Person

Pash

Revolutionary Punjabi poet of the Naxalite decade · 9 September 1950 to 23 March 1988

Pen name of Avtar Singh Sandhu, the revolutionary Punjabi poet of the Naxalite years, shot dead at his village on 23 March 1988 after criticising the Khalistan movement and Bhindranwale.

Pash, the pen name of Avtar Singh Sandhu, is the best-known poet of the Naxalite movement in Punjab and one of the major Punjabi poets of the 1970s. He was born on 9 September 1950 at Talwandi Salem in Jalandhar district, the son of a soldier-poet, Sohan Singh Sandhu. Sahapedia says he took his name from the working-class character Pasha in Maxim Gorky's novel Mother.

Key moments

1970: his first collection, Loh Katha (Iron Tale), made him known as a rebel. In May 1970 he was arrested after a brick-kiln owner was killed at Nakodar by men calling themselves Naxalites whom he knew. He spent nearly two years in jail before he was acquitted, and was arrested again in 1972 and 1974.
He edited the left-wing magazines Siarh and Rohle Baan, and founded the Punjabi Sahit te Sabhiachar Manch in 1973. His other collections are Uddian Bazan Magar (1973), Saade Samiyan Vich (1978) and the posthumous Khilre Hoye Varkey (1989).
1986: Sahapedia says he moved to the United States after death threats from pro-Khalistan groups, and published a journal critical of the violence of the Khalistan movement. ThePrint calls him a vocal critic of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.
23 March 1988, the day of Bhagat Singh's execution: he was shot dead with his friend Hans Raj near his home village of Talwandi Salem, a day before he was due to leave for Delhi; he had returned to Punjab to renew his American visa. ThePrint attributes the killing to "Khalistani militants" and Sahapedia to "militants". The sources cited here do not name the killers or cite a claim of responsibility, so who was responsible is not established here.

Remembered for: the poem "Sab Ton Khatarnak" (The Most Dangerous), which says the most dangerous thing is not corruption or murder but the death of our dreams. It was included in an NCERT Hindi textbook for class 11 in 2005 and was used on a poster after the murder of the journalist Gauri Lankesh in 2017. ThePrint and Sahapedia present him as a critic of the Khalistan movement who was killed for it; the sources cited here give no Panthic account of the killing.

Counsel: Bhai Ajmer Singh

Bhai Ajmer Singh met Pash only once, when Pash came to hide near Phagwara Gate in Jalandhar, and from his questions judged him immature, a light sort of man, so he never wished to meet him again. He grants that the poetry is fine. What he records as historically valuable is how the Left treated him. After Pash's death, he says, the Left lifted him up as a great messiah, but during the movement men were strongly against him, and decisions were even taken to beat him, on the ground that he was damaging the movement, just as men now say a film damages the cause. His wider lesson is that art is not a slogan. It has to say the thing in a subtle way, which Punjabis do badly, unlike the Bengalis.

ਖਾੜਕੂ ਤੇ ਨਕਸਲੀ ਲਹਿਰ ਦੀਆਂ ਵੱਡੀਆਂ ਘਟਨਾਵਾਂ 'ਤੇ Ajmer Singh ਦਾ ਅਹਿਮ Interview (Ajmer Singh on the great events of the Kharku and Naxalite movements, on his political autobiography ਖਾੜਕੂ ਲਹਿਰਾਂ ਦੇ ਅੰਗ ਸੰਗ), Pro Punjab TV

See its connections

Sources

Avtar Singh Sandhu (Pash): Life and Works of a Revolutionary Poet, Sahapedia. sahapedia.org
On Pash's birthday, remembering the fiery poet killed so young by terrorists, ThePrint, 9 September 2018. theprint.in
Pash, Wikipedia (birth and death details, the place of the killing, his books and the NCERT inclusion). en.wikipedia.org

Connected

People

Events

Places

Sources