Renowned Sikh scholar and literary luminary Dr Rattan Singh Jaggi passes away at 98
Renowned Sikh scholar and literary luminary Dr Rattan Singh Jaggi passes away at 98 (Picture credit: X/@rashtrapatibhvn)
PATIALA: The literary and academic world mourns the loss of one of its brightest stars, Padma Shri awardee Rattan Singh Jaggi, who passed away at the age of 98. A towering figure in the realms of Punjabi and Hindi literature, Jaggi was a prolific scholar, critic, and author whose vast body of work continues to illuminate the fields of Gurmat, Sikh scripture, and the Bhakti movement.
Jaggi, who was unwell for some time, breathed his last in Patiala, leaving behind an unparalleled legacy of over 150 published works. He is survived by his wife, Dr Gursharan Kaur Jaggi, former Principal of Government College for Women, Patiala, and his son, Malwinder Singh Jaggi, a retired IAS officer.
A celebrated academic, Jaggi devoted over six decades to the study of medieval literature and Sikh theology. He earned his PhD from Panjab University in 1962 for his research on the Dasam Granth, and later received a DLitt from Magadh University in 1973 for his work on Guru Nanak's life and philosophy.
Fluent in multiple languages including Punjabi, Hindi, Sanskrit, Persian, and Urdu, Jaggi's literary contributions spanned encyclopaedias, critical commentaries, translations, and reference works.
Jaggi's profound understanding of Sikh scriptures led to his magnum opus, an eight-volume Punjabi commentary on the Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, titled Bhav Prabodhini Tika, and a five-volume Hindi version of the same.
He further enriched Sikh scholarship through projects like Sikh Panth Vishavkosh (Encyclopaedia of Sikhism) and Arthbodh Sri Guru Granth Sahib, published by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC).
His work, Tulsi Ramayan, a Punjabi translation of Ram Charit Manas, earned a National Award from the Sahitya Akademi.
Jaggi was the recipient of numerous national and state-level accolades. In 2023, the govt of India honoured him with the Padma Shri for his contribution to literature and education.
He was also awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award, Punjabi Sahit Shiromani Puraskar, and multiple recognitions from the governments of Punjab, Delhi, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh. Punjabi University, Patiala, and Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, conferred DLitt degrees upon him, while Punjabi Sahit Akademi, Ludhiana, awarded him a Fellowship.
Among his notable editorial projects were Punjabi Sahit Sandarbh Kosh, Punjabi Sahit da Sarot Moolak Itihas, and Guru Granth Vishavkosh, all published by Punjabi University. His recent contributions included Guru Nanak Bani: Paath ate Vyakhya, published during the 550th Prakash Purb celebrations of Guru Nanak Dev Ji.
Jaggi's life was a testament to scholarly dedication and literary brilliance. His enduring works will remain a cornerstone for generations of students, researchers, and spiritual seekers.
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The story begins with Martin's wife Mary falling prey to the might of malaria. Her death leads him to realise the need for a hospital in the village. Thus enters Dr. Prashant or ' dagdar babu', the closest to a titular character in the traditional sense, to conduct research on malaria, kalaazar and other epidemics plaguing the region. The doctor becomes an entry point to understand the village and its politics. The narrative surrounding his 'origin story', not knowing his birth parents and therefore his caste, gives insight into the caste-based identification embedded in the social landscape to determine social value. The arrival of a young doctor, Prashant, symbolises hope and reform. But Renu doesn't romanticise state intervention – he shows how bureaucracy, corruption, and caste prejudices undermine development efforts. Emancipation, Renu suggests, cannot be outsourced to institutions. It must be internally driven by the agency of the community itself. Through this fictionalised 'Maryganj', Renu offers a narrative rich with descriptions of villages situated in the Kosi region of Bihar. That disease, particularly malaria, caused catastrophe in the region was not simply a fictionalised literary trope. The District Gazetteer of Purnea (1963) referred to its inhabitants as 'weak and devoid of stamina owing to the malarious climate.' It brings two points to the fore – first, geographical location of the region plays a crucial part in its cultural and social life. Regional history is marked by flooding of the Kosi (referred to as the cruel, angry sister of Ganga in folk tales), the floods combined with issues of drainage and lack of embankment, bringing a bout of epidemics like Malaria and cholera. Traversing the hegemony of standardised Hindi An 'East India Gazetteer' talks of the Purnia region with 'advantages of soil and climate such that it was considered one of the most productive in the province of Bengal', but the continued association of 'diseased' towns led to removal of civil authorities in 1815 to healthier stations. Second, it points to an important facet of colonialism through which it imposed certain negative characteristics as intrinsic to the landscape of the colony. The Orient was seen as different and opposite to the West or the 'Occident' such that the negative tropical attributes of the colonised land and environment came to be seen as affecting Europeans negatively – leading to debility or death, and creating the space for 'civilisational reforms'. A 1949 book, 'Bihar: The Heart of India', puts it succinctly, the opening lines on Purnea being – ' Na zahar khao, na mahur khao. Marna hai to Puraniya jao. '. Though Maila Aanchal is now seen as one of the greatest Hindi novels, at the time of its publication it was accused of several 'impurities', something that Renu compiled and published as an additional advertisement for the novel. This included the claim that the work did not contain a single sentence in 'pure' Hindi; the collection