Kamal Ghorui
BATHINDA: Writer-historian Malwinder Jit Singh Waraich, who documented the contributions of Punjab’s freedom fighters and played a key role in securing official recognition for several freedom movements, died at his residence in Saketri village near Chandigarh on Saturday morning. He was 96.In keeping with his wishes, his body was donated to Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research for medical research and academic purposes.Authors, historians, relatives of freedom fighters and activists from several Left-leaning organisations mourned his demise.Waraich was widely known for translating documents related to the Ghadar Party and other revolutionaries, making their writings accessible through books, booklets and publications. He authored, translated or edited more than 60 books in Punjabi, Hindi and English, including several on Bhagat Singh.Born in Ladhewala Waraich village in Gujranwala, now in Pakistan, on November 21, 1929, he taught humanities at Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College for three decades before retiring in 1989.After retirement, he completed an LLB from Kurukshetra University and began practising at the Punjab and Haryana high court along with his nephew and senior advocate R S Cheema, recalled writer Gurbhajan Singh Gill.Through public interest litigations, Waraich succeeded in securing official recognition for the Kuka Movement, Ghadar Party, Komagata Maru incident and Jallianwala Bagh massacre. He also persuaded the government to return to freedom fighters’ families lands confiscated by the British.Over more than five decades, Waraich travelled across Punjab, meeting ageing Ghadarites, freedom fighters and their families, collecting fragile photographs, letters, unpublished memoirs and court records before they disappeared with time.Waraich came in contact with Ghadar Party founding president Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna in 1966 and wrote his first book, Jeewan Sangram, on the revolutionary in 1967. He also personally interacted with Bhagat Singh’s mother Vidyawati and Bhagat Singh’s associate Pandit Kishori Lal.“I was his student from 1963 and later taught with him at Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College. We worked together in collecting details of the freedom struggle. In him, we have lost a thinker and historian,” said Bhagat Singh’s nephew Jagmohan Singh.Former Jawaharlal Nehru University professor and Bhagat Singh scholar Chaman Lal recalled that Waraich edited and interpreted the Urdu records of Bhagat Singh’s trial proceedings after copies were handed over to the Punjab and Haryana high court by former acting Pakistan Supreme Court chief justice Rana Bhagwandas during a visit to Chandigarh in 2006. Bhagwandas was Pakistan’s only Hindu acting chief justice.“Waraich published at least five volumes based on these proceedings,” recalled Lal, adding that Waraich often described himself as “Ghadar Lehar da Munshi”.Jalandhar-based Desh Bhagat Yaadgar Committee member Amolak Singh recalled his days at Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College as a student in the 1970s and said Waraich’s contribution to enriching contemporary India’s understanding of its revolutionaries was unparalleled as he continued writing till very late in his life.For his only daughter, Minna Jakhar, the loss was deeply personal. “Very few daughters get to live so many years with their father. I had him in my life for 68 years,” she said, recalling how he encouraged her education and career at a time when such thinking was rare in Punjabi society.
