No one can possibly deny that the situation in Punjab is grim beyond words. The continuing siege of Batala town by armed Sikhs speaks for itself. The Barnala government has failed in its basic responsibility to maintain law and order. Not a day passes when the terrorists do not kill, burn and loot at will and escape. There could not have been a more eloquent proof of the collapse of the calculations Mr. Rajiv Gandhi and his aides must have made when they prematurely rushed into an agreement with the late Sant Longowal last June.
But this is not the time to engage in “I told you so” recriminations. The situation is too dangerous to admit of that kind of luxury. Also not many leading Indians can escape the moral responsibility for what has happened. For only a handful of them had criticised the accord; the rest of them had hailed it without reservation or qualification; they had reacted in a similar thoughtless manner to the Akali victory at the polls.
All this is not to absolve those at the helm of affairs of their responsibility which must in the final analysis be theirs, but to say that we have to accept the position as it now exists and then try to find a way of making the best of a terrible situation.
There are still some influential individuals who argue that the Barnala government’s incapacity to fulfil its obligation to enforce law and order is the result of the Union government’s failure to transfer Chandigarh to Punjab on January 26 as provided for in the Rajiv-Longowal accord. One hopes that Mr. Arjun Singh, who as governor of Punjab negotiated the agreement with Sant Longowal and who apparently still continues to advise the Prime Minister on the state, is not one of them. Nor, one hopes, is Mr. Gandhi’s other key adviser, Mr. Arun Singh, one of them.
Grasping Fact
In any case, the fact must be grasped that there is no connection between the two developments. The evidence in support of this proposition is too strong to be dismissed. The extremists led by the Damdami Taksal (the late Bhindranwale’s base) and the All-India Sikh Students’ Federation had seized the Golden Temple complex and started dismantling the Akal Takht before January 26. Two other points had been established by then. First, that the Akali Dal led by Mr Barnala was unwilling or unable or both to confront them. Secondly, that the president of the SGPC, Mr Tohra, had once again adopted an ambivalent position, though he was still pretending to be siding with Mr. Barnala. Soon afterwards he resigned, thus making it absolutely clear that he was not interested in a fight with the extremists.
We do not either wish to engage in any speculation regarding his possible calculation and motivations or even recall his role in installing Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his band of murderers in the Akal Takht in 1984. For we are only interested in establishing that the extremists had begun to implement their plans before January 26 and that the Akali- SGPC leadership had shown no inclination to accept the challenge.
The importance of this issue should be self-evident. Which is that there is no honest basis for linking the near collapse of law and order in Punjab with the non-transfer of Chandigarh. The issue assumes an even greater importance in view of reports that the Prime Minister is planning to hand over Chandigarh to Punjab somehow on the Baisakhi Day (April 13). We are unable to confirm or deny these reports in view of the closed nature of the decision making process in the present set-up. We have that Mr Rajiv Gandhi has learnt by his bitter experience that it does not pay to try to appease one community or group at the cost of another and that it is not desirable to fix dates for resolving such complex and contentious issues as the future of Chandigarh.
There are other considerations which too must inhibit a rash decision on the part of the Prime Minister and his advisers. The people in Haryana, as the rally in Jind on Sunday showed, are now fully aroused and will not quietly acquiesce in an arrangement which they regard as patently unjust to them. But even these weighty considerations could have been ignored if there was any ground for the belief that the transfer of Chandigarh would lead to an amelioration in the law and order situation in Punjab. There is no such ground. We shall have to live with terrorism in Punjab for years whatever the Union government does in respect of Chandigarh.
President’s Rule
If we pursue the logic of what we have said, the conclusion must be that the time has come for the Centre to dismiss the Barnala ministry and reimpose President’s rule in Punjab. But life, especially politics, is anything but logical. It was wrong for Mr. Rajiv Gandhi to put the Akalis into office before the back of the terrorists had truly been broken and the administration had been restored to some measure of health. It would be equally wrong for him to dismiss the Barnala ministry before its potentialities, however limited, for good are fully exhausted and are widely seen to have been exhausted. Mr. Barnala is not another Sheikh Abdullah or Dr. Farooq Abdullah and Punjab is not another Jammu and Kashmir. But he is the only sign of hope in that state. It is a pretty slim hope; it may not turn out to amount to much in the end; but it is a hope all the same; we must clutch at it so long as it survives.
