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His Martyr Father Was Called Kalepani;
No Wonder The Museum Isn’t Lit Up

S P Singh

Chandigarh:

Darkness is a word that frequently punctuates Mohinder Singh Dhillon's conversation. Perhaps this was natural. After all, his father had darkness suffixed to his very name. As Dhillon narrates his struggle in setting up a museum in memory of his great freedom fighter father Dr Diwan Singh Kalepani, his eyes well up repeatedly at the mention of darkness in the museum. "I don’t know if I will ever see it lit up?" he says.

Kalepani's family, respected across the country for having a glorious ancestor, has pooled in personal resources to the tune of a whopping Rs 20 lakh in the last three years to set up the museum but has failed to get a power connection for it.

Located on the outskirts of Chandigarh in Siswan, the museum spread over nearly four acres of prime land is a singularly private effort – "just family and friends," is how Dhillon puts it -- and takes by surprise anyone passing along the Godforsaken dusty unmetalled road with its sheer beauty and well-kempt premises.

"I have moved heaven and earth to get a power connection, met a string of state electricity board officials, approached engineers and even met the then Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal, but all in vain. They don't even tell us any reason for not sanctioning a connection," Dhillon told The Indian Express. 

For a museum in the name of Kalepani, who underwent inhuman torture of the invading Japanese army and had maggots crawling upon his festering wounds and died a martyr, perish the thought of family paying a single penny as bribe!

Dhillon remained principal of the college in Gidderbaha, bang in Badals’ heartland, but is loathe to referring to that powerful connection to get a measly power connection. He was instrumental in setting up the college at Andaman too after the Chief Commissioner there tracked down Kalepani's progeny.

Few of the younger generation recall great martyrs like Kalepani, the indefatigable doctor in Port Blair known for his ruthless honesty and unfathomable love for the downtrodden, but Dhillon refuses to be disappointed.

Instead, much in his father's footsteps, he proceeded to find ways to perpetuate the memory of the big man, collected documents and memorabilia and got in touch with many institutions including newspaper houses to preserve for posterity some of the invaluable pieces of history.

The family donated land, and when an appeal for donations elicited only a princely sum of Rs 100, Dhillons knew they would have to chip in the money themselves.

Today, the museum is a research scholar's dream. Portraits, rare photographs of the islands known to most Indians as Kalepani where arrested freedom fighters were sent a la concentration camps, original documents, news clippings and, most importantly, a library, the museum is now a treasure trove for the initiated.

Though Kalepani was born in Galotian village of Sialkot, it is only apt that his museum is so near to the Dagshai hills which saw the stuff that the good doctor was made of before the nom de plume of Kalepani was suffixed to his name. Entire Dagshai had spilled on to roads that winter in 1921 when police was forced to release him since not one of the hundreds who heard his rousing speech against the British agreed to depose against him.

All through his army and civil career in Rawalpindi, Lahore, Dagshai, Rangoon and Port Blair, Dr Diwan Singh lived a life, every day of which was an example to fellow human beings. When Subhas Chandra Bose visited Andaman in December 1943 under Japanese tutelage, little did he know that the man who was leader of the local unit of Indian National Army was undergoing torture in the jail. Kalepani died on 14 January, 1944, and has since then lived on forever.

"My father spent so much time in dark cells of Cellular jail that may be it is appropriate if we don't have light at all in the museum," a dejected Dhillon tries to rationalise.

So, those desirous of paying homage to the great martyr would be wise to plan a day time visit. Besides, that will help them in avoiding all the pitfalls along the road to Siswan which still remains wrapped in a time warp of the pre-Independence days. No, Dhillon hasn’t still decided to call the museum Kalepani, but if the state electricity board doesn’t budge, may be that is what people will start calling it. Funny how sometimes the great names enter public lexicon.■

January 9, 2003

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