Endorsing the struggle of the people of Punjab on the farmers’ rights agitation, Kesri Lehar United Kingdom and Scotland has written an Open Letter to Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh spelling out in graphic detail the travails of the Punjab farmer and the degenerating status of the Indian state of Punjab. The think tank team of Jagdeesh Singh and his associates formulates corrective actions including passing a resolution of the Punjab Assembly rejecting new Indian farm laws and orienting the Punjab economy and finance in a truly independent manner protecting and forwarding interests of the Panjaabis.

DEAR CHIEF MINISTER AMARINDER SINGH: WE WRITE TO YOU FOR A POSITIVE COURSE CORRECTION FOR PANJAAB; TO SHAKE YOUR CONSCIENCE about the continuing decline and degradation of our cherished country of East Panjaab (artificially and unjustly divided as it is between East and West).

The current farmers’ uproar and upsurge is an expression of the widespread and snow-balling grass-root anguish felt across East Panjaab at the blatantly hostile and imposing policies and laws of the bullying and controlling mega-state of India. Triply divided, territorially fractured and decimated, East Panjaab is simply treated as a colony to all intents and purposes, for India to use, exploit, utilise and abuse at will.

Panjaab has gained nothing whatsoever from this forced and abusive relationship over 73-years (1947-2020).

Indeed, from the position of being once a number one economic region (‘bread-basket of India’) in the whole of the Indian state, Panjaab now stands at a staggering number 14 (of the entire states of India), in Gross Domestic Product performance. It is below even the Indian state of Bihar.

The continuous, systematic neglect and damage being done to Panjaab, is demonstrably evident at all levels. The economic downfall has reached such appalling levels, that, vast numbers of the indigenous Panjaabi population have been fleeing Panjaab and the entirety of India for the hope of more decent, equitable life in foreign countries. This is an open fact. They are economic refugees, feeling from a country which in its glorious past was a regional superpower – economically, military and more. Today reduced to devastation, mass unemployment, poverty and economic struggle.

Ultimately, our farming, our economy, our land, our human rights and development will on only be secure and be able to flourish when we are directly in charge of our affairs; rather than the engulfing bully -the state of India.

The current one-size-fits-all, India wide farm-related laws enacted by the Indian government; detrimentally affect Panjaab more than any other region of India. The Panjaabi indigenous economy is agriculture-based. The natural infrastructure of Panjaab, making it the one-time breadbasket of India and still providing 50% of India’s crop and grain supply, by a mere 2% population of India; makes it an abundant and self-sufficient food producer.

It’s natural, an indigenous economy with its once richly clean, healthy five rivers (now eroded and contaminated); make farming and agriculture the natural form of living of the Panjaabi people from as far back as we can see in history. Indeed, many of our Great Gurus, were farmers, in common with the Panjaabi people. Small-scale, village farming is rooted and integral to Panjaabi civilisation.

The Indian ruling elite, which was handed power undemocratically and in a ‘cut and run’ rush in 1947, has been unable for 73-years to feed the vast population over which it governs. It has exploited Panjaab’s capacity to produce and deliver much-needed food, at such an abundant level.

The current attempt to impose an India-wide legal infrastructure in regards to farming is a further devious and designed attempt to force all regions, states and territories of India to submit to a one-size, uniform Indian-centric economic model. Indeed, the farmers of Panjaab have loudly protested that this will destroy their indigenous lives; and place them at the mercy and predatory actions of corporate trade organisations like those of the Ambani elite, which will buy up and monopolise the farming infra-structure of Panjaab for their sole purpose of profit.

Panjaab’s people, economy and society, will be further reduced to the profit-loss vagaries of the Indian led corporate monsters – approved by the Indian mega-state. Big states provide ready political and commercial space and facility for big corporates to operate and dominate.

This is an invasive and devastating encroachment on the farming base of Panjaab, which has been embedded and nurtured over millennia and forms an integral and central part of Panjaabi life. Soil, farming and food produce: are defining features of the land of five rivers.

Our relationship with farming is more than just about profit and loss. Our farmers are an elan-vital of Panjaabi life, embodying our grass-root culture, language, food, social habits, Sikhi and much more.

There would be no Panjaab without its natural farming base, just as there would be no Panjaab without its rich language, its history, its Gurus and Sikhi, its rich inspiring history of struggle, resistance and independence.

Sadly, the Indian political experiment of 73 years, has shown no signs of that pluralism and is ever more clearly and stridently moving in the opposite direction. It has failed to become a true democracy nor a union of self-determining, autonomous nations. Instead, it has proven itself to be akin to one big political prison of peoples and nations.

The Indian establishment’s obsession with forcing itself on the diverse peoples and nations spread across the map which constitutes ‘India’, and ‘Indianising’ everything; is very much part of the intrinsic defect of the foundation and standard operating procedure of the Indian political state. Like other over-sized states around the world (e.g. China, Russia, Brazil), the Indian political elite wants to monopolise, control, impose, forcibly indoctrinate and Indianise all things.

This insecure political establishment has failed to recognise, that the strength, efficient administration, coherence and sustainability of any such enormous state (which encompasses the same territory as 26 independent states of the European Union and four times its entire population), lies in substantively empowering the diverse nations and peoples; not diminishing and depleting them.

