Chronicler Bipan Chandra had dug out Bhagat Singh's jail letters

This Padma Bhushan awardee was born in Kangra in Himachal Pradesh and studied at Lahore.

"He was among the first who tried to look for the letters written by Bhagat Singh when in jail. Along with London-based writer Amarjit Chandan and Bhagat Singh's nephew Prof Jagmohan, he is the one who tracked those in the national archives and got them printed and distributed across the country," said Ludhiana-based Prof Harish Puri, political scientist, who has penned several books on India's freedom struggle.

Chandan, who with help of Chandra found the lost documents of Bhagat Singh, called him a humble person and a great historian. "I worked under him during 1977-1980, collecting archive material for the project on peasant movements in Punjab, and then he guided me on finding Bhagat Singh's original documents. The most important find was the essay "?Why am I an Atheist?" Since then, my Punjabi translation of the shaheed's controversial document has sold in thousands in many reprints," he remarked.

Despite being a historian of international stature, Chandra's heart always beat for Punjab. "He always spoke with me in chaste Punjabi, though he was from Kangra. His persona was reflected in his writings ? lucid, austere, human," recalled Chandan.

Puri added, "I still remember in 1984 when the massacre of Sikhs happened in Delhi. He worked like mad for days to protect Sikhs from the rioters. He called upon his students to come and save Sikhs. They went to the worst affected places with lathis and some were brought to safer places."

Prof Bhagwan Josh, a historian and professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, who was Chandra's student in the early 1980s, remembers how right after the arrest of Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale by the police, the then Punjab chief minister Darbara Singh had come to him to seek his advice on the matter. "He told Darbara Singh that Congress must stick to its policy of secularism. Else, the situation might go out its hands. The advice was not followed and we all know what happened after that," Josh stated.

IMPRESSED WITH COMMUNISTS

In 2007, Chandra recalled his association with early days of Punjab's student movement at the PC Joshi Memorial Oration that was delivered at JNU, "Even though I was opposed, even hostile, to the Communist Party and its 1942 line, I was very impressed by the academic record of Communist students Satyapal Dang, Inder Gujral, Romesh Chandra and Rajbans Krishna. In fact, one of my first ambitions after reaching Lahore as an undergraduate student was to listen to Satypal Dang or Rajbans Krishna. Among my near contemporaries was a communist student, now Prof Randhir Singh. I and many others were thrilled, despite our political differences, when we heard that he had stood first in MA (Political Science) though he had appeared in the examination as a detenue."

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From : India Times Aug 31, 2014