The Union government should take advantage of the Punjab government’s rejection of the D.A. Desai commission and declare that since it is no longer possible to implement the Rajiv-Longowal accord, it stands scrapped. To be candid, we are not recommending such a course of action only because we are convinced (which we are) that the accord contains contradictions which cannot be reconciled. We are commending it primarily because we are convinced that Chandigarh must not be transferred to “Punjab”.
We have put Punjab within quotes to underscore the point that Chandigarh is not being sought to be transferred to Punjab, as such; it is proposed to be handed over to an Akali government, which cannot at all be depended upon to secure the lives and properties of the people of Chandigarh. A vast majority of the city’s present population is Hindu. To a man, woman and child, they are opposed to the transfer. They know that they shall have been placed within the “jurisdiction” of the terrorists, once Chandigarh becomes part of Punjab.
Hindus Insecure
From the very beginning, the Akali demand for the city has been sectarian; the 40 per cent Hindu population has never supported it; all this need not have been regarded decisive if the Akalis in power had shown the capacity to ensure law and order and to give a sense of security to the Hindus. The reverse is true. The Hindus all over the state, that is, even in towns where they constitute a majority, are feeling wholly insecure. They have been trying to organise themselves, in order to be able to protect themselves. But those on the defensive, in a kind of situation which now prevails in Punjab, are bound to lose.
Several thousands of them have already fled the State. We have individuals who tell us that these refugees account for only a fraction of one per cent of the total Hindu population. But what percentage of the Hindu population do those constitute, who live in terror because they cannot rely on the local police, who are often in league with murder gangs out to terrorise the Hindus and drive them out of the State? There should be a limit to chicanery even from the safety of the rest of the Indian Union; unfortunately, there is none. We have heard a lot about the hurt Sikh psyche, whatever it might mean. We would like to know whether the Hindus in Punjab, too, have a psyche which can be hurt.
Partly because over the years we Indian commentators have got used to deliberately obfuscating issues (the tradition of intellectual honesty is, in any case, weak in modem India) and partly because the framework of the discussion has been fixed by the Indira Gandhi award and the Rajiv-Longowal accord, the impression has become firmly established that the transfer of Chandigarh to the Akali government is fine, as long as Haryana can be suitably compensated. But this is a misjoinder of issues.
Compensation is not easy to define in such matters. While Justice Venkataramiah feels Haryana should get 70,000 acres in lieu of Chandigarh, Mr. Partap Singh Badal, former Punjab chief minister, placed the figure at 6,000 acres. There are others who believe that Haryana would have been more than fully compensated once the Centre has helped it build a capital of its own. Some even cite the fact that Andhra, Gujarat and Assam were not compensated, when as a result of the division of the original entities, they lost their share of Madras, Bombay and Shillong.
Quite candidly, this question does not interest us. It is Mr. Rajiv Gandhi’s problem as president of the Congress party, just as it was Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s earlier. Her award, which promised Fazilka and Abohar to Haryana in lieu of Chandigarh, had taken care of the susceptibilities of the Haryana people. Mr. Rajiv Gandhi has failed to make a similarly attractive offer. But that is his headache. Our primary concern right now is the safety of the Hindus in Chandigarh.
We are not unmindful of the possibility that Mr. Surjit Singh Barnala might resign as chief minister, if it becomes clear that he is not going to get Chandigarh, which he can display as conquered territory to his supporters and detractors, or that he might face defections from among his supporters to the other side; or that reimposition of President’s rule might bring the Akalis together and that they might resume their so-called morcha. But we believe that the Union government has to be willing to face these risks, in the interest of avoiding worse disasters.
Nefarious Effort
There has not existed a contradiction between the interests of the Indian Union, and the Sikh community, as a whole, whether in Punjab or outside of it. The status of the Sikhs in every walk of life is an eloquent testimony not only to their inherent enterprise but also to the attitude of the larger society towards them. But over the last four years, a contradiction between the interest of the Union and the community has been sought to be built. Wittingly or unwittingly, the Akalis have led this nefarious effort, though only nominally, because the power to take decisions has rested elsewhere. In the process, they have inflicted enormous damage on the future of the Sikh community. Sant Longowal, perhaps, recognised this truth. Perhaps Mr. Barnala and his key aides, too, are sensitive to this reality. But the decision whether they want to serve the long-term interests of the Sikh community by standing up to opportunists, time-servers and hired assassins, claiming to be espousing the Sikh cause is, and has to be, theirs. If their nerves fail or if they turn out to be less perceptive of the power realities, there is not much the rest of us can do.
Lack of courage can find many expressions. In this specific case, it leads to a gross exaggeration of the power of the Akalis, if they are together. This power has been contained, fairly easily, in the past; it could have been contained equally easily in 1983, if Mrs. Indira Gandhi had not been disarmed by her liberal-moralist detractors; Mrs. Gandhi felt herself besieged, in New Delhi, independently of the Akali agitation in Punjab. The problem has become much more complicated since. Foreign agencies with enormous resources have got into the act. But that only calls for greater determination. In any case, the dissident Akalis are already providing the necessary backdrop for the extremists and the terrorists to act as guardians of the panth.
The Rajiv-Longowal accord has served one useful purpose; it has helped expose the limitations of the much-touted political solution; for the election of the Akalis to office, with a landslide victory, has not made the slightest dent in the attitudes of the extremists and the terrorists; nor has it persuaded the lower ranks of the Punjab police to tackle the extremists and the terrorists; if anything, we have now more pro-extremist policemen in Punjab than before, because Mr. Barnala threw the force open to dubious elements, who had been arrested under President’s rule. Surely, it is about time we recognise this reality. Or shall we wait for Amritsar-Gurdaspur type situation to emerge all over Punjab before we wake up? We are not making a plea for the dismissal of the Barnala government. We are only suggesting that its importance for peace in the State must not be exaggerated.
The Rajiv-Longowal accord has also had one most debilitating effect. It has distorted the Union government’s priorities beyond belief. It has behaved as if Punjab would be on the way back to normalcy, if only Chandigarh can somehow be transferred to it. But even a novice in politics must know that the first priority in Punjab must be to end the killing of Hindus and stop their exodus. We would like to know the connection, if there is any, between the non-transfer of Chandigarh to the Akalis and the reign of lawlessness in district after district or between the non-transfer and the communal clashes in Amritsar and elsewhere. Indeed, we would like to know the connection between the non-transfer of Chandigarh and the split among the Akalis.
Obvious Reason
In the absence of detailed information, which we do not know whether the government itself possesses, we are in no position to assess the magnitude of the terrorist activities. But it should be self-evident that unless these are put down effectively, the process of a return to normalcy cannot begin. The reason should be obvious. The extremists in the All India Sikh Students Federation and the Damdami Taksal derive courage from the killings of the murder gangs; it is not the other way about. Similarly the opportunist Tohra-Badal-Amrinder group derives support from the extremists; the extremists may find the group useful as a foil; they do not need it. The three are linked, but the initiative is held by the killers. Even Mr. Barnala cannot be unaware of this fact.
The Times of India, 24 June 1986