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End of a Dream,
Punjab loses charge of Chandigarh
WSN Bureau
 CHANDIGARH: In a
move full of stealth and with shocking timing, India's Congress-led
central government under a Sikh Prime Minister has decided to
further dilute Punjab's claims over Chandigarh by deciding that on
November 16 onwards, the charge of Chandigarh shall rest no more
with the Governor of Punjab and the city will be ruled by a Chief
Commissioner to be appointed by the Union Home Ministry.
At a time when
the ruling Akali Dal was busy in Shimla discussing non-issues and
the panthic leadership is being sought to be put behind bars, the
Union Home Ministry's decision has sent shockwaves through all those
who have always seen Punjab as the natural inheritor of Chandigarh.
Coming close on the heels of a move to turn Panjab University into a
Central one, the decision will deal a body blow to
Punjab's
claims on the
Union Territory.
Punjab Governor
has been also the Administrator for
Chandigarh
since the mid-1980s but once the tenure of the incumben governor,
Gen SF Rodrigues (retd), ends on November 16, the Chief Commissioner
to be appointed by the centre without any consultation with Punjab
will bring the direct control of the Home Ministry over the
Chandigarh Administration.
Union Home
Secretary GK Pillai has confirmed the move saying, “We will revert
back to the old pattern once the tenure of the present Governor of
Punjab ends”. A secretary-level officer would be posted as the Chief
Commissioner. Some powers enjoyed by the Governor in his capacity as
Administrator could possibly be handed over to one of the junior
ministers in the Ministry of Home Affairs.
In the
mid-1980s, the circumstances of militancy in
Punjab
had necessitated a change in the system of governance of
Chandigarh. The
Punjab Governor was given dual charge of the Administrator of
Chandigarh to provide better coordination between the police and the
administration of Punjab and Chandigarh.
Jolted by the
development, Punjab CM Prakash Singh Badal and his son Sukhbir Singh
Badal rushed to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday to
protest against the move bnut it is not clear whether even the Union
Ministry had taken the PM into confidence before moving ahead on the
Chandigarh
issue.
Manmohan Singh
may be a worried man now since his approcal ratings in
Punjab
are likely to take a strong hit if
Chandigarh's
control was snatched away from the governor's hands so suddenly. The
imediate provocation for the move is unclear but long time epxperts
of Punjab politics said the increasingly secular nature of the
politics of the Akali Dal is responsible for it as the Centre thinks
the Akalis can no longer exhort the people to stand up for Punjab's
issues as they themselves have given up on the many core agenda
issues for which at one stage thousands went to jail at the call of
the Akali Dal.
Ironically, The
Tribune newspaper led a strong pitch for taking away the charge of
Chandigarh from Punjab Governor and even claimed credit for it in a
front page report, saying that it took the "lead in seeking the
change in governance and demanding that the Chief Commissioner
system be restored."
Also, a retired
Supreme Court judge, Kuldip Singh, who at one time sat as a member
of the People's Commission and spoke out for many panthic issues was
among those demanding the Commissioner system. He was in the company
of not only Allahabad High Court Justice SS Sodhi (retd) but also
the man India chose to lead the Army attack on Sri Akal Takht Sahib,
Lt Gen RS Dayal (retd).
Badal's close
chum and the man who was the DC of Amritsar when Operation Bluestar
was carried out, former Punjab Chief Secretary RS Mann, was also
among those who wanted this to happen.
With restoration
of the Chief Commissioner’s post, the post of UT Adviser is likely
to get defunct. Also, the Secretary to the Punjab Governor,
Punjab-cadre IAS officer M P Singh, is likely to be repatriated to
his parent cadre.
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You Mofussilites! What Are You
Doing In Chandigarh?
Sach Kanwal
Singh
CHANDIGARH:
Chandigarh seems to have been completely lost to Punjab, even before
the Punjab Governor loses charge of it on November 16. After badly
beating hundreds of farmers in a brutal lathi charge, leaving many
seriously injured and three dead, the Chandigarh Administration has
rubbed handfuls of salt into the wounds of Punjab's farmers.
Top officers of
the Chandigarh Police, egged on by a local English daily through a
highly provocative anti-farmers editorial, have now issued official
orders that no one from Punjab or Haryana will be allowed to hold
any protest in Chandigarh without prior permission, and even when
permission is granted, these protests will have to be confined to a
marked ground in Sector 25, away from the seat of power at the
Secretariat and from the eyes of the general public.
The right of the
affected people, activists, farmers, teachers, labourers, unions and
political parties to hold a dharna in front of the Secretariat or at
Chandigarh's Matka Chowk or anywhere else has been taken away by the
police. That a section of the media is fully backing the police
instead of the affected citizen asking for his rights has been lost
on the politicians.
While the ruling
Akali Dal has reacted sharply to Chandigarh
reverting to a Chief Commissioner, it has maintained a deafening
silence on the issue of the police and the administration banning
any protests in Chandigarh.
On September 8,
a protest by Bharti Kisan Union (Ekta-Ugrahan) activists had
resulted in a clash with the police which left over 50 injured and a
man dead. Later, two more died. Now, the IG Police S.K. Jain has
said in future, the protesters will not be allowed into the city and
will be stopped at the borders. He said leaders of the protesters
will be arrested if any rally is held without permission.
Now, the police
is on a vengeance spree. Teams of Chandigarh police are raiding many
places in Punjab and are finding all assistance from the lower
levels of the Punjab Police in catching and arresting farmer leaders
and embroiling them in petty multiple cases. The police was
shameless to make clear that their strategy was to exhaust the
leaders in getting bail for themselves in one after the other case.
Cases have been registered against unnamed farmers for damaging
public property, assault on public servants, attempt to murder and
rioting in Sectors 11 and 17 police stations.
In its highly
provocative and one-sided editorial damning the farmers, The Tribune
called the visibly poor protesting farmers a "a veritable mob" who,
it said, "beat up the badly outnumbered police officials and
commandos...teased women and caused mayhem."
Not even the
newspapers' own reporters had reported any instance of farmers
teasing women, and no newspaper has ever reported in the past
protest groups indulging in such behavior. The anti-farmer mindset
is clear from such solemn editorial comment: "Many of the protesters
were heavily drunk and made a nuisance of themselves wherever they
went. If this can happen in the capital of two states, Punjab and
Haryana, and the UT, one can well imagine what havoc marauding mobs
can cause in mofussil towns."
So what does
such a section of the media think about the farmers in "mofussil
towns"? That they tease women, drink and make a nuisance of
themselves? The newspaper was angry that the protesters were allowed
into the city and said "it was the administration’s duty to keep
them away from the centre of the city."
"The
organisers...must be given due punishment for this unpardonable
act...it should not be too difficult to identify the actual
criminals also and to punish them severely. If they get away with
what they did, they can be depended on to repeat their activities.
As it is, they have all been coming to Chandigarh way too often to
disrupt normal activity and hold the capital to ransom at the
slightest provocation."
With the Punjab
Governor losing charge, and a new generation of Punjabis never
having heard 'Khiriya Phul Gulab Da, Chandigarh Punjab Da', one can
well imagine the wages we will have to pay to raise a slogan near
Matka Chowk. So much for having a capital! It is time the Mofussil
Towns will have to take a Capital view.
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16
September 2009
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