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Of ballot wars,
exhumed graves and legacy denials
Irony is
often the sub text of politics, and the politicians who disown
historical legacies and refuse to engage with seeming contradictions
eventually become victims of these ironies. As the perceived agenda
during any Punjab elections seems to have been shifting from the
talk about militancy to Sikh issues to peace to corruption to
development, the fact remains that Punjab continues to engage with
its destiny while searching for the idiom of a new paradigm.
The Parkash Singh Badal led Akali Dal has shunned an entire bouquet
of concerns of the Sikhs and the Punjabis, but see how irony catches
up with those who deny the legacy of an entire generation: even the
Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, now loses no time before reminding
the people that Akalis' rule may bring back terrorism. Poor Badal
ran away from the turf his party could have earned as a matter of
pride. The economist par excellence turned politically-savvy rival
who is now gunning for Akalis by pointing to the legacy and painting
it black.
In his Ludhiana rally, the PM talked about economics but it was the
politics he weaved in that should alert the Akalis. CM Amarinder
Singh has already spent weeks in the electioneering saying Akalis
are still talking about Abdali and Aurangzeb while he was
concentrating on mega projects and SEZs. Poor Akalis, with their
eyes set on Punjab Civil Secretariat, convinced themselves that the
two lines of thought must be inherently exclusive. So they shunned
the legacy and went for the promises of shagun schemes, 5-marla
plots and dreams of an industrial revolution.
It is Amarinder Singh who talks of Sikh centenaries, of opening the
route to Nankana Sahib, of building four gates in memory of
Sahibzadas. It is he who talks of cocking a snook at his own
political future and ramming through the SYL-blocker bill in the
face of intense opposition from even Sonia Gandhi and PM Manmohan
Singh. A helpless Badal would any day avoid such topics, lest he is
seen as communal. The Akalis have thus decided to altogether dump
the heritage and embrace the political idiom led by the Congress.
Anyone with better sense would have evolved the thought further. The
fact that the man considered the articulated voice of the section of
the community which is standing steadfast to hold on to the legacy
of the volatile years, Bhai Daljit Singh Bittu, thought it prudent
to address a rally of the CPI in Bathinda and present a thesis of
representation of cultural diversity in the political domain which
is a reflection of the composition of country's diversity and
political aspirations. That the CPI secretary general A B Bardhan
appreciated this evolved thought sends a very positive signal for
the way the country's polity can proceed forward.
Sheer state power and the inclination to see every expression of
political aspiration or a of a wronged community through the prism
of law and order has brought about the kind of situation which
exists in Manipur or Kashmir or many Naxalite affected regions, each
with its own logic and local paradigms. Such an approach only leads
to the kind of situation that was reflected in the Punjab of the
early '90s or today's Kashmir where the state is shamed because its
instruments become shameless. When the missing don't come home and
instead their memories shriek from the exhumed graves, shame comes
visiting. Those who are in denial of memory should remember that
trysts with destiny is not only held from the ramparts of a fort in
ruin, but also in the streets of a valley or the fields where blood
and toil have often irrigated the same soil.
7 February, 2007
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