The forum gazette vol 2 no 8 april 20 may 4, 1987

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Vol 2 No.8 New Delhi, 20 April- 4 May 1987 Fortnightly ----------....-----------------------------------------~- .. ".-~,.

A Faltering Second Fro~t in Punjab

Extremist Campaign fizzling out Satindra Singh \ A bout a fortnight ago, Sikh

1ft ' fundamentalists opened ~'=- another from in Punjab

to strengthen their support base. They have launched an aggressive and systematic campaign against what they call "accretion of the evil Hindu practices in the Sikh way of life." On the face of it, their crusade against drinking, meat eating, ostentatious marriages, use of cosmetics by Sikh women and ' trimming of hair and beards by Sikh males is more or less unobjectionable. But the same cannot be said about the motives behind their move as well as its ramifications.

I Take, for instance, their "war" against drinking. No doubt, the Sikh fundamentalists enjoy scriptural support

) . it. But their primary objec~ .. e is to adversely affect the

Barnala . government s already \ strained financial resources. There were not many takers of the liqu9r vends when these were auctioned late last month and most of those who had the courage to, bid for these have been ' forced to offer only limited supplies. During my recent visit to some of the towns of PUbjab and their surrounding villages I noticed that most of the liquor vends were half empty and only a few po~ ular brands of whisky, rum, gin and beer were readily available. For other brands one had to place an advance order, deposit earnest money and pick up the stuff at an agreed time.

Supportj~mong

Women for AntiLiquor Campaign

There is no doubt that their anti-liquor campaign has won the Sikh fundamentalists instant support and sympathy from Sikh women, who, much to their mortification, daily witness the heart-rending scene of the hard-earned money literally "going down the drain" as it were since the advent of the Green Revolution in the state in

. the late seventies. Whether the Sikh women's support will help reduce drinking among their menfolk is difficult to surmise. Habits die hard, bad habits seldom, if ever.

At present, Punjab enjoys the dubious distinction of leading the country in the per capita consumption of liquor. If the '· . anti-liquor campaign gathers further moment,um, it ' may well prove disastrous for the state for two main reasons . One, it will result in the reemergence of illicit brewing of hooch for which Punjab was once deservedly notorious throughout the country until the e nd of the sixties, To e radicate this evil the then chief minister, Mr Pratap Singh Kairon, not only ordered' the opening of more liquor vends, but also reduced the price of country liquor, to save Punjabis from spurious liquor. His shrewd policy has been scrupulously adhered to by aU suc cessive governments in the state, whatever their political affiliations. The other reason -which has even more dreadful implications - is that nonavailability of liquor, win surely result in a phenomenal growth of drug consumption. Opium and hemp eating is already rampant in the Doaba and Malwa regions of the state.

Moreover, forcible conversion in any form runs counter not only to the basic Sikh tenets, but also against the heroic Sikh heritage. The Sikh Gurus did not believe in proselytising by sword but through persuasion, They fought against those Muslim rulers who tried to , enforce Islamic fundamentalism by the sword. Two of the Sikh Gurus - Arjun Dev and Tegh Bahadur - had to lay down their lives in the struggle to . ensure an individual's right to follow his/her own conscience. Both Bhai Nand Lal, the most prominent codifier of Sikh heliefs and practices and Kaura Mal, a highly respect~d personage in Sikh history were not ':Amrit dharis" (baptised SinghsJ.

Meat Eating and the

Fundamentalists The Sikh fundamentalists

are on even more vulnerable ground for their move against meat eating. For one, no Sikh Guru has prohibited its consumption. Only the other day,

Continued on page 13, c~/1

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CONG-I CAUSING DIS·CORD · IN U. P.

By r\khil Anand ___________________________________ ~.'.:~,i;.: ..

The communal hysteria being worked up in Ayodhya in particular an(t1 Uttar Pradesh in general, over the issue of Ram Janambhoomi and Babr! Masjid is heading for a large-scale massacre of MusJims in Ayodhya This stark destiny is not unknown to the parties involved: the state government, Hindu and Muslim communal leaders and also a sizeable section of the ruling Congress (I). In fact, they all seem to be callously unconcerned about the dangers inherent in the situation.

While the state government treats the issue as one of law and order alone, both Hindu and Muslim leaders connected with the Rani Janambhoomi Mukti Vagna Samiti and the Babri Masjid Action Com mitee respectively, put fOIWard the' argument that one or the other temple or mosque does not matter, but it is the place which is of emotional significance, and claims to it cannot be given up. -................................................................. ~"

The ruling Congress (I) has contributed to this high dra m a in a typically 'Indira style' by providing general secretaries to both the warring committees. While Dau Dayal Khanna, a former UP Minister and Congress (I) leader is the gene ral secretary of the Samiti, Chaudhary Mohd Muzaffar Hussain Kachhauchwi, a former legislator and Congress leader is the general secretary of th e Committee.

Referring to this situation Mohd Hashim Ansari, secretary of Anjuman Mohafiz, Mazabir Masjid Awadha says: "WE are face to face with the state government on the issue of Babri Masjid. The government

is mad afte r the majority. At last the stage would be ours. We will do everything to protect ourselves; even that which should not be done."

There is no hiding of the fact tha t while saying this he appears scared and there are e nough reasons for him to be feaff ul 'of the future. Ror th e Ra m Ja nam bhoomi move ment is be ing built a round the prem ise that no n-Hindus, obviously Muslims, have no place in Ayodhya , M L1 slims in this tow n number less than pne thousand, as aga inst a Hindu population of 70,000. In view of the state government's poor recOl'd ' in protecting minorities' in a series of riots in the last

decades, Muslims don 't pI a!.,; much fa ith on the enfOrCem p.ll f age ncie s for th e ir protect jon.

Point of No Return That the issue has reached fI

point of n o f'e turn become:; obvious by the rem Mks of Ma hant Avedyanath, 'chairman of th e Ram Janambhooll1i Mukti Yagna Samit i in Gorakhpur. The mahallt hn lieves "th e Hindus must unit" in d efence of their rights ;!,,(/

force the government to reaL ,.~

their agony concerning Ha m 's birthplace , Hindus would nfl ' tolerate any un just decisioil nn the i ssu~. The so-caHed 5.1hn

Continued on page 5 , col 1

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The Press Falls In Line P Singh, Executive Editor,

Navbharat Times, described in an interview, the recent spate of sedition charges against journalists as a manifestation of "aggressive Hindu chauvinism", pointing out that so far, only journalists belonging to minority communities have been charged.

"Aggressive Hindu chauvinism" has been building up as the dominant mood of the country over the last two years, with Operation Blue St'lr as the turning point: Today its manifestations are most visible in the media and in the style of the Rajiv Gandhi government : in something as 'small as the PM wearing a ceremonial tika whenever he returns from an official trip abroad; in the Hindu symbols at the inauguration of Apna Utsav, supposed to be a national festival; in the decision to start Breakfast TV with bhajans.

In the press, the "Hindu ethos" operates far more insidiously, on three levels. The first is the most obvious: the lengthy pisces written by top journalists; the second is the way news about minorities, specifically in Punjab, is covered. Finally, the government's attack on minority journalists.

The Hindu stand taken by influential journalists like Girilal Jain, editor of the Times of India, and Arun Shourie, recently shifted back to the Indian

An Ekta Trust Publication Panel of consulting Editors Justice V.R. Krishna lyer, LK. GujraI, Madhu Kishwar, Khushwant Singh, Jaya jaitly, Rajni Kothari, Amrik Singh, , Kuldip Nayar

Chairman, Board of Editors Lt. Gen. Jagjit Singh Aurora (retd.' managing Editor Haljit Malik Editors Harji Malik. G.S. Sandhu, A.S. Narang, Associate Editor Avtar Singh Judge Circulation Lt. CoL Manohar Singh (retd) Business Manager Jatinder Kaur Lall Editorial (Camp) Office 4 Bhagwan Das Road New Delhi-ll0001 .

, Phone : 385270, 385042 Tlx : 315220 HBLK FOR GAZETIE

2 20 April - 4 May 1987

By Jyoti Punwani El'press frOm the Times, has been evident for the last two years, it has only grown more aggressive now. From categorising Indians into "us" and "they" (ie, Hindus and nonHindus), these two writers have certainly come a long way.

Girilal Jain's new thesis these dClys is: proving that Sikhs and Muslims played no part in the freedom movement; that in fact, they sided with the British. This distortion is easily accepted by readers brought up on the official version of the freedom movement, dominated by the Hindu-dominated Indian Nation~l Congress.

Journalist Publication

V T Rajshekhar DaHt Voice Editor

Sukhdev Singh Dignity EditOl'

Fr Benny Aguiar Examiner Editor

Krishnaraj EPW Editor Harji Malik Writer

Shahid Siddiqui Nai Duniya Editor

KhaHd Ansari Midday Editor Deepak Chopra Printeli Publisher

' AI Haj Naz Mashriqi Ansari, Editor Awaz AI Haj Syed Ansari, Printer

If Girilal Jain seeks justification for his Hindu chauvinism in distorting history, Mun Shourie goes to the scriptures: those of Sikhs, Christians and Muslims, of course, to prove that because these three religions have one 'Holy Book' as their ' base, their followers are bound to be dogmatic and fanatical, unlike Hindus, who have no one particular religious text to follow, and are therefore more tolerant and eclectic. Once again, the readers' scanty knowledge of theology makes it easy to fall into this trap.

Editors tFall Into Line'

A new development has been the "falling in line" of other editors who have so far

remained unaffected by the Hindu wave, like the Sunday Observer's Vinod Mehta, who has of late, started propounding the argument that if the terrorists ' continue with their activities, the nonItally peaceloving and tolera'nt Hindus are bound to retaliate, and Hindu retaliation is no trifling matter, as the November, 84 riots' have shown. Mehta makes a distinction between Sikhs in general and Sikh terrorists; he also acknowledges the humiliation all Sikhs have to face today, as well as their anguish at this -but asks them to bear with it, as the price of their fellow-

Journalists on trial

Charged under For

Terrorist & Dis- Article on DaHt

think: couldn't- these mad men have spared a doctor at least? "10 killed in Punjab" was another headline: of these" 7 had been victims of the BSF, part of its weekly quota of "intruders from Pakistan" who must be killed. It was not thought fit to spell that out in the headline, why spoil the impact by saying: "BSF kills 7, terrorists 3"? Going by newspapers, one must conclude that Punjab has become a -crimefree state; any murder/robbery that takes place here is the handiwork of terrorists. No newspaper thought it necessary to highlight the figures given

Month Published in

March.1986 March '86 ruptive Activities view of Punjab & Act 'Manuism'

Reproductio'n of above

(Promoting en- Article on RSS activ- Sept. 1986 July '86 mity between 2 ities in Bihar, groups)

Sedition Article on army Oct. 1986 Aug. '84 action in Punjab

Terr& Disr. Interview with J S Nov. 1986 Nov. '85 Acts. Act Chauhan on

Khalistan

Terr& Disr. Intervifw with G S Nov. 1986 Oct. '86 Acts, Act Dhillon on

Khalistan

Reproduction of above

Sikhs' misdeeds. The next time there is a Muktsar or Khudda says Mehta, don't. be surprised if somewhere else, Sikhs are taken out of a bus and lynched.

The significance of such editors joining the mainstream can be seen in the translations of Vinod Mehta's article in Gujarati and Hindi papers in Bombay and the North.

What editors spell out in ,their articles, the rest of their staff express through their choice of lead stories and headlines. First choice today for a lead story is Punjab. In December, terrorists killed a BJP member, who happened to be a doctor, as well as his patient. "Doctor, patient killed in Punjab" screamed , the headlines on the frontpage, making -the reader immediately

Dec, 1986 Nov. '86

recently in Parliament, that UP and Bihar, without any terrorists, have a higher murder rate than Punjab does. Nor to point oUl that except for malJS massacres like the two bus incidents, the victims of terrorisls have been mainly Sikhs.

Leave' alone pointing out all this, newspapers take objection even when Barnala, who is more obedient to the Centre than any Congress (I) chief minister, questions the BSF version of having killed 10 intruders from Pakistan at one stroke. On Punjab, anything said against the security forces is equated with encouragement to e~tremists. Police atrocities are investigated by the press in every other state to some

Continued on page 14. col 1.

The Psalm of Peace An English Translation

of Guru Arjun's 'Sukhmani'

,Happy are the meek in spirit, who efface themselves and are poor. The arrogantly great are effaced by their own pride. He who has in him the pride of sovereignty Shall be loweredi,jnto the pit of

. hell as a dog. • "" He who prides himself on his beauty Shali be turned into the meanest worm that lives in dung. He who esteems himself as a man of works Shall have . to work his way through many a life and death. He who is proud of his wealth and land Is a foot blind and senseless. When God out of His mercy lends humility to a man's heart, I He gets liberation in this WOi' ;U' nt . and peace in the nel't. If a man is puffed up with his riches, He w.illiose all; not so much as a straw will go with him If he sets his hopes on a multitude of men and anns, They may melt away in the shock ofa moment. If he crows over others for his personalbrave~, _ Who knows his person may not be reduced to ashes in a moment? , If he esteems nobody before his presuming self, The heavenly Judge wi/( lay him lowforit. Ifby the grace of the Guru he is 'able to efface his pride, " He will find acceptance in ~U court of God: A manmaydo thousands of good deeds in egoism; All are vain; he merely tires himselfout. Or he may feed his pride by going through various penances; He will be haled from heaven into hell, and from hell into heaven. By, no such devices can he soften his soul; How can he enter into the kingdom of God? As long as a man deems himselfgood, No goodness can approach hiTlll. But if he is humble in his heart before eve~body,

, He will be known as a man of unalloyed virtue. As long as a man thinks he can do something by himself, So long he shall find no peace. If he takes credit for anything -done by him, ' He shall have to wanderfrom life to life. So long as he holds some as his enemies, and others as friends, His mind will never be at rest.. So long as he is wrapped up in the illusory joys of Ii fe, He lays himself open to Divine retribution. But when God's mercy overtakes him, his bonds are broken, And, Guru-guided, he is released from his pride .•

Fortnight Focus -Fa~m ~--_(iazette-___ -

Govt. suspected for undermining defence

New Delhi: WIN Chadha had only unprintable abuses to shout 'back

when contacted over telephone by this correspondent. " Pardon his language," said one defence ministry official on hearing tIle exchange. "He's havi'ng it real bad. Arms lobbyists like him are going to have a real tough time from now on."

WIN Chadha runs one of the ' biggest of New Delhi's new breed of liaison agencies, agencies with briefs from foreign armaments firms. And bringing him into limelight today is the fact that his agency, Anatronics General Corporation, is the principal Indian representative of Bofors, the Swedish firm now in the eye of the cyclonic controversy rocking the country.

Chadha, of course, won' t talk to reporters, but if, as . alleged by the Swedish State Radio, certain Indians received kickbacks totalling Rs 15 crores from Bofors to influence the government into buying its 155 mm .field howitzers, a sale worth Rs 1,450 crore, it was apparently he who handled payments. Bofors has officially denied bribing any Indian middleman, a denial supported by the Swedish and Indian governments, but as Magnus Nielsson of the Swedish State Radio (~hich like the BBC and unlike AIR is free from government control) told the Statesman, it was the company's agents and not the company itself that

Cmade the payoffs. Chadha . could well hiive been one such

agent. How do lobbyists like

HOW ARMS LOBBYISTS OPERATE Chadha operate? Do they compromise the nation's security in earning large commISSIOns from foreign arms firms they serve? Not consciously, and in any case politicians and officials. who received the alleged payoffs are equally to blame on this score. But there is big money in the arms business and the liaison agencies like Chadha's Anatronics are not unique to New Delhi. Most nations with large defence budgets have scores of arms firms represontatives operating in their capitals.

In Ne.w Delhi, arms lobbyists set" up shop mostly in the late 70s when the defence ministry began looking away from Mos- . cow to equip its growing arsenal. 'With New Delhi setting its sights on arms manufacturers of France, Britain, Sweden and other ' Western countries, agents and liaison officers were soon mushrooming in the capital. And there certainly was business at hand with India's defence budget in the Seventh Five Year Plan doubling over the Sixth Plan allocation, to more than Rs 60,000 crores.

Another Bofors Agent - Wining

and Dining The first targets of the arms

supe['-salesmen are retiring military officers. As on,e defence ministry official puts it: "Who can lobby better 'with generals and admirals than these just retired seniors." Sometimes of course, retired senior military officers them-

selves set up such agencies. Commander M R A Rao of the Indian Navy, for instance, represented Bofors for a long time.

