Through an Open let­ter, WSN ed­i­tor shares un­hap­pi­ness of Pun­jabis, up­set at the res­ig­na­tion of hu­man rights ac­tivist-turned-leg­is­la­tor Harvin­der Singh Phoolka, through an open let­ter to him. He has not only missed a huge op­por­tu­nity to pur­sue the cause of jus­tice in Pun­jab but has once again put his elec­tors in a quandary who will have to choose be­tween Con­gress and Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal Badal as AAP has al­ready lost its sheen.

Dear Sar­dar Harvin­der Singh Phoolka Ji, Wa­he­guru Ji Ka Khalsa Wa­he­guru Ji Ki Fateh!   Writ­ing an open let­ter to some­one whom you know well, is an oner­ous task. With a heavy heart, I write to you on the 3rd an­niver­sary of the Be­hbal Kalan fir­ing, as some­times such de­ci­sions im­pact so much that they need to be dis­cussed in the pub­lic do­main.

I am very dis­turbed and dev­as­tated at your email res­ig­na­tion to the Speaker of the Pun­jab As­sem­bly. I know that at­tempts were afoot to dis­suade you, but you had your say. You have frit­tered away an op­por­tu­nity to bring the guilty in Pun­jab to book as you are do­ing for the No­vem­ber 1984 car­nage vic­tims in Delhi. You have not done jus­tice to the Phoolka Misl Sar­dars of yore.

For the last many years, those who have the in­ter­est of the Sikh com­mu­nity at heart, those for whom the as­pi­ra­tions of the peo­ple of Pun­jab are im­por­tant, have been try­ing hard to break the hege­mony of the Con­gress and the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal Badal and en­ter the po­lit­i­cal do­main. With un­re­al­is­tic ex­pec­ta­tions from the Aam Aadmi Party, you and many oth­ers won the Pun­jab As­sem­bly elec­tions and en­tered the fray and many of you won. A young man who whole­heart­edly sup­ported you, on con­di­tion of anonymity said, “Sadly, he has be­trayed and let us down.”

“You have frit­tered away an op­por­tu­nity to bring the guilty to book as you are do­ing for the No­vem­ber 1984 car­nage vic­tims in Delhi. You have not done jus­tice to the Phoolka Misl Sar­dars of yore.”

First you you re­signed from party posts, then as leader of the op­po­si­tion and now as mem­ber of Pun­jab Leg­isla­tive As­sem­bly. You were hardly vis­i­ble in your con­stituency Dakha, where many ac­tivists stood up for you at per­sonal risk to sup­port you. Now you have re­signed from the leg­is­la­ture and put your elec­tors, who un­der­took en­mity with the Con­gress and Badal Dal cadres in the area on your be­half.

Frankly, the ra­tio­nale of “con­science” and “cases of 1984” is a very weak al­ibi for not catch­ing the bull by its horns. You have sought the res­ig­na­tion of five leg­is­la­tors of the Con­gress party -Tript Ra­jin­der Singh Ba­jwa, Sukhjin­der Singh Rand­hawa, Navjot Singh Sidhu, Man­preet Singh Badal and Cha­ran­jit Singh Channi on the ba­sis of their speeches. You have said that they should lis­ten to the voice of their con­science.

“With your res­ig­na­tion, you have jolted the hopes of “non-po­lit­i­cal” peo­ple like you, who are de­sirous to have a say in the pol­i­tics of the state.”

Do you and all of us not know that the con­science of the mem­bers of the Con­gress died long back in June 1984? The Con­gress party and its lead­er­ship may have won the elec­tions since then, but “con­science?” “Con­gress vaaste za­meer ki bala hondi hai?” is the gen­eral re­frain of any po­lit­i­cally ori­ented per­son in Pun­jab. Con­gress­men know noth­ing called con­science.

On 28 Au­gust, for the Con­gress party MLAs and min­is­ters, it was a field day to launch frontal at­tack on Sikh in­sti­tu­tions and for the lit­tle brave ones like Mr. Ba­jwa to re­cite the tell-tale story of the hu­man rights ex­cesses of Sumedh Saini over the decades. In to­tal­ity, how­ever, it was only a bat­tle to save the leg­isla­tive bat­tle that day for the Con­gress. No more and no less. Noth­ing legally and po­lit­i­cally has hap­pened since then and there is very less like­li­hood that some­thing will hap­pen. In this con­text, your nar­ra­tive sounds naive and am­a­teur­ish, with­out any po­lit­i­cal think­ing go­ing into it.

More­over, par­al­lel to the Bar­gari Mor­cha, held to up­hold the sanc­tity of Guru Granth Sahib, there was a need to up­stage a le­gal bat­tle to bring the po­lice of­fi­cers and po­lice per­son­nel to jus­tice who were guilty of the po­lice fir­ing in Be­hbal Kalan. The po­lice per­son­nel may have taken a re­prieve from the courts but it was your turn to up the ante on the le­gal front, is­n’t it?

