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Chohan's dream lives, he
is dead
WSN Bureau
 Chandigarh:
Half a century after he first entered the Punjab Assembly after
being elected from Tanda, Jagjit Singh Chohan covered a remarkable
distance in politics, remained exiled across the Atlantic,
propagated the concept of Khalistan, declared himself to be its
President, returned to India at the beginning of the third
millennium, vowed to keep up the peaceful fight for the Sikh home
state, and finally died on Wednesday morning in the sleepy little
town of Tanda from where he had started his eventful journey. He was
78, and leaves behind a concept that still baffles political
scientists and remains a potential dream.
Chohan drummed the concept of Khalistan at a time when many would
not have touched the idea with a barge pole, and one of the best
memory-recall images from his time would be a white turbaned Chohan
precariously managing a small radio transmitter on his head in the
parikarma of the Darbar Sahib to bring into focus the then
hot Sikh demand to broadcast ‘live’ kirtan from the holy
place on radio.
Times, technology and sifting political stances of the Akalis left
Chohan way behind. By the time the TV channels vied with each other
to fill up tender notices for telecasting from Darbar Sahib, state
politics had been de-linked from ideology, ‘panthic’ leaders
secularized the polity and got busy with power and pelf while the
Sikh quom seemed stuck in an ideological quagmire where
forces of Hindutva and globalization posed equal dangers.
Left by the wayside, the work and persona of Chohan have been often
derided in the Indian national or nationalist (often both) media,
and Chohan himself provided occasions enough for the media not to
take him too seriously, even famously saying in a 2006 TV interview
that “Khalistan will become a reality by 2007.” The polity still
lacks the objective conditions in which the significance of Chohan's
role could be analyzed dispassionately and prejudices pile up on the
table sooner than reasoned arguments when it comes to discussing
Chohan and Khalistan.
The
demand for Khalistan, which remained a much misunderstood political
construct, apart from being other things, was also an expression of
revulsion against the establishment. But the rabidly national media
only saw the Blue-and-gold passports, postage stamps and Khalistan
dollars -- all symbolic -- as expressions of 'separatism for
separatism's sake'.
Chohan used to narrate how he lost his right hand throwing away a
grenade that had been tossed at a crowd of women and children in
1947, the year of Indian independence.
Dr.
Jagjit Singh Chohan was an ex-finance minister of Punjab and a
medical doctor by
 profession. He quit his job with the Punjab
government and started supporting the Khalistan movement. He was
first elected to the Punjab Vidhan Sabha from Tanda as a candidate
of the Republican Party of India in 1967, became a Deputy Speaker
when the Akali Dal-led coalition government assumed office in the
state. Later, when Lachman Singh Gill became the Chief Minister, Dr
Chohan was made the Finance Minister. He is credited with
introducing state lotteries in the country during his brief tenure
as Finance Minister.
In
1969, he lost the Assembly election and two years later moved to the
United Kingdom. He returned in 1977 and at a public rally in Tanda,
raised the demand of “Khalistan”. And before he flew back to England
in 1980, he had generated much heat by demanding “Khalistan”.
Since then, he spent his time in England, returning only in 2001.
There was a case against him for trying to set up a transmitter in
the Golden Temple complex. In England, he spearheaded the Khalistani
propaganda after becoming Chairman of the Council of Khalistan.
While residing in the UK in exile, Chohan declared himself to be the
President of the Council of Khalistan.
While Chohan was in UK he issued Khalistani passports, Khalistani
currency and Khalistani postage stamps, all symbolic gestures
clearly aimed at keeping the issue of the Sikhs' political
aspirations on centre stage. A June 14, 1984 report in the New York
Times, immediately after the Operation Bluestar, brought out how
Chohan “named a Cabinet, set up a bank account and opened a new
headquarters for the Republic of Khalistan, of which, he said, he is
both the ideal and the president.”
After 21 years in exile, he returned to Punjab in 2001 and set up a
Khalsa Raj Party, apparently with the aim of propagating the cause
of Khalistan through peaceful means. But the ground conditions had
changed to such an extent that Chohan seemed to have been left
standing by the roadside, the community's leaders had boarded a
different bus which took them to power and pelf while the Sikhs at
large seemed to have been left bereft of an agenda, a leadership and
a political legacy.
Incidentally, Chohan was allowed to return to India on June 27, 2001
by the NDA government led by Atal Behari Vajpayee (when Badal was in
power in Punjab). And it was the Janata Dal Government in 1979
(Badal was the Chief Minister then too) that had earlier allowed
Chohan to return to India after the previous government had
impounded his passport.
When India's Zee News channel telecast a rabble rousing program
about the alleged activities of Khalistanis last year, Kanwar Sandhu,
Resident Editor of Hindustan Times' Chandigarh edition, blamed the
TV channel for airing a program with a pre-determined stance, much
like the irresponsible journalism undertaken in the '70's in Punjab.
Clearly, nothing much had changed since Chohan left Tanda in 1967.
In 2007, Indian establishment and media understand only that much as
they did half a century ago.
4 April,
2007
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