Prime Min­is­ter of In­dia Naren­dra Damodar­das Modi vis­ited Gur­d­wara Rak­ab­ganj yes­ter­day in Delhi in an os­ten­si­ble move to as­suage the hurt of the protest­ing farm­ers from Pun­jab on the bor­ders of Delhi. WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh writes an Open Let­ter to the In­dian Prime Min­is­ter telling him that gim­mickry, mock­ery and eu­phemisms have been the hall­mark of his style of gov­er­nance, de­liv­er­ing lit­tle or noth­ing to the suf­fer­ing farm­ers and other teem­ing mil­lions of the coun­try.

DEAR PRIME MIN­IS­TER NAREN­DRA MODI: WA­HE­GURU JI KA KHALSA, WA­HE­GURU JI KI FATEH! Greet­ings from Pun­jab. Thank you for vis­it­ing Gur­d­wara Rak­ab­ganj, built in the mem­ory of the Ninth Mas­ter Guru Tegh Ba­hadur.  Thank you for tweet­ing about your re­spect for the teach­ings of Guru Tegh Ba­hadur.

The four doors of every Gur­d­wara Sahib are open to wel­come one and all -the high and mighty, the lowly and the vul­ner­a­ble, the rich and the poor, the de­vout and the athe­ist, the brave and the cow­ard and of course the Sikhs, the friends of Sikhs and ad­ver­saries of Sikhs too.  The Gur­d­waras -the forts of the com­moner, the Sikh place of wor­ship, suc­cour, re­lief and em­pow­er­ment, wel­comes every­one with open arms, notwith­stand­ing the stature, stance, per­sua­sion, com­pas­sion or the per­fid­i­ous­ness of the per­son.

Nev­er­the­less, lest you mis­un­der­stand or your Bhar­tiya Janata Party sup­port­ers or even the rau­cously stu­pid lap­dog sec­tion of In­dian me­dia read more into it, the robe and the gar­land given by the pre­sid­ing priest to you was a rit­ual which is fol­lowed for every­one who of­fers a drape for Guru Granth Sahib. Noth­ing more. Noth­ing less.

The Sikh world ob­served with awe and some with un­der­stand­able anger the few min­utes that you spent at the his­toric shrine. You were the sym­bol of a de­faulter, your body lan­guage was that of some­one who has se­ri­ously sinned and has come for penance. You en­tered the precincts al­most stealth­ily, with­out your stan­dard para­pher­na­lia. You could not do have done it oth­er­wise. Things have boiled down to that nadir.  You did not have the courage to be part of or face the San­gat. Dressed in all shades of saf­fron, your pre­tence to be de­vout was pal­pa­bly vis­i­ble.  Through­out your brief stay, you barely ut­tered any­thing. You could not have spo­ken much. You were numbed by your own guilt.

ਤਿਲਕ ਜੰਵੂ ਰਾਖਾ ਪ੍ਰਭ ਤਾ ਕਾ ॥
ਕੀਨੋ ਬਡੋ ਕਲੂ ਮਹਿ ਸਾਕਾ ॥
ਧਰਮ ਹੇਤਿ ਸਾਕਾ ਜਿਨਿ ਕੀਆ ॥
ਸੀਸੁ ਦੀਆ ਪਰ ਸਿਰਰੁ ਨ ਦੀਆ ॥

ਅਜਿਹੇ ਸ੍ਰੀ ਗੁਰੂ ਤੇਗ ਬਹਾਦਰ ਸਾਹਿਬ ਜੀ ਦੇ ਚਰਨਾਂ ਵਿੱਚ ਗੁ. ਸ੍ਰੀ ਰਕਾਬ ਗੰਜ ਸਾਹਿਬ ਵਿਖੇ ਨਤਮਸਤਕ ਹੋਇਆ
ਗੁਰੂ ਜੀ ਨੇ ਹਿੰਦੂ ਧਰਮ ਦੀ ਰਾਖੀ ਕਰਦੇ ਹੋਏ ਆਪਣਾ ਆਪ ਵਾਰ ਕੇ ਸਰਬ-ਸਾਂਝੀਵਾਲਤਾ ਦਾ ਸੁਨੇਹਾ ਦਿੱਤਾ pic.twit­ter.com/​zh­H­H1d­scUw

