Bid to Revive Lohri in Pakistan

One of the great impacts of the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan was on the shared culture of Panjabiat (Panjabi-ness) in both Panjabs — East and West. While in east Panjab, people celebrate Lohri on 13 Jan — on the last night of the coldest month ‘Poh’ in the Bikrami calendar — with great gusto, there are attempts to revive the festival in Pakistan as well. The festival of Lohri is inextricably linked to Rai Abdullah Khan Bhatti, popularly known as Dulla Bhatti, a Muslim Robin Hood hero of undivided Panjab. Post-1947, Dulla Bhatti was almost forgotten in Muslim-majority West Panjab, where Lohri started being called a ‘Hindu’ festival. In 2013, Tohid Ahmad Chattha, a historian and Panjabi activist, honored the rebel folk hero by reviving Lohri in Faisalabad (Lyallpur of yore). Gradually, Lohri traveled to Lahore, Multan, Kasur, and several other places. Pakistan-based lawyer-writer Nain Sukh, pen name Khalid Mahmood, said Dulla was a rebel executed by Mughal emperorAkbar. ‘Dulla could never fit into the narrative of feudal lords. The British also glorified Akbar. The INC and the Muslim League perceive Akbar as a kind and great king.’ Poet and radio anchor Afzal Sahir at the Panjab Institute of Language, Art and Culture (PILAC) in Lahore, says, ‘We bore the pain of Partition, but we will not let our festivals be taken away from us. Vaisakhi and Lohri are cultural festivals of Panjab. Not celebrating these festivals means detaching from history.’ As an East Panjab journalist remarked: ‘Is it really difficult to understand Panjab? They remember Dulla Bhatti, not Akbar.’