Navjot Singh Sidhu has made Moral Stand the core of his pol­i­tics. It is time to dis­cuss Sid­hu’s moral­ity and the moral­ity of those sup­port­ing or op­pos­ing him. Also, what about your moral­ity? Se­nior jour­nal­ist SP Singh, in this piece Ex­clu­sive to the WSN, dwells upon this ques­tion of moral­ity in par­ti­san pol­i­tics.

BY MOST AC­COUNTS, NAVJOT SINGH SIDHU HAS has taken a moral stance – he is op­pos­ing the ap­point­ment of Ad­vo­cate Gen­eral (AG), per­haps even that of the Di­rec­tor-Gen­eral of Po­lice (DGP.) He is also op­pos­ing min­is­te­r­ial berths to the likes of Gur­jit Rana, or per­haps even Brahm Mo­hin­dra/​Singla et al.

It should have been easy to be­lieve Navjot Singh Sidhu. Some of the reser­va­tions that he has ex­pressed make com­plete sense.

It was ex­pected that Capt Amarinder Singh will call him ‘un­sta­ble’, the Akalis will call him ‘un­guided mis­sile’ and the BJP will bad­mouth him day in and out. You can dis­re­gard those ep­i­thets as com­ing from Sid­hu’s po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents.

Enough is enough. Put an end to at­tempts to un­der­mine the au­thor­ity of CM time and again. As­per­sions be­ing cast on se­lec­tion of AG & DGP is ac­tu­ally ques­tion­ing the in­tegrity/​com­pe­tence of CM and Home Min­is­ter to de­liver re­sults. It’s time to put the foot down and clear the air.

— Sunil Jakhar (@sunilk­jakhar) Sep­tem­ber 30, 2021

Sunil Jakhar has also taken a cer­tain po­si­tion –he has lam­basted Sidhu for breach­ing the trust re­posed in him by the Con­gress High Com­mand. (So what is he ac­tu­ally say­ing? The High Com­mand – which means the two lit­tle gand­his – puts Sidhu in charge and then en­sures a seat for Rana Gur­jit in the min­istry and then wanted Sidhu to back their de­ci­sions. And Jakhar is al­right with it?)

Sunil Jakhar has emerged as the top­most Con­gress leader to bat for scum like Rana Gur­jit. Also, Sunil Jakhar, the man who op­posed Atul Nanda as AG, is per­fectly at peace with APS Deol as AG. This is how the likes of Sumedh Saini sur­vive – they have deep ten­ta­cles in the sys­tem. Jakhar has al­most emerged like a sleeper cell ac­ti­vated when other rats had aban­doned ship.

Here is a sim­ple trans­la­tion: Sunil Jakhar has emerged as the top­most Con­gress leader to bat for scum like Rana Gur­jit. Also, Sunil Jakhar, the man who op­posed Atul Nanda as AG, is per­fectly at peace with APS Deol as AG. This is how the likes of Sumedh Saini sur­vive – they have deep ten­ta­cles in the sys­tem. Jakhar has al­most emerged like a sleeper cell ac­ti­vated when other rats had aban­doned ship.

It’s just not cricket ! What stands com­pro­mised in this en­tire ‘episode’ is the faith re­posed in the (out­go­ing ?) PCC Pres­i­dent by the Con­gress Lead­er­ship. No amount of grand stand­ing can jus­tify this breach of trust plac­ing his bene­fac­tors in a pe­cu­liar predica­ment.

— Sunil Jakhar (@sunilk­jakhar) Sep­tem­ber 28, 2021

But what about Navjot Singh Sidhu him­self and his moral stance?

For­get your Face­book feed, or Twit­ter han­dle, or your news chan­nels pro­pelled by ‘re­li­able sources.’ Just fo­cus on the pol­i­tics of Navjot Singh Sidhu. Let us do jus­tice to the man – af­ter all, he is tak­ing a seem­ingly moral po­si­tion.

Navjot Singh Sidhu is prone to re­mind­ing us about his two decades in pol­i­tics. For most of his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer, he has re­mained a mem­ber of In­di­a’s party of hate. Sid­hu’s had no moral prob­lem in co­ex­ist­ing with a strin­gent anti-Mus­lim pro­pa­ganda. He never ad­vo­cated bet­ter re­la­tions with Pak­istan as key to peace in South Asia. Sid­hu’s pol­i­tics had no place to raise the Am­bani-Adani cap­ture of In­dian busi­ness and com­merce space. While in BJP, Sidhu did not raise the is­sue of ANTI-MUS­LIM RI­OTS in Gu­jarat in 2002. In fact, that was ac­tu­ally the mo­ment that Sidhu en­tered pol­i­tics, be­com­ing a BJP MP in 2004. Best Bak­ery was still in the news, and ‘Maut Ka Sauda­gar’ slo­gan still had po­lit­i­cal cur­rency.

