Washington, D.C., Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - India, what a country? 'India is as much a country as the Equator,' the late Mr. Winston Churchill used to say - correctly.
For over two decades, since the June 1984 Indian Army attack on Darbar Sahib in Amritsar, the inhabitants of Sikh-majority Punjab have been living in terror, 'strangulated', intimidated and fleeced by the minions of the Indian state under the excuse that Punjab state had been declared a 'disturbed area' under the draconian 'Disturbed Area Act', of the Indian parliament. This legislation had impounded every human right of the Punjabi citizens. The above-mentioned act empowers the Police to act arbitarily (like thugs and wolves) a la their 'uniformed soul-mates' in Muslim-majority Kashmir and Christisan-majority Nagaland which states have also been declared 'Disturbed Areas' by passage of other 'Acts' of the socalled Indian parliament. It now turns out that the 'Disturbed Area' classification of Punjab, after 1997, was a farce, as it never was!
All of a sudden out of the blue, according to a report, by Sarabjit Dhaliwal, in the Tribune of Dec. 10, 2005, headlined, 'State not disturbed area, says govt' a senior officer of the Punjab government is quoted as having said that,(
www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20051210/punjab1.htm#2) "Punjab has NOT been a disturbed area since 1997. The official is reported to have explained that, NO notification had been issued after October, 1997, to declare Punjab a disturbed area under the Disturbed Area Act, as such it is not a Disturbed Area. The Tribune report goes on to say that Punjab Principal Secretary (Home), Mr. A.K. Dubey, and the Punjab Police chief, Mr S. S. Virk, had checked the records pertaining to the enforcement of the Act and they had found that no notification was issued in the state after October, 1997, to enforce the provisions of the Act. The senior officer further told the Tribune that a notification had to be issued to enforce the Act for a specific period and to extend it further, if required, and that all the controversy created in the media regarding the disturbed area was without any basis and rationale. "In our eyes, all this controversy is meaningless and without any substance," the officer is reported to have told the Tribune with a straight face.
The above illogical 'logic', and fooling around with the established 'law', reminds one of a line by Willam Shakespeare, the famous English playwright and poet, he wrote in his play 'Merchant of Venice'. In that line, Shakespeare quotes Portia (the heroine of the play) as telling Shylock the moneylender, who wanted 'his pound of flesh', that, "There is no power in Venice Can alter a decree established: Twill be recorded for a precedent, And many an error by the same example Will rush into the state."
The Tribune goes on to say, in the above report, that, "the the Rajya Sabha member, Dr M. S. Gill, and also the Chairman of the National Commission for Minorities, Mr Tarlochan Singh, are not convinced with what the Punjab Government says in this connection. Dr Gill and Mr Tarlochan Singh had been raising this issue for the past several months. Recently, they were joined by the member of Lok Sabha, Mr Navjot Singh Sidhu, who had promised to raise the issue in Parliament. Talking to The Tribune on the phone from Delhi, Dr Gill told the newspaper that he had talked to the Union Home Minister, Mr Shivraj Patil, about the 'disturbed areas status' of Punjab only four days ago. 'The federal Home Minister had promised that he would get back to me in this regard soon,' said Dr. Gill. He also said that if Punjab was not a disturbed area, then why were visas being denied to visitors from Pakistan to Punjab? He said that in the recently held Indo-Pak trade fair at Amritsar, only 100 people from Pakistan were given visas to participate in the fair while 400 people were to come from that country. Even, certain poets who wanted to participate in the heritage festival at Amritsar were denied visas, he added. He said that only VIPs from both sides were being given visas while commoners were being denied it...."
According to an earlier month-old report in the Tribune of November 04, 2005, headlined, "Revoke disturbed area tag on Punjab," former Election Commissioner of India, Dr. M. S. Gill, - a Sikh - and now a member of the Upper House (Rajya Sabha) of the Indian parliament, had written to the Indian Prime minister Manmohan Singh, demanding that he 'revoke the order through which the Punjab was declared disturbed area, years ago.' Dr Gill was reported to have said in the letter that Punjab was the most peaceful area in the country at present and there was no logic in keeping this order in force in the state now. He said because of this order, Punjab’s social and economic development had been adversely affected. Dr Gill had also urged the PM to direct the Union Home Ministry to revoke the order. He said the main technical difficulty in plying the bus service between Lahore and Amritsar (& Amritsar and Nankana Sahib) was the order regarding disturbed area in Punjab. He said those who come to India in the Lahore-Delhi bus cannot alight from the bus in Punjab area as they have to first report at Delhi three hundred miles away.
Dr. M. S. Gill, according to another Tribune report dated December 06, 2005, (
www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20051206/punjab1.htm#12)
expressed his concern again over the continuation of 'Disturbed Area Act' in Punjab which was enacted during the militancy decades ago. Talking to The Tribune on telephone, Dr Gill said the disturbed area tag had cast its shadow on the four-day Indo-Pak trade exhibition held in the holy city of Amritsar last week. Dr Gill pointed out that after great deal of persuasion and lobbying by the hosts, PHDDCCI, very few visas were issued to Pakistani entrepreneurs with a special permission for visiting Punjab. Commenting on the present scenario he said insignificant investments by both Centre and state governments had stifled the growth potential and strongly advocated the scrapping of this Act, which was hurting the interest of Punjab, socially and economically. He pointed out that the SAFTA agreement, coming into force in 2006, that would lead to tariff-free trade, would be irrelevant for the state if the 'disturbed area' slur continued. The Tribune report also revealed that BJP Member of Parliament Navjot Sidhu - also a Sikh - has sought permission from the Speaker, of Lok Sabha, for call attention motion on the issue of scrapping of the Act and will ask the government to give an explanation about the continuation of the Act, when the atmosphere in the Punjab was peaceful.
