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Editorial
Sewa Family Style
 How does one respond to the innocence of the shrewd? The
candidness of the crooked? The politically correct platitudes of
those who mean not a word of what they spew and who live in a world
absolute in its self-centeredness?
On advice from a designer image building firm, Akali Dal
president Sukhbir Singh Badal’s wife emerged from the family’s
shadow to do her bit to change the world. And out she came with her
Nanhi Chhanv project. Ostensibly, this was a project aimed to
sensitise the people about unborn female child.
Punjab’s media went
gaga and journalists fell upon each other to underline the sense of
commitment and social awareness that Harsimrat Kaur Badal brought to
the fore after she was shocked by the shameful sex ratio in
Punjab. In its hurry to praise the family, the media forgot to ask
why Harsimrat Kaur Badal is so slow in making the low sex ratio a
kew issue, considering that the last census figures came out in all
their glorious details in 2002? It also did not ask why Harsimrat
Kaur Badal has not condemned tens of advertisements hailing the
birth of her son a few months after that census.
In advertisement after advertisement, small time Akali
leaders and minions of the Badal family spoke about Akhand Paths to
thank the Akal Purakh for blessing the family with a “waaris”.
“Puttar mithhrre meve, rab sabhna nu deve,” shouted many ads.
Not a single such advertisement had appeared when Harsimrat was
blessed with a daughter a few years earlier.
Clearly, Nanhi Chhanv is an idea that bloomed late into her
heart. Just as Bibi Surinder kaur Badal took her own time before
deciding that it is a good thing to off and on visit Sri Harimandir
Sahib and perform sewa at the langar. Neither Nanhi Chhanv projects
happen in the absence of press photographers, nor does langar sewa
go on without the media corps in
Amritsar being
intimated beforehand.
In all of this, willing pens and cameras are not doing much
service to the cause of journalism.
But see the latest statements from the House of Badals to see
what The Family was up to all along even when editors were penning
hosannas to their social service ventures. With a shamelessness that
the media has grown apathetic to and readers immune, Sukhbir Singh
Badal now announces from the stage what a few years back would have
been an allegation against the Badals behind the scenes.
“Someone from the Badal family will fight the election from
Bathinda. We will soon take a decision,” Sukhbir has said some score
times now. About as many times, Harsimrat too told us that she was
purely a social service woman and not really into politics. Now,
under so much pressure from her beloved people of
Punjab, the poor social worker is buckling: “If given the responsibility to
fight the Bathinda seat, I will fulfill it.”
Oh! How relieved are the people of
Punjab. And how
candid is Harsimrat about democratic norms and values. “Whosoever
got SAD ticket for Bathinda, it would be a member of the Badal
family as due to the family’s efforts in this constituency the
person would get votes,” she has said.
In case you are missing something, she lays it on thick, and
in dollops of sound bites: “Bathinda had been close to my family and
we had been concerned about its development.”
Senior Akali leaders now never reel out a speech without
praising the great work being done by Sukhbir Badal, the social
commitment of Harsimrat Badal and the religious zeal of Surinder
Kaur Badal. The precious family that has been moving heaven and
earth for the Chardi Kala of the Sikh panth rules in
Punjab and over the
religious organization, the SGPC. Its success denotes not just the
downslide in public life and norms, but the electorate’s failure to
engage itself with the issues. Those who think that there is
something intrinsically wrong with such family rule should look
inwards and ask when was the last time we seriously engaged with an
issue and studied our own role objectively.
18
February 2009
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