Citizen Dang The Dangs, Satyapal and Vimla, are in real terms the First Citizens of not only Amritsar but the entire region. They have lived a life which is an ideal most of us only dream of but never dare to live. Varinder Walia salutes the Perfect Couple as he profiles their courage and honesty. Some people stand taller than their ideals. And yet they are unassuming to the core. Even those who subscribe to a different ideology cannot help appreciating their very sound values and principled stand. This is just-true in case of the veteran CPI leaders — Mr Satyapal Dang, and his wife, Ms Vimla Dang. They have been a legend in their lifetime. They have fought for the toiling people and taken a principled stand against militancy in Punjab. They have the distinction of being the only couple in the country to have received two President awards — Padma Vibhushan and Padma Shri, respectively. The couple had fought many relentless battles for the just cause of the downtrodden in their 65-year-long social lifespan. The simple and austere lifestyle of the “political faqirs”, who had stint as MLAs (Mr Dang also remained minister, having important portfolios), presidents of Municipal Committee, Chheharta (both were elected MC presidents from time to time), may spring a surprise on the new breed of politicians. The total cost of belongings in their one small-room flat (the upper storey of Ekta Bhavan) is less than Rs 5000 (this excludes the ancestral property). Though Mr Dang had got his share of ancestral property, yet he did not save even a single penny from his personal earnings. A small table, four chairs, two beds and a few utensils made of steel sum up the simple living of the legendary couple. They don’t have bone china plates or costly glass sets in the house, lest they should be broken. Though the couple lead ‘underground’ life during the British rule and were entitled to Freedom Fighters’ Pension, they never claimed the same till date. Out of the total pension of Rs 21,000 (Mr Dang receives Rs 13000 and Ms Dang gets Rs 8000 per month as MLA pension), they keep Rs 2000 each for which they are entitled as whole-time party CPI workers, while the rest of their income goes to the party coffers. The royalty of the books, authored by Mr Dang, too, goes to the party. In the words of Khushwant Singh, “Satyapal Dang and his wife Vimla Dang, nee Bakaya (the sub-caste of Ms Dang), lived in Chheharta, a suburban township near Amritsar, in the heat of the terrorism let loose by Bhindranwale supporters and protagonists of Khalistan. Not only did the Dangs refuse to seek sanctuary elsewhere, they made Chheharta an island of peace when most of the state was in turmoil”. The couple shifted to Chheharta from Mumbai in 1952 after their dowry-free court marriage. Before that they had never been to this township of Amritsar. Mr Dang says that instead of working as secretary of the party in Mumbai, he preferred to work for the uplift of working class. Mr Dang was elected the first president of the Chheharta Municipal Committee. He occupied the post for 14 years (1953-1967). Later, Ms Dang, too, was elected president of the Municipal Committee for a term. Mr Dang attracted national attention when he defeated Gurmukh Singh Musafir, Congress Chief Minister of the state and won the assembly election with a convincing margin in 1967. He held the Amritsar West seat till 1980 and served as a minister in a non-Congress government too. Though he lost the assembly seat to Sewa Ram Arora of Congress in 1980, Ms Dang won back the seat for CPI in the 1992 elections. During his tenure as minister, Mr Dang did not opt for official bungalow; instead he lived in MLAs’ Flats. Most of the time, Ms Dang would spend her time in one-room flat in Chheharta, meeting people. Mr Dang, as minister, loved to paddle thorough his constituency on his cycle. The communist couple has set a rare example of voluntary retirement from active politics. Some years ago, both retired from the National Council of the CPI, and in 1997, they declined to contest the assembly elections on the genuine plea that there must be an age-limit for holding political office. During their student-days’ struggle in Lahore in early forties of the last century, Satyapal Dang fell in love with Ms Dang (she was Vimla Bakaya before marriage) and married her after the Partition. He met Vimla Bakaya when both were active in the Lahore Students’ Union, before the Partition. While Mr Dang was a product of Government College (Lahore), Ms Dang was a student of the Kinnard College for Women in the same city. Both were senior leaders of All-India Students’ Federation. Both communist party leaders took active part in pre-Independence student movement. Mr Dang was also elected a Vice-President of the World Youth Federation. In 1943, both of them went to Bengal to campaign for aid to victims of the Great Famine of the year, which claimed over three million lives. Interestingly, Mr Dang belonged to Ram Nagar village (it was called Rasoolpur due to it being Muslim dominated), district Gujranwala (now in Pakistan), while Ms Dang belonged to a Kashmiri Pandit family. Later, Mr Dang was elevated to the post of general secretary of the federation in 1945, and he shifted to Mumbai — the headquarters of the party. They got married in Mumbai in 1952 after Ms Vimla Dang returned from Prague, where she represented India in the International Union of Students. It was a ‘Civil Marriage’ (court marriage), arranged with the consent of both the progressive-thinking families. Mr Dang says that it was conscious decision of both of them not to go for a child. They did not want to divert their attention from the people’s struggle. “We don’t repent our decision, taken in the year 1952.” Ms Dang, being a senior functionary of the Punjab Istri Sabha, took up the cause of women’s emancipation and 33 per cent reservation for women. Her struggle for equal rights for women did not include anti-male approach. She was honoured with Padma Shri in 1998 for her contribution to the social sphere. The then-Deputy-Commissioner, Mr Sarbjit Singh, in his recommendation had mentioned that Ms Dang had raised huge funds during the Bengal famine in 1945 and personally visited the affected families. The contribution of Ms Dang in the social field was rated as unparalleled. The Dang couple has the honour of holding personal meetings with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi and other top leadership of the world. Remembering a memorable meeting with the “Father of the Nation”, Mr Dang says, “When I asked him (Gandhi) for his blessings, he quipped — ‘I bless whatever good you may have done’. Mahatma Gandhi was careful about the choice of words, as he did not want to praise the delegation of the Communist Party.” Mr Dang says the younger generation should not join politics with an eye to mint money. They should join politics to serve the nation, and they should fight for cleaning the political system. Memories of 1946 Naval Mutiny The most memorable event in the life of Mr Dang is the Naval Mutiny, a year before the Independence of the country. He took actively supported the cause of mutineers. The uprising of the sailors of the British Indian Navy in 1946 was one of the most spectacular episodes of the intense revolt against the British Raj. On February 18, the sailors and the shipmen of the British Indian Navy battleship HMS Talwaar, who were at the time posted at the Mumbai (Bombay then) Harbour, went on strike. They were protesting against bad food and adverse conditions. They took over the naval trucks, boarded them, hoisted red flags on them and started patrolling the city of Mumbai. As a result, anti-British imperialist sentiments started to spread like wildfire throughout the region. Mr Dang says the rebellion made the British realise that they could not rule India any longer. The union jacks on most of the ships of the Royal Indian Navy in the Mumbai Harbour were torn down and the rebel sailors hoisted red flags along with the flags of the political parties that were involved in the freedom struggle. Within two days, the British imperialists were faced with the largest revolt ever of their naval units. The message of this rebellion started to spread by word of mouth, and then over the radio (the radio station had been taken over by the rebels) to military garrisons and barracks across India. Some of the leaders of the sailors broadcast the message of the uprising, and revolutionary songs and poetry were also broadcast round-the-clock. The revolt spread to 74 ships, 20 fleets and 22 units of the Navy along the coast. It involved Mumbai, Kolkata (Calcutta then), Karachi, Chennai (Madras then), Cochin.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Jun 2013 20:00:55 +0000
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