Thorns ahead for Himachal’s Virbhadra

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

Raja Saheb” Virbhadra Singh is sulking. With assembly elections slated in the next four months in Himachal Pradesh, he is behaving like a wife who wants a piece of jewellery in the showroom at any cost. He is sure that he will have his way like the wife who knows how much pressure to exert on the husband to get that elusive jewelry.

In the story books, you find how the queens used to go into a secluded house (Kop Bhawan) to force the kings to have their way. This is what Kaikeyi did to force King Dashrath to make her son Bharat the king of Ayodhya. At the age of 78, Raja Saheb knows how to exert pressure on the high command and how much. He has been the Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh five times and now wants it for the sixth time. That is plain and simple.

Obviously, he cannot become the Chief Minister unless he has a maximum number of his supporters elected as MLAs. Also, the party has to win the elections. So the complaint of Singh is simple. He cannot have his way and get party tickets for a maximum number of supporters as a “neutral” Sheila Dikshit is the chairperson of the committee which has been entrusted the task of selecting candidates for the assembly polls.

As the process of selection of candidates is apparently with a group in which he hardly has any say, the Raja Saheb wants that the high command declare him the chief ministerial candidate of the party so that there are no obstacles in his way if the Congress wins and is in a position to form the next Government. He has gone in the proverbial Kop Bhawan to press for his demands.

What Harish Rawat did in Uttarakhand after the Congress victory, Singh is doing a similar thing in the neighbouring Himachal Pradesh. After the appointment of Vijay Bahuguna as the Chief Minister, Rawat flexed his muscle for a while, went incommunicado and even threatened revolt. But being the grand old party, Congress knows how to deal with tantrums of its leaders. Rawat was mollified soon and no one knows what was promised to him to remain silent and support Bahuguna.

Now, it is the turn of Virbhadra Singh. He has learnt his lessons from the episode of Harish Rawat and wants to ensure that this is not repeated in Himachal. The irony is not lost as there are lot of similarities between Uttarakhand and Himachal - both are hill states, share a common boundary, have practically a two-party system and even the size of the assembly is almost similar.

But, there is many a slip between the cup and the lip. A dichotomy is appearing between the demands of Singh and the political game plan of his party. Both Virbhadra Singh and Congress high command are playing like deft chess players. They are making one move at a time and know the strengths and weaknesses of each other. Congress is facing a dilemma as corruption has perhaps become the most important issue for the polls, followed closely by development.

Singh had to resign from the Union Cabinet as charges were framed against him by a court on corruption charges. Congress would lose the first round to BJP straightaway if Singh is declared the chief ministerial candidate. BJP would find a punching bag in Singh and hammer the point across the state that Congress is patronizing corruption.

Though central leaders of Congress are claiming that the party does not declare its chief ministerial candidates, it is only partly true. Cap Amarinder Singh was declared the chief ministerial candidate of the party by Rahul Gandhi himself before the Punjab Assembly polls. It is a different matter that the party lost. Similarly, Manmohan Singh was declared the prime ministerial candidate of the party by Sonia Gandhi before the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.

Having observed Congress politics closely, I am sure that interlocutors like Digvijay Singh must have promised Raja Saheb that he will be the chief minister after Congress victory and whatever the party is doing is only a posturing. But being an astute politician who has been everything what a politician would ask for - MLA, MP, chief minister, Union Cabinet Minister etc - the Raja knows that this time it will indeed be difficult and the way to the crown is littered with thorns.

The Himachal crown is not easy this time even in the unlikely scenario of a Congress win. Lok Sabha elections would be held a year and half after the Himachal assembly polls and the Congress cannot afford to install somebody against whom charges have been framed in a court. The message would go all across the country and obviously the party cannot afford such a negative publicity when heir apparent Rahul Gandhi is set to play a “bigger role” in the organisation.

It is here in this dichotomous situation that Congress is in for a big problem and faces the prospects of losing the hill state like neighbouring Punjab where it was taking victory for granted. Virbhadra Singh is clearly the only leader in the state who enjoys mass support to some extent, knows the state like the back of his hand and is the best bet of the party against the resurgent BJP which has now put aside differences between chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal and senior leader Shanta Kumar and put its house in order ahead of the polls.