Sadly, the Indian political experiment of 73 years, has shown no signs of that pluralism and is ever more clearly and stridently moving in the opposite direction. It has failed to become a true democracy nor a union of self-determining, autonomous nations. Instead, it has proven itself to be akin to one big political prison of peoples and nations.

The 73-year, post ‘independence’, Indian political experiment has achieved an ugly mixture of rampant human rights atrocities, mainstream police brutality, routine torture, lack of essential public services, denial of freedom of speech and overwhelming state-centric authoritarianism on all sorts of levels.

The current Hathras case of a devastating rape and physical mutilation (resulting in death) of a Dalit female, encapsulates all these comprehensive failures of India. India is a not just a severely sick body, but a terminally ill one. It’s agonising final decades, are foreseeable. The Indian state will not last forever.

Turning to your specific role as the Chief Minister of Panjaab, with all the scandals, broken promises and failures and abuses that you have accumulated; in common with your Badal colleagues who spent two terms doing their notorious damage.

Turning to your specific role as the Chief Minister of Panjaab, with all the scandals, broken promises and failures and abuses that you have accumulated; in common with your Badal colleagues who spent two terms doing their notorious damage.

If you have any remnant regard for Panjaab, now is the time to demonstrate that, more than ever. With Panjaab on the brink of life and death and the disaffected people of Panjaab on the streets and roads with their open anger and rejection of the Indian political system and establishment; we invite you to show courage and principle.

We invite you to take corrective action on all the matters on which you had previously promised action but grievously failed. The drugs epidemic is ravaging away at Panjaab’s humanity. There is a need to ensure at least one job in each family. Waiving the loans of farmers and families. Hundreds of Panjaab’s farmers are dying suicidally, under the sheer financial vulnerabilities and degradation they are besieged with. Effective steps need to be taken immediately to stop the daily abuses of the Guru Granth Sahib. Under your own governance, routine police brutality, torture and all manner of violations have openly continued as before and you need to live up to your promise of clean governance.

We call upon you to pass a resolution in the Punjab Legislative Assembly to reject the implementation of the three agricultural ordinances and declare from your government that you openly and comprehensively reject these superimposing laws.

Your own colleagues in your Panjaab Congress party, have publicly protested inside and outside the Punjab Legislative Assembly, that you have failed miserably on all counts and more.

Is it that, you do not feel any affection or patriotism for Panjaab and its people? Is that, as a long-standing political family -the House of Patiala, you have always felt inclined to ingratiate yourself with the powers that be rather than Panjaab and the Panjabis. There is a clear need to clean up and empower Panjaab. Are you the person who is willing to do that, before you face an imminent down-fall at the next 2022 Punjab Assembly election?

You can make an immediate start on all the above, or you can continue with the current drudgery that you have imposed on Panjaab like your preceding Chief Ministers.

We call upon you to pass a resolution in the Punjab Legislative Assembly to reject the implementation of the three agricultural ordinances and declare from your government that you openly and comprehensively reject these superimposing laws.

We invite you to initiate a comprehensive reconfiguration of the Panjaab regional economics and state financial support (including subsidies) to the small-scale farmers of Panjaab. You can make an optimum effort to do this.

We invite you to initiate a comprehensive reconfiguration of the Panjaab regional economics and state financial support (including subsidies) to the small-scale farmers of Panjaab. You can make an optimum effort to do this.

This is a chance for you to reverse your trail of failures and broken promises. If you are a true, authentic Panjaabi, then you will robustly stand up against the threats and encroachment of the Indian state central government.

There is further a whole range of human rights atrocities and genocide-related matters which remain alive and burning in Panjaab. This is the tens of thousands of ‘disappearances’, the tyrannical cops like Sumedh Saini, the thousands of fake encounters, the massive human rights atrocities committed during the ‘undeclared war’ (words of Justice Ajit Singh Bains) on Panjaab from 1984 to 1995.

Maybe, the above concerns will trigger some action from your conscience. Maybe, maybe not.

The great words of Panjaab’s great heroic-shaheed, Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, are pertinent: “I do not fear physical death. Death of one’s conscience is actual true death.”

Our organisation remains committed to the vision of restoring Panjaab to its stolen independent statehood. Until, a people, a country, a land, is allowed the freedom to shape its own affairs and development (domestically and internationally); there can be no protection and security. Living under the vagaries of another power is imperialism in action.

Ultimately, our farming, our economy, our land, our human rights and development will on only be secure and be able to flourish, when we are directly in charge of our affairs; rather than the engulfing bully -the state of India.

Ultimately, our farming, our economy, our land, our human rights and development will on only be secure and be able to flourish, when we are directly in charge of our affairs; rather than the engulfing bully -the state of India.

The current rebellious revolt by Panjaab’s farming people, directly connects with the stream of mini, medium and lengthy struggles that its people have pursued constantly against the might of the Indian state. We hope the current struggle will take Panjaab decisively several steps forward in recapturing its lost independence.

“The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good, in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it,” said John Stuart Mill and we will continue to learn and imbibe this in letter and spirit.

Yours sincerely,

Kesri Lehar UK & Kesri Lehar Scotland