The Indian print and television media goes to town about the arrest of Sikh activist Amritpal Singh, while the Punjab police issued a late evening release declaring him a fugitive and announcing that four scores of his associates have been detained from various areas of the Doaba region of the Punjab.  Even while the G20 is still on in Amritsar, internet services have been suspended all across the Punjab. Section 144 has been imposed suspending civil rights of assembly and protest, taxi services have come to a grinding halt, travelers within the state and beyond are having second thoughts, and people are living under a shadow of fear -a virtual iron curtain separates the Punjab from the rest of India and the world.

AT THIS HOUR, it is not clear whether Amritpal Singh is in detention or has escaped the police dragnet chasing him and his associates in a convoy of police vehicles, or perhaps God forbid, there is more to it than meets the eye. Our experience over the last decade frightens us.

Unquestionably the Central and State authorities did not want the international representatives of the G20 meeting to have a taste of how the Indian system works or the lack of it.  So, they waited for it to nearly end before pouncing on Amritpal Singh and his associates.

Mocking its own 92-25 (in a house of 117 legislators) victory at the polls just a year ago, the AAP government of de jure Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has shamelessly suspended all democratic norms to arrest the Sikh activist Amritpal Singh, who rubbed the authorities the wrong way in the last few months, mocking at the doublespeak of the state machinery and moving in the countryside to stop apostasy and raise awareness against drug abuse.

This itself is a huge failure of the AAP government as it has made a self-goal to prove that it cannot handle the situation without resorting to colonial laws, archaic laws, and forces from the Union government.

Amritpal Singh’s unequivocal stand on Sikh rights has not been easily palatable even though his rationale, except for some aberrations, is convincing and logical.  His sudden appearance and domination is questioned by many, yet his steadfastness has won many hearts.

His unequivocal stand on Sikh rights has not been easily palatable even though his rationale, except for some aberrations, is convincing and logical.  His sudden appearance and domination may be unclear to many, yet his steadfastness has won many hearts. 

Notwithstanding his aggressive style and tactics, with his past still unexplored, Amritpal Singh’s traditional mould has become the cynosure of all eyes -from the leftists to the Congress party to the ubiquitous class of moderates in the Punjab and a section of the Indian media. The why and the how of his conduct and role is another story and nothing  should not be decided in the realm of conjecture and hearsay.

Despite what Punjab taught India, at a huge cost of lives, since the eighties of the last century, the whole Indian state and many Indian leaders -old and young still cannot fathom and digest the Sikh traditional show of Kirpans and Sikh attire. They conveniently forget that this is invariably on show during Sikh festivals and that India does not stop celebrating this whenever it finds it convenient to do so.

There is no hesitation in saying that you have to be born a Sikh or be a true friend of the Sikhs with a truthful heart to understand that high-quality horses and weaponry were the most coveted contributions of Sikhs at the Akal Takht Sahib when the sixth master Guru Hargobind Sahib set up the throne.  A doubting Thomas can never be convinced.

Who is calling the shots in the Punjab is anybody’s guess. On the security front, the Punjab police are playing second fiddle to the National Investigation Agency. On the political front, leadership is shared between Bhagwant Mann, Arvind Kejriwal, and the Governor of Punjab Banwarilal Purohit.

The advent of dark days of Punjab  narrative is a marketing gimmick for 2024. The Punjab Police and the AAP government must come clean on the issue of the arrest of Amritpal Singh.