“If Raja is in as the Chief Ministerial candidate with charges of corruption, BJP would get enough ammunition in the campaign to pin down the Congress. If he walks out and forms a regional party, it would mean a walkover to the BJP,” a seasoned observed of the state said. In both the eventualities, BJP gains and Congress loses ground. There seems to be no middle path for the party in the State at this point.

Moreover, even if Congress does not project Singh as the Chief Ministerial candidate, he keeps a low profile till elections but is made the Chief Minister; the repercussions would be felt at the central level. The damaging message that Congress is tolerant towards corruption would be exploited by the opposition throughout 2013 and till the Lok Sabha polls.

The ball is now in the court of the central leaders. Congress managers will now be battling out to involve Singh in the polls and use his vote catching ability but to dump him eventually. Will the Raja Saheb take the bait? That will be the million rupee question in the run-up to the Assembly polls. (July 30, 2012) 

 http://dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/84353-thorns-ahead-for-himachals-virbhadra.html

http://dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/84386-thorns-ahead-for-himachals-virbhadra.html

‘Bigger role’ for Rahul!

  

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

Rahul Gandhi is already the Joint Number 1 in the party if not Number 2. Making him a Deputy Prime Minister or Working President of Congress would only confirm what he already enjoys without a fancy designation

  

So Rahul Gandhi is finally ready to play a bigger role in either the government or the Congress party.

You can’t find even a single Congress person across the length and breadth of the country who did not shower accolades on the decision. In fact, all of them, the leaders in particular, have already gone overboard to welcome it with words laced with sycophancy as if their savior has finally “arrived”. When someone in the Gandhi family sneezes, the entire Congress catches cold. Obviously, this was much more than a sneeze.

Having watched Congress politics for a while, it was surprising that there was indeed a need for such a statement at all from the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family. Whatever his designation in the party is, Gandhi was already joint Number 1 in the party with his mother Sonia Gandhi, if not the Number two.

Moreover, everyone in the country knows that the way Congress has functioned in the last decade and a half and  the way power is centered in the family, the Prime Minister is a mere nominee from the family rather than having a parallel power base of his own. Rahul Gandhi might have termed him as one of his two bosses but ask a veteran Congress leader and he will tell you that the only two real bosses in the party are the two Gandhis.  Remember, Narasimha Rao was disowned by the Congress and the Gandhi family as he showed that PM was himself  a power centre and he did not owe it to the family.

Manmohan Singh knows the fate of Rao in Congress legion. He has never shown any pretensions of behaving like Rao and showing any disrespect or indifference to the family unlike his former boss. Simply put, you cannot work in an organization if you invite the wrath of the owner and the CEO. For almost every Congress leader, the party and the family is synonymous. Being a good economist and a student of history, Manmohan Singh knows that well.

Now the question would be about the role which Gandhi would play either in the party or the government. A position in the government is practically ruled out as he would have to serve as a Cabinet minister even if he is made the Deputy Prime Minister. He could step in the shoes of Pranab Mukherjee as the Finance Minister but the way prices are going up and an economic crisis building in the country, the post of Finance Minister would not endear him to the people ahead of the big battle of 2014.

Home Ministry could be the other option if P Chidambaram is given Finance. But again it requires the ambivalence of Chidambaram to battle adversity in the face of naxal threat, Jihadi violence and civil disturbances like that of Telengana.

As of now, Gandhi could fit the bill only in ministries like Rural Development, Environment, Water Resources, Information and Broadcasting etc, where there is hardly any public scrutiny or risk of becoming unpopular and invite the wrath of the people in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections, less than two years from now.

So the obvious choice for Gandhi’s “greater role” would be the party. The Constitution of the party says that the party President is assisted by the General Secretaries and the Congress Working Committee. Gandhi is one of the dozen General Secretaries of the party and has been given charge of NSUI and the Youth Congress. Being a General Secretary, he is also the member of the CWC. But ask any other general secretary and they will frankly tell you that Rahul is the first among equals. This makes him practically the Number 2 in the party hierarchy if not joint Number one.

If Gandhi keeps insisting on a bigger role to satiate the appetite of the political pundits and to boost up the morale of party workers and is made the Working President of the party or the Vice President it will only be a change of nomenclature—making the De facto as De jure. It will not at all alter the functioning of the party or the power structure within it in any way. All the General Secretaries – be it Janardan Dwivedi or Digvijay Singh - look up to him reverentially and that will continue.

