Bhai Subeg Singh and Bhai Shahbaz Singh: father and son on the wheel

This day remembers Bhai Subeg Singh and his son, Bhai Shahbaz Singh, who were put to death in Lahore in 1745 on the charkhri, a wheel set with blades, for refusing to give up the Sikh faith. Every Ardas recalls those who were broken on the wheel and did not waver. The SGPC's Nanakshahi calendar keeps the day on a fixed solar date.

A Sikh at the governor's court

Bhai Subeg Singh, from Jambar near Lahore, was a learned man who knew Persian and served the Mughal administration of Lahore as an official and, at times, as its go-between with the Khalsa. In 1733, when the governor Zakariya Khan offered the Sikhs a jagir and the title of Nawab in an attempt to make peace, it was Bhai Subeg Singh who carried the offer to the Khalsa, which conferred the title on Kapur Singh, remembered ever after as Nawab Kapur Singh.

The son's refusal

His son, Shahbaz Singh, was a bright boy of about eighteen studying with a Muslim teacher, a qazi, who wanted him to convert and, when he would not, accused him of insulting the Prophet. The boy was arrested. When his father went to plead for him, he too was seized. Both were offered their lives if they accepted Islam; both refused.

The wheel

Father and son were tied to the charkhri and turned on it until their bodies were broken. Tradition remembers that each encouraged the other to remain steadfast to the end, and that the governor, Zakariya Khan, died in the same year. Gurdwaras remember them with kirtan, katha and Ardas, and their story is often told to young Sikhs as an example of faith that does not bend.