Gulyana I Gujar Khan I Punjab’s Crumbling 900 Year Old Town I Deserted Sikh Samadhi & Hindu Temple 

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Gulyana I Gujar Khan I Punjab’s Crumbling 900 Year Old Town I Deserted Sikh Samadhi & Hindu Temple
Music: Binu Kumar, Kerala, India
@SoundSFX (Under License)
900 years old Gulyana town of about a 50,000 people, just 10 kilometers South of Gujar Khan, was raised to the ground once several centuries ago, by raiders from the West. The second time it was destroyed during the 1947 partition riots.
Before 1947, the Gulyana town center was mostly Hindu and Sikh. The Hindus and Sikh owned all the businesses in the town center and Muslims were their tenants, peasants and laborers. Muslims sold their lands to pay off their debts and also handed over their crop of wheat. The Dewan, Dutt, Mohyal Brahmin, and Singh families were always part of royal elite. Bollywood Star Sanjay Dutt is from the same branch of warrior Brahmin Dutt and belongs to the same place.
Land owners were guaranteed protection from military’s presence in Gujar Khan from the North and a rivulet from the south. This land produced sheer gold and wealthy Sikhs and Hindus lived like kings in mansions make of stone, several storey high. Bakshi Tek Chand, Dewan Prithvi Chand Dutt, Bakshi Moti Ram and Tara Singh were the dominant names of those times. They built temples, dug up wells for the 30-50 kanal holdings each and distributed these lands amongst their permanent serfs. They did however, treat their serfs with respect and gave them a good share of the crop - what do you expect from absentee landlords.
The Sikh had a timber business. Logs from Kashmir valley were dumped into Jhelum River and recovered downstream near Jhelum city to be sold at Gujar Khan. The Hindus were mostly traders, money lenders and retailers. Muslims were mostly illiterate and poor and were destined to stay that way considering the only quality boarding school in nearby Gujar Khan had 95% non-muslim attendance.
During the 1947 riots, one Sikh Bali Singh and one Hindu Lady Banto were killed in the riots but the rest were whisked away with their gold, in the safety of Gorkha soldiers. The Muslim riot crowd burnt to the ground the several symbols of oppression and got rich in the process, during the looting. One Hindu tehsildar had the magistrate’s powers to jail someone for 6 months. The Hindus and Sikh were very friendly towards the Muslims, their women played around with the boys, molvi were not trouble makers then; they cared about their serfs and neighbors’, built schools, hospitals and wells for the general public. No Muslim was allowed into their kitchen however. Balraj, Sita, Beera, Ramu Shikari, Gujrati, Peecha Singh, Mangat Singh, Jawals Singh, Raab Singh, Gurdyal, were the well-known Hindus and Labbu, Gurra, Jagdev, Santa, Paacha, Chatru were the known Sikh of the time.
Several of the old mansion, one dhramsala, one temple, several bowlis (watering hole) have been lost to time. The two samadhis lie one kilometer east of the village. Of these, one is larger, with shikhara (superstructure). The interior of the samadhi is decorated with paintings depicting Sikh and Hindu mythologies.
On the southern wall is the painting of Baba Guru Nanak, with his two companions Bala and Mardana. And, on the western wall are depictions of Ram and Sita with Hanuman and Laxman. Hanuman, the monkey god, is shown paying homage to Ram and Sita.
The southern wall depicts the stories of Krishna, with gopis (milkmaids) and Radha. The northern wall depicts Shiva with his wife Parvati and Vishnu with Lakshmi.
On the western and southern sides of the samadhi are three old wells, two of which are still used by the locals for irrigation. On the northern side is another small samadhi. It is believed that two Sikh notables were buried inside these samadhis.
To the west of these Sikh samadhis stands a Hindu temple. Intricate floral designs decorate the interior of this temple. The temple is believed to have been built by Bakhshi Moti Ram, who was the grandfather of Tek Chand. Tek Chand embraced Islam after the partition. His wife and three sons left for India. Tek Chand married a Muslim lady and had seven children. They are all in poverty now.
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