The writer is a senior journalist and columnist

Writing an obituary of your student is a bit difficult and apparently, an emotional task which not only inflicts pain but also plunges you into sadness and desolation. Sixty-seven-year-old Dr. Tara Singh Sandhu (Congress leader from Bhinder Kurd, Moga) breathed his last, after prolonged sickness, on 20th January 2021. He died of liver Cirrhosis that affected his Kidney as well.

Through this obit, I sincerely and very humbly recount some exceptional moments of my life associated with Dr. Sandhu, who met me 48 years back, when Tara Singh Sandhu joined a four-year integrated course of Honour in M.A. Punjabi at the Punjabi University’s Honour School in Punjabi, Patiala in 1974. He passed his B.A. part I from Khalsa College, Patiala that made him eligible for admission to this integrated course. I was teaching at the B.A. Honour classes and he was in the second batch of the first year of honour School.

I still remember him as a young Jat Sikh boy with a glow on his face and bright shining eyes, always smiling. He was full of energy, and confidence with hardly any complexity in life, though he was yet to learn some urban civilities. His classmates were also having similar rural traits with subdued living style but Tara Singh Sandhu was a different human persona, a bright star among them.

Though he completed his four-year Degree in first class, he always remained engaged in active student politics and he had a close association with the Communist Party of India (CPI). He was an orator of high calibre, whose command over the Punjabi language was eloquent. He had a powerful voice that resonated in the sky when he spoke forcefully as a revolutionary, during student’s agitations on the University campus or even during his participation in strikes in other colleges and institutions in Punjab. He was a popular leader and respected by his teachers as well.

He became state president of the State Unit of CPI’s All India Youth Federation (AIYF), and rose to the top in the CPI cadre, wherein he was appointed as National President of the AIYF. This top position provided him a morale boost, as he continued to represent CPI in several international youth conferences abroad. He participated in the International Youth Conference in North Korea and also wrote his travelogue, which is a master genre of literature. Tara had twice visited the United Socialist Soviet Union of Russia and North Korea, Bulgaria, Hong Kong, the USA, Canada, UK, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and several other countries.  He had a great infatuation with Central Asia. Tara Singh Sandhu was behind raising a memorial close to the Wagah border for the death of one million people on both sides of zero line in 1947. When this memorial was demolished last year he raised his voice.

Dr Tara Singh Sandhu after assuming charge of Moga District Congress presidentship

Tara Singh Sandhu was under the influence of his teacher Dr. Ravinder Singh Ravi, an intelligent teacher of aesthetics. Ravi was his guiding source, who was a member of the state executive of the CPI. I had the privilege to share the reputation of being a cardholder of CPI on the University campus along with Tara Singh Sandhu and five others. I was entrusted to oversee CPI’s Punjabi University campus unit. Professor Jaswinder Singh, Dr. Makhan Singh (who joined PCS Allied Services), Principal (retd.) Labh Singh Khiwa were all members. On Tara Singh’s initiative, incumbent Vice-Chancellor Bhagat Singh joined CPI’s delegation to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). He himself twice visited USSR including  North Korea, Bulgaria and several other countries.

Things changed when in 2003, Tara Singh Sandhu, a member of Punjab State Executive Committee of CPI resigned and joined Indian National Congress (INC) via Tiwari Congress under the influence of senior congress leader Jagmeet Singh Brar. He was appointed as President of the Moga District Congress much to the heart burning of many local Congress leaders. But his position did not last too long.

He came from a humble farmer family and struggled hard to achieve something big in politics which remained a Miraj. He could not overcome his minor financial resources and die as a pauper. His too much indulgence in alcohol and his liking for the choicest good things of life made his life hell. He met a tragic end.

Contrary to his strong and impressive political life, his personal life was not that smooth, he had estranged relations with his wife Dr. Kanwaljit Kaur Dhillon, the daughter of a CPI leader of Moga, who was Lecturer in Punjabi in Government College, Chandigarh. She retired from there a few years ago. Husband-wife’s animosity led to a trust deficit, some simmering moral and ethical accusations busted, and leading to divorce proceedings, which are still pending in Punjab and Haryana High Court. From their wedlock, they have Navjiwan Singh the only child. Navjiwan Singh is the Manager of a Nuclear power plant in Oshawa, a suburb of Toronto, Canada.

His wife accompanied by a few women members of CPI from Punjab, led by the wife of the senior socialist leader, who raised his disintegrated-family conflict issue with the Indian National Congress (INC) President Sonia Gandhi, resulting in his resignation from the Moga district president-ship. However, Tara Singh Sandhu could manage a committee appointed by Punjab Congress to remove him from Congress Party. To survive, he shifted his loyalties to Capt Amarinder Singh. He was one of the fire-brand spokesperson among the dozens of Congress’s spokespersons at the time. Capt Amrinder Singh kept him in the loop but did not give him any position in government, which he deserved and desperately needed too.

Memorial in memory of over 10 lakh people killed on both sides of zero line in 1947

Still not satisfied with the potential damage that Kanwalji Kaur Dhillon had caused to Tara Singh Sandhu; she continued the matrimonial litigations and succeeded in getting him two years imprisonment under 494 IPC (Bigamy) charging him of act Bigamy. (Maximum imprisonment in Bigamy is seven-year). He came out of the Burial jail (Chandigarh) after six months on bail, and his petition in this case of bigamy is still pending in Punjab and Hary ana High Court. He told me charges of marriage were false and fabricated. He was hoping to win his case in the High Court, which was not be as left this world before the final decision in both cases. Even his attempt to seek a divorce from Kanwaljit Kaur Dhillon could not succeed. This is a tragic love-affair story of Tara Singh Sandhu and Kanwaljit Kaur Dhillon, which started in 1978, and the marriage was solemnized in 1983. Although she had lingering litigation with her husband she started wailing when I shared with her the news of Tara Singh Sandhu’s death on phone in Canada, where she is living his son.

Dr. Tara Singh Sandhu was a voracious reader. He was better off in creative skills and produced one travelogue (safarnam) about his visit to North Korea, a communist state: “Sati Hoee  Mitran Di”, and six plays-“Bar Parai Baisna”, “Chauras Kill”, “Gunge Bol”, “Babur”, “Raj Kumari Ratana” and “Dukh Dariya,”.He did his Ph.D. on “Heer Waris da Lokyanak  Adhiahn” in 2003.

Of late in life, he started had repenting not having perused academic carrier. Had he entered the academic field he would have achieved much more than he could by adopting a political carrier.

As a teacher and his companion, I still remember his towering personality, which had the aptitude of engaging anyone in any kind of discourse. His end has brought pain and tears.

Born on 25th June 1953 breath his last on 20th January 2021.

The writer is a senior journalist and columnist