Besides Chadha, Bofors currently has another agent in Delhi, one Thomas Dalin who has an office in the Maurya Sheraton Hotel. But perhaps the largest liaison agent in the capital is Eureka, which represents a host of French firms including SNECMA, aircraft · engine manufacturers, Sagem, the electronics giant, and till recently aircraft manufacturers Aerospatiale and Marcel Dassault. Eureka is owned by Rajiv and Sanjiv Chowdhrie who are nephews of Baljit Kapur, for-

· mer chairman of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.

The lobbyists really get into · the act during what could be called the second stage of the arms purchase process. Initially, when a decision is taken at South Block regarding the acquisition of a' particular weapon, the three service chiefs' offices are flooded with glossy advertisement booklets ' from the armament companies. Advertisement pamphlets also reach the desks of senior bureaucrats in the defence ministry. Soon, technical appraisal teams comprising se['vice and defence ministry officers, set out on tours abroad to inspect the armaments advertised, tours on which they are suitably wined and dined by the manufacturing firms.

In the next or second stage, the technical appraisal reports are studied by the ministry's R&D section, after which the weapons are field tested. It is

here that lobbying by the liaison agents is the s!rongest and a great deal of money changes hands. The money of course is always deposited in foreign, usually Swiss, bank acco.unts and the sum could be a very large one indeed for a favourable report.

Bofors Under Suspicion

The Bofors' 155mm howitzer purchase had been under suspicion almost' from the day (March .25,1986) the deal was signed. Doubts had been expressed about the range of the artillery guns: while it had been claimed the howitzers could fire up to a range of 30 km, it has reportedly been found not to exceed .21 km during the OperatioI1 Brasstacks exercise. If this be true, the appraisal and testing reports were obviously far from accurate. According to the Swedish radio, two payoffs, each of 8.4 million Swedish kroners (Rs.168 lakhs) and a third of 1.2.9 Swedish kroners (Rs .258 lakhs) were deposited into accounts in the Suisse Banking Corporation on November 13 last year. Nine days later, a further 2.5 million kroners (Rs 50 lakhs) were paid into the Swiss bank account. This, of course is only a fractiun of the total Rs 15 crore payoff.

The government opted for the Bofors 155mm howitzers from an initial choice of 1.2 field guns. Four of them · were shortlisted in the penultimate stage: apart from the Bofors' howitzers, there were the Fh-70, manufactured jointly by Britain, Italy and West Germany;

France's Le Canon E E 15mm tracte and Austria's GH N-45. A further shortlisting eliminated GH N-45 and Fh-70; leaving the French and Swedish guns in the race. What is not clear is how the race was finally won by Sweden's Bofors.

Suspicion in the Swedish radio newsrooms about. ..iJlegal payoffs in the Bofors deal wi,th \ the Indian government did not, however, arise out of the blue. Bofor.s does not exactly have an enviable record and since last year the radio had been investigating into its alleged illegal dealings. Taking its name from the small town where its factories are located, the firm is known to have sold arms to countries blacklisted by the Swedish government. Only recently, two of the company's directors had to resign following media disclosures about illegal dealings. Indeed, even the much respected Swedish prime minister Olaf Pal me, assassinated last year, was greatly concerned about Bofors' unholy dealings, though he assured Rajiv Gandhi that no middleman was involved in the howitzer sale to India.

The Bofors scandal has in fact come as . a bit of an embarassment to India since New Delhi considers Sweden to be among its few close friends in the West. But mo're than foreign relations, the payoff disclosures, coming on the heels of the Fairfax fracas and the resignation of V P Singh, has set panic bulbs blinking in Rajiv Gandhi's Congress-I, with the inevitable talk of the foreign hand and indirect references to the United States. (NewscriptJ.

u.P. citizens want dialogue on Punjab CALL TO INVOLVE YOUTH IN DISCUSSIONS

---------------------------------Public OpInIOn in Uttar Prade8h and ·Bihar favours a dialogue with the extremist8 in Punjab in order to arrive at a political 8OIution in the 8tate. The .F'orum Gazette conducted a 8urvey in Kanpur, Lucknow, Fyazabad, Gorakhpur (U.P.) and Chapra and Patna (Bihar). About 150 person8 were 8elected at random and asked to give their view8 on the Punjab 8ituation. Among the8e were 80me important political and 80cial activist&

The variety of replies and attitudes expressed by this cross-section of persons reflected their social roots. While the high caste Hindus favoured a tough, uncompromising stand based on the issue of national unity and integration, those belonging to the minority communities and scheduled castes were highly critical of the role of the military and paramilitary forces deployed in the state. Similarly, while Sikhs were generally critical of the -Barnala , government, others were appreciative of its policies.

Seventy per cent of the ordinary citizens favoured a dialogue with the extremists to sort out the issues and problems and involve these youth in finding a solution which can restore peace in the state. Rep-

resentative of this viewpoint are the views of Dr M A Haleem, a Socialist Party National Vice-Chairman in Lucknow who told the Gazette: . "While the killing of Sikh youth in encounters by police and para-military, and of Hindus by extremists, is condemnable, the central and state governments should talk with the so-called extremists, so as to find a solution to the problems of Punjab."

Dr Virpen Saroha, who is in favour of the division of Uttar Pradesh, alleged that the Punjab problem is the creation of leaders .from UP and warned that a high degree of honesty is required to keep the minoritydominated border states of India satisfied.

Chief Editor of the monthly

journal Pa~ivahan Yug, Mr Lalta . Prasad Misra, was more forthright in castigating the Congress(l) for creating the tension in Punjab and wanted the government to establish a security belt to check terrorist activity. But he w.as equally ce['tain that military action cannot offer a solution. It is necessary to create an atmosphere 'of confidence and seek a political solution with the co-operation of all those sections which have not succumbed to terrorism.

. Hindu Religious Leader Urges

Dialogue With Extremists

A different viewpoint was expressed by Mahant Avedyanath, the President of the Ram lanambhoomi Mukti Yagna Samiti, who recently visited the Golden Temple in Amritsar in a padyatra with a number of religious heads, He said pointblank "The . ,government would ultimately have to talk

with the extremists for any solution to the problem of Pun

,jab. Both the sides should work· for creating an atmosphere in which this dialogue is possible. We had gone to Punjab and Amritsar for emotional amity betwe'en Hindus and Sikhs. But since the problem is political, it is for the influential people in both communities to come fo['ward and pressurise the government to initiate a dialogue .

"The government must be prepared to talk about Khalistan and also prepared to grant such autonomy which does not endanger national integrity and is within the framework of the Indian Constitution. Although the Granthis are under the influence of the terrorists, they assured us that they favour a solution within the framework of the Constitution and in conformity with the needs of national integration and unity."

The former chief minister of Bihar, Dr Jagannath Mishra, ' interviewed in his Patna residence commented . that " .. the recent stand of Barnala in

delinking politics from religious heads has created the proper atmosphere in Punjab and all secular forces should strengthen Barnala's hand in solving the Punjab problem." In the view of Mr Jaikuna Dalit, a Congress(l) M.L.A and one of

. the most vocal critics of the' Dubey government "though the Barnala government has failed, its sincerity is unquestionable. I am in favour of giving life to the Barnala government because it would mean giving life to secularism and commitment to the Punjab Accord. The fall of that government would mean direct success for the extremists. "

All Terrorism Condemned

"We are opposed to the killing of innocent people in Punjab by both the terrorists and the police. We oppose both terrorism and the methods used by the government to curb

Continued on page 15 col 1

20 April - 4 May 1987 3

:The .

I_n_t_e_rn __ at_i_o_n_al_R __ O_U_n_d_-U_P _______________ ~~~~--____________________________ _

ARGENTINA: THE COUP THAT FAILED

Cory Aquino could have best appreciated Argentine preside nt Raul

Alfonsin's feelings last week as thousands of people packed the streets of · Buenos Ail'es ina show of support to his democratically elected government. It was -a scene so reminiscent of Philippines's ' peopl~ powe r' revolution early last year that toppled dictator Ferdinand Marcos and installed Aquino as the nati0n's president. Last week in Argentina, much as last year in Philippines, the threat to the government came from sections of the army and it was the general population 's rallying behind Alfonsin that really cut it short.

The army rebellion centered in the north-western city of Cordoba, some 500 miles from Buenos Aires. On Wednesday (April 15), Major Ernesto Barreiro, i::Iefying a government order to testilY before a court trying cases of human rights violations, took control of an al'my base in the city. Army officers in charge of neighbouring bases refused to lay se ige on Barreiro's base and thus declared open revolt against the government.

Ever since Alfonsin was elected to power in late 1983, ending a repressive military regime, human rights crimes has been among Argentina's most contentious issues. During the military ;;oule, thousands of people in the Latin American coun try were killed and tortured by the authOl'ities, a tr.agedy most tellingly brought home by the so-called 'Mothers of the Plaza', a group of women who silently marched through the streets displaying signs with names of their missing sons and husbands.

Alfonsin' s government brought an end to that brutal repression, and indeed went one step further. It constituted special courts that would look into the human rights crimes

'and already several gener-als and admirals have been convicted. This has naturally antagonised a section of the army and the Cordoba revolt was an expression of that outraged feeling.

Right Wing Bastion Major Barreiro belonged to

the Third Army Corps which is considered a rightwing bastion of the Argentine military. TIle lal'gest and most crucial fighting unit of the army, it was the focus of oppos ition to the trial of offi cers charged with committing human right s crimes. Barre iro demanded a ge neral amnesty for all military personnel so accused , and re ports suggested that at least 60 officers had joined his revolt. In a statement released to the · press, officers of the Third Army Corps based in COl'doba said they would obey no orders from Buenos Aires to cl'ackdown on the insurrection. Not that any such order came fl'Om the government though the milital'y base at Cordoba was surrounded by police forces and troops.

4 20 April - 4 May 1987

Instead, president Alfonsin tried to defuse the revolt by ope ning negotiations with armv officers. It was not i1l1~ediately clear if the Third Corps officers had the support of the rest of the army; what was clear" however, was ,that most of the country's population was behind Alfonsin. The pl'esident in .a speech at the National Congress declared his gove rnment would not bow to pressure from the rebels. L.it.er, in a nationwide broadcast, Alfonsin declared: "Democracy in Argentina was not negotiable."

Meanwhile, even as people poured into the streets of Buenos Aires to voice support for the president, the revolt spread to an army base near the capital with a colonel, supported by 150 officers, declaring support to Major Barreiro. Alfonsin had a crucial meeting on Friday with the army chief of staff and other senior ranking officers and ministers at Government House . The army generals pledged support for Alfonsin 's government and ordered general mobilisation to suppress the revolt. In Cordoba, as troops moved into the barracks held by the Third Army Corps, Major Barreiro made his escape and his subordinates surrendered.

Alfonsin Accomplishes Mission

Th e, rebe l officel's at the Buenos Aires base, however held out with Colonel Aida Rico, who led the m, seemirigly in a position of strength as troops sent by th e government to take over the barracks failed in their objec ti ve. On ,Sunday, Pl'esident Alfonsin app'eared on the balcony of Government House to announce, amidst cheers from the crowds on the street, a personal mission he was about to undertake to win over the rebel officers. A few hours later be was back on the balcony, mission accomplished. The mutiny had been averted .

But apparently at some cost. Col Rico had agreed to surrendel' but the president was clearly conciliatory in his speech from the balcony of Government House. He said the rebel officers had not intended to topple his government, reminded the crowd that many among the officers were heroes of the Falkland war (against Britain, in ] 982) and that they had now changed their "mistaken" attitude. On Monday, it was announced that two serving officers of the Buenos Aires base, due to appear in a Cordoba court in a human rights crime case, have had their summons postponed. Court officials ·were quoted as saying they wel'e acting on political advice . Meanwhile,the chief of army staff tendered his resignation and observers in Buenos Aires believed that several other generals are expected to fO.lIow suit.

By Partha S. Banerjee

Arms Talks: Shultz Success at

Moscow The disclosures .came slow

ly, in bits and pieces. By the end of last week, however, it was apparent that U.S. secretary of state, George Shultz's visit to Moscow earlier this mbnth, during which he had lengthy talks with his Soviet counterpart Eduard Shevardndze and general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, had gone a long way in advancing the superpower's Duclear disarmament talks. Said President Reagan OJl' Thursday (April 16) after being appraised by Shultz of his discussions with the Soviet leaders: "I remain optimistic of an agreement (on eliminating intermediate range missiles from Europe) this year."

Later in the week it was announced that at Shultz's talks in Moscow, a new idea to solve the verification tangle was put forward by the Soviet ~ide

which the secretary of state approved in principle. The idea concerned testing nuclear devices. The Soviet Union proposed that the U.S. conduct a test on a Soviet site and the Soviets at an American site. This would allow both sides to calibrate their seismic monitoring system and thereby tally theit verification procedures. Verification obviously is central to any arms control agreement and no pact can ever be signed unless both sides can ensure that the other is not violating the terms.

Narrowing Differences

The Moscow talks also "helped narrow the differences between the superpowers on the elimi.nation of intermediate range missiles (lNF). These nuclear weapons, with ranges of around 3,000 miles, are targeted mainJy at European cities and military installations and the superpowers hope to reach an agreement on their dism'antling within a year or two as a first step towards arms control. West European governments are however insisting on linking the proposed INF deal with the elimination of short range missiles, a class of weapons over which the Soviet Union enjoys an overwhelming superiority. Earlier this month, in Prague, Gorbachev agree.d to negotiate the removal of the short range w eapons though this would not be part of the INF deal.

Judging by the lengths the superpowers 'are going,to reach an agreement on IIrms control, it is evident that both Mo/?Cow and Washington are keen on concluding a t least the INF deal before the Reagan presidency ends in 1988. Still smarting from the Iran arms scandal, the U. S. president desperately wants such a deal to crown his eight years at tHe White House

while Moscow, keen on diverting funds from the defence budget to developmental funds, seeS the next few months as the best chance to persuade America slow down the arms race. The U.S. in any case is keen that the Soviet Union not be perceived by the world as the only peace maker, a notion th~t Margaret Thatcher, the British prime minister, tried to quash at a rece nt visit to Moscow. In an interview that was telecast live to Russian audiences, Thatcher said: "There are

more nuclear weapons in the Soviet Union than.in any other country in the world. You have more inter-eontinental ' ballistic missiles and warheads than the West. You started· intermediate weapons; we. did not have any. You have more short-range ones than we have .... We in Britain destroyed our chemical weapons toward the .. end of the 1950s, and the US did npt modernise theirs. But the Soviet Union has modernised them and has a large stockpile ... "

(NEWSCRIPT) •

20,000 EVICTED INCALCUnA

Calcutta, April 8: Nearly 20,000 squatters 'on the banks of the Palmer Bazar canal were evicted on the morning of April 8 and thei~ shanties bulldozed in one of the city's major eviction drives. A team of about 1,200 corporation staff accompanied by armed policemen asked the residents to vacate their hutments and launched a massive -eviction drive.

The evictions are being executed to facilitate the dredging of the stagnated canal which forms the backbone of the city's drainage system: The desilting operation will reduce waterlogging in the city during monsoon, a corporation official said. .

The slumdwellers did not protest the sudden eviction and, excepting an occasional brickbatting on the policemen on guard, the operation was peaceful till noon.

At 6.30 am groups of corporation employees and armed policemen gathered near the backyard of the Entally slaughter house on S. C. Dey Road in east Calcutta and asked the poor dwellers to vacate their hutments. The bulldozing started on the west bank of the canal and people on the eastern side of the shallow canal were given four hours to clear out. Eviction on the east side was expected to commence in the afternoon.

Said Mehrun Bibi, a 60-year old housewife living in the area: "We have been hearing about the eviction for years. Just before the elections the CPI(MJ candidate from Beliaghata had assured us that the plan has been deferred. But today, just two weeks after the elections, we were taken by. surprise. Groups of armed policemen prevented us from retrieving our belongings from the huts as the huge machines razed them to the ground." She began weeping as she narrated Qer plight, and added: "We have been staying in this locality for the last 23 years, and the government has made no alternative arrangements for us. Some of my trunks and utensils are dumped on the

road. Tell me, where are the politicians who made the tall promises before the polls?"

No Protest, No Consolation

There was no organised protest whatsoever and none of the party leaders of the neighbourfng areas was pre-

. sent either to console the evicted or prevent the drive. The poor residents were busy retrieving bamboo poles and broken tiles of their shanties.

While some of the 20,000 dwellers earn their living by selling plastic scrap, others manufacture cheap rubber' goods, recycle rags or are engaged in distillation of animal fat. Muhammed Shamim, 35, a settler in this area from Motihari in Bihar) complained that with the demolition of his manufacturing shed, he has no employment. He said: "All the residents' in the area earned their living from

, small units here . . Apart from being homeless, we have another acute problem of reestablishment."

