The Tri­bune pub­lished Pun­jab CM Amarinder Singh’s views on its ed­i­to­r­ial page in which he pro­pounded his neo-na­tion­al­is­tic the­ory about the Kar­tarpur cor­ri­dor and his brag­gado­cio against Pak­istan army gen­eral Ba­jwa.  Dal Khal­sa’s Kan­warpal Singh re­sponded with alacrity with the Sikh case but the pa­per has looked the other way. WSN pub­lishes the re­join­der for read­ers to judge how the state and main­stream me­dia col­lude to un­der­mine the Sikh point of view.

When the Chief Min­is­ter of a state uses the ed­i­to­r­ial columns of a news­pa­per vent his imag­ined fears and po­lit­i­cal chau­vin­ism, it is nec­es­sary to take no­tice and re­spond.  The De­cem­ber 19 opin­ion piece in the Tri­bune, “Gen­eral, your slip is show­ing” by Cap­tain Amarinder Singh is a parochial at­tempt to be more loyal than the king.

When the chief min­is­ter of a state uses the ed­i­to­r­ial columns of a news­pa­per to vent his imag­ined fears and po­lit­i­cal chau­vin­ism, it is nec­es­sary to take no­tice and re­spond.  The De­cem­ber 19 opin­ion piece in the Tri­bune, “Gen­eral, your slip is show­ing” by Cap­tain Amarinder Singh is a parochial at­tempt to be more loyal than the king.

Amarinder Singh brags about his po­lice strength with­out men­tion­ing their prowess to fire shots at the Pak­istan se­cu­rity es­tab­lish­ment, un­mind­ful that the Kar­tarpur cor­ri­dor may be­come a ca­su­alty in the process and that would deeply hurt this cher­ished dream of Sikhs in par­tic­u­lar and Guru Nanak Naam Levas in gen­eral. He is a cap­tain, a Ma­haraja and a Chief Min­is­ter all rolled into one when he as­sumes the man­tle of be­ing the pur­suer of peace through his tirade of Pak­istan al­legedly fight­ing a proxy war in Pun­jab.

“Sikhs have an orgnanic re­la­tion­ship with Pak­istan as the founder of the Sikh faith –Guru Nanak Sahib was born in Nankana Sahib and im­mersed with the Almighty at Kar­tarpur Sahib, both in pre­sent day Pak­istan”.

The al­le­ga­tion of Pak­istan in­sti­gat­ing vi­o­lence in East Pun­jab is a time-tested tool be­ing used by the In­dian state since the eight­ies and this finds a men­tion in Amarinder’s bi­og­ra­phy too pub­lished two years ago.

His pre­sent rhetoric is only re­peat­ing the old mantra to foist anti-Pak­istan sen­ti­ments for his pre­sent po­lit­i­cal ide­ol­ogy. How eas­ily the Chief Min­is­ter ac­cuses the Akalis for the 35000 killings (un­sub­stan­ti­ated and out of thin air) in the state to­tally ab­solv­ing the Con­gress and the blan­ket im­punity to kill granted to the po­lice and other se­cu­rity agen­cies by the Con­gress Gov­ern­ments and their proxy gov­er­nors?

Af­ter the ac­quit­tal of Ni­rankaris who fired upon peace­fully protest­ing Sikhs in Am­rit­sar on 13 April 1978, Sikhs en­gaged in an armed strug­gle to pro­tect their iden­tity and roots. Ini­tially the strug­gle was to avenge the sac­ri­lege and it was di­rected against the state be­cause it was the state which was fla­grantly pro­mot­ing and pro­tect­ing the hereti­cal pseudo-Ni­rankaris.

Sikhs have an orgnanic re­la­tion­ship with Pak­istan as the founder of the Sikh faith –Guru Nanak Sahib was born in Nankana Sahib and im­mersed with the Almighty at Kar­tarpur Sahib, both in pre­sent day Pak­istan.

Sikhs burnt their bridges with Pak­istan af­ter the coun­try they chose to join in 1947 had at­tacked their holi­est shrine Dar­bar Sahib in June 1984. As far as the In­dian al­le­ga­tion of friend­ship be­tween Pak­istan and Khal­is­tani Sikhs is con­cerned, let me quote US pres­i­dent Abra­ham Lin­coln who de­fined friend­ship as, “two per­sons hav­ing the same en­emy.”

