We would like to create a society in which people are not killed in fake Police
encounters and do not suffer lifelong humiliation. The State has through its customary
Coercion turned humans to sub humans. Through an unfettered rule, w e
Khalsa (Pure) person. Prof Surjit Hans
Punjab is facing a time of massive repression. The rulers of the day are using
multifaceted strategies to crush the pride and the aspiration of freedom of the Punjabi
people. This is not the first time that Punjab is facing the brunt of tyranny. Many a Vajidas
and a Mir Manu came, as did Lakh pat or a Dyer, but history shows that everyone failed
miserably and died like a dog. The present rulers are not unaware of these historical
truths, but if despite this they are not stopping then one thing is clear, they want to show
that they can be worse than even these historical figures. They are particularly proud of
their power, their Machiavellian techniques and their butchers. It was because of this
mistaken pride that the attack of 1984 was executed and it was because of the same false
sense of pride that they destroyed the Akal Takhat, burnt the Sikh Reference Library and
sent a known butcher Sidharth Shankar Ray to Punjab.
He is the same butcher who snuffed thousands of promising lives of Bengal in the last
decade. It is the same butcher whose hands are colored with the blood of Comrade Charu
Majumdar and Comrade Saroj Datta. It is the same butcher who proposed the launching
of Internal Emergency and turned the entire nation into a massive torture camp. It is
imperative to break this misplaced pride otherwise Punjab will fall back to the dark ages.
For this it is necessary to do two things, one is to break their repression and the other is
to put the anti-tyrannical movement on their right tracks. The tyrants use repression and
coercion together. They use coercion to cover up the repression, and use the radio and
television extensively towards this end. It is imperative that the bloody nature of the
tyrants be exposed to the world.
After the army attack in June 1984, the first thing that they did was to release a
concoction of lies in the form of a “White Paper,” through which they tried to justify the
attack. The task of exposing this document is still unfinished. The present White Paper is
limited from the time the Central Government assumed direct control over Punjab in
May 1987 to the present time. It has documented 100 cases of fake encounters and 25
cases of atrocities on women. They expose a pattern of state repression. We hope that
some organization which has more resources than us would take up the task of
systematically exposing the lies and concoctions in the “White Paper’ issued by the
government and thus do its duty to the nation.
It has been learnt that Mr. Devinder Singh Duggel in-charge of the Sikh Reference
Library has done some work in answering the government sponsored ‘White Paper.”
However none of the organizations which claim to be bothered with the interests of
Punjab and Sikhs did it nor did they help him. Because of this and Mr. Duggel’s untimely
death, this work was left undone.*
The other task necessary to combat the tyranny is to organize various organizations
and put the anti-tyrannical movement on the right track, so that those who fire indiscriminately on the basis of a bias of appearance or minor disagreements can be
checked, and if necessary censored. These people not only murder innocent people but
also annihilate the honorable traditions set by our ancestors and thus bring dishonor to us
in the world.
What is needed is that the anti-tyrannical movement should be organized on the lines
of a program which will revolutionize the Punjabi society into one similar to the rule of
Bhai Lalo and which would be governed by principles of mutual co-operation,
castelessness and a lack of religious discrimination, only by doing this can the tyrants be muzzled. Let us quickly advance on these paths and tell the tyrants that:
Every soil has its own truth,
Every soil does not disintegrate on being beaten
Every wounded head does not bow
Dams cannot stop every wave.
National Executive Committee
Desh Punjab Student’s Union
(National Punjab Student’s Union)
