Observing Punjab in the run-up to Assembly elections is like watching an action packed Hollywood movie in 3-dimension. You do not know from where would the next stunt come and what it would be - but only if you are watching the movie for the first time. If you watch the same movie again, the surprise element is lost and you know the sequence of everything.
I find Punjab politics quite similar. Abuses are hurled at the slightest pretext. There is no respect for your opponent and it is a game of Kabaddi in the political arena where grappling the opponent by the neck is considered more important. If you show respect to your opponent in a game of Kabaddi or boxing and don’t grapple the person opposed to you or don’t punch him in the face, you had it. You lose the bout then and there. Perhaps politicians in Punjab take the games of Kabaddi and boxing really seriously and apply the principles in politics as well.
After firing one verbal missile after the other against his Akali opponents, Punjab Congress President and chief ministerial aspirant Captain Amarinder Singh has now gone back in history and questioned the very division of Punjab in 1966 on linguistic lines. He blames his arch rival and chief minister Parkash Singh Badal for demanding Punjabi suba which led to the division in the first place. He reminisces about a Punjab which extended from Gurgaon and Faridabad near Delhi to the Chinese border in Lahaul and Spiti. Of course the present day Punjab too was a part of this huge geographical entity.
I was not born when Punjab was divided and Haryana and Himachal Pradesh carved out. In fact a majority of the population in present day Punjab wasn’t and they just don’t care. I wonder why the Captain does not extend his logic to 1947 when the British bureaucrat Radcliffe divided Punjab between India and Pakistan. Hadn’t it been great if Lahore too were a part of Punjab and one could have travelled to Peshawar without any hitch in the Frontier Mail and the Punjab Mail and devoured Butter Chicken somewhere in the North West Frontier Province were it was apparently invented.
But then, you cannot blame the Akalis for the partition of the united Punjab of 1947. You cannot even blame the Congress led by Gandhi and the divide and rule policy of the British. Raking the issue cannot earn you even a single vote. But obviously you can blame Badal for all the ills, perceived or real, and hope to find some sympathetic ear and some votes. Never mind that Badal was just a small time politician when the Punjabi Suba agitation was launched and he won his first election on a Congress ticket in 1957 when the Akalis were in alliance with the Jawaharlal Nehru led party then.
Initially, I thought Congress had gone back to something which happened 45 years ago by mistake. But I was wrong. The allegation is still being repeated by the party in its meetings and the Captain is still making the same charges.
It would indeed be interesting to find out how many voters are there in Punjab who remember what happened in 1966 and the Punjabi suba agitation before that. I don’t think more than a miniscule percentage and they might not even mean anything.
If Congress still remembers the Punjabi suba agitation of the 1960s and is trying to make it an issue unmindful of the fact that it can never press for a pre-1966 status even if a Congress government is in power and that too which is headed by a Punjabi, Manmohan Singh, the Akali Dal is not too far behind. It has its own set of verbal abuses against Congress and also exploits history to its advantage.
Youth Akali Dal president. Bikram Singh Majithia wants to rewind history back to 1984 and says that the only “contribution of the Congress party was the army assault on the holiest of our holy shrines, Sri Harmandar Sahib and persecution of the Sikh youth in the border areas.”
Majithia, who is the brother-in-law of Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal is trying to emerge as the tallest Akali leader from Majha (Amritsar and neighbouring districts), unsuccessfully tried to raise an issue which has been exploited to the hilt by successive Akali leaders. It has been milked so much that it no longer yields any political dividend.
Given the shape the political battle is taking as dates for election approach, I won’t be surprised if someone goes back to 1947 and rakes up the issue of partition of British Punjab, undoubtedly one of the most tragic episodes of south Asian history. If going back in history serves any purpose, then why not remember Maharaja Ranjit Singh whose empire comprised parts of Afghanistan and not only west Punjab. Is there anyone who wants that those areas of Afghanistan which were part of the Maharaja’s empire be given back to Indian Punjab?
But then history is remembered selectively. You remember what you think could help you and forget what is inconvenient. You use history to target opponents and this surely is self destructive.
I studied history in Delhi University but not at a time when A K Ramanujan’s “300 Ramayana’s” was a part of the undergraduate syllabus. When I was a student, I read many Indian Council of Historical Research journals, papers presented at the Indian History Congress and books. Perhaps Ramanujan hadn’t penned his piece then. But then when I read it recently, I did not find it worthy of being used in syllabus of undergraduate students. May be, it could be a part of the papers in ICHR books or the IHC and not the text books. You cannot question the beliefs and conviction of a community through history.
When the Ram Janambhoomi movement had peaked, I remember noted historian R S Sharma giving a lecture in Delhi University. “Don’t misuse history. Let it be where it is. Don’t look for excuses and justifications in history. It will only be counterproductive,” the man in dhoti-kurta had said. He has been dubbed as a “Leftist” but words and parts of it are still in my memory.
So for Punjab’s sake don’t go back to 1984, 1966 and 1947. Look ahead. The youth want to go ahead and not in the past. (4.12.2011)
(The writer is Senior Editor, The Pioneer, Chandigarh)
http://dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/25169-akali-congress-dangal-gets-gripping-by-day.html
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