Fatehgarh Sahibਫ਼ਤਹਿਗੜ੍ਹ ਸਾਹਿਬ

The martyrdom

In December 1704, after the evacuation of Anandpur Sahib, the two younger sons of Guru Gobind Singh Ji, Sahibzada Zorawar Singh, aged nine, and Sahibzada Fateh Singh, aged seven, were separated from their father while crossing the flooded Sirsa river. With their grandmother Mata Gujri, they were betrayed and handed to the Mughal governor of Sirhind, Wazir Khan.

Brought before Wazir Khan, the boys were pressed to renounce their faith and accept Islam in exchange for their lives. They refused. On 26 December 1704 the governor ordered them to be bricked alive, and they died reciting their prayers. Their grandmother Mata Gujri, held in the cold tower of the fort, died of shock on hearing the news. The town's name, Fatehgarh, the fort of victory, honours the younger boy, Fateh Singh.

The town that grew around the shrine stands on the edge of old Sirhind, once one of the great Mughal cities of the Punjab and the provincial capital from which Wazir Khan ruled. Sirhind's fortunes collapsed after the Sikh misls sacked it in 1764, and today its ruined mosques and tombs stand in the fields around Fatehgarh Sahib, a ghost city beside a living shrine.

The gurdwaras

Gurdwara Fatehgarh Sahib stands on the spot where the two younger Sahibzade were martyred. Nearby, Gurdwara Jyoti Saroop marks where Diwan Todar Mal, a court official, cremated the three bodies after buying the land for the pyre at an infamous price: Wazir Khan demanded gold coins spread over every inch of the ground. Gurdwara Thanda Burj, the cold tower, marks where Mata Gujri was imprisoned.

The complex is one of the most visited pilgrimage sites in Punjab. The walls that enclosed the boys are preserved within the shrine, and pilgrims file past them in silence, many of them bringing their own children to stand where the Sahibzade stood.

Remembering

Every year from 25 to 27 December the Shaheedi Jor Mela, the martyrdom fair, draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to Fatehgarh Sahib for three days of prayer and remembrance. The Government of India observes 26 December as Veer Bal Diwas, the day of the brave children, in honour of the two boys.

Beyond the shrine complex, Fatehgarh Sahib is a quiet district town of colleges and wheat fields, on the highway between Ludhiana and Patiala. But every December the town is transformed, and the roar of the Jor Mela reminds every visitor why this small place carries one of the biggest names in Sikh history.

The town that grew around the shrine gave its name to the district, created in 1992. For Sikhs, Fatehgarh Sahib is what it has always been: the place where two children chose their faith over their lives, and where their courage is remembered as without parallel.