Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Vol 2 No.8
Fortnightly
----------....--------------------------------------- --~-
A Faltering Second
Fro~t
in Punjab
NEWSHOUND
By Ra p
-----1
\5 IT
.. ". - ~,.
~)
)I
\A
Satindra Singh
At present, Punjab enjoys
bout a fortnight ago, Sikh
1ft '
fundamentalists opened the dubious distinction of lead~'=another from in Punjab ing the country in the per
to strengthen their support capita consumption of liquor. If
base. They have launched an the ' . anti-liquor
campaign
aggressive and systematic cam- gathers further mom ent,um, it '
paign against what they call may well prove disastrous for
"accretion of the evil Hindu the state for two main reasons .
practices in the Sikh way of One, it will result in the relife." On the face of it, their emergence of illicit brewing of
crusade against drinking, meat hooch for which Punjab was
eating, ostentatious marriages, once
deservedly
notorious
use of cosmetics by Sikh throughout the country until
women and ' trimming of hair the e nd of the sixties, To e radiand beards by Sikh males is cate this evil the then chief
more or less unobjectionable. minister, Mr Pratap Singh
But the same cannot be said Kairon, not only ordered' the
about the motives behind their opening of more liquor vends,
move as well as its ramifica- but also reduced the price of
tions.
country liquor, to save Punjabis
I Take,
for instance, their from spurious liquor. His
"war" against drinking. No shrewd policy has been sc rudoubt, the Sikh fundamen- pulously adhered to by aU suc
talists enjoy scriptural support cessive governments in the
) . it. But their primary objec- state, whatever their political
~ .. e is to adversely affect the affiliations. The other reason Barnala . government s already \ which has even more dreadful
strained financial resources. implications - is that nonThere were not many takers availability of liquor, win surely
of the liqu9r vends when these result in a phenomenal growth of
were auctioned late last month drug consumption. Opium and
and most of those who had the hemp eating is already ramcourage to, bid for these have pant in the Doaba and Malwa
been ' forced to offer only regions of the state.
limited supplies. During my
Moreover, forcible converrecent visit to some of the sion in any form runs counter
towns of PUbjab and their sur- not only to the basic Sikh
rounding villages I noticed that tenets, but also against the
most of the liquor vends were heroic Sikh heritage. The Sikh
half empty and only a few po~ Gurus did not believe in proular brands of whisky, rum, gin selytising by sword but through
and beer were readily avail- persuasion, They fought agaable. For other brands one had inst those Muslim rulers who
to place an advance order, tried to , enforce Islamic fundeposit earnest money and damentalism by the sword.
pick up the stuff at an agreed Two of the Sikh Gurus - Arjun
time.
Dev and Tegh Bahadur - had
to lay down their lives in the
Supportj~mong
struggle to .ensure an individual's right to follow his/her
Women for Antiown conscience. Both Bhai
Liquor Campaign Nand Lal, the most prominent
codifier of Sikh heliefs and
There is no doubt that their
anti-liquor campaign has won practices and Kaura Mal, a
the Sikh fundamentalists instant highly respect~d personage in
support and sympathy from Sikh history were not ':Amrit
Sikh women, who, much to dharis" (baptised SinghsJ.
their mortification, daily witMeat Eating
ness the heart-rending scene of
the hard-earned money literally
the
"going down the drain" as it
Fundamentalists
were since the advent of the
The Sikh fundamentalists
Green Revolution in the state in
are on even more vulnerable
. the late seventies. Whether the
Sikh women's support will help ground for their move against
reduce drinking among their meat eating. For one, no Sikh
Guru has prohibited its conmenfolk is difficult to surmise.
sumption.
Only the other day,
Habits die hard, bad habits
seldom, if ever.
Continued on page 13, c~/1
and
I
I
'; i
MR CLeAN?
\
~~~~--------~~---,~~ ----.
.j
,/
I
I
I
. .\
I
. J
CONG-I CAUSING
DISC ORD IN U. P.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _~.'.:~,i;.: ..
.................................................................
~"
Point of No Return
That the issue ha s reached fI
point of n o f'e turn becom e:;
obvious by the rem Mks of
Ma hant Avedya na th, 'ch airman
of th e Ram Jana mbhooll1i
Mukti
Yagna
Samit i
in
Gora khpur. The mahallt hn
lieves "th e Hin dus must unit"
in d efe nce of their rights ;!,,(/
forc e the government to r eaL ,.~
their agon y concerning Ha m 's
birthplace , Hindus wo uld nfl'
tolerate any un just decisioil nn
the i ssu ~. Th e so-caHed 5.1 hn
Continued on page 5 , col 1
M
__e_d_ia__vv_a_t_c_h____________________
~~~--------------~-------S-a~g~ff-S-W_o_r_d
The Psalm of Peace
An English Translation
of Guru Arjun's
'Sukhmani'
~ ..' 11'"
BalbInaU~ ",idn'P"
,,"0' atO
\0"
said \~~in&S ",et::S~\ated
t.
\'J
L a;
a___rill aoU
ate Oft
..________________--_~,o~
..
,~~~~til~~I~~-----------da~------:-~~~----:=::~::::~-----J
,,\d.
Journalists on trial
Journalist
V T Rajshekhar
Editor
Publication
DaHt Voice
Sukhdev Singh
EditOl'
Fr Benny Aguiar
Editor
Dignity
Krishnaraj
Editor
Harji Malik
Writer
EPW
Shahid Siddiqui
Editor
Nai Duniya
Examiner
KhaHd Ansari
Midday
Editor
Deepak Chopra
Printeli Publisher
' AI Haj Naz
Mashriqi
Ansari, Editor
Awaz
AI Haj Syed
Ansari, Printer
Charged under
For
Terrorist & DisArticle on DaHt
ruptive Activities view of Punjab &
Act
'Ma nuism'
Re productio'n of
above
(Promoting enArticle on RSS activities in Bihar,
mity between 2
groups)
Sedition
Article on army
action in Punjab
Month
Published in
March.1986 March '86
Terr& Disr.
Acts. Act
Terr& Disr.
Acts, Act
Sept. 1986
July '86
Oct. 1986
Aug. '84
Interview with J S
Chauhan on
Khalistan
Intervifw with G S
Dhillon on
Khalistan
Nov. 1986
Nov. '85
Nov. 1986
Oct. '86
Reproduction of
above
Dec, 1986
Nov. '86
managing Editor
Haljit Malik
Editors
Harji Malik. G.S. Sandhu,
A.S. Narang,
Associate Editor
Avtar Singh Judge
Circulation
Lt. CoL Manohar Singh (retd)
Business Manager
Jatinder Kaur Lall
WOi';U'
moment?
-Fa~m
Fortnight Focus
~--_(iazette-
_ _ _-
Chadha operate? Do they com- selves set up such agencies. here that lobbying by the
promise the nation's security in Commander M R A Rao of the liaison agents is the s!rongest
earning
large
commISSIOns Indian Navy, for instance, rep- and a great deal of money
from foreign arms firms they resented Bofors for a long time. changes hands. The money of
Besides
Chadha,
Bofors course is always deposited in
serve? Not consciously, and in
any case politicians and offi- currently has another agent in foreign, usually Swiss, bank
cials. who received the alleged Delhi, one Thomas Dalin who acco.unts and the sum could be
payoffs are equally to blame on has an office in the Maurya a very large one indeed for a
this score. But there is big Sheraton Hotel. But perhaps favourable report.
money in the arms business the largest liaison agent in the
Bofors Under
and the liaison agencies like capital is Eureka, which repSuspicion
Chadha's Anatronics are not resents a host of French firms
The Bofors' 155mm howitzer
unique to New Delhi. Most including SNECMA, aircraft
purchase had been under susnations with large defence engine manufacturers, Sagem,
picion almost' from the day
budgets have scores of arms the electronics giant, and till
(March .25,1986) the deal was
firms represontatives operating recently aircraft manufacturers
signed.
