Un­able to with­stand a cur­sory re­ply from the then In­dian home min­is­ter P. Chi­dambaram, about ac­quit­tal of per­pe­tra­tors of Nov 1984 car­nage, Jour­nal­ist Jar­nail Singh softly hurled his shoe in protest in April 2009.  Back then, WSN ed­i­tor wrote an Open let­ter to the shoe. Pon­der­ing over the let­ter for months, Jar­nail Singh’s shoe wrote back. WSN is glad that, since then,  our pre­dic­tions have come true. 

Dear Jag­mo­han Singh: Wa­he­guru Ji Ka Khalsa, Wa­he­guru Ji Ki Fateh!Hav­ing lived with Jar­nail Singh, I have learnt to say Fateh and I am sure you would be sur­prised but happy to hear that. I am in­deed grate­ful to you to for the re­spect shown to me when you wrote a let­ter to me. Rarely has some­one done that to me or to any of my brethren. Jar­nail Singh im­mor­tal­ized me by his act of ho­n­our and by writ­ing a let­ter to me; you have given me a re­spectable place in Sikh so­ci­ety.

Since you wrote that dear let­ter to me, I have been en­sconced in the head­quar­ters of the In­dian Na­tional Con­gress at 28 Ak­bar Road, New Delhi. I will share with you my ex­pe­ri­ence and what lies ahead.

They have thrown me in a cor­ner here and I am not sure what is go­ing to be my fate. Her­itage preser­va­tion does not come eas­ily to In­di­ans, par­tic­u­larly that of op­po­nents. I am not sure whether some­one will ac­cord me ap­pro­pri­ate sta­tus. When­ever they glance at me, they see me with blood­shot eyes. There are many who abuse me and while do­ing so, do not spare the Sikhs. They are how­ever care­ful to en­sure that they do so when Dr. Man­mo­han Singh or any­one who is per­ceived to be close to him is not around.

“I have re­called con­ver­sa­tions which Jar­nail Singh used to have with oth­ers and those which ag­i­tated him alone. The one that haunts me af­ter the deaf­en­ing si­lence of the Sikh lead­er­ship, was what au­thor Cun­ning­ham wrote a cen­tury ago, “a na­tion of li­ons, led by ….you know, don’t you?””

Jar­nail Singh’s Right-leg shoe

Ac­tu­ally this old­est po­lit­i­cal party of the coun­try has played its cards well. Firstly, it did not pur­sue any le­gal case against Jar­nail Singh, then I was not given to the po­lice, oth­er­wise they would have to make an en­try of my pres­ence at the po­lice sta­tion and thirdly, they qui­etly ex­erted pres­sure on Jar­nail Singh’s em­ploy­ers to dis­miss him from ser­vice.  

And what did the Sikh lead­er­ship do? When you were trav­el­ing in Canada (I learnt this from my in­ter­net sources) do you know the de­tails of what the Sikhs did. Well, they did noth­ing.  Sit­ting in a cor­ner, of late, I had heard a lot about names like SGPC, DS­GMC, Akali Dals of var­i­ous hues and shades and other Pan­thic groups. No one, re­peat, No one came for­ward to ex­press sup­port to Jar­nail Singh and me.  Had the Sikh lead­ers re­acted strongly, I am sure things would have been dif­fer­ent. It would have been very dif­fi­cult for Dainik Ja­gran to dis­miss him so eas­ily.  On many an oc­ca­sion, I have re­called con­ver­sa­tions which Jar­nail Singh used to have with oth­ers and those which ag­i­tated him alone. One such quote which has been haunt­ing me in view of the Sikh re­sponse was what au­thor Cun­ning­ham wrote a cen­tury ago, “a na­tion of li­ons, led by ….you know, don’t you?”

“You know, one thing is pretty cer­tain. Jar­nail Singh will fight back. Even with one shoe on his feet and one morsel in his mouth, he will doggedly pur­sue the case of jus­tice for Nov 1984 wid­ows and or­phans. As a de­vout Sikh, he will an­swer the call of duty for every­one in the true spirit of Sar­bat da Bhala –wel­fare of all hu­mankind.  He will do it with more en­ergy and zeal. ”

I strongly sug­gest that the Sikh com­mu­nity will have to soon get out of this mould of in­grat­i­tude. This is to­tally un­Sikh-like. Sikhs have al­ways been a gre­gar­i­ous and grate­ful peo­ple, and I can­not un­der­stand this un­grate­ful­ness to mem­bers of their own ilk. I think Sikh bod­ies need a thor­ough drub­bing.  

What did the jour­nal­is­tic fra­ter­nity in the en­light­ened city of Delhi do? Noth­ing again. The Ed­i­tors Guild, the fed­er­a­tions of jour­nal­ists, the ef­fer­ves­cent Press clubs, the Pro­gres­sive Jour­nal­ists Fo­rum, self-styled free­dom of press ex­perts and the Press Coun­cil of In­dia -no one took no­tice of the un­called for ac­tion against sea­soned jour­nal­ist Jar­nail Singh. No­body took no­tice of the fact that Dainik Ja­gran had la­beled Jar­nail Singh’s ac­tion ‘sub­ver­sive’. 

