The Union government is determined to transfer Chandigarh to Punjab regardless of the consequences in Haryana. This is the clear implication of the decision to appoint another commission to determine and specify the Hindi-speaking area which is to be transferred to Haryana in lieu of Chandigarh. The terms of the commission do not say it in so many words that the disputed Abohar and Fazilka do not fall within its purview. But the way these have been framed cannot leave much scope for doubt about the government’s intentions. It is too early to say whether Mr. Justice Venkataramiah will accept such a view of the task allotted to him: Mr. Justice Mathew did not, though in his case, too, the Union government’s intentions were obvious in view of the two provisions in the Rajiv-Longowal accord which stipulated that the village was to be unit and the area to be transferred must be contiguous to Haryana. Khandukhera village which is Punjabi-speaking blocks Haryana’s access to Abohar and Fazilka. Similarly it is too early to say whether the Central leadership will be able to browbeat the Haryana chief minister, Mr. Bhajan Lal, and other Congress MLAs into accepting the proposed arrangement. But it can be said with certainty that the consequences of such a partisan action will seriously and adversely affect the fortunes of the Congress party in Haryana.
On a surface view, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi has had no choice but to appoint the new commission and frame its terms in the manner he has done. For it can be argued that under his accord with the late Sant Longowal he is committed to the transfer of Chandigarh to Punjab. But the accord was a political act which, by implication if not explicit statement, called for a certain response on the part of the Akalis. It implied that elections will be held in the state and that if the Akalis won, as they did, they would exert themselves in the struggle against terrorists and extremists. They have not done so. The Akali leadership is badly split: two most prominent Akali leaders, Mr. Badal and Mr. Tohra, are busy undermining the chief minister, Mr. Barnala’s position: the extremists are in control of the Golden Temple complex and some other gurdwaras from where they preach sedition and communal hatred: the state government has not made any move to dislodge them. We are not mentioning the murders the terrorists continue to commit because while these do prove that the Akali government has not been able to restore law and order, they do not establish conclusively the Akali refusal to act. The extremist control of the Golden Temple complex establishes that point beyond doubt. In plain terms, the Akali leadership has failed to live by the spirit of the accord.
It would appear that despite evidence to the contrary, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi too makes the assumption that there is a connection between the non-transfer of Chandigarh to Punjab on January 26 as provided for in the accord on the one hand, and the resurgence of terrorism and the inability of the Barnala government to cope with it on the other. If that is indeed the case, he should spell out his reasons. But that is not particularly necessary because we are all familiar with his logic. A large number of Sikhs in Punjab believe that the Centre has always reneged on its commitments: New Delhi must demonstrate its good faith by transferring Chandigarh: such a demonstration will win support for Mr. Barnala: that will enable him to deal effectively with his critics in the Akali Dal, the extremists and the terrorists. This is a simplistic view of an extremely complicated problem.
There is, of course, a connection between the popular sentiment and the rise of extremism and between extremism and terrorism. But the intimacy of these connections has to be established. In Punjab extremism headed by Bhindranwale and his supporters prospered on the cowardice and ambivalence of the Akali leaders before “Operation Bluestar” and the situation is not very different now. So long as Bhindranwale was alive, it was perhaps not wrong to treat extremism and terrorism as one phenomenon. Though we cannot be sure, the connection between the two is not so obvious now. Those in control of the Golden Temple complex do not seem to be calling the shots in respect of the murder gangs. To be candid, we do not know who the killers are. Mr. Arun Nehru, Minister of State for Internal Security, has cited evidence to show that Pakistan is training them. But while that does not prove that the terrorists are Pakistani agents, it can be said to point towards a distinction between the slogan shouters and the killers. We do not wish to be dogmatic but we are inclined to think that way. And if the terrorist are the country’s first concern, we are unable to see how the Union government’s moves can help us cope with it.