Doubts
had
been
Aerospatiale and Marcel Dasin their capitals.
expressed about the range of
sault. Eureka is owned by Rajiv
the artillery guns: while it had
and Sanjiv Chowdhrie who are
In Ne.w Delhi, arms lobbyists
been claimed the howitzers
nephews of Baljit Kapur, forset" up shop mostly in the late
could fire up to a range of
mer chairman of Hindustan
70s when the defence ministry Aeronautics Ltd.
30 km, it has reportedly been
began looking away from Mos- .
found not to exceed .21 km durcow to equip its growing
ing the OperatioI1 Brasstacks
The lobbyists really get into
arsenal. 'With New Delhi setting
exercise. If this be true, the
the act during what could be
its sights on arms manufacappraisal and testing reports
called the second stage of the
turers of France,
Britain,
were obviously far from acarms purchase process. InitialSweden and other ' Western
curate.
According
to
the
ly, when a decision is taken at
countries, agents and liaison
Swedish radio, two payoffs,
South Block regarding the
officers were soon mushroomacquisition of a' particular each of 8.4 million Swedish
ing in the capital. And there
weapon, the three service kroners (Rs.168 lakhs) and a
certainly was business at hand
third of 1.2.9 Swedish kroners
chiefs' offices are flooded with
with India's defence budget in
glossy advertisement booklets ' (Rs .258 lakhs) were deposited
the Seventh Five Year Plan
from the armament companies. into accounts in the Suisse
doubling over the Sixth Plan
Advertisement pamphlets also Banking Corporation on Novallocation,
to
more
than
reach the desks of senior ember 13 last year. Nine days
Rs 60,000 crores.
bureaucrats in the defence later, a further 2.5 million
ministry. Soon, technical ap- kroners (Rs 50 lakhs) were paid
Another Bofors
praisal teams comprising se['- into the Swiss bank account.
vice
and defence ministry This, of course is only a fracAgent - Wining
officers,
set out on tours abroad tiun of the total Rs 15 crore
and Dining
to inspect the armaments payoff.
The government opted for
The first targets of the arms advertised, tours on which they
supe['-salesmen are retiring are suitably wined and dined the Bofors 155mm howitzers
from an initial choice of 1.2
military officers. As on,e def- by the manufacturing firms.
field guns. Four of them were
ence ministry official puts it:
In the next or second stage, shortlisted in the penultimate
"Who can lobby better 'with
generals and admirals than the technical appraisal reports stage: apart from the Bofors'
these just retired seniors." are studied by the ministry's howitzers, there were the FhSometimes of course, retired R&D section, after which the 70, manufactured jointly by Brisenior military officers them- weapons are field tested. It is tain, Italy and West Germany;
Prasad
.Hindu Religious
Leader Urges
Dialogue With
Extremists
A different viewpoint was
expressed by Mahant Avedyanath, the President of the
Ram lanambhoomi Mukti Yagna
Samiti, who recently visited the
Golden Temple in Amritsar in a
padyatra with a number of
religious heads, He said pointblank
"The . ,government
would ultimately have to talk
All Terrorism
Condemned
"We are opposed to the killing of innocent people in Punjab by both the terrorists and
the police. We oppose both
terrorism and the methods
used by the government to curb
Continued on page 15 col 1
:The
I_n_t_e_rn
__
at_i_o_n_al_R
__
O_U_n_d_-U_P_______________~~~~--_____________________________
Arms Talks:
Shultz Success at
Moscow
The disclosures .came slowly, in bits and pieces. By the
end of last week, however, it
was apparent that U.S. secretary of state, George Shultz's
visit to Moscow earlier this
mbnth, during which he had
lengthy talks with his Soviet
counterpart Eduard Shevardndze and general secretary
Mikhail Gorbachev, had gone a
long way in advancing the
superpower's Duclear disarmament talks. Said President
Reagan OJl' Thursday (April 16)
after being appraised by Shultz
of his discussions with the
Soviet leaders: "I remain
optimistic of an agreement (on
eliminating intermediate range
missiles from Europe) this
year."
Later in the week it was
announced that at Shultz's talks
in Moscow, a new idea to solve
the verification tangle was put
forward by the Soviet ~ide
which the secretary of state
approved in principle. The idea
concerned
testing
nuclear
devices. The Soviet Union proposed that the U.S. conduct a
test on a Soviet site and the
Soviets at an American site.
This would allow both sides to
calibrate their seismic monitoring system and thereby tally
theit verification procedures.
Verification obviously is central
to any arms control agreement
and no pact can ever be signed
unless both sides can ensure
that the other is not violating
the terms.
Narrowing
Differences
The Moscow talks also
"helped narrow the differences between the superpowers
on the elimi.nation of intermediate range missiles (lNF).
These nuclear weapons, with
ranges of around 3,000 miles,
are targeted mainJy at European cities and military installations and the superpowers hope to reach an agreement on their dism'antling
within a year or two as a first
step towards arms control.
West European governments
are however insisting on linking the proposed INF deal with
the elimination of short range
missiles, a class of weapons
over which the Soviet Union
enjoys
an
overwhelming
superiority. Earlier this month,
in Prague, Gorbachev agree.d to
negotiate the removal of the
short range w eapons though
this would not be part of the
INF deal.
Judging by the lengths the
superpowers 'are going,to reach
an agreement on IIrms control,
it is evident that both Mo/?Cow
and Washington are keen on
concluding a t least the INF deal
before the Reagan presidency
ends in 1988. Still smarting
from the Iran arms scandal, the
U. S.
president
desperately
wants such a deal to crown his
eight years at tHe White House
20,000 EVICTED
INCALCUnA
Calcutta, April 8: Nearly 20,000
squatters 'on the banks of the
Palmer Bazar canal were evicted on the morning of April 8
and thei~ shanties bulldozed
in one of the city's major eviction drives. A team of about
1,200 corporation staff accompanied by armed policemen
asked the residents to vacate
their hutments and launched a
massive -eviction drive.
The evictions are being
executed to facilitate the dredging of the stagnated canal
which forms the backbone of
the city's drainage system: The
desilting operation will reduce
waterlogging in the city during
monsoon, a corporation official
said.
.
The slumdwellers did not
protest the sudden eviction
and, excepting an occasional
brickbatting on the policemen
on guard, the operation was
peaceful till noon.
At 6.30 am groups of corporation employees and armed
policemen gathered near the
backyard of the Entally slaughter house on S. C. Dey Road in
east Calcutta and asked the
poor dwellers to vacate their
hutments. The bulldozing started on the west bank of the
canal and people on the eastern side of the shallow canal
were given four hours to clear
out. Eviction on the east side
was expected to commence in
the afternoon.
Said Mehrun Bibi, a 60-year
old housewife living in the
area: "We have been hearing
about the eviction for years.
Just before the elections the
CPI(MJ candidate from Beliaghata had assured us that the
plan has been deferred. But
today, just two weeks after the
elections, we were taken by.
surprise. Groups of armed
policemen prevented us from
retrieving our belongings from
the huts as the huge machines
razed them to the ground." She
began weeping as she narrated
Qer plight, and added: "We
have been staying in this
locality for the last 23 years,
and the government has made
no alternative arrangements for
us. Some of my trunks and
utensils are dumped on the
No
Protest,
No
Consolation
'\
'Evidence for
Apprehensions
The danger of a carnage is
not only an apprehension but
very
real.
