CHANDIGARH: Elected village leaders in Punjab submitted resignation from their posts en masse June 30 in response to a call issued some time ago by Sikh militants to protest against occupation of the Sikh homeland by Indian security forces and against repression of the Sikh population.
Estimates of the response vary. Sikh groups believe that the response to the resignation call is almost total as was the case with the extent of election boycott in February. However, the pro-India Beant Singh government thinks that not all village elders have resigned their posts.
It will take some time before the actual facts become known. The vastness of the action encompassing more than 12,000 villages makes it difficult to gather statistics. Various groups of Akalis and others made the matters worse in this respect. They issued conflicting calls about to whom to submit their resignations. Under the Punjab Panchayat Act, the only competent authority to accept the resignations is the District Panchayat and Development Officer. The Akalis asked the village leaders in some cases to submit their resignations to Deputy Commissioners. Others said the letters should be sent to the state government. Many others said that letters should be addressed to the United Nations. Some suggested that the letters should be addressed to human rights groups. In many cases the Letters have been written collectively and in many other cases individually. In not a few cases the village leaders have been guided by petition writers according to their own knowledge and understanding. The indications are that the call for resignation evoked good response from 12 out of 14 Punjab districts while the response from Amritsar and Gurdaspur has been lukewarm. The lukewarm response in the two districts is attributed to a higher degree of repression faced by the village ciders there who, it seems, will take some time to respond. The Punjab government’s response to the resignation call is evasive. It has directed the district officers not to accept the resignation and newspaper Punjab during the past one week carried detailed items mentioning the number of village leaders who submitted their resignation letters. There appears to be a race among the various Akali groups to project their respective popularity from the number of resignations their leaders carried with them for submission to district officers. The reports indicate Badal Akali Dal and Mann Akali in close competition. In other words, the Badal Akali Disappears to have resigned at the cost of the Mann Akali Dal because earlier the Badal Dal was hot seen much in business.
One reason why many village elders preferred the medium of the Badal Dal to carry their protest to district authorities is the realization among them that the distance between militants and the Mann Dal is growing. The immediate factor responsible for the distance is the allegation against Gurcharan Singh Tohra who belongs to the Badal Dal about his involvement in the Lang murder case. The allegation is being made by the Mann Dal, that Lang belonged to Mann group and he was killed by Babbar Khalsa International which owned responsibility. Even the state government appears convinced that Tohra did not have much to do with the murder. Yet the charge is being repeated by the Mann Dal.
The Punjab government headed by Beant Singh has launched a “mass contact program” evidently to counter the effects of the en masse resignation by village elders. The program includes holding of conferences in villages. Each such conference is heavily guarded by the police. Seven Inspectors General level officers and 14 Deputy Inspector. General level officers have been put on duty to protect Congressmen going to villages.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 10, 1994