— Naren­dra Modi (@naren­dramodi) De­cem­ber 20, 2020

To­day morn­ing, I had a hearty laugh when I read the news­pa­pers.  Ad­dress­ing the Indo-Japan Samwad -Indo-Japan Di­a­logue on­line, you are re­ported to have said that “growth pat­terns must adopt a hu­man-cen­tric ap­proach.  In the past, hu­man­ity took the path of con­fronta­tion and not col­lab­o­ra­tion.”  You added, “Dis­cus­sions on global growth can­not hap­pen only be­tween a few. The table must be big­ger. The agenda must be broader. Growth pat­terns must fol­low a hu­man-cen­tric ap­proach. And, be in har­mony with our sur­round­ings.”

Where is hu­man­ism for protest­ing farm­ers knock­ing on your doors from the four cor­ners of Delhi?  Close to half a cen­tury of deaths means noth­ing to your gov­ern­ment, is­n’t it? The suf­fer­ing in the bit­ing cold un­der the open sky does not be­stir your con­science? Why is the table of the farm­ers so small? Why is there no space on your big­ger table to ac­com­mo­date every­one, es­pe­cially those who dis­agree with you?

Af­ter read­ing this, even say­ing that you and your party is fol­low­ing dou­ble-stan­dards sounds cliché. All the cor­re­spon­dence of your Min­is­ter for Agri­cul­tural Af­fairs and all the bar­gain­ing points of the Min­is­ter for Agri­cul­tural Af­fairs and the Min­is­ter for Rail­ways, to the lead­ers of the Farm Mor­cha, were hol­low promises, never meant to be ful­filled. In this con­text, even your tweets sound hol­low. A cou­ple of tweets in Pun­jabi meant to please the protest­ing farm­ers, re­minded me of the plaque in Hindi put up by your gov­ern­ment when you in­au­gu­rated the In­dian side of the Kar­tarpur cor­ri­dor in Gur­daspur dis­trict.

Where is hu­man­ism for protest­ing farm­ers knock­ing on your doors from the four cor­ners of Delhi?  Close to half a cen­tury of deaths means noth­ing to your gov­ern­ment, is­n’t it? The suf­fer­ing in the bit­ing cold un­der the open sky does not be­stir your con­science? Why is the table of the farm­ers so small? Why is there no space on your big­ger table to ac­com­mo­date every­one, es­pe­cially those who dis­agree with you?

To me, when you vis­ited Gur­d­wara Rak­ab­ganj, you did not pro­vide the heal­ing touch but added fuel to the fire.  Your visit re­minded the Sikhs of the visit of In­dira Gandhi to Dar­bar Sahib af­ter storm­ing it and killing thou­sands in June 1984.

Un­der stren­u­ous cir­cum­stances, when Prime Min­is­ters visit re­li­gious places of the com­mu­nity or peo­ple they are oth­er­wise sub­ju­gat­ing and sup­press­ing, the move is in­vari­ably counter-pro­duc­tive be­cause the in­ten­tions are ex­tremely doubt­ful and pop­ulist.  To me, when you vis­ited Gur­d­wara Rak­ab­ganj, you did not pro­vide the heal­ing touch but added fuel to the fire.  Your visit re­minded the Sikhs of the visit of In­dira Gandhi to Dar­bar Sahib af­ter storm­ing it and killing thou­sands in June 1984.

See­ing the im­ages of you bow­ing be­fore Guru Granth Sahib, I won­dered whether you re­alised that Guru Tegh Ba­hadur laid down his life for the right to re­li­gion of one’s choice.  Guru Sahib lis­tened to the woes of the peo­ple and re­sponded with­out de­lay. The his­tory of Delhi can never be writ­ten with­out the men­tion of the supreme sac­ri­fice of Guru Tegh Ba­hadur.  He made an in­deli­ble mark in the an­nals of de­fence of hu­man rights. He was to­tally against cen­tral­ism and the one-na­tion, one-lan­guage, one-re­li­gion, one-wa­ters, one-elec­tion the­o­ries that you pro­pound and prac­tice from time to time.

