Sydney based Dave Sidhu's docu ‘Qaida-E-Noor’ explores Maharaja Ranjit Singh's Qaida method of learning

Well known Sydney based Director Dave Sidhu's movie 'Qaida e Noor' is in the pre-production stage, which talks about the Qaida Method of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, taking us back to the 18th century.

Maharaja Ranjit Singh, also known as “Sher-E-Punjab”, was a very powerful king with the largest empire in the 18th Century.

Qaida means an elementary book which helps you embark on your journey to be educated.

Despite being less qualified academically, Ranjit Singh was a great visionary, and thus wanted to educate the masses through the Qaida method.

At a broader level, he was successful, and he established the region's largest library so that people could communicate through reading and writing.  

The Maharaja got organised 5,000 books (Qaidas) with strict rules to start his educational campaign and ordered his “Lambardars” (Head of the Village) to implement and read the Qaida within three months. They were then required to manually print more copies of this Qaida to pass on to 5 other people of the village and continue this chain within the estate and report the final number back to the King.

In a few years 87% of the people of the Lahore area and 78% of the neighbouring areas became educated.

Ahead of its times, this Qaida was made compulsory for women. As a result, the women in Ranjit Singh’s empire were fully educated.

Unfortunately, during the British rule in India, this Qaida disappeared and was never seen again.

Dave Sidhu is trying to make a movie that would also educate the masses. This young director is expanding the episode by making it more cinematic.

In addition to Punjabi, Hindi, and English, the film will be released in three other languages.

Director Dave Sidhu is no longer a new name in the cinematic world. He has done a lot of projects which are incredible in themselves. Be it a film based on Qaida, The Oneness, or interacting with the community on Raabta radio. All of these diversified pieces of content show his interest in society.

Read more about Maharaja Ranjit singh by clicking here.