In this Con­gress of­fice, I have heard Dalit and Mus­lim lead­ers (there are hardly any Sikh lead­ers who come here, those from Pun­jab come only dur­ing elec­tions) won­der as to why the Sikhs in Pun­jab have not protested against the me­dia house of Dainik Ja­gran. I agree with them. Af­ter all, how can the news­pa­per be al­lowed to pro­lif­er­ate in Pun­jab af­ter dis­miss­ing Jar­nail Singh? How can the pa­per be al­lowed to spon­sor Gur­d­wara bill­boards? Where is the youth of Pun­jab?

For­tu­nately, there have been ex­cep­tions. There have been some small or­ga­ni­za­tions and con­cerned in­di­vid­u­als, who have ex­pressed sol­i­dar­ity with me and Jar­nail Singh and have vol­un­teered to take the bat­tle for jus­tice to the next level. I un­der­stand that Jar­nail Singh is mulling over the prospects and may take some time to de­cide.  

This place where I have been thrown is a cen­tre of in­trigue. There are con­spir­a­tors ga­lore. The kind of stuff which you see in In­dian movies of how one politi­cian is at an­other’s throat. I have lis­tened to many a con­ver­sa­tion re­gard­ing how to de­throne a leader and how to foist an­other on the throne. Oth­er­wise it is a bor­ing place, but the grapevine has en­livened my stay here.  

Some of the man­darins here keep chalk­ing out the Sikh agenda and the Mus­lim schemata.  When they be­come un­mind­ful of my pres­ence, it be­comes easy for me to over­hear them.  They are re­ally wor­ried and jit­tery about what Sikhs will do in Nov 2009, while re­call­ing 25 years of the anti-Sikh pogrom of Nov 1984 in Delhi and else­where.  When they ig­nore or for­get about my pres­ence here, they open their hearts. Some want to lit­er­ally fol­low Prime Min­is­ter Man­mo­han Singh’s idea and in­dulge in me­dia man­age­ment lead­ing to his call of for­get and for­give; oth­ers want Rahul Gandhi to visit Trilokpuri and re­plant the tree which his il­lus­tri­ous fa­ther had shaken and up­rooted. Be­lieve me, they are scared.  

One tree in Delhi had shaken it to its roots in Nov 1984; now they are so scared of Harinder Singh Phoolka and Sant Sewa Singh’s 25,000 saplings all around the coun­try. The Nov 1984 one was a 100 year old tree with a che­quered his­tory of de­ceit and mur­der. The saplings now be­ing planted are sweet re­venge, at least that is how I see it. By the way, how about writ­ing a let­ter to the tree that shook Delhi? Please do con­sider my idea.

 Read also: Jar­nail Singh’s Shoe that nearly avenged No­vem­ber 1984

The cronies of Saj­jan Ku­mar, Tytler, Ka­mal Nath and oth­ers in the Con­gress party al­ways go into a hud­dle when they talk about my mas­ter Jar­nail Singh. It is a clas­sic sight to see their heads roll from left to right, for they clearly en­vis­age that their fates have been sealed. For­ever. They are not only dazed, but wor­ried to. They were un­der the im­pres­sion that Sikhs in gen­eral have for­got­ten it and the Delhi Sikh lead­ers have been in­flu­enced into si­lence. Now they bite their nails, not know­ing what is in store for them.  

I was very sad the day Jar­nail Singh lost his job. I could not do much. I was in­stru­men­tal in the dis­missal of Tytler and Saj­jan, but I could not save my own Jar­nail Singh. The God-fear­ing man that he his, I am sure he re­al­izes that what has hap­pened has hap­pened for good. He could not have con­tin­ued with Dainik Ja­gran, whose own­ers shared the din­ing table with Home Min­is­ter P. Chi­dambaram just a week af­ter dis­miss­ing Jar­nail Singh from his work. It is iron­i­cal that in­stead of pun­ish­ing the guilty, they have dis­missed the one who had ex­posed the guilty and those who were at­tempt­ing to shield the killers. 

You know, one thing is pretty cer­tain. Jar­nail Singh will fight back. Even with one shoe on his feet and one morsel in his mouth, he will doggedly pur­sue the case of jus­tice for Nov 1984 wid­ows and or­phans. As a de­vout Sikh, he will an­swer the call of duty for every­one in the true spirit of Sar­bat da Bhala –wel­fare of all hu­mankind.  He will do it with more en­ergy and zeal.

 Read also: JAR­NAIL SINGH (1973-2021) — The Man Who Threw A Shoe At In­jus­tice

My only trou­ble here is that I am alone and lonely. I have learnt from my sources (I picked up this habit from Jar­nail Singh and his col­leagues) that my bet­ter half is fine and has been pre­served well by Gurmeet Kaur –suave, gen­tle and soft-spo­ken bet­ter half of Jar­nail Singh.  I am cer­tain that in case I am thrown away and not re­turned to my right­ful owner –Jar­nail Singh, then my bet­ter half should be be­stowed the sta­tus and re­spect shown to me; af­ter all, both of us have been serv­ing Jar­nail Singh and the cause of fair play.  

Should I get lost, you should not for­get my bet­ter half, my left half. I am sure, like Amu, she will con­tinue the jour­ney for jus­tice. 

Thank you once again.
Jar­nail Singh’s Right-leg Shoe