A dated example around the bonfire

Chitkara University’s account of its 13 January 2022 Lohri celebration records a bonfire, food offerings, dhol, bhangra, giddha and folk singing. It identifies students, staff and faculty among the participants, with university officers opening the occasion. Groundnuts, popcorn and sweets appear in the description of the gathering. This is a concrete institutional example of how fire, shared food and performance can work together at Lohri.[1]

The report frames the festival as a tribute to farmers and the season’s work. That is the university’s interpretation of its celebration, rather than proof that every household understands the day in exactly the same way. The campus setting also matters: participants meet through an educational institution rather than only through kinship or village residence. A repeated festival can therefore create community in a setting different from a family’s home.[1]

Dulla Bhatti as a remembered figure

A tale collected by the Centre for Contemporary Folklore places Dulla Bhatti in a Punjab landscape associated with Lahore. In the version sourced and edited by Ashmeen Bains, he challenges oppressive power and helps the girls Sundri and Mundri, whose marriages become part of the remembered Lohri story. The record explicitly presents this as a folk tale passed through generations and adapted in different media.[2]

The tale is evidence of cultural memory and a particular published telling. Its dramatic episodes should not be treated as an independently verified court record of the Mughal period, or as sufficient proof of the festival’s single origin. Reading it as folklore preserves its significance: protection, generosity and defiance give a remembered person a place within a recurring festive occasion. No song lyrics are reproduced here.[2]

A celebration redirected towards girls

The Ministry of Women and Child Development’s compendium of Beti Bachao Beti Padhao practices records Dheeyan Di Lohri in Punjab. Its account describes functions at state, district and block levels from 13 to 20 January, with parents of newborn girls receiving certificates and gifts. It identifies elected representatives, officials, panchayats and schoolchildren among those involved. The campaign uses a familiar celebration to challenge the unequal value placed on children by gender.[3]

The compendium contrasts this effort with a preference for celebrating boys’ births. That is an institutional account of the problem the programme sought to address, not a claim that every Punjabi family had identical customs. Nor does the account independently prove that the campaign eliminated discrimination. It documents a purposeful reinterpretation of Lohri: the occasion becomes a means of honouring daughters and making an argument about equal importance within the community.[3]

Sources & notes

Source records include access dates and, where known, limits on what was examined. Checks used AI assistance; independent human or specialist review has not been completed.

  1. Office of Student Affairs / Chitkara University. Lohri celebrations at Chitkara University ↗primary institutional event report · Source date: 13 January 2022 · Locator: Article dated 13 January 2022, celebration-opening, attendance and performance paragraphs. Accessed 2026-10-31.The identified text was inspected. No inaccessible material is represented as read.Return to A dated example around the bonfire, paragraph 1 ↑Return to A dated example around the bonfire, paragraph 2 ↑
  2. Ashmeen Bains / Centre for Contemporary Folklore. Dulla Bhatti’s Lohri (Punjab) ↗primary collected folklore publication · Source date: 10 September 2024 · Locator: Collected tale and concluding attribution to Ashmeen Bains. Accessed 2026-10-31.Inspected the published tale. Its events are attributed as folklore; no lyric quotation or claim of independently verified Mughal-era events is made.Return to Dulla Bhatti as a remembered figure, paragraph 1 ↑Return to Dulla Bhatti as a remembered figure, paragraph 2 ↑
  3. Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India; PIB public copy. The Compendium of Best Practices: Beti Bachao Beti Padhao,10thYear Celebration ↗government programme account · Source date: 2025 tenth-anniversary compendium · Locator: PDF p.41, “Dheeyan Di Lohri (State’s Best Practice)”; cover and ministerial messages for publication context. Accessed 2026-10-31.Scanned 52-page public PDF downloaded and relevant page inspected through local OCR. The entry does not establish a calendar year for every reported function, so none is invented.Return to A celebration redirected towards girls, paragraph 1 ↑Return to A celebration redirected towards girls, paragraph 2 ↑
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Record PH-CUL-0107 · English edition · human review not performed