By Gurmukh Singh, IANS
Toronto : Hitting out at radical Akali leader Simranjit Singh Mann for calling Bhagat Singh a murderer of “innocent persons” (British police officer Saunders and constable Chanan Singh to avenge the death of Lala Lajpat Rai) who cannot be a national hero, the martyr’s nephew said here Sunday that Mann’s statement was in line with his family’s “shameful past”.
“And this shameful past is: his family were agents of the British. When other revolutionaries were fighting for India’s independence, Mann’s family was getting jagirs (lands) from the British for their loyalty,” said Professor Jagmohan Singh, who is here to participate in the centenary celebrations of Bhagat Singh.
Prof Singh, whose mother Amar Kaur was Bhagat Singh’s younger sister, said: “Mann’s maternal grandfather, Aroor Singh, was an appointed agent of the British. He was instrumental in presenting a siropa (Sikh robe of honour) to Gen Dyer – the killer of Jallianwallah Bagh – at the Akal Takht. This stooge refused to accept over 7,000 Ghadarites, who left North America in the 1910s to fight the British in India, as Sikhs because these brave people wanted to throw out his British masters.”
Mann’s statement is in continuation of his family’s pro-imperialist tendencies, said Prof Singh. “Pleasing the imperialists is deeply imbedded in the psyche of Mann’s family. Mann is showing these pro-imperialist tendencies. What the British said about Bhagat Singh, Mann is repeating for his family’s masters.”
Prof Singh said Mann and his family should revise their views about Bhagat Singh in the light of original documents about the revolutionary, dug out during the past 22 years, thanks to the efforts of the Shaheed Bhagat Singh Research Committee.
“Bhagat Singh had read the world’s top 70 thinkers and writers by the age of 23. He had a library of 175 books which were made part of the conspiracy trial against him,” said Prof Singh, who retired as head of the computer science department at the Punjab Agriculture University, Ludhiana.
He lamented that barring the British and Mann, nobody has ever called Bhagat Singh a terrorist. “Even the British judge who tried Bhagat Singh used the word `revolutionary’, not `terrorist’ or `murderer’ against my uncle.”
Taking a swipe at Mann’s career in the Indian Police Service and politics, Singh said, “The world knows what he did to Nihang Sikhs when he was senior superintendent of police of Faridkot. And the world knows how he came into politics. He and his lineage are an embarrassment to the Sikhs.”
Mann has been booked for his remarks and is in judicial remand till Dec 20.