Another “bigger role” could be in elections of Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat later this year. But the risks are manifold. In the recently held elections of Uttar Pradesh, Gandhi indeed played a pro active role. He made sure that the candidates were declared two to eight months before the polls to give them sufficient time to prepare themselves and addressed over 150 rallies and public meetings. It is a different matter that bereft of any sound footing, hype could not take the Congress anywhere and it faced an electoral disaster. The message of UP was loud and clear. There were hardly any takers for the USP of the Congress – Rahul Gandhi.

A section of the Congress leaders privately admit that the risks of replicating the experience of UP in the entire country is huge. Though Rahul did not declare himself to be the chief ministerial candidate of UP, elections were fought and votes for Congress sought on his name.

After the declaration of Gandhi’s intention of playing a bigger role, Congress leaders are speculating what the move could be. A section believes that if he is made the Prime Minister anytime now and then proves that he is indeed capable of steering the country’s economy and polity in the run-up to the general elections, he could be projected as the face of the party in the elections for the third consecutive term of the Congress at the Centre.

Another theory is that he would criss cross the country, organise a series of public meetings from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and practically launch the election campaign of the Congress. If a blitzkrieg is launched, hype built, the movement catches some steam and the response is positive, the party could go for an early election sometime between September and November next year to cash in on such a goodwill.

Yet another talking point which is being speculated in the Congress is that nothing will change till the 2014 elections. The government would announce populist schemes one after the other and hope for the TINA (There is no alternative) factor. If lady luck smiles and the UPA is indeed voted to power, Gandhi would simply take over the reins of the government and leave the party to his mother Sonia Gandhi.

The Congress leaders and cadres would be looking at Rahul to announce his next move after his avowed intention of playing a bigger role. But what is clear in this era is the fact that a surname can take you ahead in a party but not in electoral politics. People do not vote for a surname any longer and there are larger issues at play. Had that been the case, there would have been a Congress government in UP and all the universities in the country would have had NSUI Presidents. (July 23, 2012) 

 http://dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/82603-bigger-role-for-rahul.html

http://dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/82598-bigger-role-for-rahul.html

Why bypoll results favour ruling parties

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

Assembly Bye-polls are normally heavily loaded in favour of the ruling party anywhere in the country. More so when the ruling party is fresh from its victory in the main elections, has not taken unpopular decisions and is yet to turn weary and tired.

This is what happened in Dasuya in Punjab and Sitarganj in Uttarakhand. In both the cases, the ruling parties won convincingly, completely demolishing the opposition. The honeymoon period with the voters which started after the victory in the assembly polls continued in the by-polls with no semblance of a fight by the opposition.

In most of the by-polls, sympathy is considered to be a factor as the political parties tend to field the wives, sons, daughter-in-law or daughters of the deceased leader if the by polls has been necessitated by the death of a sitting legislator. But sympathy, obviously cannot be the sole deciding factor as the by-polls in Renuka and Nalagarh in Himachal Pradesh and Ratia in Haryana suggested over seven months ago.  

In Dasuya, BJP fielded its “natural choice”, Sukhjit Kaur Sahi, wife of sitting legislator Amarjit Singh Sahi who had won the February 2012 polls. The result was a foregone conclusion as the dejected Congress, licking its wound after the defeat in the Assembly and municipal polls, was no match to the aggressive and unrelenting campaign of SAD-BJP, built around the hype and promises of development. But what was surprising was the margin of victory. A margin of over 47,000 votes in any assembly polls is huge and baffled the contestants and their parties as well. “Is it the beginning of what Sukhbir Badal says the 25-year rule of the Akali Dal in Punjab?” wondered a BJP leader in Chandigarh, who was initially skeptical of the tall claims of SAD President that the party will rule Punjab for the next 25 years and this was the sixth year of such a rule.

Interestingly, the victory margin of Sukhjit Kaur Sahi at 47, 431 votes was next only to Deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal who won from Jalalabad by a margin of 50,246 votes in the February polls and Revenue Minister Bikramjit Singh Majithia who won by 47,581 votes. Alarm bells would definitely be ringing in the Congress and it should be introspecting about the massive loss even though the party has accused the ruling SAD-BJP of rigging the polls.

Similar was the case of Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna who won the Sitarganj Assembly seat by a record margin of 39,954 votes over his nearest BJP rival. Ironically, this was a seat which was won by the BJP in the last polls and the MLA vacated it in favour of Bahuguna. This became the highest margin in all the assembly elections in Uttarakhand so far and one has to remember that the opponent was not a political novice but former BJP minister, Prakash Pant. The swing in favour of the Congress was massive as people were voting for a chief minister rather than a MLA who could be in the opposition benches and could not have contributed to the development of the area.  Here, BJP accused the Congress of rigging the polls, a charge which Congress made against the ruling party in Punjab.

