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Friend of Punjab, former PM VP
Singh passes away
Jagmohan Singh
 NEW
DELHI: Boldly battling cancer for many years, the 77-year old Raja
of Manda, VP Singh passed away. With the country’s attention
focused on battling violence in Mumbai, his death has so far gone
virtually unnoticed.
While he may not
have achieved any major breakthrough for
Punjab when he
was the Prime Minister, as he was heading a fledgling coalition
government, he had the heart in the right place and empathized with
the people of Punjab in the eighties when the state was hosting a
battle for rights.
In a quirky turn
of contemporary history, it was his election as Prime Minister which
gave a new lease of life to this correspondent, associates and many
other Sikh youth. This correspondent, in his earlier role as a
political activist met the late VP Singh a couple of years ago,
alongside Simranjit Singh Mann and found the Raja of Manda still
crystal clear about his thoughts on
Punjab.
He told Sardar Mann, “I wanted a change, but you know, Chowdhary
Devi Lal just would not allow anything without the participation of
his feudal friend, Parkash Singh Badal.” He went on to say, “We
lost that opportunity and
Punjab
has as such, not recovered from it. Though there is calm, I know,
the issues have not been resolved.”
Not to be cowed
down by his serious illness, because of which he underwent frequent
dialysis, he offered to come to
Punjab to
address the people, “to tell the truth to the brave people of
Punjab.”
This correspondent is privy to the knowledge that Sardar Mann made
all arrangements for his visit to Punjab, but VP Singh’s party in
Punjab, whatever little was there, shot down the proposal.
In another
first, the ushered in efforts for an egalitarian society, which even
his opponents are also following today, though they would not have
the sagacity or grace to acknowledge it.
I fondly recall
the moments spent in the simplicity of the small ante room of the
government accommodation given to him and are sure that he had a
full share of this world and would have the same in the next too as
suggested by the title of his recently published anthology of poems,
Ek Tukda Dharti, Ek Tukda Asman'.
As the Sikhs
would say, I pray, De Sajjan Assesdhian, je hove sahib seo mel
-May you unite with the cosmic universal force.
Jagmohan
Singh may be contacted at jsbigideas@gmail.com
27 November
2008
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