of folk songs and of 'corrupted' words all of which was seen as unsuitable for literature. A significant portion of the dialogues and conversations are in Bhojpuri, Maithili and Magahi which has come to be recognised as one of the most distinctive strengths of this novel. Renu has written how his characters would have spoken their words, traversing the hegemony of standardised Hindi. The village is divided into different 'tolas' or segregated living spaces for different castes. These areas do not just vary in their spatial nature but also in the type of language spoken by its residents. These fine differences in speech are used by Renu to particularise his characters. The Sanskritised, 'pure' Hindi was in fact alien to the villagers, as shown in a scene where a character, Baldev Yadav, receives a letter in Hindi from a Congress party secretary. He asks a young man to read it out to the villagers, but it seems meaningless to the villagers and they insist that the boy explain it. So, words like high court become haikot; injection becomes jakshain; district board is distibot; meeting is mitin. These aren't mere misspellings, rather words that look corrupt but match how the word is pronounced in the region. So, in spelling words how they sound Renu breaks the standard literary language and brings a realistic tone of local speech and linguistic patterns to his work. Phanishwar Nath 'Renu'. Photo: Social media Songs associated with Holi and seasonal changes ( phag, jogira, purvi ), songs sung at birth ( sohar ), marriage ( nachari ) and mourning ( samadaun ) find a place through incorporation of the oral traditions within the narrative of village life in Maryganj. The festival of Holi becomes a site for the inversion of the sociopolitical order through songs ( jogira ) which are used to point to the hypocrisy of the purity – pollution associated with the caste hierarchy. A Brahmin accepting water or food from a person deemed to be 'low-caste' is seen as an instance of 'pollution' but a lower-caste woman's sexuality is seen as something he can access easily with acceptance under the Brahmanical ideological structure. 'Arey ho budbak babhbna, arey ho budbak babhna ….jolaha dhuniya teli telaniya ke piye na chhual paniya. Chumma leve mei jaat nahi re jaye!' (Translation: 'You foolish Brahmin You would not drink water touched by a weaver, washerwomen, even oil-presser's wife, but you have no problem kissing them.' Renu brings the subaltern rural subject to the centre of literary discourse. His characters are not passive victims but complex, resistant, and rooted in their local cultures. He uses local dialects (Maithili, Bhojpuri), folk traditions, and oral storytelling to preserve their voices. This linguistic and cultural inclusivity in literature is itself an emancipatory act – it affirms the value of local knowledge, resisting linguistic and cultural homogenisation. An act of resistance to the idea of 'purity' in the dominant Hindi literature Hence Renu's work is an act of resistance to the idea of 'purity' in the dominant Hindi literature of the period. And much like 'Aadha Gaon' of Rahi Masoom Raza, he decided not to give faux tongues of 'pure language' to his characters in the novel. The everyday functions of a caste-based order are made explicit through the focus on commensality. Brahmins refused to eat in a public feast unless separate arrangements were made for them; the Rajputs and Kayasthas would not eat in the same row as the Yadavs, who in turn would refuse to eat with Dhanuks. Ambedkar's conception of graded inequality as characteristic of the caste system in India, where the castes exploited by the 'upper' castes seek to dominate those placed lower than them in the caste hierarchy, is notable. Renu was a key figure in the Aanchalik (regionalist) literary movement, which emphasised local landscapes, dialects, and everyday life. His use of social realism allows him to document not just hardship, but also community resilience, folk wisdom, and indigenous forms of resistance. The work highlights that folk songs, idioms, festivals, and oral traditions are not decorative – they are central to the community's survival and moral compass. These cultural elements act as tools of resistance to cultural erasure and state-imposed modernisation. The portrayal of this village is important as it does not resort to painting a quaint, serene countryside based on difference, distance or nostalgia. Influenced in large part by Gandhi, the imagination of the Indian village during the nationalist struggle, came to be seen as the repository of traditional Indian social life. In Gandhi's view, village life embodied the very essence of India, while the emergence of modern urban centres symbolised Western dominance and colonial control. As a result, he believed that true swaraj, or self-rule, could only be achieved by revitalising India's village communities and restoring their civilisational strength. What Gandhi highlighted as the 'essence of civilisation' is primarily what Ambedkar critiqued about the village society – 'The Hindu society insists on the segregation of the untouchables. The Hindu will not live in the quarters of the untouchables and will not allow the untouchables to live inside Hindu quarters… It is not a case of social separation, a mere stoppage of social intercourse for a temporary period. It is a case of blatant territorial segregation… every Hindu village has a ghetto..'. The village life came to be romanticised in novels as opposed to the hustle-bustle of 'town life'. Renu however doesn't characterise it as an unchanging, generalised character of rural India but infuses it with specifics which are useful in their insights and reminiscent of a village study. His characters are not idealised possessors of antique virtues or fundamental goodness. Renu does not stand with Gandhi's model of the Indian village as a singular cognitive unit, a republic of sorts but bares it as an entity divided along class, caste and gender lines with prejudices shaping the contours of different identities and the social formations. The villagers of Maryganj have the word Suraaj i.e. Swaraj on the tip of their tongues – Gandhi ji has promised so, he will bring it about. The phenomenon of Gandhi, something which the historian Shahid Amin has written extensively about, in the eyes of the 'subaltern' or non-elite in rural India can also be gauged in this novel. 