob­ser­vant that these were the chil­dren of the Sahibe Ka­maal. They will never sell their souls to buy their fu­ture. And that my friend is In­tegrity. That is courage. That’s the stuff be­ings are made of. They al­ways knew what the right path was and they took it will­ingly even if it was hard -very hard.

Mak­ers of man, cre­ators of lead­ers, be ob­ser­vant that these were the chil­dren of the
Sahibe Ka­maal, the sov­er­eign par ex­cel­lence.
They will never sell their souls to buy their fu­ture. And that my friend is In­tegrity. That is courage. That’s the stuff be­ings are made of.

Pity the Nawab of Sirhind -you chose an easy path, of phys­i­cal an­ni­hi­la­tion and tor­ture, but for the brave hearts, death is a bride of the brave.

Re­flect, can you di­min­ish the spirit in an 80+-year-old frail grand­mother and chil­dren aged 9 and 7? You sim­ply can­not and you know it that you are fight­ing a los­ing bat­tle, yet you think that you will win this tide over. Ir­ra­tional op­ti­mist, is­n’t it?

Let’s now all re­visit that space -two young boys who have been de­lib­er­ately fam­ished by Nawab of Sirhind – no food, no wa­ter, no bed­ding, im­pris­oned in the cold dreary win­tery bone-chill­ing nights in a Burj -small tower, where they are un­der con­tin­u­ous sur­veil­lance to in­stil fear in their bones.

Each day death threat is given, with fe­roc­ity, im­mense men­tal, phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal pres­sure is be­ing ex­erted, a choice be­tween con­ver­sion to Is­lam or death.

Easy, is it folks? Pon­der. Re­flect. Ex­am­ine.

They re­mained stead­fast, un­wa­ver­ing, un­touched. Dur­ing the con­ver­sa­tion with the Nawab, they replied to him straight, on his face -pointed, con­cise, pre­cise and to the point. They took the bat­tle to his camp back by hit­ting him hard, ex­pos­ing him to­tally. Never ever they had an iota of doubt or self-dis­be­lief.

Their only com­pan­ion is their grandma – frail old lady. Yet the three of them stood like a rock of Gibral­tar -had the courage, con­vic­tion and res­olute­ness of the high­est moun­tain peak, ex­hib­ited pa­tience like the deep­est ocean.

They re­mained stead­fast, un­wa­ver­ing, un­touched. Dur­ing the con­ver­sa­tion with the Nawab, they replied to him straight, on his face -pointed, con­cise, pre­cise and to the point. They took the bat­tle to his camp back by hit­ting him hard, ex­pos­ing him to­tally. Never ever they had an iota of doubt or self-dis­be­lief.

Re­mem­ber threats are given by cow­ards and phys­i­cal ex­tin­guish­ment is only done by those who can’t con­vince.

The Nawab of Sirhind was fac­ing the Ever­est test of his life, his ego was get­ting tat­tered, his power was be­ing shown the door, his stature was re­duced to a no­body.

And by whom- two young kids of 9 and 7 years old. He sim­ply could­n’t be­lieve what was hap­pen­ing -his ex­is­tence was at stake. He sim­ply was re­duced to a mis­nomer.

Yes, it hap­pened – it’s a re­al­ity- a fact -two young boys sim­ply made the Nawab bite dust. They re­duced him in his own eyes as a li­a­bil­ity, a par­a­site that preys on oth­ers. He sim­ply had no an­swers for their re­but­tals. All his ac­tions failed mis­er­ably.

Imag­ine the sce­nario – you are be­ing fam­ished from all an­gles – food, sleep, wa­ter, and are be­ing sub­jected to harsh­est of the threats each time, every time, each con­ver­sa­tion aim­ing to de­mean you, make you feel in­signif­i­cant, fu­ture be­ing painted as dark as an al­ley, and in that, one ex­hibits such a strong res­olute, a crys­tal clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion, an un­wa­ver­ing line of sight.

Can this hap­pen? No, it sim­ply can’t hap­pen.

Yes, it hap­pened – it’s a re­al­ity- a fact -two young boys sim­ply made the Nawab bite dust. They re­duced him in his own eyes as a li­a­bil­ity, a par­a­site that preys on oth­ers. He sim­ply had no an­swers for their re­but­tals. All his ac­tions failed mis­er­ably.

His cronies sim­ply had no clue how to han­dle these young boys. Iron­i­cally the power con­sumed au­thor­i­ties, their spir­its were down in dumps and they were feel­ing mis­er­able on their very own ex­is­tence.

And when you can’t con­vince, con­verse, a cow­ard -Nawab -gave a can­ni­bal of or­der -brick these chil­dren alive.

Imag­ine your­self as a par­ent – who has two boys of the same age. What would hap­pen if you are told about this or­der? How will the chil­dren take it? In all fair­ness, they would be dev­as­tated. Bro­ken. And would have suc­cumbed to what the Nawab wanted.

But that was not to be. Some­one had de­cided to rewrite his­tory all over again.

