The Giani Gurmukh Singh Musafir Trust will celebrate his 105th birth anniversary on January 19 at Chandigarh's Musafir Bhavan. GIANI Gurmukh Singh Musafir entered politics after his sensitive poetic soul had reacted strongly against the imperialist violence at Jallianwala Bagh in 1919 and at Nankana Sahib in 1921.

Born on January 15, 1899, at Adhwal village in Campbellpore district (now in Pakistan) to a farming father, Musafir was educated and trained to be a teacher. At 19, he was working in the school where master Tara Singh - who later became a great Sikh leader - was the Headmaster. Four years of teaching followed by whole-hearted commitment to the cause of the people, beginning with the Gurdwara Reform Movement and culminating in Independence of the country in 1947 - that was Musafir in his prime. In 1930 he became the Jathedar of Akal Takht. In 1942 he came into contact with Pandit Nehru.

Musafir's life story, from 1921 to 1947, could very easily be read as the history of the struggle for Independence.

The year 1947-48 saw this man of the masses incessantly active in rehabilitating thousands of refugees from Pakistan. For the next 13 years he was the Punjab Congress President and an elected member of the executive committee of the AICC. He became a member of the Constituent Assembly in 1946. For three terms, beginning in 1952, he remained a member of the Lok Sabha representing Amritsar. He resigned in 1966 to head the government of the newly created state of Punjab. In April, 1968, he got elected to the Rajya Sabha and again in 1974. During his 50 years of public service, Musafir won friends among the ranks of all political groups. His humanism and an infectious sense of humour cut across all barriers of opinions and views and made him beloved of all, irrespective of their political commitments.

All along, Musafir remained at the centre of literary and cultural activity. He published nearly 24 volumes that include poetry, short stories and biographies. As a poet he keenly feels the pangs of the common man and wants to make the suffering man aware of the cause of his predicament.

The first step towards self-fulfilment is to cast off his yoke. His short stories tell his jail experience. The martyrs are the subject of his biographies. His last but incomplete article is 'Bapu Meri Nazar Wich' on which he was working for AIR on the fateful night of his death.

Musafir represented Indian writers at the writers conference held in Stockholm in 1954 and again in 1961 in Tokyo. - B.S. Rattan