This
becomes
obvious from the speeches of a
number of Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh leaders at a series
of meetings in the districts of
Lucknow. Unnao. Barabanki.
Hardwar. Faizabad. Lakhimpur. Gonda. Balrampur. Sultanpur. Rai Bareilly. Pratapgarh
and others - all within a 150
km range of Ayodhya. The
speeches have proclaimed that
those who are not faithful to
the teachings of Lord Ram are
neither'patriots nor Indians.
Denial of Civil
Rights
Alleging the total denial of
civil rights in Uttar Pradesh Dr
Haleem said:. "Since the return
of Mrs Gandhi to power. section 144 has been a permanent
feature in Lucknow and other
important places in . the state.
which has been converted into
a police state. The stale and
central governments ate denying
the
minorities
their
minimum religious and civil
liberties - the tax ::10 fo.reign
travel exchange. which would
NEWSHOUND
Growing Muslim
Insecurity
Analysing the causes for. the
development of dangerous
dimensions around the issue of
Babri Masjid. Mr Hasan siad
that consciously or unconsciously, Arun Nehru (who was
then Union Minister of State of
Horne) committed a Himalayan
blunder by manipulating the
opening of the locks of the
.m andir by a court order.
Muslims do not mind giving up
their' claims to one or the other
mosque, but tensions have
been so highlighted around
Babri Masjid, that giving it up
will only result in generating a
sense of insecurity among
them.
Mr Hasan added: "The
leaders of the Vishwa Hindu
Parishad have vitiated the
social climate in UP villages
through malicious propaganda
to a dangerous extent. For the
last three years Muslims, having faced ' the ordeal of being
dubbed as traitors, are living
under the threat of total
annihilation
in
Ayodhya.
Moreover, wherever communal
riots have taken place, be it
Moradabad, A1igarh, or elsewhere, they have suffered and
fought the police and the P.A.C.
Even at the present time something fishy is.being worked up.
A local resident of Ayodhya,
Mohd Abdul Hamid revealed
. that there are about 200 Muslim
families who live in Ayodhya.
Threats to their life and property are growing every day.
The Hindus are nursiI).g ideas
Ayodhya's Hindu
/ Ethos
Enquiries from adminlstraJ
tive sources revealed that in a
ten kilometre area of AyodhyaFaizabad there are about, 4 ,500
temples and plac'1s of Itndu
worship. Moreove~ out .of
Ayodhya's 750,000 inhabi~nts,
there are about 5 ,500 sadhus
and pandas, most of them 'with
unverifiable antecedents.
That the local law and drder
situation is far from satisfactory
is evident from a report in a
Hindi daily, Naye Log, published from Faizabad on March
3. The paper notes that. the
terror of goondas, anti-soCial
elements and criminals in
Ayodhya is growing out of
bounds. The use of country
made ' pistols,
thefts and
wayside robberies are becoming a routine affair. The local
police does get active after the
crime, but such cases are ~oon
. filed as untraced. '''The unpredictability of the
pre. dominatly
Hindu
religious
population's behaviour in any
outburst of tension can only be
highlighted by a seemhigly
unrelated fact. During the last
decade, the local , post offices
have become richer by about 13
crores
of
rupees.
Tltese
deposits have come from the
dormant and dead savings
bank accounts of untraced
sadhus of whom there is no
record: where they came from
and where they went.
Keeping in view that a number of bloody battles have been
fought 'between Hindus and
Muslims before and after
Independence, it is unfortunate
that the local population, both
in Faizabad and Ayodhya,
seems to be resigne'd to ' the
inevitable. As one citizen put it:
"Even in 1853 some ' 300
muslims were killed and 30
persons died in 1947; even now
some may die, but so what?
Who is' interested in defusing
the situation?"
Opening of
the Lock
How was the lock of Ram
Janambhoomi opened? The
same book says: "The Vishwa
Hindu Parishad had threatened
to force open the lock on the
Ramnawa!Di day in 1986. The
state administration got active
and
a
local
advocate
Umeshchandra Pandey went to
the district and sessiops court
with the plea to open the lock
and allow him, as
Hindu.
freedom of worship; on wl}ich
plea the said court ordered to
open the lock." Siginificant is
the assertion in the book: "Just
as the order was passed, a ~
w.aiting city kotwal BP Singh
opened the lock on February
1986."
By Rap
. __&
fe_c_tl_o_n_S~
l
F&um
_R_e_Vl_e_W_S
__R_e__
____________(3azet~
"I believe that the stereotyped, simplified notions of 'Indian-ness which we carryon the exterior can lack exploration . - this is a 'Iook'which can be conservative and
tyrannical. I'm critical of such strong neo-traditlonalism that
carries with it several loaded implications - for example, is
one 'national' or 'anti-nationa/~ .. ? It is not always possible to
have a shared language. And I cannot be a populist: to be
so would mean my death as an artist Western artists like
Delacroix, Matisse, Gauguin, Picasso, 'went outside' their
own cultures to evolve new idioms. The Indian artist too,
has a right to do so, and must assert this right He can taJse
any location as his startIng point If this is done more
actively, political intervention becomes more possible, a
new respect can be gained in the west II
On I Universality' in art
he political oppositions
of the 'traditional' and
the ' modern' in art .conities of choice among critics
Illes of choice among ClrtlCS
and artists. VYhile some talented and established cri tics like
Arany Banerjee of Calcutta
(who pa~sed away suddenly on
the April 22)
assert
the
vital necessity of a 'traditional'
component in modern Indian
art, others, like the Calcuttabased Punjabi painter Rajen
Bali, are vocal about the need
to break away from such
traditional idioms.
In the words of Arany
Banerjee, who was himself a
painter: "An Indian artist's
works, I am firmly convinced,
should proclaim his Indian
identity. This does not mean
taking resort to that wishywashy stuff that is, for some
reason or other, known as the
New Bengal School. Or shutting
up like a clam and remaining
isolated from the art isti c happenings of the world. Nor does
it make an artist a complete
Indian of today, for the chasm
of history can make a person as
distant as th e gulf of geography.
Jamini Roy was not a clam ...
not only did he make several
copies of French Impressionist
works, he also employed their
styles in his own pictures."
Rajen Bali, on the other
hand, proclaimed in a recent
interview in the capita l : " 1
have always been telling people to break away from tradition, -to dip into yoUI' own
minds for themes, and let your
own voice grow .. . a creative
medium should be universal in
its appeal and not restrict itself
by community, religion and
such like. What is 'Indian-ness'?
Am I not an Indian? What is
Indian art if it d e nies an artist
the freedom to express?" Bali is
of the opinion that "Tagore was
the first modern Indian pain tel'
Vivan's Journeys
Vi lIa II
Sundaram 's
most
recen t
e .\ hibilion ,
e ntitled
'Journeys', for ty ~vorks in soft
pastel on paper that were on at
the Gallery Aurobindo in April,
gropes towards an expression
of the latter idea l. Its content is
mystical, spirit ual, abstractly
elaborating upon an awareness
that " the world is large, and is
one. " In its m ediu m and form
of ex pression, however, one
cannot overlook the influence
of western modern art: as the
artist him se lf co nceds: " Per-
.'
o___________
f&u
m
fl e_c_tl_o_n_S
d R_e__
_R_e_v_ie_w_s__a_n___
(3azet~
Australian academic Robin Jeffrey ha s made a valuable contribution to India watching chronicles with his WHAT'S HAPPENING TO INDIA (The .Macmillan Press Ltd, London, 1986: pp.