Re­mem­ber you have a lin­eage and val­ues to fol­low -the house of Nanak is a place where his­tory is rewrit­ten, goal­posts are re­de­fined, hence no de­spair, no de­spon­dency, no go­ing back.

Both Sahibzadas chose not to be part of his­tory but cre­ate it -to give mar­tyr­dom a new mean­ing -a new di­rec­tion, a new flight, a new per­spec­tive. They were fully aware that they had a larger pic­ture to ac­com­plish -a larger ob­jec­tive to achieve and in do­ing so, this supreme sac­ri­fice was an ab­solute ne­ces­sity.

I now would want to take you to the evening be­fore the ex­e­cu­tion -time when these thoughts are be­ing penned. Just to share I am not writ­ing, it’s hap­pen­ing all by it­self. Sim­ply am I a wit­ness here.

In that cold Burj -tower -what would the scene be –-what would the grandma be feel­ing -she is about to wit­ness the supreme sac­ri­fice of her two grand­sons -she wit­nessed her hus­band be­ing ex­e­cuted by a fa­nat­i­cal power-ob­sessed Mogul regime.

No clue about her only son and two other grand­sons. No place to rest, no food to eat, no bed­ding.

And ex­e­cu­tion is only some hours away. And she now is old in age.

Nor­mally one would give up – it’s all too hard. No point fight­ing a los­ing bat­tle.

Her two grand­sons are look­ing up to her, they want her to ex­alt them, to in­spire them more, to make them more res­olute so that they can do the un­think­able, un­fath­omable.

Is it easy folks? Think. Re­spond. Pon­der.

And Mata Gu­jri did the un­be­liev­able -in that long cold, dreary light, she con­stantly in­spired her grand­sons that you are the cre­ators of new his­tory, you are the sons of the lion, who never gave up and who has been or­dained by the Lord -to trans­form mor­tal, in­sipid and frag­ile in­di­vid­u­als to be­ings of sub­stance -those who will chart a new fu­ture for hu­man­ity, hence be pre­pared to face the chal­lenge as it comes.

Kyon fiqar karte ho jan­nisoron
Yeh un ba­chon ka im­i­ti­han ho raha hai
Yeh karza kiston mein ada ho raha hai.

Re­mem­ber you have a lin­eage and val­ues to fol­low -the house of Nanak is a place where his­tory is rewrit­ten, goal­posts are re­de­fined, hence no de­spair, no de­spon­dency, no go­ing back.

Move for­ward and catch the bull by its horns.

Teach this Nawab a les­son of his life that you can kill our phys­i­cal self but can’t touch our spir­its, our soar­ing vi­sion. For­get about you ex­e­cut­ing us; tell him, we are walk­ing to­wards our own ex­e­cu­tion ex­cit­edly -glee­fully and in cel­e­bra­tion.

For us it is­n’t ex­e­cu­tion -its lib­er­a­tion -we are sons of Guru Gob­ind Singh who in­grained in us –that a Sikh means liv­ing life in a con­stant cel­e­bra­tion.

Sahibzada Zo­rawar Singh and Sahibzada Ajit Singh -are in­vin­ci­ble -they are the ris­ing stars, the in­cred­i­ble stars, the ever glow­ing stars. They did not die, death died in front of them; death faced its own death

Ex­e­cu­tion is a word that cow­ards fear, for us, it sim­ply does­n’t ex­ist. Hence in our go­ing, a new dawn would emerge, a new light would per­vade, a new thought would man­i­fest, a new era would un­fold and a new be­ing would be cre­ated. And to achieve all this -this is­n’t a big price to pay.

And that’s what these brave hearts did the next morn­ing -em­brac­ing death like a com­pan­ion, and that’s what sep­a­rates men from boys.

Sahibzada Zo­rawar Singh and Sahibzada Ajit Singh -are in­vin­ci­ble -they are the ris­ing stars, the in­cred­i­ble stars, the ever glow­ing stars. They did not die, death died in front of them; death faced its own death.

Kyon fiqar karte ho jan­nisoron
Yeh un ba­chon ka im­i­ti­han ho raha hai
Yeh karza kiston mein ada ho raha hai.

Can I stand in front of that wall and feel -that if both the Sahibzadas are ask­ing me?
Sikha Sikhi rakhe tun?

And my head will bow in shame.
Your call folks!

Ka­mal Jit Singh Ahluwalia, pop­u­larly known as K S Ahluwalia de­scribes him­self as a stu­dent of Sikhism, en­deav­our­ing to un­cover, un­der­stand bet­ter the Sikh ethos. For the past two decades and more, he has been shar­ing in­sight­ful thoughts in print, per­sonal in­ter­ac­tions, work­shops and talk shows on Sikh Inc. -man­age­ment prin­ci­ples from the House of Nanak and life-trans­form­ing lead­er­ship skills.  He is a reg­u­lar con­trib­u­tor to em­i­nent jour­nals and he has im­pacted the lives of thou­sands of youth with over 5.6 mil­lion man-hours across di­ver­si­fied au­di­ences at more than a hun­dred plus global lo­ca­tions.