He said, for the past two days the police had been announcing impending evictions which prompted them to meet the Mayor on April 7 for a sympathetic treatment. "But the mayor turned us away very rudely saying that the demolition had become necessary and there was no reason to stop it. Similar attempts to seek the help of the local MLA of Beliaghata proved futile."

The lnational forum of the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless termed the morning drive as a "brutal eviction." In a press release, the forum claimed that it was perfectly possible to carry out the dredging without shifting the bulk of

"the residents. , A police officer said the day

long . demolition drive was being carried out over a 2.5 km stretch on each side of the canal from the Palmer Bazar end to the occupied area near the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass . •

_________________ Gal~-----------------Cong-I Causing Discord in U. P.

Continued from page 1 col 5 Masjid has been built on .the debris of the Ram Janambhoomi and what justification can there be for a mosque at the birthplace of Lord Ram. "

Whi.le decrying the suggestion of converting the disputed place into a national monument. he retorted: " It would be perpetuating the shame of the majority community and a permanent source of humifiation for Hindus. Explaining "Hindu" liberalism he said: "Hindus are not bothered about one or the other mandir; neither do they normally go about c1aimirg places for their temples. Moreover. it is not material if a temple is moved from one place to another. But how can the birthplace of Lord Ram be different and how can we give up a claim to this place ?"

Having taken part in the joint deliberations held in Delhi with Muslim leaders. the mahant said: "It is not certain if there would be further talks. Shahabuddin is a politician and even if he ' considers Hindu claims just. how would his interests in the politics of vote allow him to accept a solution and give it to the Hindus?"

When asked about the growing dangers to the life and property of Muslims in Ayodhya ' and the looming carnage of its Muslim population. he said: "Only the people inheriting 'Jaichand' culture are scared of this danger. And even if it is given up under such an apprehension. would it satisfy the Muslims?"

'Evidence for '\ Apprehensions

The danger of a carnage is not only an apprehension but very real. This becomes obvious from the speeches of a number of Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh leaders at a series of meetings in the districts of Lucknow. Unnao. Barabanki. Hardwar. Faizabad. Lakhimpur. Gonda. Balrampur. Sultanpur. Rai Bareilly. Pratapgarh and others - all within a 150 km range of Ayodhya. The speeches have proclaimed that those who are not faithful to the teachings of Lord Ram are neither 'patriots nor Indians.

Also significant is the fact that every call given to the respective communities by one or the other committee - either to hoist black or saffron flags or to organise a protest.· has met with total success.

It is worth mentioning that the Ram Janambhqomi Mukti Yagna Samiti's call for a UP bandh on March 29 this year met with absolute success among Hindus. And so was the counter bandh call by 10'cal Muslim . leaders in Faizabad and Kanpur. Untoward events were only avoided by the prompt deployment of security forces.

But are the Indian military and para military forces depen-dable in protecting the minorities on such an emotionally surcharged issue as that of Ram Janambhoomil Babri Masjid? At least the Muslims in UP do not believe so. Dr MA Haleem, a vjce president of the All India Socialist Party and one of the most noncommunal leaders from the minority social background. said in Lucknow: "There is absolutely no law and order and virtually there is a reign of terror in the whole of Uttar Pradesh, The state is against everybody. but its main victims are harijans. backwards and minorities. Communalism and sectarianism are being propagated by the state through the official media by highlighting the rituals and practices of the majority community. The fanning up of the issue of Ram Janambhoomi is a glaring proof of the misdeeds of the state government in this regard.

Denial of Civil Rights

Alleging the total denial of civil rights in Uttar Pradesh Dr Haleem said:. "Since ·the return of Mrs Gandhi to power. section 144 has been a permanent feature in Lucknow and other important places in . the state. which has been converted into a police state. The stale and central governments ate denying the minorities their minimum religious and civil liberties - the tax ::10 fo.reign travel exchange. which would

NEWSHOUND RA11'1 HAS ASK~D HARYAN4 TO MAINTAIN 1H~ VALLJ~~ OF tvtAAA~HARATA ,

•

hit pilgrims most is the latest example of this."

Mr Ibne Hasan. a Lucknow advocate with Marxist views believes "the issue of Babri Masjid has generated unprecedented tension in UP and this is the single issue which has successfully electrified both hindu and Muslim sentiment. in post-independent India. . The organisers and leaders connected with this issue are just paper tigel·s. The tensions have been so worked up that ~eemingly there is no solution to it. The only way to ease the situation is a national dialogue."

Growing Muslim Insecurity

Analysing the causes for. the development of dangerous dimensions around the issue of Babri Masjid. Mr Hasan siad that consciously or unconsciously, Arun Nehru (who was then Union Minister of State of Horne) committed a Himalayan blunder by manipulating the opening of the locks of the .mandir by a court order. Muslims do not mind giving up their' claims to one or the other mosque, but tensions have been so highlighted around Babri Masjid, that giving it up will only result in generating a sense of insecurity among them.

Mr Hasan added: "The leaders of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad have vitiated the social climate in UP villages through malicious propaganda to a dangerous extent. For the last three years Muslims, having faced ' the ordeal of being dubbed as traitors, are living under the threat of total annihilation in Ayodhya. Moreover, wherever communal riots have taken place, be it Moradabad, A1igarh, or elsewhere, they have suffered and fought the police and the P.A.C. Even at the present time something fishy is. being worked up.

A local resident of Ayodhya, Mohd Abdul Hamid revealed

. that there are about 200 Muslim families who live in Ayodhya. Threats to their life and property are growing every day. The Hindus are nursiI).g ideas

of freeing the birthplace of their Bhagwan Ram from traces of not only the Babri Masjid but also the minority population. Their targets also include 150 local mosques and 70 graveyards.

Ayodhya's Hindu / Ethos

Enquiries from adminlstraJ tive sources revealed that in a ten kilometre area of AyodhyaFaizabad there are about, 4 ,500 temples and plac'1s of Itndu worship. Moreove~ out .of Ayodhya's 750,000 inhabi~nts, there are about 5 ,500 sadhus and pandas, most of them 'with unverifiable antecedents.

That the local law and drder situation is far from satisfactory is evident from a report in a Hindi daily, Naye Log, published from Faizabad on March 3. The paper notes that. the terror of goondas, anti-soCial elements and criminals in Ayodhya is growing out of bounds. The use of country made ' pistols, thefts and wayside robberies are becoming a routine affair. The local police does get active after the crime, but such cases are ~oon

. filed as untraced. '''The unpredictability of the pre-

. dominatly Hindu religious population's behaviour in any outburst of tension can only be highlighted by a seemhigly unrelated fact. During the last decade, the local , post offices have become richer by about 13 crores of rupees. Tltese deposits have come from the dormant and· dead savings bank accounts of untraced sadhus of whom there is no record: where they came from and where they went.

Keeping in view that a number of bloody battles have been fought 'between Hindus and Muslims before and after Independence, it is unfortunate that the local population, both in Faizabad and Ayodhya, seems to be resigne'd to ' the inevitable. As one citizen put it: "Even in 1853 some ' 300 muslims were killed and 30 persons died in 1947; even now some may die, but so what? Who is' interested in defusing the situation?"

On the contrary. instead of seeking out a solution or attempting to checf its drift into an explosive affair all concerned parties are trying to add to the confusion anQ surcharging the atmosplulre. This would be evident from a book "Shri Ram Janambhoomi ka Ratranjit Hihas" (Tn'e bloody history of Ram Janam'bhoomi). which says. Lord . Ram appeared on September 22. 1949 at the place called Babri Masjid. The district authorities. in accordance with section 145, IPC. declared this piace as disputed and attached. anc1 then Hindus went in a civil litigation to prove their claim. In the meantime. the then district magistrate of Faizabad. KK Nayyer refused to follow the state government orders of removing the idol of Lord Ram from the disputed place and sought retirment.

Later Nayyer and his wife used this episode to begin a profitable political career.

Opening of the Lock

How was the lock of Ram Janambhoomi opened? The same book says: "The Vishwa Hindu Parishad had threatened to force open the lock on the Ramnawa!Di day in 1986. The state administration got active and a local advocate Umeshchandra Pandey went to the district and sessiops court with the plea to open the lock and allow him, as a Hindu. freedom of worship; on wl}ich plea the said court ordered to open the lock." Siginificant is the assertion in the book: "Just as the order was passed, a~

w.aiting city kotwal BP Singh opened the lock on February 1986."

Quoting page 109 of the book, a former Congress member of the Lok Sabha, who did not want to be identified, alleged: "The chief minister was instrumental in the opening of the lock and is still supporting both Hindu and Muslim leaders to fan up tensions on the issue, so . as to keep his gaddi intact. " •

By Rap

20 April - 4 May 1987 5

. fl· F&um _R_e_Vl_·e_W_S __ & __ R_e __ e_c_tl_o_n_S~ ____________ (3azet~

Vivan Sundaram's' Journey'

The political oppositions of the 'traditional' and the 'modern' in art .con

ities of choice among critics Illes of choice among ClrtlCS and artists. VYhile some talented and established cri tics like Arany Banerjee of Calcutta (who pa~sed away suddenly on the April 22) assert the vital necessity of a 'traditional' component in modern Indian art, others, like the Calcuttabased Punjabi painter Rajen Bali, are vocal about the need to break away from such traditional idioms.

In the words of Arany Banerjee, who was himself a painter: "An Indian artist's works, I am firmly convinced, should proclaim his Indian identity. This does not mean taking resort to that wishywashy stuff · that is, for some reason or other, known as the New Bengal School. Or shutting up like a clam and remaining

6 20 April - 4 May 1987

isolated from the art isti c happenings of the world. Nor does it make an artist a complete Indian of today, for the chasm of history can make a person as distant as th e gulf of geography. Jamini Roy was not a clam ... not only did he make several copies of French Impressionist works, he also employed their styles in his own pictures."

Rajen Bali, on the other hand, proclaimed in a recent interview in the capita l : "1 have always been telling people to break away from tradition, -to dip into yoUI' own minds for themes, and let your own voice grow .. . a creative medium should be universal in its appeal and not restrict itself by community, religion and such like. What is 'Indian-ness'? Am I not an Indian? What is Indian art if it d e nies an artist the freedom to express?" Bali is of the opinion that "Tagore was the first modern Indian pain tel'

By Srimati Lal

to break ·the stranglehold of tradition. " A major aspect which is, perhaps by necessity, overlooked in Bali's statement is that Tagore's art was utterly original: it had no derivatives whatsoever. Its ' univel'sality' stemmed from the manner in which it delved deep into the inne rmost mind of . the post, itself a world in mic roCOSIll.

Vivan's Journeys · Vi lIa II Sundaram 's most

recen t e .\ hibilion , entitled 'Journeys', for ty ~vorks in soft pastel on paper that were on at the Gallery Aurobindo in April, gropes towards an expression of the latter idea l. Its content is mystical, spirit ual, abstractly elaborating upon an awareness that " the world is large, and is one. " In its mediu m and form of expression, however, one cannot overlook the influence of western modern art: as the artist himse lf conceds: " Per-

haps all my work is 'western' in a broad sense, because of the medium used, and possibly because I am an Indian and am not 'rooted' ... but I'd like to think it 's not really very important to me whet~er my style tilts one way or another." What, then, are the artist's primary concerns?

':My concern is to document the process through which you arl'ive at yourself - not to express anyone philosophical, ~es th e ti c or political viewpoint. To be alert to my medium, to be sensitive to its nuances. To look at the way I . understnad myself, 'lly location in history and time, just as one would examine some phenomenon .... I'm not interested in developing a set 'style', one that can be immediately identified with a commonality of ideas, imagery a nd medium. My teacher at M.S. University in Baroda, K.G. Subramanium, to me epitomises a wide, varied look - a look I have great admiration · for. He upturns so many of our conventional notions of'rootedness' by using diverse quotatio I? s, by parody, by employing

forms from Chinese art. Matisse, many moderns ... through these processes emerges a consistent truth . I do not see the necessi ty to have a single style - to stick to that style alone," says the artist.

Exploratory Visions

In Sundaram's 'Journeys' exploratory visions of ship, sea aI)d harbour seem to consCiously express a- world-view, from 'Ganga's Pageant' to 'Crossing the Nile', 'Two Fishermel1 in China', 'Harb04r in Hamburg' and 'Cargo From Two Civilisations'. In technique as well, east and west are itensely fused to create sinuous dis-

. tortions and a cerebral abst·raction of tone that is a noticeable departure from the artist's previous more figurative, naturalistic studies. Here, there is the same quality of poetry, of deep mystery, that is Sundaram's hallmark, but more intensely so, as the artist · appears to be groping for a new form, a new language. This 'searching' imparts a further power, even a quality of Continued on page 13, co/3

On I Indian-ness' in modern Indian art "I believe that the stereotyped, simplified notions of 'In

dian-ness which we carryon the exterior can lack exploration .. - this is a 'Iook'which can be conservative and tyrannical. I'm critical of such strong neo-traditlonalism that carries with it several loaded implications - for example, is one 'national' or 'anti-nationa/~ .. ? It is not always possible to have a shared language. And I cannot be a populist: to be so would mean my death as an artist Western artists like Delacroix, Matisse, Gauguin, Picasso, 'went outside' their own cultures to evolve new idioms. The Indian artist too, has a right to do so, and must assert this right He can taJse any location as his startIng point If this is done more actively, political intervention becomes more possible, a ) new respect can be gained in the west II

On I Universality' in art "Today, we can strike out with whatever baggage we

have: we can utilise all the richness of our own contribution, Jamini Roy, the Bengal School, Sher-GiJ, and also incorporate western contributions. The previous generation, Akbar, Souza, Padamsee, went to the west to 'discover the avant-garde: as it were, but today's Indian artist is more capable of being accepted in the West on entirely his own terms. But this should not stop the .process of .selfquestioning that's vital to a new language. It's this which can liberate, not all the lingams and the so- called Indianisms. "

On the Indian in his own art: "I would like to. believe that my palette is not entirely of

western origins, that much the same colours may be found in Indian miniatures and eastern illuminated paintings. .. in my pastel work 'The Orientalist: a non-rational, nonperspectival (hence non-western) use 0; space is employed. The blue here is an 'artificial', Indian blue; the orange is Indian and decorative. A 'flat' Indian perspective is used to the left of the picture."

On art and contemporary reality: "I have given visual form to Pablo Neruda 's poems and

expressed the injustices of the Indian Emergency in 1975-77. I have also set up the Committee for Communal Harmony in Delhi to counter growing communalism. I am a topical artist, I do take up certain immediate themes; but ye~ one goes beyond these. Historically art takes time to be comprehended and it is necessary to work in relative isolation ... I'm not at all in favour of the Apna Utsav kind of popularisation - this has to be a slower, educative process; indirect methods are much more effective."

. '

d fl of&um _R_e_v_ie_w_s __ a_n ___ R_e __ e_c_tl_o_n_S ___________ (3azet~

An Allslralian Looks At India Australian academic Robin Jeffrey has made a valuable con

tribution to India watching chronicles with his WHAT'S HAPPENING TO INDIA (The .Macmillan Press Ltd, London, 1986: pp. 249 .. price not listed). Jeffrey taught in a government high school in Chandigarh in 1967-69, spent time in Kerala doing research for a book OTT Nayar dominance, and is a Senior Lecturer in politics at La Trobe University, Melbourne. His varied experience and his confessed fascination with India, par-ticularly Punjab, invests this highly readable, informative book with an understanding often lacking in drier academic works.

This is not a scholarly treatise. Nor is it a journalistic 'quickie'. Well researched, it is, in a sense, contemporary history, in which the human pe rsonalities come alive. The author has relied heavily on newspaper ana magazine sources, and this injects ·a sense of immediacy into the work. But the character of the study compels the writer to deal in a somewhat perfunctory manner with some aspects of what is happening to India.

He explains in his preface th .. t he decided to write the book in answer to the question (which he has made the title) , which was repeatedly being asked in November 1984 after Mrs Gandhi's assassination. He gives his answer through an analysis of events in Punjab over the past two decades, an analysis he extrapolates to cover events in the rest of the country. For in spite of factors unique to Punjab, the author's view is that in essen'ee developments "in other states are dictated by similar forces and pressures. These he traces to the impact of certain components of modernisation -increased government activity,

expansion of communications in every area, both in transport and media, spread of ideas of competition - on the older cultures.

Impact of Modernisation on Punjab

In Punjab, which he knows well, Jeffrey traces how such modernisation has sharpened ethnic differences (as it has in other parts of the country), how, when exploited by short term political considerations, ethnicity can lead to violence. "For national politicians to encourage aggressive, ethnic ·assertion - as the Congress (I)

party did in Punjab between 1978-80 - simply to undermine political rivals, is fraught with dangers. It ought to be regarded as the equivalent of poision gas in the second world war or nuclear weapons ... " . These are strong words from the author.

