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Articles: Sikh Martyrs:
Mata Kishan Kaur Kaonke
Mata Kishan Kaur Kaonke
This is the sakhi of a brave woman who lived in this century
and whose life was devoted to the Sikh Panth. She was born in 1856
and was the daughter of Sardar Suba Singh of Village Lohgarh in Ludhiana
district. While living in her village, she learned Gurbani and Sikh
history from the granthi ji of the Gurdwara there. She was married
to Sardar Harnam Singh of Village Kaonke. He later on joined the army and
died in 1902 while serving in Burma. Her two sons had also died when
they were still young. She was thus left a widow and without any
offspring. Rather than bearing the curses of Hindu society of being
a widow or feeling lonely, she decided to spend the rest of her life in
the service of the Khalsa Panth.
In 1903, Mata Kishan Kaur went to Gurdwara Sach Khand,
Nanded in the south of India. The Gurdwara was built in the memory
of Guru Gobind Singh who left for his heavenly abode from there.
She stayed at Nanded for some time, took Amrit to become a saint-soldier
of the Khalsa Panth and started tying a turban on her head. She devoted
herself to organizing people to preach and practice the equality of men
and women and the so-called low castes and high castes of Hindu society.
After the death of her husband, his brother did not let
her take possession of her share of the land. When other methods
failed, she went to the fields and personally told the brother of her husband
to leave the fields for her. Finding her alone and helpless in the
fields, he made some vulgar jokes and did not leave the fields. She
was courageous and a brave person. She raised her strong arm and
fixed a hard slap on his face. The man, feeling guilty of his misbehavior
and being hit hard by an upright woman ran away to avoid a second slap
from her. Mata Kaonke took over the land which belonged to her.
She was respected by the whole village as a great lady of good behavior,
with great courage.
When the Khalsa Panth started the Gurdwara Freedom Movement
in the beginning of the 20th century, she joined the movement as an active
worker. In 1920, the Mahants refused offerings of some Sikhs who
were recent converts from the so-called low-castes. She was with
the Sikhs who went to the Golden Temple to protest against this anti-Sikh
behavior of the Mahants. She was there to physically set the Mahants
straight if they did not listen to their arguments. Observing the
mood of the Sikhs, the Mahants fled from the Gurdwara leaving it vacant
for the Sikhs to occupy and take over its control.
In September 1922, during Guru Ka Bagh Morcha, Sikhs were
beaten by police and even run over by the mounted police, breaking the
bones of Sikhs under the hooves of horses. Mata Ji and her associates
undertook the sewa of caring for the injured Sikhs, taking them to the
hospitals, and nursing them there. Every day she would go with the
jatha to the Guru Ka Bagh. The policemen would beat the Sikhs with
lathis to stop them from going to the Bagh. The police would let
the attending Sikhs carry away the injured members of the protesting jatha.
It is then that Mai Kishan Kaur took over the duty of administering first
aid to them and taking them to the hospital.
One day, a very large number of Sikhs suffered very severe
injuries. The police chief taunted her by telling her that there
was much sewa for her to do. Mata Ji was already feeling very much
hurt to see the Sikhs being tortured and beaten like that. After
hearing the taunting words of the police chief, she could no longer restrain
herself. In response to his comments, she took a few firm daring
steps towards the police chief, and looking at him with ferocious eyes,
she raised her arm and like a lightning bolt, hit him in the face.
The strong unexpected slap shook the police chief and
turned his face over his shoulder. Without giving the brave woman
a second look, he ran towards his tent to save his face from the second
slap. This was a great insult not only for all of the police force,
but for the whole British government.
Hearing of the tortures committed on the innocent Sikhs
and the bearing of atrocities by them, Father C.F. Andrews, a Christian
missionary, decided to come to Guru Ka Bagh. After seeing the anti-human
behavior of the British police officers, he cried, "I see hundreds of Christs
being crucified every day by the Christians themselves." This changed
the direction of the Morcha and finally the government yielded to permit
the Sikhs their legal rights by owning the Guru Ka Bagh lands.
Mata Kaonke again performed a daring deed during Jaito
Morcha. Sikhs wanted to continue the Akhand Path disrupted by the
police by arresting all the Sikhs there. A jatha of 500 Sikhs marched
from the Akal Takhat in Amritsar to Gurdwara Jaito. People knew the
jatha would be handled brutally by the police. To know the truth
and details of the brutalities Mata Kaonke dressed herself as a Jain woman
and moved into the police camp. The government forces rained bullets
on the jatha. The police secretly disposed of the dead bodies and
removed the injured to the hospitals. They issued totally misleading
reports and did not give correct information about the Sikhs killed and
injured. Mata Kaonke had seen all the actions with her own eyes and
she made the facts public. When the details revealed by her were
found to be true, the government was very much embarrassed, and was also
very much surprised. After some time the secret police traced her
and charged her with espionage. She was sentenced to four years in
jail.
In 1925, the government accepted their defeat in the struggle
against the Sikhs. They agreed to the formation of a Sikh body which
would take over the management of the Gurdwaras from the Mahants who were
under the control of the government. With this agreement, all the
persons arrested in connection with the Gurdwara movement were released.
Mata Kaonke, however, had to remain in jail until 1928 to undergo her full
sentence.
When released from jail, she went straight to the Akal
Takhat to express her thanks to the Guru for giving her a chance to serve
the Khalsa Panth. She suffered for the cause of the Sikhs and the
freedom of the Gurdwaras from government control. The Khalsa Panth
honored her at the Akal Takhat and gave her the title of Mata. Since
then she became popular as Mata Kishan Kaur.
During the rest of her life, she stayed at her village,
built a Gurdwara there and preached the Sikh faith to the people in the
region. She died at the age of 96 in 1952.
The life spent in the service of society is fruitful.
Sikh women can accomplish this by overcoming their family limitations.
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