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Gestures
Galore
Rahul Gandhi visits Punjab, eats, smiles, hogs limelight and leaves
Jagmohan Singh
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The recent visit of Rahul Gandhi to Punjab failed to inspire
neither the people of Punjab nor the grassroots workers of his
Congress party. It was an addition to the genre of gestures
which has become second nature to Indian politicians. Jagmohan
Singh writes an Open letter to the scion of the Gandhi family
urging him to take revolutionary steps and not to follow the
beaten track. |
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 Dear
Rahul Gandhi
Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa
Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh!
I wanted to write to you prior to your visit to
Punjab, but I
postponed it, thinking that you will be different from others on
your visit. Then I waited for sometime to see if you would make any
appropriate references to contemporary Punjab and draw your
inferences. Since nothing of the kind happened, I write this
missive.
You are in an interesting predicament. You seem to want to
be a normal politician, but your antecedents do not allow you to do
so. Your desire to empathise with a widowed mother of nine children
–Kalawati in
Maharashtra and
mother of five children -Soma Devi -a Dalit woman in Hoshiarpur is
praiseworthy. Your attempt to have elections in the Youth congress
for party postings is also commendable.
India banks on
highlighting politician’s children, agony, misery, terror, cricket
and Bollywood. So obviously, when you make visits, it is very
difficult for you to do so without limelight. What is important for
us to understand is that what you are doing is out of genuine
concern or is it part of the media exercise and the grooming
programme?
It was your maiden visit to
Punjab –to a state
which has had a deep connection with your family members. Since the
attack on Darbar Sahib Amritsar in June 1984 by your grand mother
Indira Gandhi and the massacre of Sikhs in 137 towns of India in
November 1984 under the supervision of your father Rajiv Gandhi and
Congress Prime Minister Narsimha Rao, this relationship between
Punjab and your family has become indelible.
Your statement about Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was one of
the two political statements you made during the trip. Neither you
nor your party made any mention about the issues which make up the
Punjab
problem.
-
Did anyone tell
you that
Punjab still shares its capital
Chandigarh with
Haryana, though promises have been made by your grandmother Indira
Gandhi and your father Rajiv Gandhi? And that Haryana and the
central government both have Congress governments and it should
not be difficult to iron out a solution if there is a political
will to do so, isn’t it?
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Your father,
Rajiv Gandhi signed the much publicized and badly written and
equally badly executed agreement, called the Rajiv-Longowal
Accord. No part of that accord which your father signed as the
Prime Minister of the country has been honoured. What do you make
of this? Don’t you see this as a problem area for you personally
and to the Congress party?
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Carrying your
grace on yourself, you visited Darbar Sahib during your Punjab
visit at prime time television time. Good. Do you know that since
1984, Sikhs are still fighting for to get their heritage and
culture artifacts from the Golden Temple from the Indian army
which took them away during the Indian army attack in June 1984?
Does this bother you?
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After the carnage
of Sikhs during November 1984 in Delhi, your father had said,
“When a big tree falls, the earth shakes.” The big tree was your
grand mother and the shaking earth engulfed 3000 Sikhs according
to official figures. I really want to know that you think of your
father’s statement? Was it Naivety? Revenge? Foolhardiness?
Stupidity? Would you have the courage, the diligence and the good
sense to tell the Sikhs what do you think of this? What do you
make of your party allotting party nominations to known
perpetrators of the carnage against the Sikhs in Delhi?
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The other
political statement you made during your Punjab trip was contrary
to the statement made by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. You said that “stringent anti-terror
laws are needed to counter growing incidents of terror.” Do you
know the extent of harm done in Punjab by the so-called special
anti-terror laws? Do you have a record of the misuse of such laws
by the Congress chief minister Beant Singh?
As the next generation Congress leader, I had expected that
you would touch these issues. I did not expect your party at the
Centre or in
Punjab to do that. I, however, expected you to do that. The
Congress party in
Punjab is not
concerned with these core issues which continue to rankle in the
minds of the Sikhs in particular and Punjabis in general.