'Gandhi mahatma' is evoked often, not only by Congressmen but by villagers who have heard of him through others. Renu questions the penetration of these values of the freedom struggle and whether the Congressmen were actually able to take their ideas to the 'masses' beyond words, concluding that ' suraaj' has not reached the minds of the nation's citizens. Or at least not in the manner the Mahatma would have thought of. However, in more ways than one, Renu, instead of glorifying Western-style progress or industrialisation, proposes a model of alternative modernity – one that respects rural wisdom, collective solidarity, and ecological harmony. This questions dominant notions of development and emancipation tied solely to urbanisation or capitalism. Renu's political experience helps him reshape the discourse of emancipation Renu's personal life and the politics he practiced cannot be divorced from his writing. An active participant in the 1942 Quit India Movement, he was jailed for the same. Having completed his matriculation from Nepal he also participated in the movement against monarchy and for the establishment of democracy in the country. In his essay titled 'The role of the Writer in the making of the Nation' published in 1957, Renu wrote that being 'enslaved by the coloniser' was the main problem during the freedom struggle, and as an independent nation the main issue is that of building a nation. Modernity which was to bring about independent thinking and independent power to the individual has not happened even 10 years after independence. Thus his political experience helps him reshape the discourse of emancipation by primarily validating rural life and subaltern subjectivity with a subterranean yearning demanding a challenge to caste and class oppression. And the text also offers a bottom-up vision of freedom tied to social justice and cultural authenticity. A testimony of Renu's conviction was further seen during the Emergency when he wrote to the President returning his Padma shri, particularly after the violence meted out to the protests led by Jayaprakash Narayan (JP). In his letter Renu strongly protested saying 'How long will the government, of which you are the President, continue to try to suppress the will of the people using violence and state repression? In such a situation, this honour of 'Padma Shri' has become ' Paap shri' (a sin) for me'. The novel's themes become particularly important when 76 years after Independence, the Chief Justice of 'modern' India publicly states his belief in and propagates to the nation, ayurveda and ayurvedic medicines. It necessitates questioning political propagation in the garb of 'personal choice' when religious superstition and lack of access to quality health services continues to impact everyday life of more than a billion in the country. When the everydayness of irrationality seeks to normalise harking back to ancient glory, of 'reclaiming' civilisational (reducing the Civilisation to 'Caste Hindu' values) – pillars of the state actively legitimising it, it increases the urgency to remember the tenets of independence and voices documented in the Maila Aanchal. In a letter to JP, Renu highlighted his dissonance with this 'free' country. He wrote – '…a few days ago someone said to me that there's a difference between the prisons of colonial India and that of free India. Well indeed, Purnea Jail can be an example of this 'independent' India of our present where even human beings have become animals. Maybe out of one thousand one hundred and twelve prisoners, even one person cannot be termed healthy. Maybe hell is like this… what is the difference between 1947 and 1972?' And what indeed is the difference between 1947, 1972 and 2025, as thousands of people remain as undertrial prisoners in different jails across the country. Many of these are young minds arrested for protesting against unequal citizenship laws and for demanding the freedom to be and the freedom to become across university campuses in India. In the novel, after the achievement of independence in 1947, the Adivasis of Santhal regions are disillusioned as they continue to grapple with local oppressors, and the state and its justice systems continue to be dominated by upper castes. The constitutional promise of justice appeared hollow when it remained structurally denied. The contradictions of unfreedoms in a 'free' nation continues to make this novel relevant. Stories exposing deeply embedded inequalities which persist even after independence In Maila Anchal, Renu critiques feudal oppression, caste discrimination, and bureaucratic apathy. His stories expose how deeply embedded inequalities persist even after independence, pointing out that political freedom did not automatically translate into social justice. Unlike didactic or revolutionary narratives, Maila Anchal doesn't offer a grand solution. It presents partial, fractured progress, emphasising that emancipation is slow, contested, and deeply contextual. Renu's writing, rooted in the reality of rural India, speaks directly to the need for social justice, making him an important voice in the literary canon of Indian writers committed to egalitarianism. His characters often embody the hope for a more just society, even if it is only reflected in small, personal victories. What we can borrow from Renu is a simple virtue called empathy. Renu's deep empathy for the marginalised and his understanding of the complexities of rural life reflect his belief in an egalitarian society. It is time for the Republic to stick to it with the necessary sense of urgency. The writer has an MA in modern history from Jawaharlal Nehru University and currently works with Oxford University Press. The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
