Destiny of the Dutts

Destiny of the Dutts

Nirupama Dutt
For their sacrifices at Karbala, the Dutts of Lahore were never compelled to convert, remaining half Hindu, half Muslim


It’s been a long way home for
the Dutts


Sunil Dutt gifted $100,000 to the Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital in Lahore, in the memory of his wife, the celebrated actress Nargis. He said: “For Lahore, a Dutt will even give his life”

was born after the Partition, after my parents emigrated from western Punjab to India. I had never known the land that became part of Pakistan; when asked where I come from, I usually simply replied, “I come from Chandigarh.” Now that Chandigarh, the capital of Indian Punjab, is about fifty years old, people take this reply at face value. But some two and a half decades ago, I remember the famous Punjabi short story writer Kulwant Singh Virk getting vexed and replying, “No one can belong to Chandigarh. Tell me where your parents were from.” When I told him that my mother was from Rawalpindi and my father from Lahore, but I was from Chandigarh, he laughed and said, “So you are the daughter of three capitals.”

My name causes yet more identity crises. The ‘Dutt’ often raises doubts about my linguistic affiliation. My first name, Nirupama, is Bengali-sounding; my mother probably took it from one of the Sarat Chandra novels she devoured in her youth, and which inspired her to name her children Arvind, Vimal, Salil and so on. With my dark looks adding to the evidence of my name, I have often been taken for a Bengali. To be honest, that has been quite a help in my career as an art critic. A Bengali name gets an easier entry in exclusive culture-land, where pragmatic Punjabis are often held to be agriculturalist at heart, and thus suspect.

So often I let such mistakes about my origin pass without comment, but my habit of occasionally breaking into Punjabi verse has had surprised bhadralog raise an eyebrow or two. At other times I have had to gently inform enthusiastic young artists from Kolkata who roll ‘a’s in my first name into round roshogullas, add a respectful didi and rattle off in Bangla, that I am a Punjabi. “How come?” follows the inevitable surprised query, “Dutts are Bengalis.” I have to tell them that there are Punjabi Dutts out there too and to convince them, I add, “the Sunil Dutt variety”. He is surely the most famous of the Punjabi Dutts (see “Nargis from the flames”).

During a trip to Lahore this month, however, I learnt a lot more about the Dutts, particularly of the Punjabi variety. They belong to a clan popularly known as Hussaini Brahmins. Their mythical origin is traced to Dronacharya of Eklavya’s thumb infamy. The Hindu epic Mahabharata tells the sad story in which archery teacher Dronacharya takes Eklavya’s thumb as the price for teaching him. Eklavya, you see, is low caste, and Dronacharya fears that his archery may outshine the feats of highborn princes. In more recent history, however, the descendents of Dronacharya redeemed themselves by denouncing Brahmanical practices and becoming warriors and agriculturalists.

In time the Dutts forged an unbreakable link with Islam. In 681 Rahab Sidh Dutt fought for the son of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) in Karbala. On the tenth day of Muharram, he sacrificed seven of his sons in battle. Overwhelmed by grief, Rahab and his kin returned to their roots in the Punjab, and settled in Lahore. The Muslims remained ever grateful to them for their sacrifices at Karbala, and they were never compelled to convert. As the well-known verse has it:

Wah Dutt sultan, Hindu ka dharma, Musalmaan ka iman,

Wah Dutt sultan, adha Hindu, adha Musalmaan


Praise to the Dutt sultan: Hindu dharma and Muslim faith

Praise to the Dutt sultan, half Hindu and half Muslim

Majid Sheikh once wrote an article on the Dutts of Mochi Gate, Lahore, in a Pakistani newspaper. He said that once they lived in large numbers in Lahore, and fled the city only at the time of the Partition. The writer also mentions that Sunil Dutt gifted $100,000 to the Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital in Lahore, in the memory of his wife, the celebrated actress Nargis. When giving the donation, Sheikh records Sunil Dutt’s statement: “For Lahore, a Dutt will even give his life.” Indeed, the Dutts put up a brave resistance to Mahmud of Ghazni for their beloved city, and according to legend they, Dutts with the Manjs and Virks, were among the original Lahoris.

Yet while Dutts have done much for Lahore, they have received their identity from the ancient town. The Lahore I was not born in gave me my identity, the badge of being an original Lahoran.

Nirupama Dutt wrote this exclusively
for TFT