249 .. price not listed). Jeffrey taught in a government high
school in Chandigarh in 1967-69, spent time in Kerala doing
research for a book OTT Nayar dominance, and is a Senior Lecturer in politics at La Trobe University, Melbourne. His varied
experience and his confessed fascination with India, par-ticularly Punjab, invests this highly readable, informative book
with an understanding often lacking in drier academic works.
This is not a scholarly
treatise. Nor is it a journalistic
'quickie'. Well researched, it is,
in a sense, contemporary history, in which the human p e rsonalities come alive. The
author has relied heavily on
newspaper ana magazine sources, and this injects a sense of
immediacy into the work. But
the character of the study compels the writer to deal in a
somewhat perfunctory manner
with some aspects of what is
happening to India.
He explains in his preface
th .. t he decided to write the
book in answer to the question
(which he has made the title),
which was repeatedly being
asked in November 1984 after
Mrs Gandhi's assassination. He
gives his answer through an
analysis of events in Punjab
over the past two decades, an
analysis he extrapolates to
cover events in the rest of the
country. For in spite of factors
unique to Punjab, the author's
view is that in essen'ee developments "in other states are dictated by similar forces and
pressures. These he traces to
the impact of certain components of modernisation increased government activity,
expansion of communications
in every area, both in transport
and media, spread of ideas of
competition - on the older
cultures.
The Revolution in
Communications
Resentment Against
Centre
Jeffrey
touches on
th e
sensed injustice in Punjab and
m entions t hat for politicians
Punjab sends on ly 13 members
to Parliament, while Uttar
Pradesh sends 85 . So party
majorities cannot b e based on
Punjab's strength, a p la in fact
which controls the distribution
of natio na l resources. In 'centra l planning too Punjab gets
the thin' edge of the wedge,
being a border state, and in
both cases the Government,
which, as the author points out
earlier, js playing . an increasingly active part in people's
lives; one of the components of
modernisation , becomes the
focus of resentment. Jeffrey
touches on ot h er im portant fa ctors - the legacy of Ranjit
Singh's Si kh kingdom, and the
glo.-ies of th e past, the trauma
of Pal'tition in which Sikhs
were esse ntially the greatest
sufferers, the importance of
river water etc ..
In his profile of the S!khs,
Jeffrey stresses the tradition of
sacrifice, th e organisation of
th e misls, the mobility derived
from military service which
cont ributed immensely to the
exposure of the community to
new ideas fmm foreign experiences
all of which
influence con temporary developments. Tracing the growth
of th e Akali "Oal and SGPC he
comments on the relative lack
of political
foresight
and
sophistication of the Sikh
leadership before Partition and
after, and highlights the tradition, particularly true of the
Factional Politics
His account of the factional
nature of Punjab politics makes
absorbing reading, particularly
when he traces Bhindranwafe's
rise and the SGPC elections. He
sees a parallel between Bhindranwale and N.T.H. , both in
their separate ways, invoking
the glories of the past. Equally
Continued on page 15, co/3
:The
_____________________________Gf~~--------------------v-i-ewp---O-in-tn,e
Forum
Gazette
Minority Rights
Civil Liberties
Equality for Women
Democratic Values
Environmental Protection
Hypocracy Unlimited
Let us put an " nd to this hvpocracy and s top talking about assuaging Sikh feelings. about the" h ea ling touch." These have become
cliches, d eva lu ed, ))ow calcu lated to provoke Sikh ange r, rather than
instill confidence. The ruling p arty's noisy int erruptions in the Rajya
Sabha to Akali M. P. General J.S. Aurora's reference to the Misl'a Commission report and th e Congressmen w h o m even Justi ce Misra. fe lt
com pe lle d to imlict for the ir rule in the i\:ove mber 1~184 carnage, b e tra vs th e real s(~ntinwnts of th e c() untr~! s ruling part y. Inst ea d ot th e
fu 'lI disc u ss ion iJn th e H(~po rt which all thos(~ int eres t( ~ d in seeing justice don e, irres peCtive of party or community, had hoped for and
expected in this Parliame ntary session, eve n comme nt on, and
quot a tions from th e Report itse lf were objected to.
One of th e Nov(~ mhp.r 1 ~184 widows re'm<;lrk nd aft e l' th e Repol't was
re leas(~ d " E\'I~ n ifon p. p (!rso n is Jlll nished Olll ' h ea rt s \vould he more at
peace. " If tlw go\'(~rnment is seriolls, is sincere, ahout applying balm
to Sikh wounds. all it ha s to do is to bring th e guilty to hook, to perform
its simple duty under law. But the govel'nment is not serious, not sincere and it appears that Congressmen are beyond th e law, even
when murder is involved. The Prime Minister was prese nt in the
Upper House during Genel'a) Aurora's speech . He sat in silence whil~
his fellow party members created an uproar, his silence a tacit
approval.
The excuse for not having a full discussion on the Misra report during this Parliament session appears to be that " more important matters" -President-Prime Minister controverse\', Fairfax, Bofors - took
up Parliament's lime. But is th e re anything"more import3lnt in.'he
larger perspective than justice for an estranged, alienated part ot the
population? Parliament sessions have been prolonged for much less.
Whv not for this discussion')
Anotheropen wound for' the Sikhs is the continued detention of the
Jodhpur prioners.'Before Baisakhi. April 14, there was much talk of
their release as a gesture to th e Sikh comMiunity of the Centre's
bonafides. The d e tenus "'(.jll complete three long years of imprisonment nex t month. Even though the government has admitted that
many of them are co mpletely innocent. pilgrims tl'apped in the
Golden Temple complex by the army operations. But Baisakhf has
come and gone. The d e te nus are s till in jail. Screening of -innocents
continues, ' we are told, hence the delay. But the truth is that the
detenus, innocent or othenvis~have become a convenient human
bargaining fa ctor in a " pa'tkage aeaL" which the Centre knows well
the Barnala government, handica ppe d by its total loss of credibility
in Punjab, cannot accept. The fate of these men and women, the
impact of their continued incarceration on the Sikh community,
are irrelevant.
Sceptics - they make up th e vast 1l1a jority of pe rsons - had predcted all a long that nothing would happe n befOf'e th e Haryana e lections. And nothing has. Now th e important qu es tion is : \-vill anything
happen after the Harya na poll on June 17? We doubt it. The detenus
are in for a long innings. The Sikh wounds will continue to fester.
Unless by some miracle - and in this country of godmen and godwomen, miracles cannot be ruled out - New, Delhi gets itself a Punjab policv aiIned a t solution of th e Punjab prdblem. Pres"ently such a
policy do es not exist. Instead there has been, for the past six years at
least, an ad hoc strategy di ctated purely by Congress (II electoral considerations and drawn up by mep who have no understanding of the
factors which have created the crisis. In this srratet,'Y Haryana's poll is
the decisive factor to-day. Tomorrow it will be something else.
Meanwhile the Punjab crisis is fast b ecoming chronic. The tl'Ouble
with chronic crisis, as with chronic illness, is thai evervone, in man\'
cases the patient included, tends to tak e the condition for granted.
Boredom sets ir~ . So.metim es the primal')' cause is forgolte~. All sense
of urgency is lost. Everyone learns to live with the crisis, or illness. So
we have a situation today where politicians of all parties, the Akalis
included, are no longer concerned with resolving the crisis on a
prlOl'i ty basis. They are only concel'l1ed with the ir own interests
and sutviva I.