When did Sidhu raise a voice for the vic­tims of the Gu­jarat ri­ots? When did he raise ques­tions within his then beloved party about the role of se­nior politi­cians in ri­ots? 

We need to dwell a lit­tle more on this point – be­cause this was the mo­ment of truth in the ca­reer of many In­dian politi­cians, and most were found want­ing.

Peo­ple may have a short mem­ory, but as com­men­ta­tors, we must not for­get that Sidhu was an MP when In­dian pol­i­tics ex­ploded with Tehelka’s re­portage (Re­mem­ber Op­er­a­tion Kalank?). This 2007 in­ves­ti­ga­tion into the Gu­jarat ri­ots shook the coun­try as the footage played out on Aaj Tak. It clearly stated that vi­o­lence was made pos­si­ble by the sup­port of Gu­jarat po­lice, the Modi regime and the man for who Sidhu com­posed verses!

When did Sidhu raise a voice for the vic­tims of the Gu­jarat ri­ots? When did he raise ques­tions within his then beloved party about the role of se­nior politi­cians in ri­ots?

The fact is that Sidhu did not leave the BJP for any ide­o­log­i­cal rea­son what­so­ever. He is such an hon­est man that he did not even claim there was any ide­o­log­i­cal rea­son in­volved. He openly said that he was side­lined when Arun Jait­ley was given a ticket and that is why he was miffed.

“Ei­ther, I will con­test from Am­rit­sar, or else I won’t con­test elec­tions.” That was the most solid rea­son­ing he of­fered in 2014 when he was still a mem­ber of the BJP.

For­get about hav­ing any ide­o­log­i­cal is­sue with the BJP, Navjot Singh Sidhu did not ever is­sue a sin­gle state­ment about Love Ji­had or Ghar Wa­pasi bo­geys floated by the BJP-RSS, did not ut­ter a word about killings of Pehlu Khan or Mohd Akhlaq or many oth­ers in pub­lic lynch­ings, never com­mented on vi­ral videos of such lynch­ings that com­peted for TRP with his laugh­ter pro­grams, never once said that peo­ple with saf­fron scarves around their necks who are go­ing out beat­ing young boys and girls in bars, restau­rants or parks for sit­ting to­gether are goons.

From 2004 to 2016 as a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment on a BJP ticket, Navjot Singh Sidhu had no moral or ide­o­log­i­cal is­sue with the BJP-RSS-VHP-Ba­jrang Dal. He has never ut­tered a word against Yo­gi’s pol­i­tics. 

The moral politi­cian re­mained hid­den in­side Navjot Singh Sidhu. In fact, let us not for­get, Navjot Singh Sidhu ac­tu­ally ac­cepted a Ra­jya Sabha nom­i­na­tion from the BJP af­ter the Arun Jait­ley episode and re­signed only in July 2016 amid ru­mours that he was about to join AAP.

From 2004 to 2016 as a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment on a BJP ticket, Navjot Singh Sidhu had no moral or ide­o­log­i­cal is­sue with the BJP-RSS-VHP-Ba­jrang Dal. He has never ut­tered a word against Yo­gi’s pol­i­tics.

How is it pos­si­ble to re­main silent on every sin­gle is­sue but find your moral fi­bre when it comes to farm­ers” ag­i­ta­tion or op­pos­ing Amarinder Singh or quit­ting on the ques­tion of Rana Gur­jit join­ing the Cab­i­net?

We are not aware of what all Navjot Singh Sidhu took into ac­count when he de­cided
to join the BJP. He was young, new to par­ti­san pol­i­tics, and was per­haps look­ing for
ca­reer op­tions/​serv­ing the coun­try — not nec­es­sar­ily mu­tu­ally ex­clu­sive ob­jec­tives.
But he had come into his own when he opted to join the Con­gress party. Just as he
is to­day clear that he wanted a clean slate and do good, did he have the same
con­sid­er­a­tions at that time?