What ap­plies to the Con­gress, also ap­plies to the Badal Dal lead­er­ship. It was time to ini­ti­ate a le­gal bat­tle against the po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship re­spon­si­ble for is­su­ing wrong and il­le­gal or­ders. If the Jus­tice Ran­jit Singh Com­mis­sion can al­lude to Nurem­berg tri­als in its re­port, what has stopped our hu­man rights ac­tivists from tak­ing this up as a crime by the po­lit­i­cal lead­ers and the po­lice on the scene who “obeyed” il­le­gal and un­law­ful or­ders. Your res­ig­na­tion is a case of a hugely missed op­por­tu­nity to get back to the po­lice and the politi­cians of Pun­jab re­spon­si­ble for mud­dling the is­sue of sac­ri­lege, des­e­cra­tion and po­lice fir­ing.

“Sadly, Phoolka ji has be­trayed and let us down.”

Staunch sup­porter on con­di­tion of anonymity

To my mind, you and AAP have still to fathom the need to haul up the Dera Sacha Sauda and its chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim and his co­horts as the top con­spir­a­tors for the sac­ri­lege in­ci­dents in Pun­jab and neigh­bour­ing states. Sikh hu­man rights lawyers, in­clud­ing you must ex­plore this an­gle.

You should have risen to the oc­ca­sion. It was your chance and that of the Aam Aadmi Party to fan out across Pun­jab and bol­ster the call for jus­tice and ques­tion the im­punity be­ing granted by the state, as no ar­rest has been made of erring po­lice. The Bar­gari Mor­cha may be seen by the AAP as a re­li­gious is­sue, but if the AAP has to re­main in sync with the peo­ple of Pun­jab, it bet­ter un­der­stand that if they do not touch such is­sues, then they will have to give up their dreams about be­ing a dom­i­nant force in the Pun­jab.

“By re­sign­ing you have lost a huge op­por­tu­nity which the con­stituents of Dakha af­forded you to bring changes in the area.”

With your res­ig­na­tion, you have jolted the hopes of “non-po­lit­i­cal” peo­ple like you, who are de­sirous to have a say in the pol­i­tics of the state. We have seen this hap­pen­ing all across In­dia too. When­ever artistes, schol­ars, promi­nent lawyers, crick­eters and ac­tors are given an op­por­tu­nity to par­tic­i­pate as law mak­ers, they have be­come salary-col­lec­tion ma­chines and noth­ing else. You do not be­long to that cat­e­gory but have cer­tainly missed the bus.

I can un­der­stand your dis­il­lu­sion­ment with AAP leader Arvind Ke­jri­wal and his team who have failed to get the leg­isla­tive team elected to the Pun­jab As­sem­bly to take their jobs se­ri­ously. The lip ser­vice by the AAP lead­er­ship to the var­i­ous is­sues of Pun­jab and the jus­tice is­sues of Sikhs in Delhi is likely to boomerang on the AAP if they do not go on a cor­rec­tion course.

“The lip ser­vice by the AAP lead­er­ship to the var­i­ous is­sues of Pun­jab and the jus­tice is­sues of Sikhs in Delhi is likely to boomerang on the AAP if they do not go on a cor­rec­tion course.”

While Bar­gari dom­i­nates our dis­course, where to­day nearly a hun­dred thou­sand peo­ple gath­ered again to seek jus­tice and pay homage to the two Sikhs who were killed in Be­hbal Kalan, we have been re­minded of a sim­i­lar case which oc­curred in Feb­ru­ary 1986, when four Sikh youth protest­ing the des­e­cra­tion of Guru Granth Sahib in Nako­dar, near Ja­land­har, were shot and killed in cold blood by ra­bidly com­mu­nal Pun­jab po­lice of­fi­cers es­pe­cially cho­sen for these das­tardly in­hu­man mur­ders. If you would have stayed on as a leg­is­la­tor, you could have ques­tioned the gov­ern­ment of Pun­jab in­side the Pun­jab As­sem­bly, as to why is it not re­leas­ing the Jus­tice Gur­nam Singh re­port, sub­mit­ted by the judge in 1987 re­gard­ing the Nakokar killings?

By re­sign­ing you have lost a huge op­por­tu­nity which the con­stituents of Dakha af­forded you to bring changes in the area. There was no to write in­di­vid­u­ally and col­lec­tively seek­ing more ses­sions of the As­sem­bly and more num­ber of days. Dur­ing the by-elec­tions to the Dakha seat va­cated by you, the elec­tors will again be at the mercy of the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal Badal and the rul­ing Con­gress party, who will move heaven and earth and sully your record and that of AAP.

What next? I do not know. No­body knows. You have kept this in the realm of spec­u­la­tion. Some peo­ple have al­ready started to at­tribute ul­te­rior mo­tives in fu­ture.

I hope and pray that you are able to take Jagdish Tytler to Ti­har prison. Our con­science will be sat­is­fied, our pain will sub­side and this episode of res­ig­na­tion will be for­got­ten.

Rab Rakha.

Jag­mo­han Singh
Ed­i­tor, The World Sikh News