The question arises as to what triggered the Home Secretary Punjab and the the Police Chief to suddenly go public with an embarrassing explanation, on December 10, 2005, that for eight years (since 1997) they have intimidated millions of Punjabis - digested millions in bribes - without any legal locus classicus. Our sources believe that Navjot Singh Sidhu, the Sikh BJP Member of Parliament from Amritsar, for whose political affilliation with the fascist BJP we hold no brief, may have alarmed the Bania/Brahmin rulling elite in Delhi to react, as his demand went straight to their 'collective pocket'. Two months ago - on October 11, 2005 - MP Navjot Singh Sidhu demanded that either Punjab should be given the accompanying economic package (given to disturbed states like Kashmir) or it should not be treated as a 'disturbed area'. Punjab, he said, has been denied the accompanying economic package since the past one decade. For details see report in the Tribune of October 11, 2005, by its Phagwara correspondent, headlined, 'Sidhu seeks disturbed area economic package,' in which Sidhu asks (
www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20051012/punjab1.htm#10) about the logic of keeping Punjab in the list of disturbed areas if the economic package, that goes with it, was not to be given. Sidhu also demanded a tax holiday for Punjab on the pattern of neighbouring states like Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir.
Six months ago, on June 14, 2005, to Mr. Sidhu's credit, he had also questioned the rationale of treating Punjab as a ‘disturbed area’ even after more than a decade of peace. Addressing a press conference in Amritsar, Mr Sidhu demanded that the Centre should either remove the tag of ‘disturbed area’ from the state to usher in free trade and tourists from neighbouring Pakistan or it should allot it (the state) facilities on a par with Jammu and Kashmir to conform to this 'disturbed' status. Expressing his displeasure he said visas were rarely granted to visiting Pakistanis to the state due to this status. It has led to deadlock in any talks on trade or meeting of international trading partners. Please see the Tribune of June 15, 2005 at:
www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20050615/punjab1.htm#10 In a rejoinder to the Punjab Home Secretary's explanation, given on December 09 that Punjab has not been a Disturbed Area since 1997 Mr. Navjot Sidhu, we must say, has made an appropriate reply. He has asked a number of pointed questions of the rulers in Delhi. Some of the questions are:- "If Punjab is not a disturbed area, why this discrimination against Punjabis where every Punjabi has to take a detour of 900 km to get a visa or board a bus to Pakistan located less than a mile away? Are we Punjabis doormats to be used at will he asks? Read details in the Tribune at:
www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20051212/punjab1.htm#2 Decrying the present policy of not allowing any visitor or returning Indian to alight either from the Indo/Pak bus or the Indo/Pak train anywhere else other than in Delhi, Navjot Sidhu said that the procedure defied logic. "I do not understand how if a person is allowed to get down in Jalandhar or Ludhiana he becomes a bomb or a threat to security. But if the same person alights from the bus or train in Delhi, he or she becomes a welcome and friendly visitor. Why does a poor farmer or a resident of the border area have to go to Delhi for permission to visit his relatives living just 40-50 km away from him? If people in Kashmir can visit their relatives in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) without going to Delhi for a visa, why not people in Punjab?" Many countries have opened their visa application collection centres in Punjab (Jalandhar) and in Chandigarh. Why should visa collection centres not be opened either in Chandigarh or Punjab for the convenience of the people here for whom links with Pakistan are not only of blood but also of strong economic considerations and religious reasons of visiting holy shrines? As far as normalisation of relations with Pakistan is concerned, the Union Government has been unfair to Punjab and Punjabis. The one question that Member of Parliament Navjot Sidhu did not ask is, how much Sikh treasure was looted (in shape of police bribes) and many Sikh young men paid with their lives or were incarcerated under the October 1997 Disturbed Area Act which NEVER was for the last seven years?
Mr. Navjot Sidhu has got it right when he says that we Sikhs have no respectable place in India. We are second class citizens (or 'doormats' as he called it - in the world's largest Brahmin Castocracy) since August 1947 when a war-exhausted Imperial Britain left the subcontinent. That was the point in time when the Brahmin/Bania evil nexis inherited the instruments of state power including the British-built buildings (Viceregal Lodge, Parliament building & North and South blocks) on and around Raisina hill illegally built on stolen Sikh Gurdawara lands.
It is obvious that the future of the egalitarian Sikhs (22 million captive in India and three million free in the diaspora) and the future of our children and their children is not in India ruled by this evil Bania/ Brahmin nexus. The future of the Sikh nation lies in an independent, sovereign, democratic buffer state of Khalistan streching from the Jumna river in the East to the Pakistan border in the West (China in the North East and Kashmir in the North) which will act as a bridge of peace and commerce between South and Central Asia and beyond.
