Resource type
Date created
2023-09-18
Authors/Contributors
Interviewer: Dhahan, Barj
Interviewee: Dosanjh, Ujjal
Abstract
Join lawyer, civil rights activist, politician, and former Minister of Health Canada, Ujjal Dosanjh, as he launches his new novel The Past is Never Dead.
This book launch, co-presented by SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement and the Dhahan Prize For Punjabi Literature, was followed by a Q&A discussion, with light catering, book signing and selling.
About the Book:
In the year 1952, Kalu escaped Banjhan Kalan in Punjab’s Hoshiarpur for Bedford in the British Midlands, hoping to find a life of dignity that he had been denied because of his caste. He was in his late teens and had grown up believing in Sikhism’s tenet of equality preached by Guru Nanak and Ravidas, a principle the villagers never sincerely practised. They had maimed his father, accusing him of stealing a zamindar’s ox; they had thrown father and son out of a Quit India rally; they had mercilessly thrashed young Kalu himself for daring to enter a temple. He had never been allowed to forget—even by his schoolmates—that he was a Chamar, destined to skin dead cattle like his ancestors.
England promised a new life of respect and opportunity. But Kalu’s fellow expatriates had brought caste along when they came to that country, and he would be forced to adhere to its degrading rules just as he was in Banjhan. Determined not to bend—as he had refused to do back home—Kalu fights back, but his resoluteness in the struggle will put him and his family at serious risk.
The Past Is Never Dead is not only the story of a rural Punjabi family’s search for a better life, it is also a powerful depiction of the stranglehold of caste over Sikh immigrants in Britain. But even as it exposes the horror and obstinacy of caste, the novel pays tribute to the courage and tenacity of the human spirit and its capacity for hope.
Ujjal Dosanjh was born in a village of India’s rural Punjab in 1946, mere months before the midnight of India’s independence in 1947, Ujjal migrated to Britain in 1964 where he shunted trains in a British Rail goods yard, made crayons in a factory, worked in a car parts plant and helped edit a Punjabi weekly while immersed in reading and learning to speak English listening to BBC One. In search for better opportunities he immigrated to Canada in 1968 and began working in a saw mill pulling lumber off the green chain while attending night school. A serious back injury ensured his speedier return to Langara which helped him earn a B.A. (SFU) and LLB (UBC).
A lifelong activist for social and economic justice, Ujjal campaigned for better legal rights for farm and domestic workers, practiced law and jumped into electoral politics becoming a BC MLA, Attorney General and Premier and subsequently a member of parliament and Minister of Health for Canada.
Retiring in 2011, he wrote his autobiography Journey After Midnight published in 2016 before turning to fiction to write stories that he had encountered in his life some of which had travelled with him. Living in Vancouver all his Canadian life, he enjoys gardening, walking, writing and being with his six grandchildren.
Set in Banjhan in Punjab and in Bedford in the British Midlands of the mid-20th century, his debut novel The Past Is Never Dead is the story of an untouchable lad and how the stranglehold of the cursed caste travels and remains with him as he fights for equality in Britain.
This book launch, co-presented by SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement and the Dhahan Prize For Punjabi Literature, was followed by a Q&A discussion, with light catering, book signing and selling.
About the Book:
In the year 1952, Kalu escaped Banjhan Kalan in Punjab’s Hoshiarpur for Bedford in the British Midlands, hoping to find a life of dignity that he had been denied because of his caste. He was in his late teens and had grown up believing in Sikhism’s tenet of equality preached by Guru Nanak and Ravidas, a principle the villagers never sincerely practised. They had maimed his father, accusing him of stealing a zamindar’s ox; they had thrown father and son out of a Quit India rally; they had mercilessly thrashed young Kalu himself for daring to enter a temple. He had never been allowed to forget—even by his schoolmates—that he was a Chamar, destined to skin dead cattle like his ancestors.
England promised a new life of respect and opportunity. But Kalu’s fellow expatriates had brought caste along when they came to that country, and he would be forced to adhere to its degrading rules just as he was in Banjhan. Determined not to bend—as he had refused to do back home—Kalu fights back, but his resoluteness in the struggle will put him and his family at serious risk.
The Past Is Never Dead is not only the story of a rural Punjabi family’s search for a better life, it is also a powerful depiction of the stranglehold of caste over Sikh immigrants in Britain. But even as it exposes the horror and obstinacy of caste, the novel pays tribute to the courage and tenacity of the human spirit and its capacity for hope.
Ujjal Dosanjh was born in a village of India’s rural Punjab in 1946, mere months before the midnight of India’s independence in 1947, Ujjal migrated to Britain in 1964 where he shunted trains in a British Rail goods yard, made crayons in a factory, worked in a car parts plant and helped edit a Punjabi weekly while immersed in reading and learning to speak English listening to BBC One. In search for better opportunities he immigrated to Canada in 1968 and began working in a saw mill pulling lumber off the green chain while attending night school. A serious back injury ensured his speedier return to Langara which helped him earn a B.A. (SFU) and LLB (UBC).
A lifelong activist for social and economic justice, Ujjal campaigned for better legal rights for farm and domestic workers, practiced law and jumped into electoral politics becoming a BC MLA, Attorney General and Premier and subsequently a member of parliament and Minister of Health for Canada.
Retiring in 2011, he wrote his autobiography Journey After Midnight published in 2016 before turning to fiction to write stories that he had encountered in his life some of which had travelled with him. Living in Vancouver all his Canadian life, he enjoys gardening, walking, writing and being with his six grandchildren.
Set in Banjhan in Punjab and in Bedford in the British Midlands of the mid-20th century, his debut novel The Past Is Never Dead is the story of an untouchable lad and how the stranglehold of the cursed caste travels and remains with him as he fights for equality in Britain.
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