To be candid, we are belabouring this point because not one but two sets of rumours have been circulating in the capital. If it is being said that the Prime Minister is planning to transfer Chandīgarh to Punjab on the Baisakhi Day, it is also being whispered that reimposition of President’s rule in the state is under serious consideration. The name of Mr. Arun Nehru, minister of state in charge of internal security, is being linked with the latter rumours. Again, we are in no position to confirm or deny them. But we have little hesitation in arguing that President’s rule should be reserved as the very last weapon. Mrs, Indira Gandhi was ill-advised when she removed Mr. Darbara Singh; law and order in the state deteriorated after his removal; Mr. Rajiv Gandhi will be taking even graver risks in dismissing Mr. Barnala. While Mr. Darbara Singh was a Congressman, Mr. Barnala is an Akali. The distinction is extremely significant in the present context.
The issue, as we see it, is not whether Mr. Barnala should be dismissed but whether he might not give up in utter despair. He has overwhelmingly powerful reasons to wish to do so. He is under siege not only by the extremists but also by his own partymen and from what we know of him, he is not a power crazy person who would do anything to keep himself in office. Thus only a very strong sense of duty to both the Sikh community and the country can persuade him to soldier on. The Centre should not add to his difficulties and feeling of helplessness and hopelessness by wishing to, or by being seen to, parley with his detractors in the Akali Dal. The names of two of them stand out – the former Akali chief minister, Mr. Prakash Singh Badal, and Mr. Amrinder Singh, the would-have-been Maharajah of Patiala.
Aides Quit
It is possible to take the view that Mr. Badal would have been a more effective Akali chief minister than Mr. Barnala. We ourselves were inclined to share this view when he was released from jail early last year. But he soon disqualified himself. Several of his key aides went over to Baba Joginder Singh’s “United Akali Dal”; they could not possibly have done so without his acquiescence, if not active encouragement; clearly he was buying for himself a double insurance; while he was staying on in the Akali Dal, he had established bridges with the extremists. He then opposed Sant Longowal’s bid to reach an agreement with Mr. Rajiv Gandhi. Clearly he had put himself out of the race for the office of chief minister of Punjab as far as the rest of us non-Akalis were concerned.
It would have been a different matter if despite these opportunist moves on his part the Akali legislature party had chosen him as its leader; we would then have been compelled to acquiesce in it; but it did not. He has not reconciled himself to Mr. Barnala’s leadership. The implication is that he has not placed his community’s and the country’s interest above his own. In plain terms, he has once again disqualified himself for high office in the eyes of the larger Indian public and he still does not speak for the majority in the Akali legislature party.
Mr. Amrinder Singh is also an ambitious man. He was once a favourite of Giani Zail Singh who as Union home minister sought to replace Mr. Darbara Singh with him. So at least it is widely believed. Mrs. did not fall for this proposal, though in the meantime Mr. Amrinder Singh had drawn close to Mr Rajiv Gandhi. Mr Singh quit the Congress in the wake of “Operation Bluestar”, that is at a time when the party faced a grave challenge, and joined the Akali Dal. He is said to have renewed his “friendship” with the Prime Minister. But this cannot by itself qualify him for being entrusted with Punjab’s destiny at this critical juncture.
It is perhaps not within Mr. Rajiv Gandhi’s power to persuade Mr. Badal and Mr. Amrinder Singh to rally behind Mr. Barnala. But it is within his power not to encourage either of them in the belief that he might be amenable to his pressures and pleas. Neither has much to offer him. Mr. Barnala is strung on a crucifix. We must not drive more nails into him. The lesson of Jammu and Kashmir is relevant despite the differences between it and Punjab. Punjab’s Gulshas can be as dangerous as Kashmir’s has turned out to be.
The Times of India, 25 March 1986