It is not quite clear whether Punjab is once again about to be placed under President’s rule. The Prime Minister gave a hint to this effect in his statement to the Lok Sabha on Monday forenoon, but he did not repeat it when he spoke again in the evening. Mr. Rajiv Gandhi addressed a house which had never before been so agitated as over the massacre of 26 persons in Punjab the day before, a house which had had to be adjourned for half an hour because MPs, including Congress MPs, demanded to know what action had been taken to end the daily massacre in the state and would not listen to the Union home minister, Mr. Buta Singh. That might well explain why in the forenoon the Prime Minister was at great pains to emphasize, though erroneously as Mr. Dandavate subsequently proved, that the Centre could not intervene directly in the maintenance of law and order except under President’s rule and that the BSF and CRPF units deployed in the state functioned under the jurisdiction of the Punjab police. Even so it cannot be for nothing that the Prime Minister said that it was for the governor, Mr. S.S. Ray, to recommend the future course of action. Mr. Gandhi also left no room for doubt that he took a grim view of the situation in Punjab not only because so many people had been gunned down on a single day but also because on the same bloody day Mr. G.S. Tohra, an opponent of the chief minister, Mr. Barnala, had been reelected president of the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee and taken steps which could only facilitate the reoccupation of gurdwaras by the extremists and the terrorists. Indeed, the Prime Minister rightly attached greater importance to this development for the future of the state than the massacre itself.
The impression created by the Prime Minister’s statement was reinforced when Congress MPs from Punjab called on him in the afternoon to express concern over the latest outrage in the state and to recall that the Congress had agreed to extend support to Mr. Barnala in the expectation that he would be able to restore law and order. The presence in the city of the state governor and the chief minister further strengthened the view that Mr. Barnala might resign or be persuaded to resign and pave the way for imposition of President’s rule. Indeed, at one stage it appeared that Mr. Gandhi might announce these measures by the evening. That clearly has not happened. Mr. Barnala has apparently won a reprieve perhaps because Mr. Gandhi has not yet worked out an alternative strategy for coping with the alarming situation in Punjab.
Be that as it may, the case for President’s rule in Punjab has become pretty strong. Law and order has deteriorated considerably in recent weeks; it would appear that the terrorists successfully seized the initiative from the police with the attempt on Mr. Ribeiro’s life on October 3, and that they have managed to retain it ever since. This deterioration has been accompanied by a weakening of Mr. Barnala’s position vis-a-vis his Akali detractors assembled under Mr. Parkash Singh Badal’s leadership; Mr. Tohra’s victory in the SGPC election can be said to toll the bell for Mr. Barnala’s leadership; for the experience of the last 60 years has been that he who controls the SGPC controls the Sikh masses. The ruling Akali Dal is a house divided against itself; some ministers have been known to conspire against the chief minister and they are said to have supported Mr. Tohra in his fight against Mr. Barnala’s candidate. All in all, it now appears wholly unlikely that Mr. Barnala can retain sufficient support among Akali activists to survive as chief minister for long and give the law enforcement agencies the kind of support they need. He is apparently a good man who means well by the nation. But he has proved utterly ineffective.
All this does not quite dispose of the argument that we have had President’s rule in Punjab before and that it did not help us deal effectively with the extremists and the terrorists. But it cannot be anybody’s case that President’s rule can serve as a panacea in the state. It cannot. On the contrary, the case for it is an expression of the country’s desperation. If there ever was any scope for the hope that extremism and terrorism in Punjab could be ended in the foreseeable future, it has disappeared. It is also reasonably clear that the talk of a political solution, a euphemism for Akali rule, has turned out to be an exercise in self-deception. Mr. Rajiv Gandhi may still engage in it for the sake of record; he cannot believe in it. The fight against terrorism is going to be a long-drawn affair and it is going to be a pretty nasty and bloody affair. The Centre’s rule is a necessary minimum condition for waging such a battle. If this point is not sufficiently obvious even now, it would become so in the days or weeks ahead when the principal gurdwaras in Punjab once again become sanctuaries for assassins.