He argues these points convincingly in discussing ,the growing assertion of Sikh identity, in analysing Mrs Gandhi's electoral arithmetic after 1980 and while explaining the events ·leading up to the assault on the Golden Temple. The book is divided into chapters on "Ethnicity", " Punjab", "Sikhs", " Innovations", "Politics 1947-1977", " Faction", "Explosion" and finally "What's Happening to India? Besides

presenting in detail Punjab developments to illustrate what is happening in the rest of the country, Jeffrey's "pook is a strong, almost impassioned plea for federalism, as the only way to preserve the Indian nation-state with ·its enormous population, its five major religions, 15 official languages, thousands of caste groupings, 22 (s ince then 24) states with their dozens of sub-regions.

Again Punjab is the glaring example of the dangerous consequences of Mrs · Gandhi's desire " to hold all the reins in her hand" . But Jeffrey warns " If voters are constantly frustrated - if central governments disregard local pride, aspirations and opinions - the possibility exists for secessionists to acquire popularity." Punjab is only one example, Andhra another, and no state is immune.

Jeffrey's relation of the Punjab story to the larger Indian perspective ensures him a large readership oQtside India . What is of greater interest to Indian readers perhaps is his analysis of specific developments, of the interact·ion of various factors, such as the revolution in communications with the traditional violence inherent in Jat culture, and the rapid spread of literacy in the state with the politicisation of Sikh youth.

Statistics on Punjab

His statistics on Punjab as a cQmplete picture will come as a surprise to many Indian readers. In 1980, Punjab's estimated Gross Domestic Product per person was Rs 2528, nearly 20 per cent greater than second placed Maharashtra. including Bombay. Occupying 50,400 square kilometres, 1.5 percent of India's land area, Punjab, in recent years, until 1984-85, produced more than to million tonnes of foodgrains annually, about seven per cent of the national total.

The stat~ has 10 per cent of India's TV sets, 19 per· cent of its tractors (1985 figures), Punjabis use more than twice as much electricity per hour as· the "average 'Indian", and since 1976 the state claim!! that every village has electriCity. Punjabis put more than three times as much fertilizer for each hectare of land as the average Indian farmer, and of that land more than 80 per cent is irrigated against the national average of 28 per cent. The average Punjabi has a life expectancy of 65 years, for others the figure is 47. But with all this, less than 2S per cent of the state's GOP. comes from industry. This is

one of th e lowest figures in the country. Between 1961-66 only 2,280 kilometres of road were built. But in one year, 1969-70, ·the added length was 1,920 kilometI'es, and by 1975 there were 25,000 kilometres of road. By 1980, 9.'> per cent of vi llages wen~ linked by sealed roads.

By 1974 seventyeigh t percent of the primary age children in Punjab were in schools, the second highest figure in the country. More than 80 per cent. of the rural population had secondary schools within eight kilometres. The number of college students ' increased from 35,000 in 1964-65 to 1, to,-000 in the mid-1970s. Not that the education was progressive. On the contrary, literacy increased from 27 per cent of the state'li population to 41 per cent in 1981 , 47 per cent for males and 34 percent for females. So eliminating boys of ten and under from th e s tatis

. tics, this meant that in 1980 three out of every five males in Punjab could read and write. Circulation of all lang-uage daily newspapers pub-Iished in Punjab I'egistered a 312 per . cent increase from 1967- 1979 with a 541 per cent increase in Gurmukhi script papers.

These significan t figures directly influenced people's attitudes a nd reactions ·and played a vital role in the socioeconomic and political developments Jeffi'ey . desc-ribes. Coupled with the low GDP from industry, this also helps · explain the deep-seated frustraiion of young, literate Sikhs, many of them in the All India Sikh Students' Federation.

Resentment Against Centre

Jeffrey touches on the sensed injustice in Punjab and m entions t hat for politicians Punjab sends on ly 13 members to Parliament, while Uttar Pradesh sends 85 . So party majorities cannot be based on Punjab's ·strength, a p la in fact which controls the distribution of natio na l resources. In 'centra l planning too Punjab gets the thin' edge of the wedge, being a border state, and in both cases the Government, which, as the author points out earlier, js playing . an increasingly active part in people's lives; one of the components of modernisation , becomes the focus of resentment. Jeffrey touches on ot her important factors - the legacy of Ranjit Singh's Sikh kingdom, and the glo.-ies of th e past, the trauma of Pal'tition in which Sikhs were essentially the greatest sufferers, the importance of river water etc ..

In his profile of the S!khs, Jeffrey stresses the tradition of sacrifice, the organisation of the misls, the mobility derived from military service which cont ributed immensely to the exposure of the community to new ideas fmm foreign experiences all of which influence con temporary developmen·ts. Tracing the growth of the Akali "Oal and SGPC he comments on the relative lack of political foresight and sophistication of the Sikh leadership before Partition and after, and highlights the tradition, particularly true of the

Jats, which made every Sikh a leader!

The Revolution in Communications In the author's view the

revolution in £ommunications has made the most important impact on developm~nts . in~ India. His contention " ·is that today more Indians ate exposed to more ideas than ever before, through travel, through media, through mutual exchange of ideas . . This has produced a great ferment. He cites many relevant illustrations -the November 1984 killings when TV and radio repeatedly identified Sikhs as Mrs Gandhi's killers and TV showed her body lying in state day after day; the December 1984 elections with Congress (I) exploiting to the full, posters of a bleeding Mrs Gandhi - the author has used this on his cover - along with cassettes of her speeches; the Bhindranwale cult was spread through cassette tapes while the vast mad network in the state facilitated not only Bhindranwale's travelling cum preaching, but later allowed terrorists to use motorcycles and jeeps for rapid assaults and get-aways:

- - He explains the change in the . nature of violence which has always been characteristic of Punjab, (because he says he sees it as essentially still a peasant society) through the technical innovations in weap:ons and communications. In the past, killings were personal. the man who killed his personal enemy recognised the value of life, and often risked his own. People's movements

. were limited areawise, weapons were simpler, identification easier. To-day's indiscriminate killings occur because "Expanded communications networks now bombard Pun- · jabis with information that enables them to treat other people as abstractions" and "mass hatl'ed" has replaced personal enmities.

The outline of 1947 to 1977 politics lays emphasis on the . delib·erate denigration of the Punjabi language, .on the struggle between Sikh leaders, how the rise of Jat influence under Sant Fateh Singh changed the character of the Akali Dal. Congress party machinations to split the Aka lis, culminating in the 1977 elections. The coverage of these years is perforce, relatively perfunctory, inevitable in such a study and many Punjabi watchers may disagree with the author's interpretation of events.

Factional Politics His account of the factional

nature of Punjab politics makes absorbing reading, particularly when he traces Bhindranwafe's rise and the SGPC elections. He sees a parallel between Bhindranwale and N.T.H. , both in their separate ways, invoking the glories of the past. Equally

Continued on page 15, co/3

20 April \:' 4 May 1987 7

:The

_____________________________ Gf~~--------------------v-i-ewp---O-in-t-n,e

Forum Gazette

• Minority Rights • Civil Liberties • Equality for Women • Democratic Values • Environmental Protection

Hypocracy Unlimited Let us put an " nd to this hvpocracy and stop talking about assuag

ing Sikh feelings. about the" h ea ling touch." These have become cliches, deva lued, ))ow calcu lated to provoke Sikh ange r, rather than instill confidence. The ruling party's noisy interruptions in the Rajya Sabha to Akali M. P. General J.S. Aurora's reference to the Misl'a Commission report and th e Congressmen w ho m even Justi ce Misra. fe lt com pe lled to imlict for the ir rule in the i\:ove mber 1~184 carnage, b e travs th e real s(~ntinwnts of the c() untr~! s ruling part y. Inst ead ot th e fu 'lI disc uss ion iJn th e H(~port which all thos(~ int eres t( ~ d in seeing justice done, irrespeCtive of party or community, had hoped for and expected in this Parliame ntary session, eve n comme nt on, and quot ations from the Report itse lf were objected to.

One of th e Nov(~ mhp.r 1 ~184 widows re'm<;lrknd aft e l' the Repol't was re leas(~d " E\'I~ n ifon p. p (!rso n is Jlll nished Olll ' hea rt s \vould he more at peace. " If tlw go\'(~rnment is seriolls, is sincere, ahout applying balm to Sikh wounds. all it ha s to do is to bring the guilty to hook, to perform its simple duty under law. But the govel'nment is not serious, not sincere and it appears that Congressmen are beyond the law, even when murder is involved. The Prime Minister was prese nt in the Upper House during Genel'a) Aurora's speech. He sat in silence whil~ his fellow party members created an uproar, his silence a tacit approval.

The excuse for not having a full discussion on the Misra report during this Parliament session appears to be that " more important matters" -President-Prime Minister controverse\', Fairfax, Bofors - took up Parliament's lime. But is th e re anything"more import3lnt in.'he larger perspective than justice for an estranged, alienated part ot the population? Parliament sessions have been prolonged for much less. Whv not for this discussion')

Anotheropen wound for' the Sikhs is the continued detention of the Jodhpur prioners.'Before Baisakhi. April 14, there was much talk of their release as a gesture to th e Sikh comMiunity of the Centre's bonafides. The d e tenus "'(.jll complete three long years of imprisonment nex t month. Even though the government has admitted that many of them are completely innocent. pilgrims tl'apped in the Golden Temple complex by the army operations. But Baisakhf has come and gone. The de tenus are s till in jail. Screening of -innocents continues, ' we are told, hence the delay. But the truth is that the detenus, innocent or othenvis~have become a convenient human bargaining fa ctor in a " pa'tkage aeaL" which the Centre knows well the Barnala government, handicapped by its total loss of credibility in Punjab, cannot accept. The fate of these men and women, the impact of their continued incarceration on the Sikh community, are irrelevant.

Sceptics - they make up th e vast 1l1a jority of pe rsons - had predcted all a long that nothing would happe n befOf'e th e Haryana e lections. And nothing has. Now th e important ques tion is : \-vill anything happen after the Harya na poll on June 17? We doubt it. The detenus are in for a long innings. The Sikh wounds will continue to fester. Unless by some miracle - and in this country of godmen and godwomen, miracles cannot be ruled out - New, Delhi gets itself a Punjab policv aiIned a t solution of the Punjab prdblem. Pres"ently such a policy does not exist. Instead there has been, for the past six years at least, an ad hoc strategy di ctated purely by Congress (II electoral considerations and drawn up by mep who have no understanding of the factors which have created the crisis. In this srratet,'Y Haryana's poll is the decisive factor to-day. Tomorrow it will be something else.

Meanwhile the Punjab crisis is fast becoming chronic. The tl'Ouble with chronic crisis, as with chronic illness, is thai evervone, in man\' cases the patient included, tends to take the condition for granted. Boredom sets ir~ . So.metimes the primal')' cause is forgolte~. All sense of urgency is lost. Everyone learns to live with the crisis, or illness. So we have a situation today where politicians of all parties, the Akalis included, are no longer concerned with resolving the crisis on a prlOl'i ty basis. They are only concel'l1ed with the ir own interests and sutviva I.

So Punjab's Finance Ministel: creats an impos'sible situation for his government by asking for the departure (jr. the D,G. of Police, who according tomany reports has achieved a degree of success in combatting terrorism to the satisfaction of the people of the state. The Centre, which is suppol,ting thp ... D. G. , does' not counsel him to avoid giving press intervi ews in which-' he makes highly controversial statements s uc h as the need for a police official in his position to be given the powers of an army commander. The Centre continues to treat Punjab's Chief Minister like a vassal. telling him what he should and should not do. No other Chief Minister, even ofCongress( IJ ruled states, IS given his "Of'ders", headlined in the media, in such a manner.

And MI'. Bal'l1ala accepts the situation, with only a mild protest now and again, such as attending the meet of Opposition Chief Ministel'S, and is reported as "commuting" between Delhi and Chandigarh in order to survive. His opponents in the other AkCfIi faction continue to play their political games, at times supporting the extremist youth groups, at other times remaining silent. And Professor Darshan S1ngh Ragi blows hot and cold about the terrorists and others, speakingthe lanugtiage of reason' to individuals who are still hoping to find

. the road to peace with honour in Punjab, and speaking tbe language of extremism while addressing people's conclaves, supposedly meant only for religious preaching. untroubled by J)is ambiguity.

' 11' the drift is not to e nd in disaster, and the chronic illness in the final solution, people's pressure must be mobilized to force 'an end to these political games and demand that public interest be made the priority. The tragedy of the much vaunted Indian democracy is that such people's pressures I'emain dormant. Delhi Sikhs, with the support of all those men , women and children who seek justice, could give the lead by organising a massive protest march against the Misra Commission Report through the capital concluding ih a pul~lic meetingto demand justice, not forthe \'ictimsofNovember 1984 alone, but for victim's of injustice anywhere and everywhere in the country.

8 20 April- 4 May 1987 •

Religion Politics & the Indian Ethos

Despite ih stout d e fian ce of Ihe hllk ,/T;lIlama of the Akal Takht. II)(~ ,\kali Dal ILl. has refused to folio'.\-' tbe ca ll of the. Prinw Ministel' and national parties to separate religion from politics. Inst e ad il has d(!cid! ~ d to launch a pure lv religious campaign of amril prachar among the Sikh

. lIlass(~ s . Yet it is also supposed 10 le ad Ihe current campaign of sec ulal' forces against communalism in Punjali.

ThtH'(! shouhl be nothing surprising about th(~ Akali stand. The Akali Da l was after all bol'll

,.a nd has grovvn in gurudwaras. Far from c riticising the I'eIigion-based Akali move menl , the national leaders had th e n hail.ed it as a vanguard of the fl'eedom move m en t ..

In a similal' way, another stalwal't of the frendom movement. Sheikh Abdulla Ii , fou ght his decisive battles againsi the Mlislim League and its slogan of Pakistan fl'Om the mosques and shrines of Kashmir.

(\gain , tlw e ntil'e · tribe of l/Iem led by Mau lana Azad used th eological ilrgum e nts in support of its concept of a co mposite nationalism V\'hereas leaders like Sir S~{ed Ahmad Khan, Dr Mohammad Iqbal a nd M.A. Jinnah argued th e case for a separate Muslim ide ntity on the basis of secular d e mands . like an adequate s hare ill job's and political powe r- for Muslims.

Above all it was Gandhi who not only made the most potent mixtul'e of I'eligion and politics but also said that those who demanded their separa tion did not know what religion was.

Indeed, before starting a discussion on the relationship between religion and politics, it must first of all be clarified what . religion is . . As a set of ideas and values it has a role as . a source of inspiration for many of its followers . It is neither possible nor justified to deprive theI11 of this source. Moreover, religious theories and dogmas, however deficient they may be in rational content, are not known to · have caused any contlict between religious communities in India. The contlict is more due ' to communal than religious causes.

Heligion , however, is not m ere ly a matt e i' of e thical values and spiritual bei tel's. Those who insist that religion shou ld be a matter betw~en a man and his maker betray an inadequate understanding of the I'Ol e of religion. For, most re ligions also have a social

. philosophy and provide a basis 1'01' identitv formation. Everv religion is ;1 social communi";. Even tho~e \I\;ho do not shal:e its ideological beliefs 01' ' are agnostic, 1'01'111 a part of th e community by virtue of tneir family and social ties.

Most communities tend to acquir() socio-politica l aspirations. Various' forces of illodernisatioll have the effect of sharpening tl wir urge foj' iden-

By Balraj Pu.i

titv. Development. mobility, m edia expansion, politic isation and adult franchise further encoUl'age a sense of selt~ '

awareness among .th e people, As class, political and ideological identities have not grown fast e nough , re ligiolls identities have stepped in to fill the vacuum .

Common Franchise As the; franchise of gur- '

dwaras and legislatures is the same and as the former have greater m~bilisationaJ capacity than political institutions, an inevitable overlapping ' of religion and politics has taken place in the case of the Sikhs,

UncleI' these cil'l;umstances, no seculal; system ca n be built . in India by dismissing altogether the reality of communal identities and their claims to economic and political influence and powe r.

The rea l question, is whal is the legitimate field fOl' these ide ntities and the degree of their autonom\'. For an answer Ihe western e .xpe ri e nce may not be e ntire ly I'e leva nt. FOI~

unlike India. most. the western countries are inhabited bv a single re li gious communit\'. Moreover, Christian political parties e xist in Illany of them eve n nov" and almos-! all of the m have a history of domination of th e church over th e State.

India's o\-\' n past experience is perhaps more I;e levant .and he lpful. For unlik e th e West, India does not ha\'e a historv of a theocratic state . As far as Hindus are concerned, there is no treatise of politics that is regarded by them as an infallible scripture, In fact th e tradition of raja and rishi represents a clear distinction between a spiritual and a temporal I'Ol e, though both share an equal

. status. In the case of 800' yeal's oJ

Muslim. rule in India, there was always a clear supremacy of the secular authority. The king and not the ulema was supreme.

