It speaks for the sorry state of affairs that Sikhs in Delhi should feel called upon to take out a procession in order to register their abhorrence against the killings of innocent people by terrorists and that we should regard it necessary to welcome it. Sikhs in the capital are as blameless for what is happening in Punjab as members of any other community and so are not obliged to protest against it more than anyone else. Indeed, an overwhelming majority of Sikh’s in Punjab itself are free of blame. There cannot be any doubt that they do not approve of the killings. And only those who are utterly innocent of the reality in the country (not just in Punjab) can blame them for not actively working against the terrorists. There are several reasons why small groups of armed thugs are able to terrorise the people into silence and this is not the occasion to go into them. But it can be said that the people cooperate with the authority when the authority itself is firm and trustworthy and that there has been no such authority in Punjab for some years. There was no such authority during the President’s rule and there is none now when the Akalis are in office. The Akalis themselves are split; two of the stalwarts, Mr. Prakash Singh Badal and Mr. Gurcharan Singh Tohra, are not cooperating with the chief minister, Mr. Barnala, and if reports circulating privately are to be believed, even some of those in office are in contact with the terrorists. In any case, regardless of whether there is any truth or not in the rumours, the situation in Punjab is highly complicated.
But there is another aspect of the situation which makes the Sikh procession in Delhi relevant. It is self-evident that the extremists and terrorists are determined to promote a Hindu-Sikh conflict in the state and beyond and that they have succeeded in ample measure. In fact, it will not be much of an exaggeration to say that they could not have expected the kind of success they have achieved. The Hindu-Sikh estrangement is a fact and the damage is not limited to Punjab. Since by and large Hindus are victims of the terrorists in Punjab and since the impression has spread that Sikhs in the state are not willing to stir themselves in defence of their Hindu compatriots, it has become necessary for Sikhs in Delhi and other parts of the country to raise their voice and bring whatever pressure they can to bear on their co-religionists in Punjab to persuade them to do what they can to fight the menace stalking the state. It is shameful that we have to speak in these communalist terms. But to shirk the issue would be an exercise in escapism which only those who live in a make-believe world of their own can afford. We have to face up to the fact that in our conditions we have to be guided by what is possible and not by what is desirable and in accord with the ideals of a civilised society.
There is corollary to what we have said about the Sikh procession in Delhi. Which is that the Bharatiya Janata Party’s call for a bandh on Tuesday can serve no useful purpose for the simple reason that it is bound to be a predominantly Hindu affair. Such a bandh would have been necessary if the Union government was not fully alive to the situation in Punjab and was not doing all in its power to grapple with it. But that is not the case whatever one’s view on the related issue of its competence, which incidentally cannot improve as a result of the bandh. It looks as if the BJP leadership is allowing itself to be pushed by events. That is understandable but not commendable. The Congress leadership would be tempted to believe and proclaim that the BJP is trying to take advantage of developments in Punjab in order to be able to regain its formerly dominant position in the capital. But there is not much evidence to support such a view. If anything, the BJP leadership appears to be as much at a loss for a policy as anybody else. It has no solution to offer and it almost admits that much, even if indirectly. For Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee has even said that he would not like Mr. Barnala to be dismissed by the Centre. What then can he be asking of the Union government?