PTI adds: V.P. Singh announced that he was convening an all Party meeting very soon to find an early solution of the Punjab Problem.

Singh told reporters aboard the special air force plane while returning from Amritsar that the all party meeting in two or three days would launch a “peace offensive” on Punjab.

 earlier at Raja Sansi airport after praying at Golden Temple and the Durgiana Temple in the holy city of Amritsar during his one day visit that “we (his new government) are moving very fast,” to restore to Punjab peace which has eluded it for nearly nine years.

The Prime Minister who described his visit along with three of his cabinet colleagues as nonpolitical and nonofficial, said that he was deeply touched by the very warm welcome given by the people.

Expressing great regard for the peace of Punjab, the Prime Minister said its contribution was laudable in the independence struggle. “It is a land of martyrs where both Hindus and Sikhs have sacrificed their lives for freedom.

Singh in his historic speech at Akal Takht perhaps the first by any Prime Minister said that Punjabis had contributed much to the prosperity of the country, “but their heart is heavy and bleeding now, and needs a healing touch.”

“The healing touch cannot be brought about at the point of bayonet but with love, faith and people’s cooperation,” he said.

Responding to the rousing reception in the Golden Temple, the Prime Minister announced that he would travel in an open jeep, “peoples security is the great security, I need no other security,” he said.

The Prime Minister refused to answer questions relating to politics from the pressmen saying “this is a holy place.” He promised to reply to those questions in Delhi.

The Prime Minister earlier delivered a brief speech to his party workers who had assembled at the airport to receive him.

SGPC secretary, Manjit Singh Calcutta described it as a “welcome gesture.”

Calcutta said though V.P. Singh’s visit could not heal the wounds created by Operation Blue Star” it is definitely a welcome gesture.”

An Akali Dal (Mann) leader from Jammu Sant Singh Tegh, said the visit was a step towards the solution of the Punjab problem. “We should talk with an open heart. Although the problem is ticklish, it can be solved,” he add

* checking a Prompt Solution On his return to New Delhi, Mr. ‘Singh promised to set up a nonpartisan conference to find a prompt solution to the crisis in Punjab, where Sikhs have been demanding a separate nation called Khalistan. The former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, had never attempted to find a solution to the Punjab problem after his election in 1984. His efforts were an eyewash and within a few years the state government was dissolved and Punjab put under direct rule from New Delhi under an appointed governor.

The most visible symbol of the failed policy, Siddharta Sankar Ray, the Governor of Punjab, resigned. His replacement, appointed by the President and presumed to have the blessing of the new Singh Government, is N.K. Mukherjee, a former Congress Party Cabinet secretary.

In dealing with Punjab, Mr. Singh has the advantage of neutrality that Mr. Gandhi’s association with the Sikhs denied him. Mr. Gandhi’s mother and predecessor as Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, ordered a military invasion of the Golden Temple in June 1984 to root out armed militants. She was assassinated by Sikhs four months later.

Days of Horror In the days after her death, when Gandhi stepped in as Prime Minister, thousands of Sikhs were killed by vengeful mobs in the New Delhi and other cities. Many Sikhs have always associated Gandhi who never ordered a comprehensive investigation of the carnage with those days of horror. Sikhs held Congress Party politicians responsible for the killings.

Although Prime Minister Singh who is not a Sikh, was part of Gandhi’s government in its early years, he played no direct part in Punjab affairs. Many Punjabis Sikh and Hindu say they are willing to give him a chance.

A reporter with the Press Trust of India, the national news agency, described the welcome Mr. Singh received in Amritsar as a “massive, spontaneous response” to his gesture of reconciliation.

Article extracted from this publication >>  December 15, 1989