When he swung down to Ravneet Singh Bit­tu’s house even be­fore be­com­ing the
state party pres­i­dent, was he not giv­ing cre­dence to the kind of pol­i­tics Bittu openly
stands for? When he went to of­fer trib­utes and stood with folded hands be­fore the
‘samad­hi’ of slain CM Beant Singh, was he not an­nounc­ing his choice of who the ep­i­thet of “Mar­tyr” be be­stowed upon?

When he swung down to Ravneet Singh Bit­tu’s house even be­fore be­com­ing the state party pres­i­dent, was he not giv­ing cre­dence to the kind of pol­i­tics Bittu openly stands for? When he went to of­fer trib­utes and stood with folded hands be­fore the ‘samad­hi’ of slain CM Beant Singh, was he not an­nounc­ing his choice of who the ep­i­thet of “Mar­tyr” be be­stowed upon?

And then there is that lover of the ran­dom Urdu verses and glo­ri­fied mun­shi
Man­preet Singh Badal. I was in Gid­der­baha when Man­preet Singh Badal was fight­ing his first elec­tion in 1995. What kind of lan­guage and pol­i­tics do you think this Dosco/​St Stephens ed­u­cated fig­ure of so­phis­ti­ca­tion was spew­ing out against Beant Singh? Beant Singh for him was a killer of Sikh youth. Now Man­preet Singh Badal stood be­fore Beant Singh’s Samadhi with hands folded and eyes closed in deep con­tem­pla­tion, I won­der what Urdu verse must be go­ing through his mind. There are so many about mu­nafqat – hypocrisy.

Like this sar­dar of moral­ity who had flown a kite in Pun­jab dur­ing his few months
long-Peo­ple’s Party of Pun­jab fes­ti­val and at­tracted a lot of me­dia head­lines, Sidhu,
too, has never con­tended with that prob­lem­atic past of Pun­jab.

Like this sar­dar of moral­ity who had flown a kite in Pun­jab dur­ing his few months long-Peo­ple’s Party of Pun­jab fes­ti­val and at­tracted a lot of me­dia head­lines, Sidhu, too, has never con­tended with that prob­lem­atic past of Pun­jab.

Any se­ri­ous claim to moral­ity is hinged on deal­ing with a com­plex web of is­sues, but
some­times, you can sim­plify it for the par­tic­u­larly dumb: Do you stand for Beant
Singh style of bring­ing peace to Pun­jab? Do you have a stand on hu­man rights? Is
Beant Singh a mar­tyr? What is the con­tri­bu­tion of Ravneet Singh Bittu? What is the
con­tri­bu­tion of Gurki­rat Singh Kotli to Pun­jab, to gen­der equal­ity, to re­spect for
women?

The fact is that Navjot Singh Sidhu is as much a part of the same po­lit­i­cal sys­tem as
any­one else who can co­ex­ist with Is­lam­o­pho­bia, hate speech, hate pol­i­tics,
vi­o­la­tion of hu­man rights, ig­nor­ing or fa­cil­i­tat­ing cor­po­rate greed, elite cap­ture of
re­sources and op­por­tunis­tic al­liances, si­lences and, of course, bom­bas­tic speeches
about moral­ity.

The dirty in­fight­ing within any party that spills out in pub­lic do­main is borne out of a de­sire to cap­ture more, to po­si­tion one­self as more suit­able to the guy next to him, and to some­how grab the seat of power.

The fact is that Navjot Singh Sidhu is as much a part of the same po­lit­i­cal sys­tem as any­one else which can co­ex­ist with Is­lam­o­pho­bia, hate speech, hate pol­i­tics, cor­po­rate greed, elite cap­ture of re­sources and op­por­tunis­tic al­liances, si­lences and bom­bas­tic speeches about moral­ity.

There are many ways to do it —

You can join a party of hate and sur­vive for decades thereby not ques­tion­ing the killings of Mus­lims.

You can join a grand old party and sur­vive by not ques­tion­ing what it did to Pun­jab and the as­pi­ra­tions of peo­ple, and how it played com­mu­nal card, pro­jected Sikhs across the coun­try as ter­ror­ists and then won 426 seats in Lok Sabha.

(Sunil Jakhar should re­mem­ber that his en­tire po­lit­i­cal legacy is based on this Lok Sabha that was formed by sell­ing the “Sikhs are ter­ror­ists” line to the coun­try — Bal­ram Jakhar be­came a Speaker of this 8th Lok Sabha. He never ut­tered a word that the Con­gress party should not have is­sued huge ad­ver­tise­ments in In­dian me­dia that showed a Sikh taxi dri­ver and posed the ques­tion – “Will you send your child to school in his taxi?”)