In view of the Tercentenary celebrations of Guru Granth
Sahib, even if you had made a simple gesture, Sikhs would have
welcomed it, but your party and your government has not commented
upon the judicial attempts to dabble into the definition of a Sikh
during this period when Sikhs are celebrating the Shabad Guru.
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Whether you would still continue with the gestures or whether
you would deliver on the long list of Congress promises to the
Sikhs and people of Punjab, time will tell. It is very
difficult for me and many in Punjab to forget and forgive the
Congress for what it has done to the Sikhs in the last few
decades. Almost impossible. Still we will go by the teaching
of Guru Granth Sahib - “Sabh ko meet ham aapan keena”.
Also, history reminds me that Guru Gobind Singh forgave
Aurangzeb and befriended his son Bahadur Shah. |
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To my knowledge, your party did not present any
Punjab agenda to
you during your visit. They were more overawed by your very
presence as most Congress persons are and they do not think it wise
to raise substantive issues. Your party legislator from Bholath –Sukhpal
Singh Khaira did raise the issue of democratizing the polity in
Punjab, but did not go beyond alleging misrule of the Akali Dal.
His missive to the President of India regarding the
functioning of legislatures all across the country is worth looking
into, though I must add that the allegations of non-functioning
applies equally to the Akali Dal and the Congress. What Badal is
doing today, Amrinder was doing earlier and Badal was doing prior to
that. This is the state of affairs and this has been alluded to by
many in the past –from Bir Devinder Singh of the Congress to
Simranjit Singh Mann of the Shiromani Akali Dal Amritsar. The irony
is that even after sixty years of governance, substantive
discussions in the House Assemblies are a non-starter. Young
politicians like you need to take immediate steps in this
direction.
Sukhpal Singh Khaira in his letter says that “It is also
pertinent to mention that we have never debated issues such as
education, health, unemployment, female foeticide, awareness against
drugs, traffic management and other issues of public importance. The
functioning of the legislature is on extreme partisan lines without
any fruitful purpose.” On all these fronts,
Punjab has failed
itself and the Centre too has failed
Punjab. My point is that why did the Congress party not raise these
questions with you during your visit? Why did they not bring up the
issue of floods devastation during interaction with you? Is it not
political bankruptcy that in response to the Badal act against
Amarinder, the Congress party should seek imposition of President’s
rule through imposition of Article 356?
Centre-state relations have reached the lowest ebb. Conflict
resolution has never been a common agenda. Another young politician
in your bracket, Sukhbir Singh Badal and president of the Shiromani
Akali Dal and son of chief minister Parkash Singh Badal says that “Chandigarh
is on the agenda of the party, but we will take it up when NDA comes
to power.” Has he entered into a pact with the Congress not to
embarrass it by seeking Chandigarh now? Can you throw more light by
informing us whether there is more to it than meets the eye?
You have been politically correct in saying that “my next
prime minister is Dr. Manmohan Singh.” May be it is the view of the
Congress too. But one thing is certain, you are the prime minister
in waiting, being carefully groomed to be prime minister in 2019.
It is my view that in case the Congress does continue the
winning streak and given the western sensibilities of your mother
Sonia Gandhi, you are likely to be prime minister material by then
and thus eligible to join the race.
Whether you would still continue with the gestures or whether
you would deliver on the long list of Congress promises to the Sikhs
and people of
Punjab, time will
tell. It is very difficult for me and many in Punjab to forget and
forgive the Congress for what it has done to the Sikhs in the last
few decades. Almost impossible. Still we will go by the teaching
of Guru Granth Sahib - “Sabh ko meet ham aapan keena”. Also,
history reminds me that Guru Gobind Singh forgave Aurangzeb and
befriended his son Bahadur Shah.
You have to make a comprehensive move in this direction. For
peace in the region and for a political resolution of the
Punjab problem, it is time for you to go beyond the usual byte of “meethi lassi,
gur and hospitality of the people of
Punjab.”
With best wishes and hopes for an about turn.
Jagmohan Singh
Jagmohan Singh is a human rights activist and commentator
based in
Ludhiana. He may be contacted at
jsbigideas@gmail.com
15 October 2008
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