Over the years, you have emerged as a vain­glo­ri­ous trum­peter of ha­tred and de­ci­sive­ness, strik­ing at the plu­ral­is­tic and in­clu­sive id­iom, co­op­er­a­tive and trans­par­ent gov­er­nance im­per­a­tive for com­mon hu­man growth.  All the promises made by you and your cab­i­net col­leagues in Varanasi, Mad­hya Pradesh and even on the floor of the In­dian par­lia­ment, has not damp­ened the spirit of the peo­ple of Pun­jab. Thou­sands daily travel to Delhi in trac­tor-trol­leys and buses. The whole of Pun­jab prays for the suc­cess of the Mor­cha.

On the bor­ders of Delhi, there is an on­go­ing bat­tle go­ing on be­tween truth and false­hood, be­tween promise and de­liv­er­ance, be­tween Pun­jab and In­dia, be­tween Sikhs and In­dia, be­tween the farm­ers of Pun­jab, Haryana, Ra­jasthan, West­ern Ut­tar Pradesh and the Union gov­ern­ment of In­dia. It is be­tween co­ex­is­tence and non-ex­is­tence. It is even much more than that. It is a bat­tle be­tween Na­ture and those op­pos­ing its rules.

The lead­er­ship of the Farm­ers Mor­cha has not fallen prey to your empty promises and plat­i­tudes. Pun­jab has known the In­dian lead­er­ship to be treach­er­ous as a weasel and wily as a fox.  It is very easy for “cir­cum­stances to change” as Jawa­har­lal Nehru said it when re­minded of his promise of “glow of free­dom for the peo­ple of Pun­jab.”

The Farm­ers Mor­cha at the Delhi bor­ders knows that you will back out of your big promises even be­fore the thou­sands reach back home in Pun­jab, Haryana, Ra­jasthan and Ut­tar Pradesh.  The tear­ing hurry with which the three black farm laws were passed with a voice vote in the Up­per House of the In­dian par­lia­ment, clearly demon­strated the malafide in­ten­tion of your party and the gov­ern­ment. The man­ner in which Farm Com­mis­sion agents are be­ing ha­rassed and hounded by the In­dian In­come Tax au­thor­i­ties to over­awe them and dis­suade them from sup­port­ing farm­ers speaks vol­umes of the shame­less­ness of your gov­ern­ment.  The le­gal no­tices to Farm lead­ers in Ut­tar Pradesh to dis­suade them from par­tic­i­pat­ing in protests lays bare the in­ten­tion of your gov­ern­ment,

The Farm­ers Mor­cha so­cial me­dia pres­ence is not only go­ing strong in num­bers but is pro­vid­ing con­tent to up the ante and rou­tinely re­spond to your di­a­tribes.  Seen in this light, your visit to Gur­d­wara Rak­ab­ganj Sahib looks like a di­gres­sion.

It is the spe­cial Kripa of the Guru Sahibs that we will mark the spe­cial oc­ca­sion of the 400th Parkash Parv of Sri Guru Teg Ba­hadur Ji dur­ing our Gov­ern­men­t’s tenure.

Let us mark this blessed oc­ca­sion in a his­toric way and cel­e­brate the ideals of Sri Guru Teg Ba­hadur Ji. pic.twit­ter.com/​GBi­WMy­i­h6D

— Naren­dra Modi (@naren­dramodi) De­cem­ber 20, 2020

In case you are test­ing the pa­tience of the peo­ple, then you may do well to re­call that De­cem­ber is pe­riod of sac­ri­fice in Sikh his­tory and we take courage and in­spi­ra­tion from it. It is this his­toric and re­mark­able re­sponse of the peo­ple that has shifted, in the minds of the peo­ple, the bor­der of Pun­jab from Shambu to Singhu and Tikri on the out­skirts of Delhi.

Whether the RSS-BJP mis­sion of join­ing the wa­ters of the coun­try into one may fruc­tify or not, the peo­ple of Haryana and Pun­jab have started the fa­ble of shar­ing river wa­ters as a long-lost-found fam­ily.  For a very long time to come, the BJP will have to coun­te­nance this peo­ples’ nar­ra­tive.

Mr Prime Min­is­ter, if you de­lay a so­lu­tion to the farm­ers’ con­flict, you may have to visit Gur­d­wara Rak­ab­ganj Sahib more fre­quently.