What helps the ruling parties hold complete sway in by-polls is its control on the state administration. During general elections, model code of conduct is in force in the entire state and the Election Commission has an overriding role. That is not the case in a bye-election as the code of conduct is localized to the constituency concerned and the EC’s strict gaze is off the radar.  While the voters do not see any point in helping a losing cause, by voting for the party which they know will be in the opposition, the administration too knows well that acts of omission and commission by the ruling party needs to be overlooked as they will be in control for the next few years.

Before Dasuya and Sitarganj by-polls, elections were held for Renuka and Nalagarh assembly segments in Himachal Pradesh in December last year, four years after the ruling BJP came to power in the state. Here the results were in the real sense surprising as BJP won the stronghold of Congress while the Congress won from a seat which was the stronghold of the BJP. The sympathy factor went for a toss as people rejected the kith and kin of the deceased MLAs.

BJP had wrested Renuka seat from the Congress but suffered defeat in its hands in its stronghold Nalagarh. In Renuka, Hridaya Ram of BJP defeated Vinay Kumar of Congress by a narrow margin of 3,526 votes. In Nalagarh, Lakhvinder Singh Rana of Congress defeated BJP's Gurnam Kaur by a slender 1598 votes.

Both the BJP and Congress were banking on sympathy votes in the by-polls as Congress had fielded Vinay Kumar, son of Prem Singh who had won the seats six times, from Renuka while BJP had nominated Gurnam Kaur, widow MLA, Hari Narayan Singh from Nalagarh. Held four years after the government has assumed power, political and developmental issues clicked for the candidates and not sympathy. This is what will matter in the Himachal forthcoming Himachal assembly polls where both the BJP and Congress are equally matched and each seat will have a tough fight.

The same was the case in Haryana where the voters did not sympathise with the widow of deceased MLA Gian Chand Odh in Ratia assembly segment in Fatehabad and rejected her outrightly in the November 2011 by-polls. Congress won Ratia seat after 30 years with its candidate Jarnail Singh defeating Sarfi Devi of INDL. Gian Chand Odh of the INLD represented the seat in the state Assembly and his death had necessitated the by-polls.

But Adampur in Hisar did not throw any surprising result. Renuka Bishnoi, wife of HJC President Kuldeep Bishnoi, won from the family stronghold on a seat vacated by her husband who won from Hisar earlier in a high voltage Lok Sabha by-election. Bishnoi had humbled Congress and INLD in Hisar by-polls which gained national prominence due to Team Anna’s call to vote against Congress and the ruling party going in the polls with all guns blazing to get the elusive victory.

By-polls in the last one year in the region have thrown results  - most of them on the predicted lines but also where the pollsters were completely off the mark. Local, national and emotional factors coupled with the profile of the candidate and the party which they represent have proved crucial. At least this was the case with Dasuya and Sitarganj. (July 16, 2012) 

http://dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/80773-why-bypoll-results-favour-ruling-parties.html

http://dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/80785-why-bypoll-results-favour-ruling-parties.html

BJP wins Dasuya by-polls by record margin

Amitabh Shukla / Chandigarh

Riding a sympathy and pro incumbency wave, BJP humbled the Congress in the Dasuya by-election by one of the biggest margin the constituency has ever seen.

The landslide victory of BJP candidate Sukhjit Kaur Sahi over her Congress rival Arun Dogra by 47,431 votes is a record and indicated the anti-Congress mood prevalent amongst the voters of Punjab, four months after they brought back the Akal Dal-BJP government back to power in the state. The victorious BJP candidate secured 77,494 votes while her nearest rival Dogra got 30,063 votes out of the total 1,12,706 polled votes. PPP candidate Bhupinder Singh managed only 5,149 votes.

Interestingly, the victory margin of Amarjit Singh Sahi, whose death necessitated the bye-elections was only 6223 votes in the February 2012 elections and 9274 votes in the 2007 polls, something which was substantially improved by his wife who was nominated by the BJP to cash in on the sympathy factor.

