|
Revenge Overtakes Justice
 Revenge
has a
sweet-bitter tinge to it. When individual vengeance becomes a mass
feeling it becomes all the more strong and vehement.
Unfortunately, Punjab has a
history of revenge. Fighting for an inch of land, brother has
killed brother. An acute sense of justice and allowing the law of
nature to take its own sweet revenge with the interplay of spiritual
factors is not a welcome phenomenon in this land of the warriors.
Sikhs as a
martial race have been at loggerheads with their contemporary rulers
for the last many centuries as they consider themselves to be “state
within a state”. They are sovereign sui generis, irrespective of
the fact whether they have or not a geographical boundary to support
their unique and distinct identity.
It is this Sikh
national characteristic that has seen them fighting the Indian
security forces –police, para military and military over the last
two decades. During the eighties and nineties,
Punjab
witnessed a determined struggle to protect the civil and political
liberties of the Sikh people. Indian response has been
typically that of a banana republic.
The India state revels in
revenge. Despite an overworked judiciary, calls for justice have
met with thumbs down mock to the entire community.
| |
With the lynching of Poohla, revenge has been served; justice
has lost. Sikhs, unlike Jews may never get to see the
satisfaction of tracking down a Kurt Waldheim, Alois Brunner or
Ivan Demjanjuk. |
|
|
In such a
scenario, the phenomenon of Ajit Singh
Poohla is born. A person who was supposed to be part of the beloved
fighters of the Tenth Guru, a person who was supposed to defend the
heritage and tradition of the Sikhs, in submission to his own
insatiable greed for wealth, luxury and revenge, he became a willing
vigilante for the Punjab police, with the full blessing of the
Indian state. He killed Sikh nationalists with impunity. He burnt
families alive, including women and children. He grabbed lands in
the name of serving
India.
He was not the
only one. There are many, including some who are today occupying
high echelons in the police force. Discretionary funds, impunity
from law, gun-toting security cover, abrasive dash, the power to
bypass
Punjab and establish direct relationship with
New Delhi
–all these are hallmarks of the system called Cats.
Sadly, the state
makes no bones about it. Representatives of all arms of the state
–politicians, administration and police bosses were present at the
cremation of Ajit Singh Poohla.
Punjab is not
the only laboratory for such excursions with rule of law. At least
for the present, the Punjab trip is over, now it is the turn of
Kashmir, the North-east and Gujarat where the security forces are
without leash.
Someday, nemesis
catches up. It took the efforts of justice-minded individuals and
organizations nearly a decade before the first case could be filed
against Ajit Singh Poohla. Perhaps, there is a reason for this too.
The state after some time has no use for the vigilanteism of spent
forces.
When a State
fails to comply with rule of law and that too so flagrantly that it
is apparent to the underdogs that all is lost and the cause of
justice will not be served, revenge is natural.
The manner in
which Ajit Singh Poohla breathed his last sends an eerie feeling
down the spine, but the State will not learn.
The State of
Punjab,
including its judiciary had not allowed the People’s Tribunal to
undertake its proceedings to uncover the likes of Ajit Singh Poohla.
Umpteen cases in courts drag on for years and decades with no
conclusion in sight. Civil society has become numb to the cause of
rights. The common man is more engaged in petty personal pecuniary
progress.
With the
lynching of Ajit Singh Poohla, revenge has been served; justice has
lost, for the system has failed to uncover the many Poohlas lurking
around us in uniform and without. Sikhs, unlike Jews may never get
to see the satisfaction of tracking down a Kurt Waldheim, Alois
Brunner or Ivan Demjanjuk.
3 September 2008
|
Read Also