Amarjit Chandan

He was born in Nairobi, Kenya in 1946 where his father Gopal Singh Chandan, worked in the railways and later on took up photography as full-time profession.[3] He was also a leader of the clandestine Kenyan Ghadar Party, he worked as the general secretary of the Labour Trade Union of East Africa from 1940 to 1947 and the local Sikh community. He facilitated the travel of quite a few Ghadris through Kenya en route Moscow where they studied in the Communist University of the Toilers of the East (KUTV) also known as the Far East University. It was a revolutionary training school that operated under the umbrella of the Communist International and was in existence from 1921 until the late 1930s.

In 1957 they moved to their ancestral town Nakodar in Punjab, India at the age of eight. He pursued higher studies at Panjab University, Chandigarh. Before Chandan joined the Maoist-Naxalite movement in East Punjab in 1971, he worked as a sub-editor in Nawan Zamana (New Age) daily newspaper published by the Punjabi communist party and later under Baba Gurmukh Singh of Lalton in Desh Bhagat Yadgar Jalandhar editing Yadgar's journal Desh Bhagat Yadan. He also edited a special issue of Bharat Sewak on Indian national freedom fighters and actively assisted with the publications of Yuvak Kender.

He joined the Maoist movement in Punjab in 1969 and started Dastavez (The Document), the first ever revolutionary underground literary magazine in Punjabi. It proved to be the trend setter of militant or Jujhar phase in the history of Punjabi literature. It introduced Lal Singh Dil, Pash, Sant Ram Udasi, Darshan Khatkar, Harbhajan Halvarvi and others. Because of Dastavez, he was proclaimed an offender during the Naxalite movement and carried a cash reward on his head.[4][5] Later on he edited Lokyudh (People's War) and Baghawat (Revolt) political and literary magazines published by the CPI(ML) Punjab.

In August 1971, he was arrested in Amritsar and was tried on false charges of carrying bombs and bank robbery. He was given three years sentence and he underwent solitary confinement in Jalandhar and Amritsar jails.[6]

After his release in August 1973 the first task he did was to collect letters of Shaheed Bhagat Singh and his comrades from National Archives New Delhi and publish them in Punjabi under the title Chithian: Shaheed Bhagat Singh te Sathi (Letters of Shahid Bhagat Singh & Comrades). He found and translated Bhagat Singh's famous article Why I am an Atheist. Since then it has been reprinted many times. He founded the Shaheed Bhagat Singh Research Committee. Its other members were Professors Bipan Chander, Bhagwan Josh, Harish Puri and Jagmohan Singh, Bhagat Singh's nephew. During 1977-1979 he researched under Bipan Chander, the historian, on the Pepsu Muzara Lehar (Land tenants’ militant movement of the Pepsu) fought under the leadership of Lal Communist Party led by Teja Singh Sutantar. He edited Hem Jyoti when it was relaunched in 1974 under the Punjabi Sahit Sabhyachar Manch. Harbhajan Halvarvi and Pash were also on the editorial team. During 1977-80 he was also a correspondent from East Punjab for Economic & Political Weekly published in Bombay.

Chandan worked as an editor of Preet Lari during 1976-1977 and before that as the founding editor of short-lived literary magazine Disha (The Direction) published in Chandigarh.

A list of more than 100 naxalites killed in fake police encounters in East Punjab was published under his name in 1977. He was one of the founders of Jamhuri Adhikar Sabha Punjab (Association for the Protection of Democratic Rights, Punjab). In 1977 he was on the national Fact-Finding Team in Andhra Pradesh to investigate the murders of naxalites in police custody.

Amarjit Chandan and John Berger in 2016

In 1980, Chandan moved to the UK [1] where he has been living ever since.[2] He completed post-graduate Diploma in Translation with distinction from the Institute of Linguists in 1991. He was language consultant to the National Community Folklore Centre based at Middlesex Polytechnic. He worked as a part-time Lecturer in Punjabi at School of Languages, Polytechnic of Central London, 1983–1984. He worked for Translation & Interpreting Services, London Borough of Haringey from 1986 to 2003. He also translated for several publishing concerns, including the Indian Council of Historical Research, National Book Trust India, books of history, economics, fiction, non-fiction, children's literature, drama and poetry. He has translated works of Bertolt Brecht, Pablo Neruda, Yiannis Ritsos, Nazim Hikmet, John Berger and others into Punjabi.[3]

English versions of his poems have appeared in magazines Artrage, Atlas, Bazaar, Brand, Brittle Star, Critical Quarterly, The Independent, Index on Censorship, Modern Poetry in Translation, Poetry Review, Race Today, Wasafiri (UK), Little Magazine (India), Papirus and Akköy (Turkey), Erismus, Ombrela and OdosPanos (Greece), Lettre Internationale (Romania) and Poetry International website.

Chandan’s short poem both in Punjabi and English engraved in 40-foot granite by Eric Peever is installed in a square in Slough High Street, UK.

