Dulla Bhatti – The Hero Still Alive in the Folk Songs

This is the month of January the Lohri festival is being celebrated in various areas of Punjab across the Indo Pakistan border. The girls during these festivals still sing the song that glorifies the life of ‘Dula Bhatti who was actually hanged by Mughals’.

Today, the residents of Punjab are singing this folk song. Fires are being lit in every house and there are friends around. Peanuts and flocks thrown into the blazing fire are also seen with gossip.

This is an opportunity to get away from the winter and get together. But in these folk songs, the name of Dulla Bhatti of Pindi Bhattian city of Pakistan is being repeated again and again. It seems that this festival of Lohri is incomplete without the name of Dulla Bhatti.

Dulla Bhatti is considered as the ‘Robin Hood’ of  Punjab and special importance is given to the Dulla Bhatti in this festival. There is no written document about Dulla Bhatti, but the folklore is known to everyone here.

Before 1947, this festival was celebrated on both sides. This means in Pakistan and India. Do remember that Pakistan and India were one country before 1947. These countries got independence from the British empire in 1947.

Punjab is a state that is divided between Pakistan and India. In India, this festival was continuously celebrated. But the Pakistani Punjabis have started celebrating this festival in Pakistan only a few years ago. Right now it is being celebrated in two places in Lahore. It is also celebrated in Lyallpur. The Birthplace of the Dulla Bhatti currently this place is known as Faislabad and is one of the well-known textile city around the world.‘

According to legend, two Hindu girls, Sundri and Mandri, were abducted by the people of Mughal emperor Akbar and were rescued by Dulla Bhatti. It is also said that the two girls were sisters and the daughters of a Pandit. Dulla Bhatti got them married and then gifted them on different occasions. This is the reason that the Dulla Bhatti even being a Muslim is popular among the Hindus and the Sikhs of the region. Actually, he belongs to the Sikhs and Hindus of the region as much as he belongs to the Muslims.

There are myths that Dula Bhatti’s father was also arrested by King Akbar’s people and then his mother went to Lahore in search of her son. Then when the canal system came in Punjab, the story of Dulla has awakened again. Dulles’s name is in the folk songs.

Dullah’s name was not in the recorded history of the kings but in folklore and oral history. Dulla is now a well-known name in history. It is not known whether the grave discovered in Lahore belongs to him or not, but it is known with certainty that Dula Bhatti was hanged near Mochi Gate.

But why were the Dulla Bhatti hanged? The Dula Bhatti of Pindi Bhattian refused to pay taxes and abiana. A well-known poet of his time was also present at the time of his execution. This poem is recited with reference to Dula Bhatti. We have added the translation of this poem here

I am a full-fledged Soil lover

As long as the throne is in Lahore

(I will tear the edges of the minaret to pieces, as long as the throne is Lahore, the Mughal Empire is my battle)

Dulla Bhatti was the son of the soil and he was the symbol of resistance for the localities.