Baisakhi has come and gone, leaving the Punjab scene as confused and confusing as before. For reasons known only to it, the Union government had clearly pinned hopes on the convention the jathedar of the Akal Takht, Mr Jasbir Singh Rode, had convened in Bhatinda on that day. We do not know what it expected him to achieve. So we cannot say whether or not he has lived up to its expectations. But as outside observers we have no hesitation in saying that the Union government had no good reason to expect much out of the convention since it was bound to be dominated by the extremists and the Khalistanis, that his claim to have secured the merger of the two factions in the All-India Sikh Students’ Federation is meaningless for the simple reason that the Manjit faction has been a mere paper organisation for months, and that the best that can be said about Mr Rode himself is that he has not succumbed publicly to the pressures of the terrorists. We have underlined the word publicly because in view of his militant background, we are not at all sure that Mr Rode is not a Khalistani at heart and that he is not engaged in a complicated game intended to lull the authorities into a false sense of complacency. All in all, we have no hesitation in reaffirming our stand that if New Delhi has a Punjab policy, it is wholly misconceived.
Let us accept for the sake of argument that Mr Rode is sincerely trying to bring the terrorists under his leadership in order to put an end to killings and pave the way for a “peaceful” solution in Punjab. In our view, that assumption too cannot justify the course of action the Union government appears to be embarked on. Some points are notable in this connection. First, neither Mr Rode nor anyone else can possibly unite the terrorists. That would militate against the fierce individualism for which the Jat Sikhs are known. If the terrorists could be united, their Pakistani paymaster would have done so long ago. In any case if the extremists can be brought together at all on a platform, that platform can only be Khalistan. Second, if by some miracle Mr Rode emerges as the spokesman of the terrorists without committing himself openly to Khalistan, he would in the final analysis have no choice but to seek to promote the same goal by “peaceful” means. Unity among the militants under any leadership can only increase their potential for mischief.
Thirdly, in the very act of trying to promote the jathedar as a rallying point for the extremists, the government of India has laid the seeds for endless troubles in the future. For, in the process it has acknowledged that it would be willing to do business with whoever happens to hold that office, regardless of how he came to do so. As is well known, Mr Rode was appointed the Akal Takht chief not only by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee which is the legitimate authority but by a so-called sarbat khalsa the militants had convened. Since then, the SGPC itself has been seized by the terrorists. But even if that was not the case and even if the SGPC functioned effectively, the government of India cannot possibly agree to settle what is essentially a political issue with a religious figure. The whole thing is bizarre beyond words.
If that is the case, as we believe it to be, it is plainly useless for us to say what the government should do. We have to wait till the dangerous consequences of its thoughtless ad hocism and its penchant for heeding the “advice” of adventurers in search of a quick fix become patent to it. Thousands of innocent people will have been slaughtered and much else will have happened by then. But that cannot be helped. Quite candidly, we have despaired of the government developing a clear sighted approach to the problem of terrorism and sticking to it. Its move to sideline Mr Ribeiro, the symbol of resistance to terrorism not only for the people in Punjab but all over the country, makes us speechless. It is by itself enough to convince anyone that those in command in New Delhi are hell-bent on providing all the encouragement they can to the Khalistanis, demoralizing the Punjab police and the para-military forces in the state and thereby aggravating the tragedy. We did not share the widespread view that Mrs Indira Gandhi played politics in Punjab for electoral gains in the country. We do not share the view that Rajiv Gandhi is doing the same. We held that Mrs. Indira Gandhi was a prisoner of indecision and inept and interested advice. We fear that the same is true about the present prime Minister. But that is far worse than playing politics deliberately.