So Punjab's Finance Ministel: c reats an impos'sible situation for his
government by asking for the d e parture (jr. the D,G. of Police, who
according tomany reports has achieved a degree of success in combatting terrorism to the satisfaction of the people of the state. The
Centre, which is suppol,ting thp...D. G. , does' not counsel him to avoid
giving press inte rvi ews in which-' he makes highly controversial
statements s uc h as the n eed for a poli ce official in his position to be
given the powers of an army commander. The Centre continues to
treat Punjab's Chief Minister like a vassal. telling him what he should
and should not do. No other Chief Minister, even ofCongress( IJ ruled
states, IS given his "Of'ders", headlined in the media, in such a
manner.
And MI'. Bal'l1ala accepts the situation, with only a mild protest
now and again, such as attending the meet of Opposition Chief Ministel'S, and is reported as "commuting" between Delhi and Chandigarh
in order to survive. His opponents in the other AkCfIi faction continue
to play their political games, at times supporting the extremist youth
groups, at other times remaining silent. And Professor Darshan
S1ngh Ragi blows hot and cold about the terrorists and others, speakingthe lanugtiage of reason' to individuals who are still hoping to find
. the road to peace with honour in Punjab, and speaking tbe language
of extremism while addressing people's conclaves, supposedly
meant only for religious preaching. untroubled by J)is ambiguity.
'11' the drift is not to e nd in disaster, and the chronic illness in the
final solution, people's pressure must be mobilized to force 'a n end to
these political games and demand that public interest be made the
priority. The tragedy of the much vaunted Indian democracy is that
such people's pressures I'e main dormant. Delhi Sikhs, with the support of all those men , women and children who seek justice, could
give the lead by organising a massive protest march against the Misra
Commission Report through the capital concluding ih a pul~lic meetingto demand justice, not forthe \'ictimsofNovember 1984 alone, but
for victim's of injustice anywhere and everywhere in the country.
ca l identity of a community
wou ld not only be a negation of
the entire history of religious
' COmmUl1ltles
in . India but
would . also retard its gl'Owth,
To seek unity of;,p community
on the .basis of cQ,qlplete politica l agl'eement would. imply a
19S5 of political fre e dom fOl' its
individual
111embers.
Such
' unity can be maintained only
Common Franchise by regimenta tior' and arousing
As the; franchise of gur- ' , the passions of th e community
to a hysterical pitch vvhich candwaras and legislatures is the
not be in its inte rest.
same and as th e former have
T he hllkamnama of the Akal
greater m~bilisationaJ capacity
than political institutions, an Takht has b ee n critiCised for its
inevitable
overlapping ' of attempt to subordinate politics
to re li gion . But it can be view~d
religion and politics has taken
1'l'Om another iingle as an
place in the case of th e Sikhs,
UncleI' th ese cil'l;umstances, attempt to ac hieve panthic
no seculal; system ca n be built . unit~~ on the basis of political
unit\', In this sense it amounts
in India by dismissing altoto th e subordination of religion
gether the reality of communal
identities and their claims to to politic!!. It is not ' m e r~ly a
eco nomic and political in- qu es tion of whether l'eligioll. or
politics should domiliate over
fluence and powe r.
th e other but more importantly
The rea l qu estion, is whal is
whether unity of a religious
the legitimate field fOl' th ese
ide ntities and the degree of commullitv ciln be maintaine d
their autonom\'. For an answer hy a co mmon political party.
Ihe western e .xpe ri e nce may The ve ry fact t!1at th e hukamnot be e ntire ly I'e leva nt. FOI~ .nama does not apply to th(~
Sikh m e mbe rs of. say, th e Conunlike India. most. th e western
gress
pal'ty, Janata party, Comcountries are inhabited bv a
munist
party
and
othei's,
single re li gious communit\'.
implies
admission
of
its
limitaMoreover, Christian political
tion . It is clearly not possible to
parties e xist in Illany of them
bring all th e m e mbers of the
eve n nov" and almos-! all of
community on a single political
the m have a history of dominaplatform . Further, the fact that
tion of th e church over th e
a' large num.ber of Sikh, within
State.
and outside Punjab, have not
India's o\-\' n past experience
responded to th e call of Prof.
is perhaps more I;e levant .and
Darshan
Singh Ragi to join the
he lpful. For unlik e th e West,
united Akali Dal and to bov.cott
India does not ha\'e a historv of
th e ruling Akali Dal leaders,
a theocratic state . As far as Hinindicates that th e h Ilk am na ma
dus are concerned, th ere is no
has not achieved the desired
treatise of politics that is regarobjective of Panthic unit\'.
ded by them as an infallible
If all politica l pal'ties were to
scripture, In fact th e tradition
be organise d exclusively on a
of raja and rishi repre sents a
religious basis and all Vbters
clear distinction between a
followed
their
respective
spiritual and a temporal I'Ol e,
religious parties, the system of
though both share an equal
election would become redun. status.
In the case of 800 ' yeal's oJ dant and the political balance
Muslim. rule in India, there was . would be frozen in proportion
always a clear supremacy of to the respective numerical
strength of variolls parties. This
th e secular authority. The king
lead
to
exclusive
and not the ulema was 'vl/ould
domination by a permanent
supreme.
_majority over ' permanent minLesso'n of Sikh
orities alld to total exclusion of
the latter from political power.
. History
Thus a complete merger of
Sikh history has almost a
instiiutionalised religion and
sirililar lesson. The fact that
institutionalised politics into it
spiritual and temporal affairs
mOJ1olithic forum wOllldcreate
were conceptualised in Sikh
as anamololls a situation as
.tradition by two terms of peeri
their complete se paration. In
and mceri. symbolised by two
pl;actice, memhers of every
swords and .the two separate
community
need
to
seek
forums of Harminder Sahib and
association with members of
Akal Tak ht. c learly implied a
other communities to pl'Omote
duality. The tVI/O concepts were
th e il' class, professional and
closely
related
but
were
cultural
interests
th l'Ough
separate. After the g uru s, the
organbations
of
peasants,
leadership and institutions of w.orkers, occupational groups,
spil'itual and temporal act ietc. So far no religious leader
vi ties
became
more
dishas objected to the autonomy
linctively autonomous. The
of these
institutions from
Akal Takht at no stage assumed , religion. \;\I hy should not th e
a political role nor any Sikh
same apply to politics also in
ruler a religious rol e. The tw o
the interest of intellectual
roles were neither completelv freedom of th e members of th e
separated
1101'
com pt!l(!!P 1\' cllml11unit ~ and , as pointed out
merged .
ahove, of its own unity'! These
Any ' attempt 10 projm:t a
areas of activity canno t he put
monolithic ndigilllls and politi- Continued on page 10, col 5
. :The
_o~p_e_n_F_o_r_u_m______________________ G~~~_______________________________
;t....
Non-Action by State
Governments
Und e l' th e Rajiv-Longowal
acco l'Cl. th e Aka li Dal had
agme d to limit e nqui ries into
th e comm un a l ca l'llage Lo
Bokaro, Kan pur a nd De lhi. T hi s
\\' as a li agree ment be tween th e
Akali Dal and th e Ce ntre. T his
did not. ho weve r, absolve s ta te
govern m e nts from making their
own inquiri es a nd ta kin g ac ti o n
aga in s t th e m isc rea nts , aga in s t
politi c ians who aided and a betted th e m and against e rr in g
officers a t places like De hradu'n , Hald\\'ani. e tc. Sh o p s and
houses were burnt ,md loo ted
be fOl'e th e eyes of th e SDO,
Ha ldwani IBhatnagar). Suc h
officers ha ve mere ly bee n
tralls fe rre d , but no ac ti o n h as
bee n ta ke n against th em.
In th e p as t. Co ng ress e lection cam paign s in Te l'a i w e re
\'irtuall v finan ced by th e Sikh s.