Peo­ple in Pun­jab, who are wor­ried about what has been done to their Jal­lian­wala Bagh, do not have the op­tion of not se­ri­ously think­ing about jus­tice in other geno­ci­dal or com­mu­nal killings.

— Gu­jarat Ri­ots is no more an agenda of any po­lit­i­cal party, and Con­gress is a part of that pact.

— The No­vem­ber pogrom of Sikhs in Delhi is no more an agenda of any po­lit­i­cal party, and BJP, Con­gress, AAP, Akali Dal, Left par­ties are a part of that pact.

— Is­lam­o­pho­bia is not an agenda of any po­lit­i­cal party, and Con­gress is part of that pact.

You are a moral per­son. Your moral­ity will de­cide who is moral, and to what ex­tent. That is the crux of all pol­i­tics. 

Be­tween Sid­hu’s strug­gles with find­ing and ar­tic­u­lat­ing his moral­ity, Sunil Jakhar’s pain at los­ing his chance and new-found josh in at­tack­ing Sidhu and suck­ing up to the lit­tle gand­his, Amarinder’s sud­den sen­si­tiv­ity to­wards na­tional se­cu­rity and his love for Amit Shah, Sukhbir Badal’s in­ner hap­pi­ness at the fall of Sidhu and im­plo­sion within Con­gress, and the BJP’s clever games in Pun­jab, Man­ish Tewar­i’s cheap-shot tweets, and the clown­ish hacks ped­dling ‘bharoseyog sootar‘ style non-sense as jour­nal­ism, it is your own moral­ity that is at stake.

I told you so…he is not a sta­ble man and not fit for the bor­der state of pun­jab.

— Capt.Amarinder Singh (@cap­t_a­marinder) Sep­tem­ber 28, 2021

You are a moral per­son. Your moral­ity will de­cide who is moral, and to what ex­tent. That is the crux of all pol­i­tics.

You de­cide which are the com­pro­mises that you can live with, and which com­pro­mises are deal-break­ers.

The im­mor­tal Kuldeep Manak:

चढ़दे मिरजे खान नूं वड्डी भाबी दिंदी मत्त। भठ रनां दी दोस्ती, खुरी जिन्हां दी मट्ठ।हस-हस लाउण यारियां ते रो-रो देण छड्ड।

ਚੜ੍ਹਦੇ ਮਿਰਜੇ ਖਾਨ ਨੂੰ ਵੱਡੀ ਭਾਬੀ ਦਿੰਦੀ ਮੱਤ। ਭੱਠ ਰਨਾਂ ਦੀ ਦੋਸਤੀ, ਖੁਰੀ ਜਿਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਦੀ ਮੱਤ। ਹੱਸ-ਹੱਸ ਲਾਉਣ ਯਾਰੀਆਂ ਤੇ ਰੋ-ਰੋ ਦੇਣ ਛੱਡ।

— Man­ish Tewari (@Man­ishTe­wari) Sep­tem­ber 28, 2021

The Sid­hus, Amarinders, Jakhars, Badals, Gand­his, Har­ish Rawats, Man­ish Tewaris and Bharoseyog Sootars do not de­cide your moral­ity. You de­cide yours.

Are you win­ning on that moral turf? You do not need to tweet about it. You only need to move away from your Face­book feed, your Twit­ter han­dle, your tele­vi­sion for five min­utes and be with your­self.

There is no con­fu­sion.

There is a re­sis­tance move­ment out there in the chowk. We do not even have the 1980s-vin­tage ex­cuse that there was no op­tion. If you find that some of their stances are also prob­lem­atic, go fight to get them right. That will be a moral fight and a moral choice.

The Sid­hus, Amarinders, Jakhars, Badals, Gand­his, Har­ish Rawats, Man­ish Tewaris and Bharoseyog Sootars do not de­cide your moral­ity. You de­cide yours.

Sidhu can and will fight his own bat­tles. Channi can keep his chief min­is­ter­ship and Jakhar can nurse his wounds and hypocrisy. Man­ish Tewari can drool some more, and Amarinder Singh can have an­other peg and sing an­other song. Am­bika Soni can in­dulge in some more palace in­trigue and BJP can hope for some more cow dung on the doorsteps of some more of its lead­ers. And you can find your moral self. It’s right in­side you.