On the bor­ders of Delhi, there is an on­go­ing bat­tle go­ing on be­tween truth and false­hood, be­tween promise and de­liv­er­ance, be­tween Pun­jab and In­dia, be­tween Sikhs and In­dia, be­tween the farm­ers of Pun­jab, Haryana, Ra­jasthan, West­ern Ut­tar Pradesh and the Union gov­ern­ment of In­dia. It is be­tween co­ex­is­tence and non-ex­is­tence. It is even much more than that. It is a bat­tle be­tween Na­ture and those op­pos­ing its rules.

You will have to ac­cept that the days of BJP and its con­sort -the Badal Dal, in the state of Pun­jab are over -at least for the next decade. Ear­lier, pub­lic mem­ory used to be very short. Now, so­cial me­dia has made it pos­si­ble to store and re­trieve bunkum talks, promises and de­cep­tions ex­pos­ing the true face.  Mark Zucker­berg and Mukesh Am­bani notwith­stand­ing, the youth of Pun­jab has geared up to use the same so­cial me­dia to beat your lies and fake news.

#KisanEk­ta­Mor­cha #Dig­italK­isan #Dig­italK­isan­Mor­cha
How cld a civil so­ci­ety tol­er­ate this kind of bru­tal­ity to­wards an old age peace­ful pro­tester.
We shld be en­raged…
Humne to qa­teel us sa mu­nafiq nahi dekha
jo zu­lam to se­hta hai bha­gawat nahi karta pic.twit­ter.com/​r2G­Win­jxVd

— deepi (@pagdis­am­bal­jata) De­cem­ber 21, 2020

The par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tees of In­dia may not bring to task Face­book and Jio lead­ers for their par­ti­san ap­proach, but they will not eas­ily es­cape the Sikh and Pun­jabi Di­as­pora which has al­ready placed them un­der a scan­ner. In times to come, the heat will catch up and un­ques­tion­ably will make the so­cial me­dia plat­forms free and fair.

While you may still be liv­ing in your own ivory tow­ers of opin­ion gen­er­ated by the Modi me­dia, you will do well to see a sec­tion of the Sikh so­cial me­dia, on which a child of 2 years to an oc­ta­ge­nar­ian man or woman refers to you as Modia not Modi. Such is the level of anger, angst and dis­dain against you, your party and your poli­cies, pro­grammes and philoso­phies.  This is hap­pen­ing from Lud­hi­ana to Lon­don to Lou­siana, from Ja­land­har to Cal­i­for­nia, from Am­rit­sar to Ade­laide and from Delhi to De­troit.  Within the coun­try, Sikhs and Pun­jabis have come more closer. Friends of Sikh farm­ers are hold­ing their head high in Chen­nai, Mum­bai, Hy­der­abad and Gand­hi­na­gar.

While you may still be liv­ing in your own ivory tow­ers of opin­ion gen­er­ated by the Modi me­dia, you will do well to see a sec­tion of the Sikh so­cial me­dia, on which a child of 2 years to an oc­ta­ge­nar­ian man or woman refers to you as Modia not Modi. Such is the level of anger, angst and dis­dain against you, your party and your poli­cies, pro­grammes and philoso­phies.

You have very lit­tle choice.  The writ­ing is not on the walls this time. It is in the fields of men and women who pro­vide us with food to live. May di­vine wis­dom dawn on you and you gra­ciously ac­cept the mis­take of en­act­ing the three new farm laws and may you re­peal them im­me­di­ately.  You must put on hold the pro­posed Elec­tric­ity Amend­ment Act, an­nul the Stub­ble-burn­ing or­di­nance and en­act a new law to guar­an­tee Min­i­mum Sup­port Price.

When­ever Pun­jab has marched to Delhi, it has re­turned back vic­to­ri­ous and this time too it is not go­ing to be dif­fer­ent.  We are an­swer­able to our con­science, to our fra­ter­nity, his­tory and legacy. You must humbly ac­cept the harsh re­al­ity of your own cre­ation and face the mu­sic.

Mr Prime Min­is­ter, if you de­lay a so­lu­tion to the farm­ers’ con­flict, you may have to visit Gur­d­wara Rak­ab­ganj Sahib more fre­quently.

Wa­he­guru Ji Ka Khalsa, Wa­he­guru Ji Ki Fateh! -Truth­ful­ness be­longs to the Lord Almighty, And vic­tory will also be­long to Him.  This is the Sikh salu­ta­tion and so it shall be!

Sin­cerely

Jag­mo­han Singh
Ed­i­tor, The World Sikh News