T his was a SOl' t of prot ec ti o n
money g ive n to the r ulin g pa rty T h e Hald vvan i s hopkeepf!rs,
apart fro m g ivi ng m o ney for
the Co ngr ess e lec ti o n fund ,
were fish in th e Co ngress III
pond . This did no t s a ve th e m
from th e Co ngress III anti-Sikh
ve nd e tta after Mrs Ga ndhi 's
assassination .
Rece ntl v a DIG o f th e l iP
police came' out w ith s tatisti cs
about th e I'ecove rv o f arms
.from Sikhs in th e Te rai and
a bput the un earthing o l: o ll e
g un factory produ ci ng 12 bore
p is tols, Wh~/ did h e not m ention compara tive figures of
w e apo ns reco ve re d from distri c ts like Morena , Mora dabad ,
Jhansi. Meerut and KanpUl,'?
Hard Iy a da y passes w h e n g un
fa c to ri es of th e ty p e d escribe d
by th e DIG a re no t dis cove re d
in th ese dis tri c ts.
Inderjit Singh
Jaijee's Advice
Addressing meetings o f res-
BAJRANG BALI
He is a s turdy Hindu Sa tn am i
Jat from Ha ryana. Ilis real na m e
is Chaudhri Bajrang Si ng h .
Besides being an M.A LL.B. , h e
has innumel'able acade mi c distin c ti ons includin g two go ld
m edals. He is prac tising advocate of th e Sup re m e Court. It is
because of th e exe mplary
co urage h t! s howed in fa c ing
ra mpagin g mobs thirsting for
hum an blood that I prefer to
think of him as Bajrang Bali. th e
warrior
monk ey
of . th e'
Ramayana.
In th e flood of h a te and w ickedn ess that eng ul fed Delhi
following Mrs Gand hi's ll1urde'r,
Ba jrang s tood out aSA beaco n o f
lig ht s h ow in g pe opie th e way
Gandhi had s h ow n in ri o t-Lol'll
Indi a. H e a nd h is fa mil y 1I1f'ew in
a ll th e ir I'eso urce s to fee d ,
c lo th e, a nel ho use Sikh famili es
w hi c h had bee n uprooted fl'om
th e ir hom es. He go t th e m jobs
and acco mmod a ti o n : h e arra nged re mar ria ges of w id ows.
He was a mon gs t th e h a ndful
w h o ig nored th rea ts to his .. life
and \'o lunt eered to g ive evide nce be fore th e Misl' a Co mm iss ion against kn ow n kill ers and
police officers w h o collud ed
with th e m , T h e police ha ve no
love 1'01' him , Two a ttempt s ~' ere
mad e to kiII him. He rema in ed
und a unt e d . A gra tefu l COI11munitv honou re d him as bes t as
it co uid wi th siropas (robes of
ho n o ur); on the las t Rep ubli c
Day th e P.unjab Govern m e nt co n,
fe n'e d o n him th e hi gh es t Stat e
EWSHOUND
WAAT\'t451He MAIN 1HPfAT
10 L-AW ANJ> o.RD';RiJIHJ)A lUf. TtRffORI5T?
Communal Hannony
ByRap
MURDA
H~
POLJCEMA
_A_M
__a_tt_e_r_O~f_p_e_o~p_le__________________~~________________________________
again
By Mukundan C Menon
~========~------------------~----------------------~-----t,.~)
Sport
10
Start From
Grassroots
Now the hockey planners
are involved in talking of tactics
to be adopted at the inteI'national level. I feel, it is a typical case of putting the cart
befOl:e the horse. Why don't we
sit togethe r and plan out
things re-orga nise hockey from
the grass root level and have
better fields and living 'conditions. Tactics should come
only after we have the basic
amenities. What is the point in
making our boys slog in gravel
fields and then expect them to
take on European teams ?
Everything abol,lt our hockey
now is lopsided.
The ne xt major national
meet is the Junior National
Religion, Politics
and The Indian
Ethos
Continued from page 8, co/5
into wateI'-tight compartments.
Nor can they be merged into a
single monolithic entity without emasculating them.
Instead of posing the question in, either/ or terms; a more
fruitful line of approach would
be to debate the appropriate
nature of the relationship between religion and politics in an
institutional and . ideological
sense and to define the spheres
of the ir autonomy. In undertaking ...thiS task, India's own historil!1I experience and current
realities should be ignored.
:The
_T_h_iS~r_o_rt~.n_~~h_t_S'_S_to_ry__________________~~~~~__~______~, ----------------------I ~,
(PART - I)
By Mujtaba Hussain
entlemen, I am Sindbad,
Sindbad the sailor, who
travelled little but wrote
many
travelogues.
Actually
many of these travelogues had .
been written without undertaking any journey whatsoever.
But as luck would have it my
travel books became so popular that my publishers brought
out dozens of editions to
meet
an
ever . increasing
demand for them. But the
beauty of it was that every
new edition was brought out
in
such
a
surreptitious
manner that I was the only
one not to know about it. So
when
I received another
request to write another travelogue for them I was not at
all surprised. Their only inter, est was to get hold of the
manuscript as earl:y as possible so that they could bring
out its golden jubilee edition
and load their wives with all
the golden jewellery in the
world while I remained poor
and uncared for.
So, I told my publishers
that the possibility of undertaking such a venture was
remote. To. begin with, I had
become so old and feeble that
seeing me holding my walking
stick it was difficult to tell
whether it was the s.tick
which was supporting me, or
if it was the other wav round.
The second thing that I told
them was that I had lost the
knack of travelling without a
ticket; and to travel with a
proper ticket would not only
hurt my self respect but also
\- nit my reputation as a self\ tufficient Fakeer. So, what I
.' suggested to them was to
allow me to use myoid technique and write yet another
travelogue without doing the
travelling. But this time they
argued that I had already
written
enough
imaginery
travel books, so, it was high
time that I produced a travelogue by experiencing a real
journey.' .
Having committed myself to
do as my publishers wished, I
started thinking about the
possibility of going to an
interesting country. I was still
raking my brain when report
after report of communal riots
in India started pouring in. It
was stated that communal
riots in India had become the
order of the day. The seeds of
such riots, it was reported,
were sown every year, and
every year crop after crop of
human heads was harvested.
Having read such fantastic
descriptions about the Indian
riots I developed an overpowering desire to see them for
myself and give my sinful eyes
the satisfaction and the intoxicating joy' of enjoying a rare
spectacle.
Ultimately, when I shared
my desire with some of my
unemployed friends, one of
them suggested lhat if my
sale aim was just to see the
riots, I should go to America
where
racial
riots
were
u.ncommonly
common.
Another one inte,,,ened and
..... ...
.'..,
....
..
'
11
:the
_H_e_r_it_a~g_e_&__H_is_t_o~ry~________________~~~________________________________
The Founding of
"Anandpur
He founded the town of
Anandpur, when his envious
cousins and nephews troubled
him so much in Kiratpur that
he was forced to retire"into the
wilderness. He bought a hillock
near the village of Makhowal,
five miles north of Kiratpur,
and built a village for himself.
Here he hoped to find peace
and solitude, and he named it
"Anandpur" , the haven of bliss.
But even there his quarrelsome
kinsmliln would not leave him
in peace and he decided to
leave Punjab un"til the atmos phere changed.
12
20April-4 May1987
Aurangzeb and
Punjab
.~ ~t t
Anti-Tobacco
Campaign
For their campaign against
the sale and consumption of
tobacco, the Sikh fundamentalists do have scriptural sane
tion. They also do enjoy' a great
measure of support amongst
the Sikh masses. But the use of
force to stop the sale and consumption of tobacco cannot be
justified by reference to basic
Sikh tenets. A majority of Sikhs,
especially,
the enlightened
section, therefore, favours that
like the sale and consumption
of beef, the sale and consumption of tobacco too should be
done in private so as not to
hurt the religious susceptibilities of the Sikhs.
