THE PUNJAB SITUATION has been a central element of our rulers’ propaganda throughout India. Through the mid and late sixties and even in the seventies, our official and national Press (taking its cue from government statistics and sources) depicted Punjab as the paradigm of agricultural economic progress. We were given pictures of prosperous farmers driving tractors amid lush fields, reaping the rewards of the Green Revolution and benevolent government policy. It was held up as the model of development which was an alternative to the abandoned programme of land distribution.
Over the past few years, we are in the midst of a torrent of official news and pictures of a Punjab reportedly torn apart by civil strife, where Sikhs are slaughtering Hindus. We are told that the police administration is bravely battling terrorists. Terrorists, it is made out, can act with impunity because of the support of the Sikh masses. In the popular mind “Khalistanis”’, “communal terrorists” and “Sikhs” have become almost indistinguishable. Government is now holding up Punjab as the excuse for bringing about a communal schism nationwide, and to justify the passing of an array of black laws.
Though the “Punjab problem” has appeared in much sharper and bloodier outlines in the eighties, the groundwork for it had been under preparation much earlier. Without ao understanding of this historical development and without an idea of who has benefited from it, the present situation cannot be viewed in a true democratic perspective.
We need, therefore, to start with a brief introduction to the emergence of today’s Punjab state itself and the subsequent facts of the state’s electoral politics.
Frame of the enquiry :
What stares us in the face in Punjab today + (i) daily killings of people by the communal terrorists (as well as the advantage taken of these now by the Hindu chauvinists), (ii) repression by the police, the paramilitary forces and the battery of repressive jaws—all of which operate with an arbitrariness, brutality and unconcern indistinguishable, from that of the communal terrorists.
What are the ideologies of those who are behind the above two violent forces in Punjab? How do they operate in practice?
The people of Punjab are harassed and repressed in this dual way in their everyday lives. And though, wherever terrorism (communal or official) has been checked, it has been by the mobilisation and organisation of the people themselves people continue to be victims of these circumstances rather than in command and able to check this daily tearing of the fabric of their social, economic and political life. :
Yet life in Punjab goes on—far more normal than government would have us believe, and people engage in production and struggle for a civilised existence.
What are the daily material problems of the people of Punjab? What are their real interests?
We are familiar everywhere with ruling class and State attacks on movements of the people—movements that seek to further people’s interests. In Punjab, “too, such movements have suffered attacks in the past. But the present situation in the state now makes this repression much easier: more insidious and basic. For, a people harassed by Khalistani and State terrorisms on communal grounds would find it that much more difficult to rally their strength and their forces to struggle for their routine collective material “interests, Beyond that, while evidently the reign of the police, armed forces, and repressive laws has been used effectively against the orginised open strength of the people, it has not been applied to thwart the communal terrorists, whose daily assault on people goes on unchecked. Even more insidiously, by sustaining the hotbed of communal politics and violence over these years, the ruling sections and the State have more recently succeeded in planting the seed of mutual suspicion and anxiety among people. This, indeed, is the greatest basic harm the rulers and vested interests have inflicted on the people of Punjab.
How has this development taken ? What are people’s reactions today, and what have their experiences been over these years in this respect ?
Moreover, the developments in Punjab the actions of the communal fanatics and State machinery, and the isolation of Punjab’s people from popular opinion in other states of the country, thanks to the propaganda by the mass media—have an important bearing for people in the rest of the country as well. Repressive laws ostensibly passed for Punjab and justification of arbitrary exercise of authority are then by stages extended against people elsewhere with relative case.
” How can people in Punjab and outside collectively work a way out of this 2? How can the unrestrained initiative of the people be brought to the fore to do so? : Melt Purpose of the Fact Finding Team:
The All-India Federation of Organisations for Democratic Rights (AIFOFDR) is a body of democratic rights organisations who oppose every act of repression and of social and political oppression and support people’s democratic struggles for a better life in all respects. A constituent member of AIFOFDR, the Association for Democratic Rights (AFDR), Punjab, has been actively working in Punjab for nearly a decade. Among other thing it has published two reports (one in English, one in Punjabi) on the Punjab situation and many shorter ones on Particular incidents. However, given the importance of the issues involved, and the need to take them to the whole of India, it was decided that an all India fact finding committee would tour the state and arrive at findings on the Present situation, n its roots, and on its necessary solution.
The team consisted of Gayatri Singh (advocate, chairperson of the team), Principal Sujan Singh (Punjabi short story writer and Sahitya Akademi award winner), Harish K. Puri (Chaurman, Department of Political Science, Guru Nanak Dev University), Professor Jagmohan Singh (General Secretary, AFDR, Punjab), Mohinder Singh Sandhu (President, AFDR),C. Bhaskar Rao Secretary, Organisation for the Protection of Democratic Rights,
A.P.), M.V. Krishnaiah (Organising Secretary, OPDR, AP), Samy (Secretary, Lokshahi Hakk S. Bombay
Terms of reference :
The following were the terms of reference investigated the situation. These are the
Punjab situation?
(2) Where does the attack on the Who are the targets of the attacks by (a) communal terrorists (b) the State?
(3) How is it affecting the (4) How is it affecting the People in the Punjab?
(4) How is it affecting the democratic organized activity of the people?
(5) How, is communalism and divisiveness among the people kept alive?
(6) Who are the forces offering resistance to lives of the people, and how?
As a democratic rights organisation opposing all forms of State “repression we also oppose terrorism as undemocratic and detrimental to people’s long-term interest… Communal terrorism, a weapon of ;the ruling. classes to divide people, is especially vicious and anti-peoples”
However, our Government, history books, and media club communal killers, political adventurists, and genuine revolutionaries (eg, Bhagat Singh) under the term “terrorists”. To draw a distinction, we have, by and large, employed the term “communal terrorists’’ to describe the armed bands of communal killers in Punjab today. We have, in general, used the word “Khalistan” when talking of the political and ideological propaganda of these communal forces.
With these terms of reference the team toured Punjab and visited 28 places, both villages and towns. It also met people who gave detailed descriptions of incidents which had occurred in places where the team could not go. The districts covered in one manner of another were Jalandhar, Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Faridkot, Sangrur and Patiala. The team met peasants, workers, employees, academics, leaders of the major political parties and unions, and those affected by terrorist violence as well as those affected by State violence. The team also applied to meet members of the police and administration, but was not granted an interview; It was also refused an interview with the head priest of the Golden Temple. Despite this, the meetings it had were very fruitful. In addition, the team studied various documents which provide an economic and political back- ground to the present events.
Dt: August 15, 1987
Rajani X. Desai
CONVENOR,
A.L.F.O.F.D.R.
