CHANDIGARAH, India jan.23, Reuter: The killing of a ruling Congress Party leader and nearly 50 other people in Punjab so far this year may have convinced Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi that action is needed in the violence stricken North Indian State.

Unidentified gunmen killed Joginder Pal Pandey, a former Punjab Minister and party Secretary-general, on January 19. The next day Gandhi held a news conference in New Delhi and urged the State government to take “tougher and stern action”.

In July 1985, the Prime Minister signed an accord with the Sikh Akali Dal Party which now rules Punjab, a prosperous farming State of 17 million people a 60% majority Sikh state that has been torn by violence set off by Sikhs seeking a separate Sikh homeland.

The Accord was meant to meet, at least part way, Sikh demands but it has failed to bring peace to Punjab and Gandhi now finds his options increasingly limited.

The Akalis say they have been betrayed because Gandhi has not implemented the terms of the Accord which include:

Transfer to Punjab of Chandigarh, the capital it currently shares with neighboring Haryana state.  increased water rights from

Rivers flowing through the state. — Release of Sikhs detained since a crackdown of the Golden Temple in June, 1984.

Reinstatement of all Sikhs who deserted the army following the assault on their holiest shrine, the Golden Temple of Amritsar, in that month.

But Gandhi feels the necessary atmosphere is not present.

“We shall surely implement the Accord in letter and spirit”, he said. But Punjab Chief Minister Surjit Singh Barnala and his Deputy Balwant Singh are far from convinced.

“There is fog covering our relations with Gandhi. He is not responding and there is no political support from him”, said Balwant Singh.

Gandhi ruled out for the moment imposition of direct Central Government Rule, permitted by the Indian Constitution, telling the news conference “the time is not type yet”.

Many party members, mindful of a growing Hindu backlash against violence, are pressing hard for it.

“Barnala is a weak leader and cannot fight the violence. He should be thrown out and Delhi must intervene immediately”, declared Punjab Congress (I) President Beant Singh.

Home (Interior) Minister, Buta Singh and several other leaders in Delhi agree. Buta Singh said last Tuesday he was sending more paramilitary police to Punjab.

Gandhi’s dilemma is that if he took charge, he would have no buffer against the growing outcry over the Punjab killings.

“Barnala is a puppet of the Centre and provides a good excuse to conveniently shift the entire blame to him”, Opposition Janata Party President Chandra Shekhar told Reuters.

Other options for Gandhi would be to hold a roundtable conference with the freedom fighters, the Akali Dal and other political parties, to send in the army, to declare a security belt along the 450km (280 miles) border with Pakistan or to impose a state of emergency.

The Prime Minster appears not yet to have resolved on any of these, and most observers think he wants Barnala to stay until after Haryana State Assembly elections are held, probably in March.

Hindu dominated Haryana stands between Delhi and Sikh majority Punjab, and Gandhi’s Congress Party needs to keep it as a barrier and a political bastion.

That achieved, he may be ready for decisive action in Punjab, where even Barnala said this week the killings had ‘assumed the dimensions of a national problem.

Article extracted from this publication >>  January 30, 1987