Mai Bhago
Regiment .
On Baisakhi, which fell on
April 14 this year, the Mai
Bhago Regiment, the women's
wing of the Sikh extremists,
threatened "to open another
front against the use of cosmetics, "bindi" and sarees from
May 1. It was not, ,however,
made clear whether the campaigners' directive was addressed to Sikh women only or to
all Punjabi women. This move
cannot but antagonise women,
whether educated or not, as it
did in neighbouring Pakis
tan when general Zia tried to
impose "austere Muslim dress"
and "Purdah."
Indidentally, this move is an
extension of what the extremists during the lifetime of the
militant Sant, Jarnail Singh
Bhindranwale had been exhorting the Sikh youth and
intellgentsia to do. During one
of my sojourns in Amritsar du!'ing that period, Bhai Amrik
Singh, who was the Sant's official spokesman, told me that
recitation of "Bani" (Sikh scriptures) and wearing of "Bana"
(the traditional Sikh attire) are a
MUST for a devout Sikh.
When I pointed out to him
that the Sikh Gurus, especially
from the fifth to the tenth, did
not wear the traditional Punjabi dress of long "Kurta" and
"Tehmad" but the dress made
popular by the Mughal emperors, he murderously looked
at me and said: "You intellectuals can find some historical
justification for all your lapses
from the Guru's Grace."
A 'Double Life'
During my recent tou r of
England, Canada and USA,
I was surprised to find a large man and woman's basic quest plain and simple human
number of Sikh youth wearing to be archit ects of th eir own beings. There was nothing left
"Bana" when off duty. But destiny has invariably m ade to hate between us. All that
before going to work, they them tear to shreds the strait- divided us had been deswould change into western jacke t of religious or ideologi- troyed. Poverty brought us
clothes. They could offer no cal fundamentalism. Th e end together and gave us a new
convincing argument for lead- of the Presbyterian Cromwell's bond. Now we live under tlus
ing a "double life", Their rule in England in the 17th cen- bridge as good neighbours
sheepish reply was: "This is tury is a case in point. We have because the walls that divided
necessary for the furtherance only recently witnessed the us are no more! We have
of the 'cause' in a hostile socio- failure of the "Cultural Revolu- become good friends because
political milieu". Some of them tion" in contemporary China. A the very notion of being rugh
also referred to an incident in similar march towards com- or low, wruch made us hate
Guru Gobind Singh's life when parative individual fr eedom, each other, has been dishe disguised himself as "Uch which ' started with de-Stalin- . carded. Sindbad, never talk of
da Peer" to give a slip to his isation in the Sovie t Union in riots in our pJ;esence. We are
Mughal pursuers and carry on the late sixties, has gathered so happy in our poverty. It has
his struggle against the bigoted much momentum that its pre- enabled us to understand and
sent rulel', Mikhail Gorbachev, know each other better. "
and tyrannical Mughal rulers.
I had hardly recovered from
Some others said that has been forced to initiate
what
they- told me when the
democratic
reforms,
though
wherev'e r they "w ent wearing
"Bana", hundreds of curious admittedly limited, in the coun- chief Dervish came forward
and said sternly, "Sindbad,
passersby accosted them and try' s political structure.
staying with us no
It is therefore, only a ques- your
enquired about their dress.
longer
seems desirable. I fear
time
when
Sikh
funtion
of
That gave them an opportunity
to enlighten them about the damentalism will boomerang. the time has come that we
Sikh religion and their current Until then the country, especia- may be unable to control our"struggle against injustices lly Punjab, will have to pass selves and start a riot against
being perpetuated against their through a traumatic experien you . Now, your safety lies in
leaving trus place forthwith
co-religionists in India, es- ceo
and
vacating
this
bridge
pecially Punjab". They reimmediately. Otherwise, you
mained unconvinced \'Yhen I
Vlvan SUndaram's
won't find anyone worse than
bluntly told them that "you
the. four of us."
were. only making yourselves a
"Joumey'
Sensing a threat to my life I
laughing stock Moreover, it is
was so frightened that immewell to remember that ~lJriosity
Continued from page 6, eol5
diately picked up my things
does not take much time to
the
strong
palette
and
fled. After covering a long
violence,
to
wear out. Live in Rome as the
of
Fauvistic
primary
colours,
distance
on foot I happened
Romans do is a hoary, sound
with a repeated use of rich to reach a city wruch presadvice".
blues and reds heightening the ented the veiy picture of desThe assertion that wearing
ambience of fantasy to a near t:'Uction and devastation. Peoof "Bana" makes the Sikh funpsychedelic level.
pIe there seemed terribly
damentalists either better huIn fact, the influe nce of the frightened and depressed. At
man beings or super humans is
pop art of the 60 s on the artist last I got hold of a man and
also specious. There are scores
at a formati ve period when he asked rum, "How come your
of reports fro"m Batala, Ludhwas at London's Slade School city has assumed such a
iana and Jalandhar that these
on a Commonwealth schola- pathetic look?" With difficulty
"Banadhari" extremists have
rship between 1966 and 1968, is the man replied, "A riot shook
started extorting money from
clearly evident in these works. trus city to its very foundaSikh industrialists on the plea
The symbolic journeys draw tions only two days back."
that they are "making sacrifices
the viewer into theiT depths,
Hearing rum mention a riot
to ensure them complete proand the majority of the works I jumped for joy and appealed
tection against their more
has a certain haunting quality, to the man to take me immeadvanced and crafty Hindu
but there is also a problematic diately to the 'riot'. Disclosing
counterparts in the proposed
repetitiveness in the collection, to him that I had travelled
Khalistan". These extortions
which both intrigues and dis- thousands of nliles just to see
have, once again, aroused th e
appoints: intrigues, in its subtle a riot, I requested him not to
dormant hostility between Jat
re-emphasis on unity, -a strand waste any more time and
and non-Jat Sikhs for one simof oneness; disappoints, in its show me one.
ple reason: while most of the
fa i:I ure to explore form to
The man gaped at me in
'extremists belong to the Jat
further depths. It seems, wonder and said, "You are a
caste, the latter are mostly rathe r, as if Sundaram has strange man! A . riot is not a
Ramgarhias,
Khatris
and
painstakingly created several thing that one goes to see. A
. Aroras.
minor variations on a single . not comes like wind and
lofty theme or symbol; \hese " passes away like a tornad."
Fundamentalists
remain variations, in the mllure
I asked rum, "When are you
Div i sive Impact
of charming fi ve-finger exe!'- likely to have another riot in
In . sum, if in their. zeal to cises, rather than scathingly this city?"
His reply was: "Well, for the
impose their obscurantist ideas new creations.
The works that cling most to time being the riot has
on their co-religionists, the Sikh
fundame 'ltalists are re-kindling the memory are those with ploughed this City like a field.
hostility among educated Sikh intricate detailing, reminiscent For as long as trus city does
wome n and the Sikh inte lli- of colonial engravings, which not flou rish again and those
gentsia, by the ir ex tortions th ey recall the fine delicacy of pre- living in the city do no t
are alienating the non-Jat vious works of genius like 'The regain their former prosperity,
She!'-Gil Family' (1984) and there is absolutely no chance
~ ikhs. Instead of unitin g the
Sikhs under "N ishan Sahib" 'Ten-foot Beam' 11985) --- as in of a fresh riot in this city .