Bahujan Samaj Party, which contested the February polls and its candidate got over 5000 votes, did not contest this time. The move was expected to swing the Dalit voters in favour of the Congress but the results indicated that sympathy was the overriding factor along with the "political honeymoon" which a party enjoys soon after victory in assembly polls. The results also indicated that Manpreet Badal's PPP has failed to make inroads in the Akali vote bank as its vote share is more or less similar to what it got in the last polls, over four months ago.

“The by-poll result was a forceful verdict for good governance and a stamp of approval on the futuristic vision unfolded by the SAD-BJP alliance in the state,” chief minister Parkash Singh Badal said after the victory. Terming it as a “historic mandate in favour of pro-people and development-oriented policies of SAD-BJP government,” Badal said that the spectacular by-poll result was a triumph of transparent, pro-people and effective governance of alliance over the divisive politics adopted by the Congress party. The veteran leader saw the policies of the central government as one of the contributing factors for the defeat.

Licking his wounds after the defeat in the Assembly polls followed by the municipal polls and now the by-polls, the result is being seen as a setback for the Punjab Congress President Captain Amarinder Singh. The party high command had put him on notice after the humiliating defeat in the assembly polls and is expected to take a call on his continuation as the PCC chief to make the party fighting fit for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

An undeterred Captain however, blamed rigging for the defeat of the party.  “There was nothing surprising about the results as the ruling alliance had not only resorted to blatant abuse of power but had completely subverted the democratic process by rigging the elections,” the PCC President said. He said, it is no endorsement of the performance of the government but only betrays its desperation and nervousness that it had to rig the elections for the victory.

SAD President and Deputy CM, Sukhbir Singh Badal termed the result as “last nail in the coffin of Congress Party in Punjab. He said that the result shows that Congress was totally decimated in the state. Sukhbir, who campaigned extensively along with his father and other BJP leaders, said that this by-election would be termed as a trailer for 2014 Lok Sabha polls, in which SAD-BJP all set to clinch all 13 seats in Punjab.

The victory may not affect the arithmetic in the Punjab Assembly but comes as a morale booster for the ruling alliance ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, less than two years away from now. In the 117-member Punjab Assembly, SAD has 56 seats and its alliance partner BJP 12.  Congress has 46 MLAs and there are three independents. However, of the three independents, 2 are supporting the Akali Dal and one Congress.

Dasuya in Hoshiarpur district, bordering Himachal Pradesh, was a traditional Congress bastion till Sahi managed to wrest it from the Congress in the 2007 polls by defeating Ramesh Chander Dogra. He again defeated Dogra in the February 2012 polls. The veteran Dogra, a former minister, did not contest the bye-election citing health reasons and the party nominated his son Arun Dogra as the candidate. (July 15, 2012) 

http://dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/80574-victorious-bjp-candidate-secured-77494-votes.html

http://dailypioneer.com/nation/80668-on-sympathy-wave-bjp-humbles-cong.html

Kasauli: No longer a summer destination

Kasauli on July 1, 2012

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh has myriad attractions and charm for a quite holiday. This is a place where perhaps you can be a part of nature and listen to the chirping of a variety of birds and the chattering of a lot of monkeys around. You can go for a walk and would be privileged only to hear your heartbeat, the sound of the wind hitting the trees and the crunching of leaves when you walk over it.

The sunrise and also the sunset could be mesmerizing, a magical experience. In a slow motion, the sun comes out from behind the mountains in the morning displaying a unique colour, giving you the view of a life time. The pale yellow light of the receding sun too is an experience to cherish as the provider of light and energy takes a break and rests for the next 12 hours.   

The Pakora wala who also sold Jalebis

But there is a rider. You can experience the solitude and much more only when you go there in the off-season when few tourists are around. Kasauli may not be the place to be in the peak tourist season. This is what I realised after reaching the hill station, nestled in the Shivaliks, 60 kms from Chandigarh.

With an extended summer vacations for the schools, I decided to drive down to Kasauli on the first day of this month – a Sunday. The drive from Chandigarh is a breeze on the newly constructed four-lane Zirakpur-Parwanoo highway. The road signages, which were missing when the highway was inaugurated a few months ago, have been put in place now.

Every turn in the mountains has something new to offer. It is a different landscape, a different valley, a new milieu, a completely new setting. Taking a left turn from Dharampur lands you amid tall pine trees. The colour of gold dominates as the pine needles had fallen and the mountains were yet to be lashed by rains.

