|
Editorial
Patterns of Discrimination
 * Indian
Government appoints a Hindu retired judge to head the Gurdwara
Election Commission that oversees elections to the SGPC and other
gurdwara bodies.
* Just weeks
earlier, control of Chandigarh slipped out of Punjab’s hands as the
Centre has decided to take away the post of Chief Administrator for
the Union territory from Punjab Governor and instead post a Chief
Commissioner.
* New Delhi is
consistently posting a Haryana cadre official as member (Irrigation)
of the Bhakhra Beas Management Board (BBMB) that controls the entire
irrigation river flows since it lords over the headworks. Since
1966,
Punjab’s
demand that the post should be rotated between Haryana and
Punjab has
fallen on deaf ears.
* The BBMB has
been headless for nearly two years now, and this has been hampering
Punjab’s river water management plans.
* Recently, the
Centre had moved to turn
Panjab
University, Chandigarh into a Central University with no say of
Punjab, and it was shockingly agreed to by the Akali Dal government
in Punjab.
But for strong opposition from sections of the Punjabi media,
Punjab was all
set to lose control over the university.
* The Chandigarh
administration has now asked all kinds of aggrieved groups in
Punjab
not to come to the capital city for demonstrations etc and sent
signals that they will be severely dealt with if they dared.
Arrested farmers after a protest have been unable to get bail even
weeks after police lathicharged them brutally.
Even a blind
person can see a patron in the series of happenings.
Punjab’s
voice, the one that once rang loud and clear, is today muffled and
muzzled. Much of it is not by force, but by fraternal love-clasps.
The ruling Akali Dal is in an alliance with the right-wing Bhartiya
Janata Party whose ideological and spiritual source, the RSS, is
increasingly unveiling an agenda to turn all of
India
“Sanghmayi”.
Prakash Singh
Badal was performing pooja at the Ram Navmi again this year, almost
like an annual ritual. And the ruling Akali Dal shows no signs of
even taking cognisance that this is the 25th year of Indian Army’s
Operation Bluestar attack on Sri Darbar Sahib and Sri Akal Takht
Sahib.
Notice the
trend: The RSS is out to assimilate. The Badals are leading the
charge to get assimilated. Akali Dal has long shunned the panthic
agenda. Now, even the Punjab demands are out of the window.
No wonder, no
one from the Akali Dal lands up where the panthic souls gather. In
Chandigarh this week, many panth-premis underlined the contribution
of Dal Khalsa founder Gajinder Singh whose name figures in the list
of 20 most wanted handed over to Pakistan by the Union government,
and which has not been objected to by the Badals.
As panthic
leaders and intellectuals discussed the “the relevance of Gajinder
Singh’s writings in modern times,” one could not help but rue the
increasing irrelevance of the so-called leaders of the panth, now
ruling the state, to the cause of Sikhi or Punjabiyat.
It is pertinent
to note that the minorities have often lost in the larger scheme of
things because the leadership ditches the core cause. The Sikhs have
got in history a repeated taste of it. As one report brings out in
this edition, the Muslims are undergoing much the same fate in India
today that befell the Sikhs. It is time for the marginalized and
disempowered to act as force multipliers.
It is our
fragmented marginalization that emboldens the ruling class to put
behind bars leaders like Bhai Daljit Singh Bittu. It is the
complicity of our dominant leadership that emboldens it to stay
silent first and then become part of the problem.
7
October 2009
|
Read Also