Has Chandra Shekhar got cold feet after ordering elections to the Punjab Assembly? Does he not trust those he had the secret negotiations with? His warning to Sikhs not to use the June election as a referendum speaks volumes in terms of India’s well-founded fear that it is about to collapse and disintegrate. Perhaps there is a realization that it was a grave miscalculation to humiliate the Sikhs and to attempt to obliterate their culture and identity. Over 100000 Sikhs have died since that black June day in 1984 when the holiest Sikh shrine of Harmandir Sahib was attacked. The Sikhs will outlast all Indian attempts to destroy them. Rajiv Gandhi rightly thinks that elections are not a good idea in Punjab because having initiated the process of crushing the Sikhs he now realizes what he is up against.
There will always be Sikhs and as long as there are Sikhs we can be rest assured that there will be a sovereign Khalistan. What India plans for the Sikhs it faces itself certain destruction. It is doubtful that once India’s breakup starts any two of the score odd nations in the unnatural union would choose to stay together.
The elections this week will prove several points no matter who wins. The most important of these is that India as a nation is headed nowhere but down. Even the election manifestos of the various parties go to show this. Earlier a presence was made promises were held out to take the nation to great glory and into the 21st century. Great prosperity was promised. That farce has been dropped.
The Congress-I promises stability and to protect the unity and integrity of the country. Ask one of the 40 million jobless youths as to what he thinks of such plans. Grandiose promises cannot fool the people any longer. To achieve its promise of protecting unity of the ‘nation’ it will continue to spend billions of dollars to crush the Sikhs Kashmiris Assamese and other minorities. Gandhi says he will deploy the army in strength in Punjab. He however has no answers as to how the staggering $670 billion foreign debt is to be handled.
The fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party is making an all-out bid for power. Its main plank is the building of a Hindu temple after demolishing a historic mosque. The minorities especially the Sikhs and Muslims can expect the state repression against them to be stepped up in the event of the BJP capturing power. A party with a national vision so narrow can only strengthen brahminical institutions which have been the root cause of all of India’s ills. Such a party can only lead its community further into the ground.
The Janata Dal has caste and tribe based job reservations as its main plank. (No party promises more jobs) It had its chance of implementing this policy when it was in power. The Janata Dal used it as a last resort to stay in power but failed. Manipulations within the party proved VP Singh to be weak indecisive and ineffective. The crutch of reservations cannot help a man with a broken back. We have seen V P Singh’s Punjab policy of indifference as he himself admitted. We can expect more of the same.
No party even offers solutions to the real problems like poverty unemployment housing among others. The reason for this is that under the present set up there are no solutions to these problems. All the meager resources go in fighting those who want to be rid of the neo-colonial tyranny of India
The sooner India sees the reality the better for everyone India included. After all how long can it impose itself on the Sikhs and other minorities at such great expense while its own people are starving?
Article extracted from this publication >> May 17, 1991