The serpentine road takes us to Kasauli and the PWD Rest House where I was supposed to stay for the next two days. While the journey was extremely exciting, the destination was not. It was brimming with people, blowing horns, driving haphazardly and playing loud music on the narrow mountain roads. Some of the fellow tourists wanted to snatch what nature had to offer rather than becoming a part of it.

The Mall Road, leading to the small market of Kasauli, was full of people. Walking on the road was a pain rather than a pleasant experience. What made matters worse was that vehicles too were climbing on this Mall Road even as it was full of pedestrians struggling to come to terms with the sharp gradient of the hills. Blowing of horns, noise, children crying to grab attention of their parents, salesmen calling the tourists to sell their wares…This is what I had intended to avoid in the plains and had come to seek a temporary relief in the mountains.

Invasion of hundreds of people on the small hill station on a Sunday led to a complete collapse of whatever little civic infrastructure the popular Kasauli had.  There was no parking spot vacant in the parking lot of the bus stand, rather it was overcrowded. Vehicles were parked all along the road for a kilometre. Those not accustomed to hill driving made matters worse by parking haphazardly, not knowing to give way and creating problems and risks for not only themselves but also others.

On the Mall Road, tourists – mostly from Punjab and Chandigarh and a few from Haryana as the registration number of vehicles indicated, were haggling with the vendors selling everything on this earth. Children were blackmailing their parents for a toy being sold or the eatable being displayed. Some of them were crying at the top of their voice to grab the attention of their parents and force them to buy the stuff they wanted.

Being a day of mela for the locals, pink coloured Jalebis were being fried and then soaked in sugary syrup in plenty. Potato and chilly Pakoras too formed a part of the local delicacy which the tourists as well as the locals were enjoying. Then you had Tibetans selling momos and Maggi. A resident of Punjab had entered into a verbal duel with a Tibetan woman selling momos asking why Onions were not being served with the popular snack. The irritated woman simply replied back saying raw onion was not served with momos in any part of the world. 

Everyone seemed to be in a hurry to eat, make merry and return back. No one really seemed interested to soak into the beauty of the hill station. Walking a few hundred metres on what I thought was a lesser frequented pathway, I finally saw a person who was enjoying the solitude. The middle aged person had spread a towel and was lying down, looking at the trees and the hillocks and singing an old song, a tribute to the impending monsoon. His wife and two kids watched him. “This is life,” he told me as I stopped and watched him. I nodded in agreement and joined the chorus for a while.

The weather may have been pleasant than the plains which were sizzling, it nevertheless was humid and one started sweating after climbing a bit. The locals described the weather as unusual, something which they had not seen in recent years when it hadn’t rained in the last week of June and kept the 5000 odd inhabitants of Kasauli indoors.

Room No 5 of the PWD Guest House where I was putting up, saw a power failure in the afternoon. I enquired and found that power cut had become common for the last two months in the entire belt. This forced me to go shopping and get a candle and a match box – something which I had not bargained for while coming to Kasauli.

The caretaker of the Guest House warned me to keep both the buckets in the bathroom full as the water supply was extremely erratic. “If you do not use it judiciously, you face the risk of running out of water in the middle of your bath,” he warned. I took the message seriously and filled the bucket immediately after entering the room.

I got the message. It was time to curtail the two-day break and return back the very next day. This is what I did, promising that I would not come to the hills in the peak season when there is no difference between Kasauli and Delhi or for that matter Chandigarh, Rohtak, Panipat, Jalandhar and Ludhiana. (July 9, 2012) 

 http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/79075-kasauli-no-longer-a-summer-destination.html

   

Spies of Punjab: A tale of Surjeet, Sarabjeet Singh

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

How similar are the names of Surjeet Singh and Sarabjeet Singh? Ask any person in Punjab and you will be told that there is absolutely no similarity between the two, except the surname. But this remained the greatest confusion on the other side of the Radcliffe line, in Pakistan, for several hours.

Obviously, the confusion was deliberate. Working in the media over a period of time, I have seen politicians, state governments and authorities and of course affected individuals, contradicting news as soon as it is flashed. If anyone has been wronged or an incorrect news broadcast, they are immediately alarmed and contact not only the reporters concerned but also the top bosses of the organisation which has done so.

