The state is withering away in very un-Marxist fashion in Punjab. In December Sikh militants called for a ban on radio broadcasts in Hindi and to press home their point shot dead the station director of All India Radio at Chandigarh. The radio staff promptly stopped all Hindi broadcasts. The militants also said that all government work should be done in Punjabi not English. Frightened civil servants made the switch at once.
The militants also declared code of conduct for all journalists in Punjab including the representatives of national newspapers. Under it no journalist should use the expression terrorist the correct term is militant freedom fighter or mujahidin; no journalist should say that the Panthic Committee a confederation of militant outfits is based in Pakistan. Journalists breaking the code will be sentenced to death but they can appeal against the sentence to the Panthic Committee.
Every newspaper in Punjab and many outside have fallen in line with the code of conduct. This is unsurprising as militants or mujahidin have over the years killed 17 journalists.
Once they have pasted a few posters in a Punjabi town the instruction on them becomes law. Jeans and skirts have been banned in universities. By killing two engineers working on a canal being dug to take water out of Punjab into the neighboring state of Haryana the militants have killed the project; nobody dares dig any further.
They have forbidden cheating in exams as a result of which all the students in some schools have failed. They have frowned on the extraction of dowries from the parents of brides.
In the western parts of Punjab the militants have become the state. They dispense justice settle land disputes give orders to civil servants (which are carried out with alacrity unknown earlier) they levy an income tax but not very seriously they get cash more easily by looting banks and demanding protection money from business.
The death toll in Punjab was almost 4500 in 1990 the highest for any year. Not all killings should be blamed on the militants or police. With the breakdown of the administration crime syndicates have come up in a big way. Family feuds have given Punjab a tradition of violence dating back centuries and in today’s permissive atmosphere people use guns not lawyers to settle disputes.
The police are demoralized. They unofficially pay bounties to armed freelancers willing to take on the militants. Officially any youngster willing to wield a gun can join a police team for 30 rupees ($1.70) a day unfortunately many youngsters disappear with their guns and some have joined the militants
Politicians in Delhi keep talking of a political solution. Many militants have been released and some policemen think it a mugs game to act tough. If an election is held in Punjab in May as promised it seems certain that the militants will win and that could mean the end of the careers (and perhaps lives) of tough cops.
The Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar has said repeatedly that he wants a political solution. He says he is willing to amend the Indian constitution to give Punjab more autonomy but not independence. The militants say talks should be held under United Nations auspices in Geneva on the basis of self-determination. This would be unacceptable to other political parties notably the Congress Party which props up Indias minority government The Economist Jan 61991
Article extracted from this publication >> February 15, 1991