(th e Sikh bannerl they a re tend- the muted, classical dyptich, Consequently, if you are looking to divid e the Khalsa frat er- 'Colonial Landing: Where Rail- ing for a riot you should go
nity w hich had come toge ther road Meets Sea' and the Whis- to a city w ruch is prosperous
as never before, after their tlerian, erased work, 'De luge'. and pulsating with life. Right
traumatic experience of Ope ra- A succession of smaller works now the riot has sqeezed out
tion Blue St ar. Meanwhile, Pun- which have a distinctly Cubist life from trus city like YOll
jab's economy, w hich has bee n quality, from 'Boat Journey of squeeze ' out juice from a
in the doldrums for the last fi ve Mack the Knife' to 'Art Cargo lemon. Here the crop of
years, is oe ing dumped into an Across Foaming Seas', seem human s heads had been harv.ested and those who speciaabyss and the Akali govern- derived in comparison.
But there can be no doubting lised in the art of perpetrating
ment s unenviable position is
the quality of idealism in Vivan riots have also left and gone
becoming pitiable.
But all is not lost. Histo ry ' is Sundaram's works, and his to the cities which are still
witness to severa l such tra n- articulation on a variety of sub- flourisrung."
compelling
and
I was terribly disappointed.
is
sitory successes of the 'bigots in jects
So, as advised I headed
the past. But sooner or lateI'- thought-provoking: _
13
F"&rum
________________________Gazet~,-----------------------,The Press
Falls in Line
,
By
NEWSHOUND
N~V~R \}OT~!
Reference to Press
Council
Biased Reporting
On Sikhs
.. You
NEWsrAP6R$
FOP.
ADlJ1-TS OMl..Y.'
I'Ve A
~TORY
N~WS
Bl1T I HAVE:: A PROBLeM
WI'TI-I 1H& TITl..~ ,
FAN!4Srf c
1--1" -
WHAT.9
, t,
YDLJR
PRDB~};M ?
1H1f.vt:S?
Announcement
The Ekta Trust has decided to terminate the services of the managing editor and editor of the
Forum Gazette with effect from the issue dated
May 5,1987.
A new team will be taking over the editorial and
business operations of t,h e paper.
.
.
- Managmg Edl tor
14
20 April
~ 4 May 1987
WHO vAll>
'ANY11HNG
ABOUT. /TRLlSf.. ?
~e5~&IL.IZSD
HAND'
fYiJI'IJI
IT"
IT !lAs TO B~ FOR~IGN
~t
:The
Hostility To Local
Sikhs
In spite of the growing support for a political dialogue
with the extremists to solve
the Punjab problem, the distrust against the local Sikh
population continues unabate(l both in U.P. and Bihar. In
Bihar the word "Sikh" includes everybody coming from
Punjab, irrespective of religion. This distrust is very
obvious in the various forms
of taunts h~rled at Punjabis,
and is more hurtful than
physical attacks. Referring to
this a Patna businessman. Mr
Joginder Singh. told the
Gazette: "Though there is no
danger to life, it hurts our selfrespect and disturbs our mental state. The local population
does not differentiate between
Sikhs and other Punjabis.. this
was evident from the burning
of Punjab Electricals, as an
aftermath to the bus [Muktsar]
killings. No one was bothered
that this shop belonged to a
Hindu from Punjab."
Such attitudes among the
local population undoubtedly
are causing a sense of uneasiness which has led to the
exodus of almost 50 per cent of
Sikh business units from Patna
and Muzzafarpur. Even at
Chhapra where about thirty
shops were burned during the
November 1984 events, the
prime accused, Udit Raj, a
Yadav gangster, parades freely
as a Congress(1) leader. He is
emboldened by the. fact that
during these events the district administration bluntly
announced that it was only
concerned with saving . lives,
and had no resources with
which to protect properity.
SRILANKA
Continued from page 16 colS
Sikh
Community's
Attitudes
Lanka.
An Australian's India
Continued from page 7, col 5
Punjab. His "account of the tion can only deepen the proseries of aborted talks between "blems created by modernisathe Akalis and Mrs Gandhi and tion in a multi-'ethnic, multiher men, is highly critical of lingual, multi-regional state like
the latter. as is his interpreta- India. But it is his thesis that
tion of Mrs Gandhi's deliberate while even parties demandinl!
projection
of anti-Congress secession change their stance
regional forces, including the whpn in power, the "option of
Akali Dal, as "anti-national."
secession" will probably come
up from time to time.
Akali Weakness
Ultimately Jeffrey turns to
But he does not spare the the brighter side of the collivacillations and weakness of sion between moderni~ation
the Akali Dal vis-a-vis the "gun- and traditional cultures. This is
men". The development lead- . the springing up of activist
ing up to Operation Blue Star organisations
at
grassroots
make interesting reading. as level all over the country,- comdoes the account of how the . mitted to what he calls
Punjab police were demoral- "humanitarian change". Chipko
ised and politicised. Necessari- and the KSSP - Kerala Sastra
ly, .. because of the rapidly Sahithya Parishad, a people's
changing situation, there is a science movement, are two
short section only on "Who are examples. "The hope of the
the Extremists?". Jeffrey opines poor" according to him "lies in
that non-Jat Sikhs have taken to their own burgeoning political
terrorism as a "way of making awareness, product of the modup for their loss of influence in ernising fennent that penetthe Akali Dal" but he fails to rates even the remotest comers
support this with .any solid of India".
evidence. Nor is his comThe postscript bringing the
parison of Sikh extremists with book up to date to November
the Janatha Vlmukti Perumana' 1985 concludes with the hope
(JVP) , who were important in
that the insensitivity and short
the 1971 revolt in Sri Lanka, term
politics
which
preadequately followed up.
cipitated the Punjab crisis will
Jeffrey .describes the mani- not be repeated and that the
balance between regional aspfestations of centralisation irations and national integrity
the needs of any ruling party,
the use of President's Rule (bet- will be preserved.
A sensitive book, worth readween 1950 and Nehru's death
in 1964, President's Rule was ing for its provocative intel'imposed six times, while bet- pretations. its refreshing views,
w een 1966 and 1984 the num- of immense relevance when
be r of times was 50), and the the battle of states' rights, . for
new states. is fiercely engaged,
declining role of chief ministers. His ' argument is that and the Punjab imbroglio is;
sadly. far from solution.
attempts at greater centralisa-
Punjabi classic,
but there
are other m e rits of the book.
so m e of which mav be misse d
unless the reader ;eads it cal'efully and thoroughly. For
instance, in the beginning of
the book. whe n Modak returns
to his village from jais, the way
in which he tries to carve out a
new life also reveals the
various changes which have
occured in the landscape of
many Punjab villages. Changes
caused by factors such as landconsolidation. deforestaion etc.
Again as Modak tries .. to set
himself up as a small fanner.
the difficulties he faces reflect
the general disadvantages that
small farmers face vis-a-vis the
big farmers in Punjab specially
Rajkamal Paperbac~
142 Pages
Price Rs 10/-
15
:The
_Sp~o_tl_i~g_h_t_________________________ ~~~__________________R_._N._4_57_6_3_/8_6_;~_S_E_)_15_/8_6
the drawing in of the 'Plantation Tamils' into the conflict and the rise of the milItants. In our next issue the
concluding article describes
the negotiations between
the Jayewardene governme!'.t and the Tamils.
CO,."NTIIATIOI<. OF
I>OPVL.ATlON
16
TAMILS IN
SRI LANKA ~
D~'t.
T~I~c;,
ro 00;.
ll~nw (ro",
" I"oit T""'~'
.printed and published by A.S. Narang for the Ekta Trust. 2126 Sarvapriya Vihar. New Delhi ~ 100007 and Printed at Paredise Printers, Naraina Industrial Area. New Deihl