Even if a particular news item is correct but not palatable to the authorities, they deny it as soon as it comes to their knowledge. I have witnessed several instances where people call up 10 minutes after news has been telecast to point out its inaccuracy or for that matter to appreciate it.  No one takes over six hours to contradict a news, if it is being flashed repeatedly on electronic channels and news agencies.  This is what Pakistan did and instead of Sarabjeet, it was Surjeet who was released after spending over three decades in a prison there.

Surjeet is an honorable citizen of the country and his release has been welcomed not only by the people of the state but also by a resolution in the Punjab Assembly. The same resolution also urged the central government to take all steps for the release of Sarabjeet Singh, facing a death sentence for allegedly carrying out subversive activities.

 But here, there is a twist in the tale. While Surjeet, a former constable in the Border Security Force, says that he crossed over to Pakistan several times and was a spy, hired by an intelligence agency for the country, Home Secretary Raj Kumar Singh has categorically denied the assertions. The Home Secretary said that India was not into spying and the assertions of Surjeet are not correct.

The question is whom should the people of the country believe – the Home Secretary or the person who has spent the better part of his productive life in a Pakistan jail. Surjeet says he was abandoned by the country after being caught and there was no one to own him up all these years. Even Pakistani authorities had charged him with spying and awarded the death sentence which was commuted to life imprisonment later on. He was not charged for smuggling or any other activity. Now an aggrieved Surjeet plans to move the courts for compensation saying his family lived in penury while he was lodged in jail.

In fact, there are similar tales of dozens of former spies in Punjab and the Jammu region who have been abandoned by the agencies and handlers who apparently used them. They claim that they worked for the country but no one ever came forward to own them up or offer any financial or moral support. After spending a time varying from one to three decades in jail, some of them are working as labourerers now, some have become too old to take care of themselves, others are mental wreck and some of them question why they took up the profession of James Bond. A couple of them went on hunger strike to press for their demand which fell on deaf ears. Most of the former spies are semi literate, perhaps a qualification for a low-profile and high risk career which they voluntary adopted for a little money, adventure and idealism to serve for the country.

Gopal Das and Kashmir Singh were the last two spies whose return became a media event. Gopal Das was released in April 2011 after 27 years in jail while Kashmir Singh, who too was initially sentenced to death, like Surjeet, was released in March 2008. After returning, both of them narrated a tale almost similar to the one which Surjeet has to tell. They admitted to spying and accused the country of doing little to secure their release or help their family while they were incarcerated in the jail. The case of Madhuri Gupta too hogged the headlines for a different reason. She was posted in the Indian High Commission in Islamabad and has been accused of spying for Pakistan and a trial of the case is currently on in a Delhi court.

In fact, the social, cultural and linguistic similarities along with the physical features of people inhabiting India’s Punjab is so similar to that of west Punjab in Pakistan that the agencies found the local youth ideal for the job in the 1960s, 70s and even the 80s.  Things changed in the late 80s and 90s when the fence came up on the international border and one could no longer cross over to the other side at will. Moreover, the role of traditional methods of spying and information gathering was no longer important considering the fact that in the era of technological boom, this was no longer needed. No country or agency needed pictures of vital installations and movement of the armed forces as the satellites captured and beamed the pictures much more effectively. The traditional methods of spying, the one in which Surjeet and others were perhaps involved, had become obsolete and now is completely outdated.

Those who have read American and British thrillers on CIA, KGB and the British Secret Service during the cold war would recall that these novels repeatedly narrated that whenever a spy is caught, they are disowned by the agency and the country running them. Numerous films too have vividly brought this out. That was the rule of the game and the agents knew before hand that getting caught was the end.

Which country would accept that it sent spies to the neighbouring or faraway country? The practice was prevalent even during the heydays of the Magadh Empire, 500 years before Christ and Chanakya wrote that spying was part of statecraft and managing the foreign affairs of the country.  It would continue, albeit in a different manner and with the aid of advanced technology 100-200 or may be 1000 years down the line and even more. As long as hostilities are there or are perceived, every country would like to have all the information it wants to counter its opponent. It is a part of statecraft which all the countries use though most of them might not admit it openly.

Surjeet Singh, Gopal Das, Kashmir Singh and dozens of others claim that they spent their lives in Pakistani Jail for a cause. Central government may not believe so and acknowledge them. But people at large understand both the compulsions of government and the sacrifices of the spies. The huge turnout to welcome Surjeet amply indicated this. (July 2, 2012) 

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/77233-spies-of-punjab-a-tale-of-surjeet-sarabjeet-singh.html