Lesso'n of Sikh . History

Sikh history has almost a sirililar lesson. The fact that spiritual and ·temporal affairs were conceptualised in Sikh .tradition by two terms of peeri and mceri. symbolised by two swords and .the two separate forums of Harminder Sahib and Akal Takht. c learly implied a duality. The tVI/O concepts were closely related but were separate. After the gurus, the leadership and institutions of spil'itual and temporal act i-vi ties became more dis-linctively autonomous. The Akal Takht at no stage assumed , a political role nor any Sikh ruler a religious role. ·The two roles were neither completelv separated 1101' com pt!l(!!P 1\' merged .

Any ' attempt 10 projm:t a monolithic ndigilllls and politi-

ca l identity of a community wou ld not only be a negation of the entire history of religious COmmUl1ltles in . India but would . also retard its gl'Owth, To seek unity of;,p community on the .basis of cQ,qlplete politica l agl'eement would. imply a 19S5 of political freedo·m · fOl' its individual 111embers. Such

' unity can be maintained only by regimenta tior' and arousing

, the passions of th e community to a hysterical pitch vvhich cannot be in its inte rest.

The hllkamnama of the Akal Takht has been critiCised for its attempt to subordinate politics to re li gion . But it can be view~d 1'l'Om another iingle as an attempt to achieve panthic unit~~ on the basis of political unit\', In this sense it amounts to the subordination of religion to politic!!. It is not ' mer~ly a ques tion of whether l'eligio·ll. or politics should domiliate over the other but more importantly whether unity of a religious commullitv ciln be maintained hy a common political party. The ve ry fact t!1at th e hukam.nama does not apply to th(~

Sikh m e mbe rs of. say, the Congress pal'ty , Janata party, Communist party and othei's, implies admission of its limitation . It is clearly not possible to bring all the m e mbers of the community on a single political platform. Further, the fact that a ' large num.ber of Sikh, within and outside · Punjab, have not responded to th e call of Prof. Darshan Singh Ragi to join the united Akali Dal and to bov.co·tt the ruling Akali Dal leaders, indicates that the h Ilk am nama has not achieved the desired objective of Panthic unit\' .

If all politica l pal'ties were to be organised exclusively on a religious basis and all Vbters followed their respective religious parties, the system of election would become redundant and the political balance

. would be frozen in proportion to the respective numerical strength of variolls parties. This 'vl/ould lead to exclusive domination by a permanent

_majority over ' permanent minorities alld to total exclusion of the latter from political power .

Thus a complete merger of instiiutionalised religion and institutionalised politics into it

mOJ1olithic forum wOllldcreate as anamololls a situation as their complete se paration. In pl;actice, memhers of every community need to seek association with members of other communities to pl'Omote the il' class, professional and cultural interests th l'Ough organbations of peasants, w.orkers, occupational groups, etc. So far no religious leader has objected to the autonomy of these institutions from religion. \;\I hy should not th e same apply to politics also in the interest of intellectual freedom of th e members of th e cllml11unit ~ and , as pointed out ahove, of its own unity'! These areas of activity canno t he put Continued on page 10, col 5

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_o~p_e_n_F_o_r_u_m ______________________ G~~~ ______________________________ _

Discrimination against Sikhs in U.P.

P unjabi farmers have tra nsformed the dangerous and swampy jon

gles of the Terai into the second granary of India and Punjabi bus inessm e n have built up the ir s uccessful commercial e nterpr ises th el'e after migra ting fl 'om Pakistan, through shee r hard work and initia lly minimal re tUl'ns. The il' s uccess ca ug ht the evil eye of Congress politicians who found here an oppo rtunity to go in fo r rabble rousing against the Punjabis.

'Represe nt a ti o ns to th e Ce ntre \",'ere m e t with empty assurances but no measures were taken.

Discrimination bv th e UP governme.nt aga in s t th e Sikhs' of th e Tend da tes back to th e ea rly J ~J70s, Frequent c irc ul a l's we re sent .ou t by the s ta te

(- ' govemment to th e loca l ad" - minis tration .to discollf'age Sikh

settl ers, Now, taking full advantag(~ of the present s itua tion in Punjab, th e UP government has aga in issued instructions to th e loca l administrat ion which are discriminatory against Sikhs, m a king it open to the cha rge o f abetting and e ncouraging d estabili sa tion of th e Sikh co mmunitv.

Bageshwar Sa hib Gurud\\'ara was d e m o li shed a nd looted and a statu e of Mrs Indira Ga ndhi \vas reported to ha ve been ins ta ll ed on the spo t whe re Guru Nanak had sat in Samadhi Im editation). T his statue has now been removed .. But compensa ti o n for the damage is said to be denied by th e UP chief minist er, on the

;t .... '~round that the re is now no " Sikh popula ti(,Jn there,

At Gurudwara Na nak Malia , . police is ' poste d outside th e gurlldwanl, but they move a ro und frequently \,vithin the gurud wa ra pre mises by cour-. tesy of the loca l g urudwara managing committee, which w as impose d on the Sikhs after o usting the pro-Akali m anaging committee headed by S Harind el' Singh,

Sikhs are not allowed to stay in gllrudwaras, To Sikhs, lhe gUI'udwara is like a home and they ha ve eve ry right to s tay the re, Denial of the Ijght ' to stay in gllrudwa ra s is direct interfe l'e nce in the religious affairs of the Sikhs,

Sikh houses are be ing co nstantly searched unde r Lh e excuse that te rroris ts are be in g sheltered, - Sikh passe ngers are s ingled out from buses a nd the ir luggage ransacked, Body searches are carri ed out oli Sikh ""omen by male poli ce, adding to their hu niliation ,

In the matter of jobs there is total discrimination against ~ikhs by th e UP govef'f1m e nt. T he s ame is true in the mailer of granting a rms licences. Very rare ly is a li cence' given to a Sikh , while li cences are given to others quit e free ly,

Compensation for des troyed propert~' . is not be ing . given. \\'h eJ'(~ it is be in g offered , it is so dispropc)I'ti o nat e ,to tlw actual loss that th e peopit! af'f~

n ~ fllsin g to acce pt till! clai_ln Hald\\'ani aloIW,. 200 shops ,'

The following note on the situation of ~ikhs in UP Terai was distributed to all MPs from Punjab by Inderjit Singh Jaijee, MLA 'Punj:lb Assembly. We reprodtIce it here and ","ould welcome any further detailed information on the subject.

h~JlIses a nd about 50 trucks a nd , cars were destroyed a nd ransacked unde r tIH-~- ve ry nose of th e adminis tra ti o n in Novembe r 1984.

Non-Action by State Governments

Und e l' the Rajiv-Longowal acco l'Cl. · th e Aka li Dal had agme d to limit e nqui ries into th e comm un a l ca l'llage Lo Bokaro, Kan pur a nd De lhi. T hi s \\'as a li agree ment be tween the Akali Dal and th e Centre. T his did not. howeve r, absolve s ta te govern m e nts from making their own inquiri es a nd ta kin g ac tio n aga ins t th e m iscrea nts , aga ins t politi c ians who aided and a betted th e m ·and against e rr in g officers a t places like De hradu'n , Hald\\'ani. e tc. Sho ps and houses were burnt ,md looted be fOl'e th e eyes of the SDO, Ha ldwani IBhatnagar). Suc h officers ha ve mere ly been tralls fe rred , but no actio n has been ta ke n against th em.

In th e pas t. Co ngress e lection campaign s in Te l'a i w e re \'irtuall v finan ced by th e Sikhs. This was a SOl' t of prot ectio n money give n to the r uling party T he Hald vvan i s hopkeepf!rs , apart fro m g ivi ng m o ney for the Co ngress e lec tio n fund , were fish in the Co ngress III pond. This did no t sa ve th e m from th e Co ngress III anti-Sikh ve nde tta after Mrs Ga ndhi 's assassination .

Recentlv a DIG o f th e l iP police came' out w ith s tatisti cs about the I'ecove rv o f arms

.from Sikhs in th e Te rai and a bput the unearthing o l: o ll e gun factory produci ng 12 bore p is tols , Wh~/ did he not m ention compara tive figures of w eapo ns reco ve re d from distri c ts like Morena , Moradabad , Jhansi. Meerut and KanpUl,'? Hard Iy a day passes w he n gun fac to ri es of the type d escribe d by the DIG a re no t discove re d in these dis tri c ts .

Inderjit Singh Jaijee's Advice

Addressing meetings o f res-

ponsible Sikh. c iti ze n;" in 1:"erai'J /",Ir inderj i t Sing h Jaijee advise d th e m to sort ou t the ir econom ic a nd political proble ms th e m se lves. In the matte r of religion, he sa ici , Sikhs a ll over th e'world are one.

"Vhile a lal'ge majol' ity of th e 20 lakh Tel'a i Sikhs favo ur th e Aka li DaI IBI, he advised th e UP Sikhs to d e ve lop loca l politi ca l roo ts liy jo ining secular pal,ti es like .I ana ta, Luk Dal and CPM, which are sympa th e ti c towards th e Sikh pro blem, He ' a lso advised the m to Jorge close r links ~\' ith other minoriL v co mmunities, schedul e d castes and schedule d tl 'ibes ,,,id through th e ir o\'\'n pe rsona l conduc t demonstrat e that they are m e mbe l's o f a ca s te less re ligiou s body, wh ic h has, at hea rt th e we lfare of a ll mankind.

He ' sugges te d the idea of dual political party membership - o ne for Punjab and one i'or the a d opt(~d s ta te. Acco rdin g to him , this has iJecome necessan' as the Co ngress has cummunalise d the politi cal env ironm e nt. He al so s ugges te d tha L Si khs se t up lega l cell s to he lp ot he r Sikhs in di s ll'ess.

He also calle d o n Sikhs to -diversify assets and dive rt busin ess - farm surpluses to Punjab and to non- Co ngI'esslD non-Hindi states, Those living in communally disturbe d loca liti es, should move over to th e safety of sllch localities ~¥.here Sikhs have a sizeable popula tion and take protection throug h numbers ill the absence of s u c h protection by the state law and order enforcing mac hinery,

Mr .laijee re minde d the UP govemm e nt of it s olJli~ation ' to tak e actioll agains t those newspapers which are spreading anti-S ikh fee lings, He a lso point ed o ut to th e UP govel'llm e nt that the Si,khs have deve loped th e economy of th e. Te rai and the SLate a nd unlike o ther com muniti es have not tra ll sferre d th eir eamings to the ir parent state in any signifi-

EWSHOUND WAAT\'t451He MAIN 1HPfAT 10 L-AW ANJ> o.RD';RiJIHJ)A lUf. TtRffORI5T?

BAJRANG BALI He is a s turdy Hindu Sa tnam i

Jat from Ha ryana. Ilis real na m e is Chaudhri Bajrang Si ng h . Besides being an M.A LL.B. , he has innumel'able academi c distinc ti ons including two go ld m edals. He is prac tising advocate of th e Supre m e Court. It is because of th e exe mplary courage h t! s howed in fac ing ra mpagin g mobs thirsting for human blood that I prefer to think of him as Bajrang Bali. the warrior monkey of . th e ' Ramayana.

In th e flood of h a te and w ickedn ess that engul fed Delhi following Mrs Gand hi's ll1urde'r, Ba jrang s tood out aSA beaco n o f lig ht show in g peopie the way Gandhi had show n in ri o t-Lol'll Indi a. H e a nd h is fa mily 1I1f'ew in a ll th e ir I'eso urces to feed , c lo th e, a nel ho use Sikh famili es w hi c h had been uprooted fl'om th e ir homes. He got th e m jobs and accommoda tio n : he arra nged re marriages of w idows. He was a mongst th e · ha ndful w ho ig nored th rea ts to his .. life and \ 'o lunt eered to g ive evide nce be fore th e Misl' a Commiss ion against known killers and police officers w ho colluded with the m , T he police have no love 1'01' him , Two a ttempt s ~'ere mad e to kiII him. He remain ed und a unt ed . A gra tefu l COI11-munitv honoured him as best as it couid wi th siropas (robes of ho nour); on the las t Republi c Day th e P.unjab Govern m e nt co n, fe n'ed o n him the hi gh est Stat e

Communal In a displ ay of co mmuna l har

llIony rare these d ays, a Hindu , a ·Mus lim and Sikh poole d th e ir resources to bu~' a three-wJlee ler tax i. They agree d to d ecorat e it with symbols of the ir respecti ve faiihs- two of each . Firs t, the Hindu took it to th e temple to be bleesed by a p ries \. T he n he had "Om " a nd "Jai ,'>Jata Di " painte d o n it s front. Nex t came the Sal'darji. He took the three-wheeler to a gUf'dwara, m ade it bow be fore the Gra nth Sa hib IMaltha T ik aa nal , had a "Ek Onkar " painte d in front a nd a Khanda-

ca nt .manner. The wealth ge nera ted by the m has gOI1f: into circu lat io n in UP it self to the adva ncement and betterm e nt of the ir adopted s'ta te.

In the m a ll e I' of language policy, h e noted that while Punja bis a re clearly th e third largest li ngua l gro up in th e stil te, th e Punjabi la ng uage h as been . bracke ted with Te lugu

awal'd w ith a dona tion of Rs 5 lakhs- all of which he put in t rus t for I'efugees,

The kind of assista'nce he rend e re d to beleague red Sikhs, he is

, now e xte nding to Hindu refugee fami li es w h o have fl e'd from the Punjab. Anyo ne with any conscie nce wo uld ha ve thought that a m a n like him would be accla imed a th e Mahatma rein ca m a te d. Not so in th e India of 1987. He is ill jail. He has been tOf'Lured, He is brought to court in handcuffs. He is s uffering from th roa t a ilme nt susp ected to be cancerous. T he doc tor of the AIlIndia In s tilut e of Medical Sciences h as recomme nde d that h e be flown to Am erica for surgery. American s u rgeons have agreed to opera te on hIm if h e com es on time . He has not ";Iske d th e Govel~nment or anyonp e lse for financial assis tance but his application for release offol'eign exch ange remains unanswered. Does thi s make sense to you?

KHUSHWANT SINGH

Hannony K irpan emble m struck to 'the chass is. This Muslim partne r fin ally took the vehicle to hi s mosque, had th e Imam Sahib 'read the Fa liha over it a nd th e , holy numeral 786 painte d on the mirror. Ca n anyone guess what was the second Muslim ritual

, perform ed on the three-wheeler? Only when it came bac k it was making a lot more noise than it did before it was taken for the ope ration,

(Contributed by Harjeet KaurI' New Delhi)

a nd Kashmiri, which have a negligilJle represe ntation in the sta~e, . Very few schools are I

e ncourage d to opt for Punjabi. He has asked the Congress(l)

l ea der~hip to cast aside narrow e lectora l considerations and in the national interest become more tol erant of other faiths and lingual groups and other party governments, •

By·Rap

MURDA H~ POLJCEMA

20 April - 4 May 1987 9

_A_M __ a_tt_e_r_O~f_p_e_o~p_le __________________ ~~ ______________________________ __

K.R. Gouri . misses

T rivandrum : The veteran Marxist leader of Kerala, Mrs K R Gouri (67), has

once again missed the chief ministership. . The decision of CPM's . Kerala State Committee, taken on March 26 after consultation with its Politburo, in favour of E K Nayanar for the post, once again surprised many. During the hectic poll campaign, the news that Gouri would become the chief minister was spread by CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) Which could comer the votes of the lower caste Eazhava community, to which Gouri belongs. Because of the same reason, the Eazhavas political outfit, the Socialist Republic Party (SRP) belonging to the Congress-l led UDF, failed to win a single seat. .

Gouri's chief ministership in the event of the LDF victory was so certain that the popular Malayalam daily Mathrubhumi displayed a three-column picture on its front page on March 25 along with the details of the popular mandate achieved by LDF. The picture, showing the Marxist leader walking to the Secretariat, was · captioned "Marxist leader K R Gouri onto the chief minister's chair within the Secretariat". On the same day, the other popular daily, Malayala Manorama, also predicted in its front page that K R Gouri would become the chief minister. It also said that although Nayanar was re-elected to the Assembly, l:te was unlikely to head the LDF cabinet.

Nayanar's Rebel Document One of the main reasons for

this strong opinion being spread against Nayanar was his being ondee of the nine sign~tories, along with the now discredited Communist Marxist Party (CMP) leader M V Raghavan, to put forward the rebel document in the CPI(M) state party conference at Eranakulam in 1985, arguing for alliance with MuslimLeague and Kerala Congress to defeat the Congress-I led UDF. While Nayanar later shifted his position to narrowly escape from party punishment, Raghavan consistently persued his rebel document, and broke away to form his own political outfit CMP in July last year, which faced total rejection from the electorates in the recent polls.

