<div>Gurpreet Singh: Progressive playwright Gursharan Singh will always be missed
This week's news of the death of prominent Punjabi playwright Gursharan Singh in India saddened many of his supporters in this part of the world, too.
Affectionately known as "Bhaaji" (elder brother) by his fans, Gursharan Singh had a big following in Vancouver, where he performed many of his plays during his visits.
In particular, progressive groups within the Indo Canadian community are in a state of shock. For them, his death is a huge loss in their struggle for a just society.
That's because most of the close to 200 plays he wrote and enacted in villages and cities in the Indian state of Punjab and in Canada promoted social equality through art. For him, art was for the people and not for the establishment.
Born in 1929, he passed away on September 27 after an illness. Incidentally, he died on the eve of the birth anniversary of Bhagat Singh, a towering leftist revolutionary who was hanged for the murder of a British police officer in 1931.
Bhaaji was an ardent admirer of Bhagat Singh and used to perform plays almost every year on the anniversary of his birth.
Despite his age and illness in recent years, he continued to organize plays in rural areas. Through his dramas, he challenged the tyranny of the Indian establishment and religious extremism.
His plays educated the masses about socialist aspects of Sikhism, and about the true interpretation of this religion. In addition, he questioned the age-old caste system in orthodox Hindu society, as well as the continued oppression of the so-called untouchables. Bhaaji's plays also exposed those indulging in superstition and witchcraft.
In the 1970s, he opposed a state of emergency imposed by then-Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi, which cost him his job.
At the same time, he was critical of the Sikh fundamentalism and lived under constant threat when terrorism was at its peak in Punjab. Yet he never compromised on his position. He wrote plays critical of religious violence even when Sikh separatists were calling the shots and targeting leftist scholars and activists.
Once, a major Sikh leader in Punjab, the late Gurcharan Singh Tohra, ordered one of his popular plays stopped. He claimed that the script was "anti-Sikh" when it was, in fact, critical of religious fanaticism and and opportunistic politics.
I had a chance to attend a news conference held by Tohra following the incident. He branded the play's organizers (Gursharan Singh
More...
This week's news of the death of prominent Punjabi playwright Gursharan Singh in India saddened many of his supporters in this part of the world, too.
Affectionately known as "Bhaaji" (elder brother) by his fans, Gursharan Singh had a big following in Vancouver, where he performed many of his plays during his visits.
In particular, progressive groups within the Indo Canadian community are in a state of shock. For them, his death is a huge loss in their struggle for a just society.
That's because most of the close to 200 plays he wrote and enacted in villages and cities in the Indian state of Punjab and in Canada promoted social equality through art. For him, art was for the people and not for the establishment.
Born in 1929, he passed away on September 27 after an illness. Incidentally, he died on the eve of the birth anniversary of Bhagat Singh, a towering leftist revolutionary who was hanged for the murder of a British police officer in 1931.
Bhaaji was an ardent admirer of Bhagat Singh and used to perform plays almost every year on the anniversary of his birth.
Despite his age and illness in recent years, he continued to organize plays in rural areas. Through his dramas, he challenged the tyranny of the Indian establishment and religious extremism.
His plays educated the masses about socialist aspects of Sikhism, and about the true interpretation of this religion. In addition, he questioned the age-old caste system in orthodox Hindu society, as well as the continued oppression of the so-called untouchables. Bhaaji's plays also exposed those indulging in superstition and witchcraft.
In the 1970s, he opposed a state of emergency imposed by then-Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi, which cost him his job.
At the same time, he was critical of the Sikh fundamentalism and lived under constant threat when terrorism was at its peak in Punjab. Yet he never compromised on his position. He wrote plays critical of religious violence even when Sikh separatists were calling the shots and targeting leftist scholars and activists.
Once, a major Sikh leader in Punjab, the late Gurcharan Singh Tohra, ordered one of his popular plays stopped. He claimed that the script was "anti-Sikh" when it was, in fact, critical of religious fanaticism and and opportunistic politics.
I had a chance to attend a news conference held by Tohra following the incident. He branded the play's organizers (Gursharan Singh
More...