Sikhs burnt their bridges with Pak­istan af­ter the coun­try they chose to join in 1947 had at­tacked their holi­est shrine Dar­bar Sahib in June 1984. As far as the In­dian al­le­ga­tion of friend­ship be­tween Pak­istan and Khal­is­tani Sikhs is con­cerned, let me quote US pres­i­dent Abra­ham Lin­coln who de­fined friend­ship as, “two per­sons hav­ing the same en­emy.”

Amarinder Singh imag­ines many fears and feeds fal­si­fi­ca­tions.  The barbed wire fenc­ing on the Indo-Pak bor­der could not de­ter Khal­is­tani fight­ers in 80’s and 90’s, who were de­ter­mined to cross it and this is known very well to the In­dian se­cu­rity es­tab­lish­ment. They did not re­quire a Kar­tarpur cor­ri­dor for that mat­ter.

The chief min­is­ter of Pun­jab will do well to di­gest that the Kar­tarpur cor­ri­dor is a cor­ri­dor of faith. It is nei­ther a pas­sage­way to peace be­tween the two nu­clear-power hos­tile coun­tries nor a de­sign of the Pak­istan army as per­ceived by Amarinder and his Delhi bosses.  It has the po­ten­tial to re­vive en­gage­ment on a peo­ple to peo­ple ba­sis on both sides of the fence and re­duce ten­sions and build hopes, pro­vided there is a ces­sa­tion of shoot­ing imag­i­nary di­a­tribes and al­le­ga­tions.

The chief min­is­ter has re­ferred to the in­creased po­lice strength of Pun­jab as a chal­lenge to Pak­istan and its army. What a child­ish state­ment!  In­creased num­bers of se­cu­rity forces do not win wars for na­tions any­more. A po­lit­i­cal res­o­lu­tion of the con­flict is the so­lu­tion. In­dia has de­ployed more than half a mil­lion army and other se­cu­rity per­son­nel in Kash­mir to counter Kash­miri in­sur­gency. Have the num­bers been able to kill or cow down the Kash­miri strug­gle for lib­er­a­tion? Has it been able to con­tain the in­sur­gency? The more the se­cu­rity forces, the more is the dis­tur­bance and ca­su­alty of or­di­nary civil­ians.

“Dal Khalsa and Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal (Am­rit­sar) have been es­pous­ing the cause of self-de­ter­mi­na­tion yet they have ques­tioned the prac­ti­cal­ity and fea­si­bil­ity of the no­tion of SFJ’s 2020 ref­er­en­dum.”

Amarinder Singh and the po­lice es­tab­lish­ment of Pun­jab is en­gaged in cre­at­ing a large than life im­age of Gur­pat­want Singh Pannu. The Sikhs for Jus­tice group has cap­tured the imag­i­na­tion of the Di­as­pora through his 2020 ref­er­en­dum call, but it has no rep­re­sen­ta­tion in Pun­jab.

The idea of ref­er­en­dum is in con­so­nance with the free­dom as­pi­ra­tions of Sikhs. It is de­mo­c­ra­tic in essence and as per the UN treaties and con­ven­tions. The de­mand for right to self de­ter­mi­na­tion is nei­ther un­law­ful nor a crime. Rather brand­ing or name-call­ing the idea is un­jus­ti­fied, il­log­i­cal and against in­ter­na­tional laws. A sec­tion of Sikhs (their strength has not been as­cer­tained as yet) is a votary of right to self de­ter­mi­na­tion for Pun­jab and they are well within their rights to pur­sue the same through peace­ful and de­mo­c­ra­tic means. Dal Khalsa and Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal (Am­rit­sar) have been es­pous­ing the cause of self-de­ter­mi­na­tion yet they have ques­tioned the prac­ti­cal­ity and fea­si­bil­ity of the no­tion of SFJ’s 2020 ref­er­en­dum.

What is In­dia afraid of? What is Amarinder Singh fright­ened of? True democ­ra­cies do not equate ref­er­en­dum calls with ter­ror and do not de­tain peo­ple who sup­port such at­tempts. It is an­other mat­ter that there is lit­tle un­der­stand­ing that the SFJ call for ref­er­en­dum has no en­dorse­ment by the United Na­tions or the oc­cu­py­ing coun­try. Why this hue and cry?

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To cater to his broad con­stituency, the Pun­jab chief min­is­ter does not have to play with the sen­ti­ments of the peo­ple. He should con­cen­trate on good gov­er­nance and ful­fill­ing poll com­mit­ments. This will be good for his health and that of the state and of course, of the peo­ple too.