Even earlier, there were murmurs when Nayanar was chosen to head the 1980 LDF Cabinet in which K R Gouri was agriculture minister. This was because, when Gouri was the revenue minister in the ' first-ever communist ministry headed by EMS Namboodiripad in 1957, Nayanar was only a journalist in the party's Malayalam daily. So also was

By Mukundan C Menon the case in 1967 when Gouri became the food and revenue minister in the first LDF ministry, headed by Namboodiripad.

. While the recent victory was Gouri's seventh term in the Assembly, Nayanar was elected only for the fourth term.

Forward caste communists

There is yet another interesting factor A Majority of the rankand-file of undivided communist party and, later, both of CPI and CPl(M) belonged to the back-ward caste Eazhavas. yet, all the hitherto communist chief ministers of Kerala - EMS Namboodiripad, C Achutha Menon, P K Vasudevan Nair and E K Nayanar - belonged to the forward castes. Therefore, the less experienced E K Nayanar's chief ministership over the much experienced Gouri in 1980 did create some minor ripples and internal debates in CPI(Ml.

Although the compulsions of CPl(M) to qhoose Nayanar again for the post are yet to be spelt out, it is believed that his personal and political qualities weighed against Gouri. The major consideration was said to be the wider acceptance of Nayanar by the other LDF partners. His experience in heading the 1980-81 LDF Cabinet, with troublesome partners like the Congress-S headed by A K Antony and the Kerala Congress (Mani Group), favoured him · again this time, since the CPl(M) leadership wanted to see that the present cabinet would at all cost complete its five-year term. Thus, E K

Nayanar became the third communist leader of Kerala to become the chief minibier for a second term - the other two being Namboodiripad and AchuthaMenon.

I\alathilparambilRaman Gouri had a chequered history with many ups and downs. Born pn the soil of hectic agrarian struggles of Alleppey district, Gouri's father, kalathilparambll Raman, was a poor peasant tilling the ' lalld of the local Hindu temple devaswam. Yet he struggled hard to educate ' Gouri, least knowing that she would one day implement the stringent landreform bill as revenue minister in 1957 to liberate the millions of peasantry from the YOke of feudalism in Kerala.

The Gourl Thomas Marriage Gouri graduated in law and

married T V Thomas, one of the foremost CPl leaders of Kerala. Both being leading activists of the undivided communist party, their comradeship led to matrimony.

While practising in Shertalai courts in 1952, Gouri was first elected to the then TravancoreCochiri Assembly. She has since been continuously elected except in the 1977 polls when she tasted her first defeat at the hands of a CPl candidate with Congress-l backing.

It was in the first uRdivided communist lcabinet headed by Namboodiripad in 1957 that Gouri became revenue minister and Thomas the industrial minister. Both of them then had separate ministerial bunglows -

again for Gouri "Sal).adu" and for Thomas "Rose House". Being adjacent blHlglows, they kept a wicket-gate between the two, converted one of them as their living quarters and the other as residential offices of the ministerial couple.

Gouri and Thomas again became occupants of 'Sanadu' and 'Rose House" in 1967 as ministers but this time they were members of two separate parties. The communist party had split three years earlier, and while Gouri had joined CPl(M), her husband stayed with the CPl. Thus, although they were once again occupants of "Sanadu" and "Rose House", the Wicket-gate was closed permanently.

From 1969,'when the CPl with Congress support pulled down the CPM-Ied LDF government, I

till the death of Thomas in 1977, -the frozen and cold relationship 'between the two communist parties also affected the GouriThomas couple. When Thomas was on his death bed, the CPI State Committee formally informed the CPI(M) State leadership about Thomas' last desire to meet Gouri. CPl(M) allowed her for a fifteen-minute meeting with her husband, but only in the presence of .a comrade deputed by the party.

Had Gouri been selected for the chief ministers hip by' the CPI(M) State Committee, she would have created history as the first famale chief minister of south India. (NEWSCRIPT)

~========~------------------~----------------------~-----~ Sport

I remember the national hockey championships held nearly ten years back in 1978 at Madurai. The tournament was thoroughly mismanaged and the living and playing conditions were deplorable. Indian hockey has been dlrough man}' ups and downs since then, but the recently concluded national hockey championships at Pune took the game to the lowest depths. A tournament in which nearly 30 teams participated was rounded off in eight days ! The fall-out of the tournament which passed off as the national meet was that the Indian Hockey Federation secretary, K L PassL submitted his resignation which the IHJ" president, M A M Ramaswamy promptly tore up, and thal the Maharashtra Hockey Association has been debarred from holding any tournament for

10 20 April - 4 May 1987

Indian two years. But where does Indian hockey go from here?

I remember the na tional hockey championships held nearly ten years back in 1978 at Madurai. The tournament was thoroughly mismanaged and the living and playing conditions were deplorable. Indian hockey has been through many ups and downs since then, but the recently concluded national hockey championships at Pune took the game to the lowest depths. A tournament in which nearly 30 teams participated wa.s rounded off in eight days! The fall-out of the .tournament which passed . off as the national meet was that the Indian Hockey Federation secretary K L Passi, submitted his resignation which the IHF president M.A.M. Ramaswamy promptly tore up, and that the Maharashtra Hockey Association has been ' debarred from holding any tournament for two years. But where does Indian Hockey go from here?

The recently conducted Pune Nationals were deplorable in 'every aspect. Lack ·of funds caml0t be an excuse for the w ay the Nationals were conducted because the ITC had contributed Rs 2.5 lakhs to the tournament. The teams were mostly put up in army barracks

Hockey: Moving Backwards t,.)

By Gurbax Singh

without even fa ns, and w er:e asked to playas much as fou r matches in three days after travelling from extreme corners of the country.

Most astonishing, now, is that when no recognised form of hodtey anywhere in the world is played on natural surfaces, we have our Nationals played on surfaces worse than grass. The failure to mould our players on astro turf and polygrass is the main reason

~for our failure at the international level.

Start From Grassroots

Now the hockey planners are involved in talking of tactics to be adopted at the inteI'national level. I feel, it is a typical case of putting the cart befOl:e the horse. Why don't we sit together and plan out things re-organise hockey from the grass root level and have better fields and living 'conditions. Tactics should come only after we have the basic amenities. What is the point in making our boys slog in gravel fields and then expect them to take on European teams ? Everything abol,lt our hockey now is lopsided.

The next major national meet is the Junior National

from where a junior team to play in the Australasia meet to be held in Delhi will be selected. The Junior Nationals, if I remember right, is scheduled to be held once again on natural grass - in Bhopal. I strongly feel that event if it is delayed by a month it should be held on .astra turf. Three teams from the Delhi tournament w ill qua lify for the Junior World Cup and if we manage to qualify, it will go a long way in forming a strong second stI'ing tea·m. But nobody seems to be thinking along these lines.

The government's attitude to the game is .also not encouraging. MoSt of the time Mr Passi, who is the Indian representative to the FIH, is not able to attend crucial meetings because he is not cleared in time by the government. Our public relations exercises at the international level have also plummeted. The result is that the former world champions have no say in crucial matters like choosing of venues or change ot rules. Passi's trip to Kuala Lum-' pur to attend a FIH meeting has till now not been cleared. Even if it is cleared at the eleventh hour, as is usually the practice, it does not help much. Everything it seems is rotten in the state of Indian hockey.

(Gurbux Singh was the joint captain of the Indian hockey team to the Tokyo Olympics and along with the late Prithipal Singh, formed the famed deep defence of Indian hockey for long. He was also member of the national selection committee and is actively involved in hockey as coach, referee and administrator.).

Religion, Politics and The Indian

Ethos

Continued from page 8, co/5 into wateI'-tight compartments. Nor can they be merged into a single monolithic entity without emasculating them.

Instead of posing the question in, either/ or terms; a more fruitful line of approach would be to debate the appropriate nature of the relationship between religion and politics in an institutional and . ideological sense and to define the spheres of the ir autonomy. In undertaking ...thiS task, India's own historil!1I experience and current realities should be ignored.

:The

_T_h_iS~r_o_rt~.n_~~h_t_S'_S_to_ry __________________ ~~~~~ __ ~ ______ ~, -----------------------I~,

SINDBAD THE SAILOR. COM·ES TO INDIA (PART - I)

Gentlemen, I am Sindbad, Sindbad the sailor, who travelled little but wrote

many travelogues. Actually many of these travelogues had . been written without undertaking any journey whatsoever. But as luck would have it my travel books became so popular that my publishers brought out dozens of editions to meet an ever . increasing demand for them. But the beauty of it was that every new edition was brought out in such a surreptitious manner that I was the only one not to know about it. So when I received another request to write another travelogue for them I was not at all surprised. Their only inter-

, est was to get hold of the

C manuscript as earl:y as possible so that they could bring out its golden jubilee edition and load their wives with all the golden jewellery in the world while I remained poor and uncared for.

So, I told my publishers that the possibility of undertaking such a venture was remote. To. begin with, I had become so old and feeble that seeing me holding my walking stick it was difficult to tell whether it was the s.tick which was supporting me, or if it was the other wav round. The second thing that I told them was that I had lost the knack of travelling without a ticket ; and to travel with a proper ticket would not only hurt my self respect but also

\- nit my reputation as a· self\ tufficient Fakeer. So, what I

.' suggested to them was to allow me to use myoid technique and write yet another travelogue without doing the travelling. But this time they argued that I had already written enough imaginery travel books, so, it was high time that I produced a travelogue by experiencing a real journey.' .

Having committed myself to do as my publishers wished, I started thinking about the possibility of going to an interesting country. I was still raking my brain when report after report of communal riots in India started pouring in. It was stated that communal riots in India had become the order of the day. The seeds of such riots, it was reported, were sown every year, and every year crop after crop of human heads was harvested.

Having read such fantastic descriptions about the Indian riots I developed an overpowering desire to see them for myself and give my sinful eyes the satisfaction and the intoxicating joy' of enjoying a rare spectacle.

Ultimately, when I shared my desire with some of my unemployed friends, one of them suggested lhat if my sale aim was just to see the riots, I should go to America where racial riots were u.ncommonly common. Another · one inte,,,ened and

said, "But if you want to see a hundred percent pure and unadulterated riot" then you must go to India. The riots there are so pure . that you won't find a trace of humanity in them. The finesse with which the heads of human beings are chopped off, and the knives thrust- into their bodies, defies description." I was also ' told by a friend that rioting was a kind of support in India and has been there since ancient times. He went so far as to say that anyone who hasn't seen the Indian riots has lived his life in vain. Another friend came forward with the opinion thai though the Taj MahaL Ajanta and Ellorawere certainly wOlth seeing, India's communal riots were unique and were not to be missed on any account.

That settled the r'natter, and I started borrowing the things necessary for the journey. Having done so I set out for my trip to India. Facing . a hundred hazards of overland journey and escaping the watchful eyes of the ticket inspectors I reached India safe and sound. But the moment i reached there a strong anxiety gripped my heart. Friends had

.. . .....

By Mujtaba Hussain

told me it was easy to reach Inma safe · and sound, but almost impossible to come back intact. Consequently, I kept my entire luggage in a state of reamness so that 'I could just pick it up and dash out of Inma on receiving the first danger signal.

Once in Inma I found that I was unable to make any permanent arraflgement for my board and lodging. But as I came to know later it was quite a normal thing in that country. Most of the Inmans had no permanent roof over their heads ' and no steady source for earning their daily bread. In fact, most of them used the whole country as a temporary abode - a Serai,

· and in the end they went straight for their heavenly abodes without . clearing their debts and rent arrears. So, I too selected a spacious and a lively place under a railway bridge and began to live there. · I shared . this . place with four local wanderers who ' went out

· begging ' during the day ' and when they came 'back in the evening, they spent their ' time relating the interesting things they had observed during the day.

.' .. , .• ...

In Inma a wandering mendicant, like the ones I have mentioned, is called a Dervish. It hardly took me any time to become a part of this group of Dervishes, · and I got mixed up with them as sugar mixes with milk. We were so much alike that it was mfficult to mstinguish one from the other. But as sorm as these Dervishes came to know that I was a foreign traveller, and that my name was Sindbad the Sailor, they gave loud guffaws and said, "Every traveller who steps on this land thinks that he is Sindbad. You happen to be the eighth one. But you don 't have to worry! Just stay here for ' some time and we are sure you will come to your senses." Anyway being incognito suited me fine. I had no desire to remove their misconception as I wanted to protect the huge amount of money hidden under the rags I was wearing.

Soon these Dervishes started treating me as one of them. I too came forward to show my solidarity with them by offering to accompany them in their daily excursions. I thought that it would give me an opportunity to relax and

' . . '

also get some food to eat. BUl they refysed my offer and told me thai being a foreigner I was their honoured guest. Inmans were known for their hospitality and indulged in . it so much that they had become notorious all ov~r the world_ They never allow~d a guest to beg for his . food. Instead they went. out themselves and begged for him. Frankly speaking I felt . that being hospitable in such a manner was easy as it cost the host absolutely nothing. I was told that doing things in this way was prevalent in Inma from top to bottom. I was also told that whenever the people of Inma asked for assistance from their govern~ ment, the latter met their demands by securing aid from foreign countries. One thing cancelled out the other, and all the business transactions of the Indians were settled in this manner. Anyway, I spent a long and happy time in the company of these Dervishes. During this time I had a chance to gain mastery and a

. rare expertise in the use of s~ch rel&Xing and inspinng things as hash, rr:.iJ'ijuaoa and smack.

All along I had deliberately . avoided telling these Dervishes

the purpose of my visit to India. The reason wis that I soon "found out that ' Indians were great masters in the art of spenmng !ife without a purpose. They had no desire to search for a purpose in their own lives and they rarely tried to know what . purpose others were living for. One fine day, thinking the time oppartune, I opened my heart before the Dervishes. "Brothers," I said, "I want to tell you that I came all the way to your country to see with my own eyes . the faqtastic riots of your fantastic country. So, I request you to do something so that I can fulfil my wish."

The very mention of riots agitated the Dervishes. One of them . was so upset that he said, "Listen Sindbad, you seem to be an agent of . some foreign power. I am afraid I have begun to doubt your intentions. I warn you not to mention this word in aLII' presence. Perhaps you don't know that it is because of these very riots that we have become Dervishes, and .are now spending the remaining part of our lives under this railway bridge. Before we came here we too were Hindus and Muslims like the others. By chance we happened to be neighbours and when rioting began, it is with our own hands that we set fire to each other's houses and attacked each other with sticks. It was only when we . had lost everything - the members of our families our wealth and property - that we realised that we had remained neither Hindus nor Muslims. We were reduced to

Continued on page 13 col 4 '

20 April- 4 May 1987 11

:the

_H_e_r_it_a~g_e_& __ H_is_t_o~ry~ ________________ ~~~ ______________________________ __

TEGH BAHADUR· • • THE " NINTH GURU T

egh Bahadur, the youngest son of the sixth Guru, Guru Har Gobind, . was

born on April 1, 1621. According to tradition he was named "Tegh" because his father foresaw that he would be powerful eriough to endure the "tegh", sword. As a young man Tegh Bahadur had been so withdrawn into himself and a life of contemplation that Guru Har Gobind did not namehimas his successor. However when the young eighth Guru, Guru Hat Krishen; the grand-nephew of Tegh Bahadur; was dying in Delhi, stricken with small pox, he indicated to the people around him that the next guru was . to be an older "lan living in the village of Bakala. :'Baba Bakala" were alleged to be hiS words.

Kushwant Singh writes in his History of the Sikhs : "Tegh Bahadur was a man of retiring habits who did not wish to fight for his rights. But his very reluctance to press for recognition turned the Sikh masses in his favour" . Tegh Bahadur's love of meditation is expressed in his own words:

"0 brother, nothing in this world can be thine forever; Therefore think of Him alone and live alooffrom the sorrows of life. Plunge "thyself again and again in this thought, And see what little the ~rld ·contains that can promise augh~ , The illussion of magic colours, bewitches you again without purpose, Therefore turn within and see the Truth within ihyself"

Having "been calle d by the community, the 40 years old Tegh Bahadur left Baka la for Amritsar. But when Guru Har Gobind had shifted his seat to Kiratpur, most of his disciples had followed him and the temple at Amritsar had fallen into the hands of the " masands. They refused Tegh Bahadur entry and shut the doors of " the Harimandir against him.

So from Amritsar the Guru went to Kiratpur. But when he left the Harimandir for the village of Wadala where he stayed in the simple home of a devout disciple, the people of Amritsar hearing what had happened, came to meet him and, it is said, the women of the c~ty took the lead "and accompanied him, singing all the way.