He was one of ten British poets selected by Andrew Motion, the Poet Laureate, on BBC Radio 3 on National Poetry Day, 2001. He has participated in the Alderburgh, Ledbury, King’s Lynn, Winchester, Ó Bhéal poetry festivals and Poetry Parnassus in London in 2012. He represented the Punjab/UK in the International Literary Festival, Didim, Turkey in July 2006, Ljubljana (Slovenia) International Poetry Festival in 2015, Al-Marbed International Poetry Festival Basra Iraq in February 2017, Karachi Literary Festival in February 2018 and 6th Ó Bhéal Winter Warmer Poetry Festival, Cork City, Ireland (Nov 22nd - 25th 2018). He also participated in the Bradford Literature Festival (2016 and 2017) speaking on ‘WW1 and the Punjab’ and Partition respectively.

During World War 1 Centenary commemorations Chandan read his essay on Punjabi Folk Songs on WW1 at several events. In Edinburgh Art Festival Bani Abidi, Berlin-based acclaimed Pakistani artist, did a sound-sculpture Memorial to Lost Words on his poem on a Punjabi soldier’s letter written home set to music and sung by Ali Aftab Saeed. Chandan also wrote songs for musical The Troth (Dir. Gary Clarke, The Akademi, 2018. Based on Chandradhar Sharma Guleri’s classic Punjabi-Hindi story Uss ne kahaa tha) staged in London, New Delhi and other Indian cities.

He worked on a British Library Sound Archive Project Between Two Worlds: Non-Anglophone Poets in England: Readings and Histories recording more than 30 poets.

Chandan formed a long-term association with John Berger. On Berger's 90th birthday in 2016, he co-edited A Jar of Wild Flowers: Essays in Celebration of John Berger[3] and anthology of poems by 90 poets The Long White Thread of Words.[7]

Learning from John Berger: http://guftugu.in/2017/03/learning-from-john-berger-amarjit-chandan/

He is known as the bridge between East and West Punjabi literature. He co-edits with Zubair Ahmad an annual magazine in Punjabi Baramah (lit. ‘Twelve Months’ – a poetic genre) published in the Persian script in Lahore.

Chandan has donated much rare material and many sound recordings of his interviews with eminent writers, artists and activists including his correspondence with John Berger to the British Library, Punjab Digital Library Chandigarh and Desh Bhagat Yadgar, Jalandhar.

In 1998 Chandan did oral history recordings of 12 early Punjabi immigrant workers in London for the Museum of London.

• Kaun Nahin Chahega (1975)
• Kavitavan (1984)
• Jarhan (1995)[3]
• Beejak (1996)
• Chhanna (1998)
• Gurhti (2000)[8]
• Paintee (2009)
• Prem Kavitavan (2012)
• Pardesi Dhola (2013)
• Lammi Lammi Nadi Vahe (2014)
• Sachi Taksaal (2016)
• Sandook (2017)
• Eh kāgad nahin hai: Ghadar virasat diān likhtān (2020)

• Failsufian (1990)
• Nishani (1997)
• Hun Khin: Conversations with Sohan Qadri (2001)
• Annjall (2006)
• Potli (2009)
• Likhat Parhat (2013, Reprint 2014)

• Mera Nam Tera Nam Vietnam, anthology of Vietnamese poetry, (1968)
• Mitti da Rung (1971)
• Do Kināré (1982)
• Apneaap ton dur (1984)
• Vilaytiye (1986)
• Meri Aap-Beeti, Autobiography of Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna. (2014)
• Unni sau churasi: Harbhajan Singh's Poems and Essays on 1984 (2017)
• San Santali: Punjab de Ujarhey di shayri (2017)
• 20veen sadee de nibandh (20th Century Punjabi Essays), National Book Trust India (2021)
• Kanchan Kaya: Ajoki Punjabi Prem Kavita (Modern Punjabi Love Poetry) , National Book Trust India (2021)
• Sirlekh: 20veen sadee de nibandh (20th Century Punjabi Essays), National Book Trust India (2021)

• Guthli (1999)
• AnaraN vala Vehrha (2001)
• Nuqta (2007)

• Likhtam Parhtam (2009)

• The Parrot, the Horse and the Man (2017)[9]
• Sonata For Four Hands (2010)[10]
• Indians in Britain (1986)[11]

• A Jar of Wild Flowers: Essays in Celebration of John Berger (2016), co-edited with Yasmin Gunaratnam, London: Zed Books[12]
• The Long White Thread of Words: Poems for John Berger (2016), co-edited with Gareth Evans and Yasmin Gunaratnam. Ripon: Smokestack Books

• ΦΟΡΕΣΕΜΕ (2015) - translation in Greek by Christina Linardaki & Andreas Pitsillides
• رسالةٌتصلُمتأخرةً (A Letter Reaches Late) 2021. Selected poems in Arabic translation by Abdulkareem Kasid, Cairo: Arweqah