Dulla Bhatti

Rai Abdullah Khan Bhatti, called Dulla, came from the Sandal Bar between the Ravi and the Chenab, where his father and grandfather had been hanged by the Mughals for refusing to pay revenue. Raised in the knowledge of it, he became an outlaw, raiding imperial caravans, looting the rich and protecting the peasants of the bar. His fame spread so far that Akbar moved his court to Lahore partly to deal with the troubles of the region.

The best-loved story about him is that he rescued Hindu girls who were being carried off to be sold, adopted them as his own daughters and arranged their marriages, giving a ser of sugar as their dowry because he had nothing else. He was finally captured by treachery and hanged in Lahore around 1599; the Sufi poet Shah Hussain is said to have witnessed his death, and his grave is in the Miani Sahib graveyard.

Every Lohri night, as children go from door to door asking for sweets and wood for the bonfire, they sing the song of Sundar Mundriye that calls on Dulla Bhatti, who married off the poor man's daughter. Four centuries on, a Muslim rebel against a Muslim emperor remains a hero of the Sikh and Hindu villages of East Punjab as much as of the West: one of the clearest signs that the Punjabi folk memory is older than its partitions.