The Founding of "Anandpur

He founded the town of Anandpur, when his envious cousins and nephews troubled him so much in Kiratpur that he was forced to retire" into the wilderness. He bought a hillock near the village of Makhowal, five miles north of Kiratpur, and built a village for himself. Here he hoped to find peace and solitude, and he named it "Anandpur" , the haven of bliss. But even there his quarrelsome kinsmliln would not leave him in peace and he decided to leave Punjab un"til the atmosphere changed.

12 20April-4 May1987

.~ ~t t

With his wife and mother he started on his extensive travels eastwards, a kind of missionary tour spreading the message of Sikhism. He visited Kurukshetra, Agra, Prayag, Varanasi and Gaya. 'Khushwant Singh says: "Wherever he went, the Sikhs acclaimed him as their guru. When he arrived in the vicinity of Delhi, Ram Rai, (the ' elder son of the seventh guru, Guru Har Rai)' who was still in attendance at the Mughal court.· had him arrested as an ' imposter and disturber of the peace. After investigation the charge was dropped and the Guru allowed to proceed on his way." (Khushwant Singh explains earlier that when Guru Har Rai sent Ram Rai to Empp-mr Aurangzeb's court to· represent him, Aurangzeb decided to keep Ram Rai in Delhi believing that with the Guru's future successor in his power, he would be able to decide the future of the Sikh community. When Ram Rai' /! "sycophancy" at the Mughal court turned his father against him, ' the latter announced the succession would pass to his younger son, Hari Kfishen.)

The Guru's Political Mediation

TElgh Bahadur finally reached Patna in Bihar. By then his wife was in an advanced state of pregnancy and could npt travel further, so the Guru left her with his mother in Patna and continued his journey eastwards to Dacca and Kam-' rup. Wherever he went, he resurrected the memory of Guru Nanak who had been

"there before him, and given his message to the peQple. From Patna, Raja Ram Singh accol'J1-panied the Guru whose blessings and spiritual support he sought for an expedition to Bengal on which he had been sent by Aurangzeb.

When Tegh Bahadur reached the "banks of the Brahma-

putra river, the Raja of Kamrup came to pay homage to him and on this occasion the Guru was able to bring. about a peaceful settlement between the Raja of Kamrup and R'aja Ram Singh, thus avoiding a battle between them.

In memory of this event, and in sacred memory of the Guru's visit, a high mound was raised at Dhubri by the .soldiers of both sides. The village and , gurudwara of Dhubri have an interesting legend. It is said that across the Brahmaputra

. where the Guru stopped there lived a -'dhoban', possess ing magical powers. She would not allow any man of god to stay anywhere near her home and when Guru Tegh Behadur came, she threw the trunk of a big peepul tree at him. But the peepal did the Guru no harm and began to grow there . . She then threw an enormous rock, but the Guru was not hurt, and she gave up. -She crossed the river to meet the man who was not affected by her magic and explained that she would follow him but wanted her name to be remembered. The Guru agreed to her request by naming the place 'Dhubbri'. The tree and the rock can be seen near the gurudwara, where, every " year, on the anniversary of the Guru's martyrdom, thousands of people gather from the whole eastern region to celebrate.

The Guru visited Sikh centres in Sylhet. Chittagong and Sondip. During this journey the Raja of Assam invited the Guru to his state " and, according to tradition, became his disciple. While Tegh Bahitdur was in Dacca,news came of the birth of his son, on December 26, 1666. Bllt he spent nearly three years in Assam before returning to Patna to be with his family. However, ' he was unable to spend much time with the child, nam ed. Gobind Rai.

Urge nt messages summoned

him back to Punjab. It was not considered advisable for the mother and child to take the long journey with him so they stayed at Patna ·whe.·e the young Gobind passed the first seven yearS" of his Ii.e.

Aurangzeb and Punjab

In Punjab the Guru found that Emoperor Aurangzeb had started his policy of religious persecution. In his History of Aurangzeb, Sir IN Sarkar quotes Kharif Khan: "Aurangzeb ordered the temples and the Sikhs to be destroyed and the Guru's agents (masands), for collecting the tithes and presents of the faithful, to be expelled from the ' cities. "

To quote Khushwant Singh: "There were stories of the demolition of temples and forcible conve rsions; taxes had been reimposed on Hindus visiting their places of pilgrimage. Tegh Bahadur's rivals had discreetly disappeared from the scene. It was left to him to instil confidence among his own people and the Hindus, who had now begun to look to the Sikhs to protect them from the tyranny of officials"

Tne Guru ultimately sent his family to Ana ndpur. But he h imself did not stay there long. He travelled exte ns ively around Punjab exhorting people to take a firm stand in the face of the persecution. Whereve r he went large crowds flo cked to him.

According to Sikh historians, Sher Afghan, the Subedar of Kashmir, had already converted more than half the people under his governance to Islam and was continuing his conversions. His main efforts came to be concentrated on the high caste Hindus, the Pandits of Kashmir. He offered them the choice between Islam . and death. They prayed for time to think over his ultimatum and they went ' to Anandpur and told the Guru their terrible predicament. -

Khushwant Singh,citing Macauliffe,gives this version: " .. . a delegation of Kashmiri Brahmins had approached the Guru to help them out of their predicament. (They had 'been ordered to accept conversion to Islam!. The Guru is alleged . to have advised them" to tell the Mughal officials that if Tegh Bahadur would accept conversion they would follow suit. The Guru was consequently summoned to Delhi.... "

Summons to Delhi The emperor's emissaries

came to Anandpur to summon the Guru to Delhi. He did not go with them but promised to follow. He wanted to see some of his diSCiples on the way to _ Delhi and he took his own time and his 9wn route. But the Mughal officers declared him missing and named him an absconder and issued a warrant for his arrest. ' At Agra, along with fi ve of his disciples, the Gu ru gave 'himself up to the emperor's m en:

From Agra he was taken to Delhi a nd brought" before the

Kazi's court. Khush~ant Singh writes: "Emperor Aurangzeb was not in Delhi at the time. But there is little doubt that the . policy of persecution of the non-Muslims had been renewed at his personal command, and the execution of Tegh Behadur, who was looked upon as the leader of the Hindu s, had his tacit approval. Two followers of Tegh Bahadur were also beheiided; the others haq escaped." .'

Having refused conversion the Guru' s fate was sealed Sikh historians recorded that when the Guru refused all persuastion, the jailors turned to one of his followers, Bhai Mati

'Das, and offered him the choic~ between Islam and a horrible death by being sawn alive into

" two like of log of wood. Bhai Mati Das refused to abjure his faith and died a martyr's death. The other disciple, M

staunch in his faith as Mat ... Das, was, boiled alive in a' cauidron of water, . before Tegh Bahadur's eyes. But the Guru could not be shaken and was sentenced to be publicly beheaded.

Khushwant Singh gives the version of Ratan Singh Bhangu, who, in his Pracin Panch Prakas states that on the Guru's refusal to accept Islam, the Chief Kazi asked him to save himself by some of the miraculous powers he was alleged to possess. The Guru wrote some thing on a piece of pape r and tied it with a string round his neck. This, he told the Kazi, would prevent the executer from cutting his head. When the Guru's head was severed, the piece of paper wa~ I opened. It read "Sis Diya pa?, sirr na diya" - " I give my head . but n01 my secret" .

To Anandpur and Rakab Ganj

Tegh Bahadur was executed in Chandni Chowk on November 11, 1675. The court had ordered that the body should be quartered and exposed to public view and his followers were not allowed to take ifaway. Gurudwara Sisganj stands on the place of execution. Sikh tradition has it th~t on that day a great duststorm swept the city and the sky became blood red. Under cover of the storm the daring Bhai Jaita, a devoted disciple, picked up the Guru's head, and escaped with it to Anandpur, where it was cremated by Tegh Behadur's son, Gobind Rai. The extreme devotion of the low caste BhaUaita so touched Gobind Rai that he flung his arms around Bhai Jaita's neck and blessed him and his community.

The martyreg Tegh Bahadur's body was removed" under

"cover of darkness oy another devout Sikh, Bhai Lakhi, whose convoy of carts was moving out of Delhi Fort towards Chandni Chowk after having unloaded supplies. While .the storm was still raging, Bhai Lakhi lifted the body on to the carts and drove the 9arts sw iftly to his home at Rakab Ganj . He liremated the body imm'edi-

Continued on page 14 col1

--------~~--~----A Faltering Second Front Sindbad the Sailor Continued from page 1, col2

This crusade has also begun to reveal its disastrous economic consequences. Thousands of small and marginal farmers, who used to supplement their meagre incomes by poultry farming, are now finding it extremely difficult to sell eggs and table birds in the nearby markets and they do not have the requisite resources to market their goods in far off metropolitan cities. They are being, therefore, con strained to make distress sales both to retrieve some of their capital and escape a shadowy assassin's builet

Anti-Tobacco Campaign

For their campaign against the sale and consumption of tobacco, the Sikh fundamentalists do have scriptural sane tion. They also do enjoy' a great measure of support amongst the Sikh masses. But the use of force to stop the sale and consumption of tobacco cannot be justified by reference to basic Sikh tenets. A majority of Sikhs, especially, the enlightened section, therefore, favours that like the sale and consumption of beef, the sale and consumption of tobacco too should be done in private so as not to hurt the religious susceptibilities of the Sikhs.

Mai Bhago Regiment .

On Baisakhi, which fell on April 14 this year, the Mai Bhago Regiment, the women's wing of the Sikh extremists, threatened "to open another front against the use of cosmetics, "bindi" and sarees from May 1. It was not, ,however, made clear whether the campaigners' directive was addressed to Sikh women only or to all Punjabi women. This move cannot but antagonise women, whether educated or not, as it did in neighbouring Pakis tan when general Zia tried to impose "austere Muslim dress" and "Purdah."

Indidentally, this move is an extension of what the extremists during the lifetime of the militant Sant, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale had been exhorting the Sikh youth and intellgentsia to do. During one of my sojourns in Amritsar du!'ing that period, Bhai Amrik Singh, who was the Sant's official spokesman, told me that recitation of "Bani" (Sikh scriptures) and wearing of "Bana" (the traditional Sikh attire) are a MUST for a devout Sikh.

When I pointed out to him that the Sikh Gurus, especially from the fifth to the tenth, did not wear the traditional Punjabi dress of long "Kurta" and "Tehmad" but the dress made popular by the Mughal emperors, he murderously looked at me and said: "You intellectuals can find some historical justification for all your lapses from the Guru's Grace."

A 'Double Life' During my recent tour of

England, Canada and USA,

I was surprised to find a large number of Sikh youth wearing "Bana" when off duty. But before going to work, they would change into western clothes. They could offer no convincing argument for leading a "double life", Their sheepish reply was: "This is necessary for the furtherance of the 'cause' in a hostile sociopolitical milieu". Some of them also referred to an incident in Guru Gobind Singh's life when he disguised himself as "Uch da Peer" to give a slip to his Mughal pursuers and carry on his struggle against the bigoted and tyrannical Mughal rulers.

Some others said that wherev'er they "went wearing "Bana", hundreds of curious passersby accosted them and enquired about their dress. That gave them an opportunity to enlighten them about the Sikh religion and their current "struggle against injustices being perpetuated against their co-religionists in India, especially Punjab". They remained unconvinced \'Yhen I bluntly told them that "you were. only making yourselves a laughing stock Moreover, it is well to remember that ~lJriosity does not take much time to wear out. Live in Rome as the Romans do is a hoary, sound advice".

The assertion that wearing of "Bana" makes the Sikh fundamentalists either better human beings or super humans is also specious. There are scores of reports fro"m Batala, Ludhiana and Jalandhar that these "Banadhari" extremists have started extorting money from Sikh industrialists on the plea that they are "making sacrifices to ensure them complete protection against their more advanced and crafty Hindu counterparts in the proposed Khalistan". These extortions have, once again, aroused the dormant hostility between Jat and non-Jat Sikhs for one simple reason: while most of the 'extremists belong to the Jat caste, the latter are mostly Ramgarhias, Khatris and

. Aroras.

Fundamentalists Div i sive Impact In . sum, if in their. zeal to

impose their obscurantist ideas on their co-religionists, the Sikh fundame'ltalists are re-kindling hostility among educated Sikh women and the Sikh inte lligentsia, by the ir ex tortions they are alienating the non-Jat ~ikhs. Instead of uniting the Sikhs under "Nishan Sahib" (the Sikh bannerl they a re tending to divide the Khalsa frat ernity w hich had come toge ther as never before, after their traumatic experience of Operation Blue Star. Meanwhile, Punjab's economy, which has been in the doldrums for the last five years, is oe ing dumped into an abyss and the Akali government s unenviable position is becoming pitiable.

But all is not lost. History ' is witness to severa l such transitory successes of the 'bigots in the past. But sooner or lateI'-

man and woman's basic quest to be architects of their own destiny has invariably made them tear to shreds the straitjacke t of religious or ideological fundamentalism. The end of the Presbyterian Cromwell's rule in England in the 17th century is a case in point. We have only recently witnessed the failure of the "Cultural Revolution" in contemporary China. A similar march towards comparative individual freedom, which ' started with de-Stalinisation in the Sovie t Union in the late sixties, has gathered so much momentum that its present rulel', Mikhail Gorbachev, has been forced to initiate democratic reforms, though admittedly limited, in the country' s political structure.

It is therefore, only a question of time when Sikh fundamentalism will boomerang. Until then the country, especially Punjab, will have to pass through a traumatic experien· ceo •

Vlvan SUndaram's "Joumey'

Continued from page 11 , col5

plain and simple human towards an'other city. But it beings. There was nothing left seemed that luck was not in to hate between us. All that my favour. Wherever I went divided us had been des- the riots eluded me. Everyday troyed. Poverty brought us I read reports in the newstogether and gave us a new papers that there were riots in bond. Now we live under tlus such and such a city; so bridge as good neighbours many houses were set· on fire; because the walls that divided so many people lost their us are no more! We have lives. But sadly by the time I become good friends because managed to reach an affected the very notion of being rugh city, I came to know that the or low, wruch made us hate destruction unleashed by the each other, has been dis- riots had already . come to an

. carded. Sindbad, never talk of end and the damaging disser-riots in our pJ;esence. We are vice done by the so-called happy in our poverty. It has peace committees had begun. enabled us to understand and I kept asking every person I know each other better. " met the possible location of

I had hardly recovered from the next riot, but it was all in what they- told me when the vain. The time came when I chief Dervish came forward began to lose all hope. In this and said sternly, "Sindbad, mood of despair I felt terribly your staying with us no homesick, and was almost on longer seems desirable. I fear the verge of leaving for good the time has come that we when I had a chance encounmay be unable to control our- ter with a man who was selves and start a riot against known to be a leader, and you. Now, your safety lies in outwardly seemed to be leaving trus place forthwith greatly respected. When I and vacating this bridge introduced myself to him he immediately. Otherwise, you led me to believe that he was won't find anyone worse than overjoyed to meet me. But r the. four of us." came to know later that it

Sensing a threat to my life I was his habit to say this to was so frightened that imme- everyone he met, and this

Continued from page 6, eol5 diately picked up my things formed a part of rus poli tical violence, to the strong palette and fled. After covering a long strategy to win over people. I of Fauvistic primary colours, distance on foot I happened also came to know that the with a repeated use of rich to reach a city wruch pres- favourite pastime of this leader blues and reds heightening the ented the veiy picture of des- was to collect Ius henchmen ambience of fantasy to a near t:'Uction and devastation. Peo- around rum every morning psychedelic level. pIe there seemed terribly and hear them shoult 'long

In fact, the influence of the frightened and depressed. At live' along with rus name. His pop art of the 60s on the artist last I got hold of a man and afternoons were spen t in at a formative period when he asked rum, "How come your enjoying the flattery lavished was at London's Slade School city has assumed such a on rum by some of Ius touts, on a Commonwealth schola- pathetic look?" With difficulty and he passed his nights rship between 1966 and 1968, is the man replied, "A riot shook doing all those th!ngs for clearly evident in these works. trus city to its very founda- wruch the night is meant for. The symbolic journeys draw tions only two days back." When he found out tha t I· the viewer into theiT depths, Hearing rum mention a riot was Sindbad the Sailor he and the majority of the works I jumped for joy and appealed straightaway went to his has a certain haunting quality, to the man to take me imme- secretary's room and collected but there is also a problematic diately to the 'riot' . Disclosing all the information he could repetitiveness in the collection, to him that I had travelled on me. He then came back which both intrigues and dis- thousands of nliles just to see and started praising the traveappoints: intrigues, in its subtle a riot, I requested him not to Iogues that l~ had written. re-emphasis on unity, -a strand waste any more time and When I asked him which one of oneness; disappoints, in its show me one. he had liked the best, he' fa i:I ure to explore form to The man gaped at me in 'again dashed back to rus further depths. It seems, wonder and said, "You are a secretary and came back sayrather, as if Sundaram has strange man! A . riot is not a ing "My secretary does not' painstakingly created several thing that one goes to see. A remember which of your traveminor variations on a single . not comes like wind and Iogues I liked the best. But r lofty theme or symbol; \hese " passes away like a tornad." have now ordered. rum to go remain variations, in the mllure I asked rum, "When are you through your works once of charming fi ve-finger exe!'- likely to have another riot in again,. to choose the one that. cises, rather than scathingly this city?" L liked and inform you ·at the new creations. His reply was: "Well, for the latest by trus evening."

