Jugni — whose creation?

Jugni, a popular Punjabi folk song sung for the last so many years again got fame and popularity after Arif Lohar, the son of late folk artist Aalam Lohar, presented it with modern composition. The other day Arif Lohar was questioned by a Karachi TV compere who first sang or who was the creator of this genre of folk song? Arif or for that matter most of our singers hardly know the history of music, particularly the branch of folksongs. Who originally sang song of Sammi? Nobody knows that. Same was the case of Jugni. Arif has heard it from his father and being an actor-singer of lok-theatre he also popularized it, therefore Arif was right when he said Jugni was originally composed and sung by his father Aalam Lohar. Arif is good and unassuming artist but we should not expect from him that he would go through the history of Punjabi folk poetry on which some substantive research work has been done in East Punjab. Incidentally, it were the non-Muslim writers and scholars who mainly worked in this field and most of their work has been published in English and Punjabi in Gurmukhi script. Deviande Satiarthhi and Ram Saran Das were two big names in this field. Ram Saran Das’s Punjabi Lok Geet in Persian script was published from Lahore in early forties. He was a lawyer by profession who was the resident of Krishan Nagar. We should not expect from Arif that he has studied literature on folk songs. He saw that his father was a very successful in Jugni, which he very innocently dedicated to his father. Punjabi scholar Snawar Chadharr has contributed a research paper to Lahore weekly, Humshehri, in which he politely says that Jugni is also an old form, yet in our times Aalam was master of that. But the recent research shows that Jugni was also in the early 20th century and then in the second decade when Jallianwala tragedy was enacted by the British and the first time in the history of the subcontinent the civilian population of Punjab was made the target of strafing from air. Following are the Jugni lines recorded by the late Saleem Khan Gimmi:

Here the refrain-line does not include Allah Bismillah Meri Jugni. Here it is Bhai Meria Jugni Uoo… Sher Meria Jugni Uoo. Aalam Lohar’s Jugni always had Allah Bismillah Meri Jugni. Chadharr refers to another scholar Karam Jeet Singh Oajala whose research appeared in daily “Punjabi Tribune”, East Punjab, bearing date of Sept 24, 2005. Oajala with reference to the octogenarian persons says that they had heard Jugni in the first decade of the last century when the Golden Jubilee of the Queen was celebrated throughout India. There were two singer-poets Mahnda of Hasanpur in Amritsar district and his partner Bishna also from Majha area. They were folk singers and on the Jubilee they staged their show wherever in Punjab the Jubilee Torch travelled. They made the Jubilee a character through which they had showered praises on the British Queen and her rule. How the word Jubilee was changed with Jugni. According to Oajala, Mahnda and Bishnu turned against the British rule and now they criticized through their Jubilee giving it a new name of Jugni… Jubilee…and Jugni. The following lines have been attributed to Mahnda and Bishnu who were hauled up at Gujranwala when Jallianwala uprising flared up. It is said that both artists were killed by the police. This story needs to be substantiated by further research.

The late Afzal Parvez was perhaps a senior contemporary of Aalam Lohar. Writer and singer Afzal Parvez started his journey in the footsteps of Davinder Satiarthi and collected folk songs and scripts of lok theatre dramas (also published in a book form) in early 50s. He contributed his field research to the now defunct daily Imroze. It was almost totally original attempt and very soon a book was prepared which unfortunately published much later in early 70s with title Bann Phulwari and with the introduction by the late Faiz Ahmad Faiz. This was certainly an exhaustive study mainly related to Upper Sindh-Sagar Doab..Rawalpindi, Hazara and Azad Kashmir areas. In his opinion, Jugni was perhaps a character from folk story perhaps heroine of Jugni-Rawal… the later to whom name of Rawalpindi is associated. That proves that Jugni is also an old popular name of a folksong which provides a base for all those who have talent to compose more lines and add to that. Afzal Parvez’s Jugni is sarcastic and it does not have the words Allah Bismillah.

(The dialect is Potohari plus Pahari and two words of same meanings..my..maharra and maindha, the former is used on the southern side of the GT Road near Rawalpindi and the latter on the northern side of the Road. * * * * **

In the latest issue (155) of Punjabi monthly, Savair International, senior fiction writer Husain Shahid narrates an incident that happened while he was conducting provincial assembly election in 1964-65 in the suburbs of Lahore. Actually he was referring to the elections of the Punjab assembly held in 1953-54 in Attock where fiction-writer Parveen Malik Awan’s mother served as polling officer. She was serving as a teacher in that area. Rival candidates were from two warning groups of Awans and Khatarrs. Incidentally here the Awan candidate had an edge over the Khatarr. This was taken by the Khatarr school inspector as deliberate support extended by Awan teacher i.e. Parveen’s mother who had to suffer for that. Husain Shahid was conducting election in which only BD members were the electoral college. He was in-charge of the polling station and during the polling a voter came to him and he secretively told him that so and so voter will come to cast not only his own ballot paper but he had six more ballot papers to cast. Husain says he targeted that person and searched his body. He had more papers duly certified and naturally all those were cancelled and the man was handed over to relevant authorities. After that candidate Malik Mairaj Khalid came and spent some time with Shahid without any reference to the bogus voting case.

After the election, Husain Shahid went to the district presiding officer where Mairaj Khalid was also present but as soon as Shahid took his seat Malik Sahib slipped and the officer (sessions judge) was told that Malik Sahib was full of complaints against Husain Shahid. That is how elections are won, the practice continues.