The works that cling most to time being the riot has The more I talked with this the memory are those with ploughed this City like a field. leader the more I realised that intricate detailing, reminiscent For as long as trus city does my conversation with rum was of colonial engravings, which not flourish again and those not only interesting, but also recall the fine delicacy of pre- living in the city do not full of surprises. During one of vious works of genius like 'The regain their former prosperity, these conversations I disclosed She!'-Gil Family' (1984) and there is absolutely no chance to him that the very purpose 'Ten-foot Beam' 11985) --- as in of a fresh riot in this city . of my coming to India had the muted, classical dyptich, Consequently, if you are look- been defeated. To give vent to 'Colonial Landing: Where Rail- ing for a riot you should go my frustration I gave him a road Meets Sea' and the Whis- to a city wruch is prosperous piece of my nlind saying, tlerian, erased work, 'Deluge'. and pulsating with life. Right "Why don 't you people stage A succession of smaller works now the riot has sqeezed out your world-famous riots which have a distinctly Cubist life from trus city like YOll according to a set time schequality, from 'Boat Journey of squeeze ' out juice from a dule, so that a foreign visitor Mack the Knife' to 'Art Cargo lemon. Here the crop of can reach the spot in time Across Foaming Seas', seem humans heads had been harv- and enjoy ' the spectacle with; derived in comparison. .ested and those who specia- out any hastles !" I told him

But there can be no doubting lised in the art of perpetrating my sorry story. and said, "Havthe quality of idealism in Vivan riots have also left and gone ing failed to acrueve what I Sundaram's works, and his to the cities which are still came for, I am now leaving articulation on a variety of sub- flourisrung." your country carrying with me jects is compelling and I was terribly disappointed. I the heavy burden of my unful-thought-provoking: _ So, as advised I headed filled desire." - i

20 April - 4 May 1987 1 3

F"&rum ________________________ Gazet~,------------------------

,The Press Falls in Line ,

Continued from page 2, col4

extent, in Punjab they are regarded as necessary, perhaps not even as evil - except when Rebeiro himself is forced to admit that the secruity forces did go too far. Rebeiro himself has admitted, that too on lV, that "half-a-dozen" innocents may have been killed by security forces on suspicion alone, but for our press, anyone voicing such a statement would be branded as 'pro-extremist'.

Biased Reporting On Sikhs

This bias operates right across all reporting on Sikhs and Punjab. Gen Vaidya's murder made headlines for days; the resultant murder of one Sikh and attacks on 13 others warranted no mention: violence against Sikhs is apparently regarded as an inevitable fallout. Newspapers who, when the 8pate of bank robberies was taking place in Maharashtra and Gujarat, six months back, revelled in describing the robbers as "clean shaven, fair and Hindi speaking", didn't have the grace to put the news of their arrest on the front page for they turned out to be Hindus, nat Sikhs. The Sikhs are all the time called upon to prove their bonafides .

I The Centre's deliberate delay in implementing the Punjab Accord is explained as "political comptdsions", not the deliberate keeping alive of communal tensions. If there is anything the Centre is berated for, it's for being too "soft" .

Going into ' the origin of the Punjab problem, and Indira Gandhi's and Zail Singh's role in it, is considered irrelevant · today; demanding the release, or at least the transfer to Punjab, of the Jodhpur detenus

who have been waiting for a trial for over two years now, is considered outrageous. But then neither is it considered worthwhile to cover the activities of those Sikhs who are fighting terrorists in Punjab, through cultural activities.

Reference to Press Council

Fortuna te ly, people a re less inlo lemnt a nd vio le nt th an ' our ne wspape rs give the m c redit for , Re ta liatio n ' doesn' t com e so na tura lly to them. Even in De lh i, it is because th e BJP and s uch organi sa tions find ready fodde r in the Hindu m igrants from Punjab that ba ndhs are s uccessful a nd reta lia tion thl:eaten ed. After the rece nt 'mock hijack' of an IA pla ne , for wh ich Sikh names were u sed by the authorities to id entify the 'hijacke rs', editorials. angrily aske d, w ha t if the re had been re ta liation aga inst the Sikhs') Nobody th ought it shocking th a t ·the Cent re could have dared to use Sikh nam es for the h ijackers, the re by officially bra ndi ng one community exclusively. Le t's no t forge t tha t in the past. hij acke rs have managed to get Congress (I ) ticke ts . What about the ,bomb blasts in Tamil Nadu, w hich ha d become so routine a.. month or two back? Would th e Centre h ave· da red to brand Ta milia ns as responsible for a ll such incide nts?

Th e one ray of hop e is tha t a few read e rs h ave started taking particularly offe ns ive a rt icles to the Press Counc il, a nd that w ithin newspa pe r establishments, opposition is be ing voiced against the editors' communal s ta nd . •

Guru Tegh Bahadur Continued from Page 12, col. 5 ately by placing it in his house and setting fire to the house and all his belongings, to' give the impression that the fire was an accident. Gurudwara Rakab Ganj was built on the site.

On his father's martyrdom Guru Gobind wrote in the ijicira Natak

"To protect their right to wear their casle marks and sacred threads, Did he, in the dark age, perform the supreme sacrifice. To help the saintly he. went to the utmost limit. He gave his head but never cried in pain.

He suffered martyrdom for the sake of his faith,

He lost his head but revealed not his secret. He disdainec!. to perform miracles or juggler's tricks For such fill men of God with shame. He burst' the bonds of mortal clay And went to the abode of God No one hath ever performed an act as noble as his.

. Tegh Bahadur passed, the world with sorrow stricken. A wail of horror rent the earth, A victor's welcome given by the hosts of heaven . •

Announcement The Ekta Trust has decided to terminate the ser

vices of the managing editor and editor of the Forum Gazette with effect from the issue dated May 5,1987.

A new team will be taking over the editorial and business operations of t,he paper. . .

- Managmg Edl tor

Please note that all enquiries concerning the Forum Gazette should, now be addressed to: The Editor, The Forum Gazette, 2/ 26 Sarvapriya Vihar, New Delhi-110017 _ Phone: 660738. "

14 20 April ~ 4 May 1987

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__ ------------------------Gfa~~-------------------------Punjab and U. P. Citizens

Continued from page 3. col S

them. Because whatever antiterrorist laws,and measures are experimented with in Punjab, are later implemented in other Indian states," said Mr Rajaram the General Secretary of Indian People's Front which is fast growing into the largest massbased organisation in Bihar.

Hostility To Local Sikhs

In spite of the growing support for a political dialogue with the extremists to solve the Punjab problem, the distrust against the local Sikh population continues unabate(l both in U.P. and Bihar. In Bihar the word "Sikh" includes everybody coming from Punjab, irrespective of religion. This distrust is very obvious in the various forms of taunts h~rled at Punjabis, and is more hurtful than physical attacks. Referring to this a Patna businessman. Mr Joginder Singh. told the Gazette: "Though there is no danger to life, it hurts our selfrespect and disturbs our mental state. The local population does not differentiate between Sikhs and other Punjabis.. this was evident from the burning of Punjab Electricals, as an aftermath to the bus [Muktsar] killings. No one was bothered that this shop belonged to a Hindu from Punjab."

Such attitudes among the local population undoubtedly are causing a sense of uneasiness which has led to the exodus of almost 50 per cent of Sikh business units from Patna and Muzzafarpur. Even at Chhapra where about thirty shops were burned during the November 1984 events, the prime accused, Udit Raj, a Yadav gangster, parades freely as a Congress(1) leader. He is emboldened by the. fact that during these events the district administration bluntly announced that it was only concerned with saving . lives, and had no resources with which to protect properity.

SRILANKA Continued from page 16 colS

Eelam, which was raised by the TIJLF to win the 1977 elections in the Tamil areas, lead to an intesifying of Sinhala chauvinism. This culminated", n widespread violence during JulyAugust, 1983, which was described later even by the Sri Lankan President as "genocide". The proximate cause for the islandwide pogrom, in which elements of the Sri Lankan security forces joined Sinhalese hoodlums, was the death of 13 soldiers in an explosion of a bomb planted by Tamil extremists. The attacks seemed, however, too well organised to be spontaneous and resulted in more than 1000 deaths, rapes, arson, the the destruction of Tamil businesses and properties worth several billions of rupees. Large numbers of Tamils fled abroad, of which India has so far received 125,000. Soon after-

Sikh Community's Attitudes

However. the leaders of the Sikh community here remain unconcerned about such matters, at least thi~ is what an average Sikh in Bihar feels, and quite naturally he has resentment against the Barnala government, which he feeis has done nothing for him, and is somewhat sympathetic to the extremists.

. In contrast to this silent resentment in the Bihar Sikhs, the Sikhs in Uttar Pradesh are not only very vocal, but are ready "here to stay, here to fighL " This is in spite of the migration of a few ' families in early 1985. While Bihar Singh Sabha leaders avoided discussion about the November 1984' happenings, Dr Gurmeet Singh, President of the u.P. Sikh Pratinidhi Board, was extremely critical of the fact that not a single person guilty of violence in November 1984 had been punished in U.P. He called the Mishra Report "only an eyewash". Blaming the national media for not projecting the correct image of the Sikhs, he commended the Janata Party chief, Chandrashekhar, for his correct and bold stand on Punjab. But he added: "Why is Barhala not saying that the Longowal Accord is dead, and only doing what pleases the central government. "?

Mr Bhag Singh, President of the Lakhimpurkhari Guru Singh Sabha, summed up the reasons behind the Sikh resentment " against the Barnala government when he said: "The atmosphere in Punjab makes a .difference to us here. Although the Sikhs have made such a significant contribution to the agricultural develop'ment of this district. they now have to face a climate of distrust. Even the Punjab government does not put its weight in

"favour of a political solution. which alone would normalise the situation for us." Mr Bhag Singh and his son were kept under MISA after the November anti-Sikh violence .•

wards the Sri Lanka Parliament passed the Sixth Amendment to its constitution, which required all M.P.s to abjure separatism. The 16 remaining T.U.L.F. Members of Parliament refused to do so, and instead resigned their seats. They had campaigned against extending the tenn of Parliament the previous year. Later most of them fled to India.

From the early 1970s young Tamils had been organising themselves into armed groups, the most powerful of which was the Marxist oriented "Liberation Tigers of Tainil Eelam" (L.T.,T.EJ These grew rapidly after 1977. The moderate Tamil leadership lost its authority and is now greatly discredited, for many Tamils in the North and East now support the idea of an independent Tamil state won in an armed struggle. Until July 1983 most seemed to want to remain part of a United Sri Lanka .•

An Australian's India Continued from page 7, col 5 interesting are his references to the alleged Sikh separatism and the Congress (I) links with the call for a separate Sikh state and with Bhindranwale. He points out that while in 1978 Akali leaders, reviving the Anandpur Sahib Resolution, went out of their way to "dispel fears and misconceptions about their connection with separatist elements". the only talk of a separate Sikh state came from an unknown organisation called the Khalsa Mukti Fauj, whose members attacked the AkaliJanata ca-alition and praised Nehru and Mrs Gandhi.

In August 1978 a "Dal ' Khalsa" . was formed, pledged to achieve an independant Sikh state, and Jeffrey mentions that

. the first meeting was "widely believed to have been financed by Zail Singh and Congress (I)". He also points out that in the SGPC elections dissidents against the Akali Dal ' included Jagjit Singh Chauhan, New Delhi Jathedar Santokh Singh, a staunch Mrs Gandhi supporter, and Nihang Baba Santa Singh, used by the Congress government after Operation Blue Star.

For Jeffrey, the foreign hand obssessively talked about in India is the presence of the Western media, which he sees as adding a new dimension to internal politics. Apart from foreign media building up a phenomenon like Bhindranwale, he describes how international media events like ASIAD and NAM. influenced important polit;cal decisions in

Punjab. His " account of the series of aborted talks between the Akalis and Mrs Gandhi and her men, is highly critical of the latter. as is his interpretation of Mrs Gandhi's deliberate projection of anti-Congress regional forces, including the Akali Dal, as "anti-national."

Akali Weakness But he does not spare the

vacillations and weakness of the Akali Dal vis-a-vis the "gunmen". The development leading up to Operation Blue Star make interesting reading. as does the account of how the . Punjab police were demoralised and politicised. Necessarily, .. because of the rapidly changing situation, there is a short section only on "Who are the Extremists?". Jeffrey opines that non-Jat Sikhs have taken to terrorism as a "way of making up for their loss of influence in the Akali Dal" but he fails to support this with . any solid evidence. Nor is his comparison of Sikh extremists with the Janatha Vlmukti Perumana' (JVP) , who were important in the 1971 revolt in Sri Lanka, adequately followed up.

Jeffrey .. describes the manifestations of centralisation -the needs of any ruling party, the use of President's Rule (between 1950 and Nehru's death in 1964, President's Rule was imposed six times, while betw een 1966 and 1984 the number of times was 50), and the declining role of chief ministers. His ' argument is that attempts at greater centralisa-

tion can only deepen the pro"blems created by modernisation in a multi-'ethnic, multilingual, multi-regional state like India. But it is his thesis · that while even parties demandinl! secession change their stance whpn in power, the "option of secession" will probably come up from time to time.

Ultimately Jeffrey turns to the brighter side of the collision between moderni~ation and traditional cultures. This is

. the springing up of activist organisations at grassroots level all over the country,-committed to what he calls "humanitarian change". Chipko and the KSSP - Kerala Sastra Sahithya Parishad, a people's science movement, are two examples. "The hope of the poor" according to him "lies in their own burgeoning political awareness, product of the modernising fennent that penetrates even the remotest comers of India".

The postscript bringing the book up to date to November 1985 concludes with the hope that the insensitivity and short term politics which precipitated the Punjab crisis will not be repeated and that the balance between regional aspirations and national integrity will be preserved.

A sensitive book, worth reading for its provocative intel'pretations. its refreshing views, of immense relevance when the battle of states' rights, . for new states. is fiercely engaged, and the Punjab imbroglio is; sadly. far from solution .•

Book Review: Adh-Chandanl Raa'

Cha mbal. Bunde lkhand. parts of Rajastha n - these are only some of the areas of our country whi ch have become not~riou s for family fe uds and ve ngeful killings. Thel'e is something in the soil of these regions, it is said. tha t niakes it impossible for people to forget the w l'Ongs done to them and th ey are willing to give up all if only they can get even with the 'enemy'. This m ay only be a convenie nt way of expressing the various socia-economic and cultural factors tha t have been behind the e normous violence in these part ~.

More recently, in the context of the troubled times in Punjab, the question of the psychology of Punjabi, specia lly Sikh, youth has been ' raised from time to time. In this Sa hitya Akade mi award w inning nove l, the famous Punja bi writer, Gurdyal Singh, present s a very authe ntic portraya l of this psychology - through the life of a Sikh peasant youth Modak. How various circ umstpnces and characters of his village . interact in the making of this psychology is also shown in a rem a rka bly perceptive way. Full of earthy humour in some parts and deeply touching at other times, this nove l grips the attention of the reader right till the end.

All these are w ell known fact s about this ce lebrated

By Gurdyal Singh Punjabi classic, but there are other merits of the book. some of which mav be missed unless the reader ;eads it cal'efully and thoroughly. For instance, in the beginning of the book. whe n Modak returns to his village from jais, the way in which he tries to carve out a new life also reveals the various changes which have occured in the landscape of many Punjab villages. Changes caused by factors such as landconsolidation. deforestaion etc. Again as Modak tries .. to set himself up as a small fanner. the difficulties he faces reflect the general disadvantages that small farmers face vis-a-vis the big farmers in Punjab specially

in the changing economic and technological conditions of farming. Factors like the COl'ruption of officials keep recul'ring in the book from time to time. All this makes this book something more than an intensely human document. This is certainly the most outstanding quality of the book but in addition this slim novel also tells the cIJreful reader a lot about the social, economic and cultural life in Punjab.

Bharat Dogra

Rajkamal Paperbac~ 142 Pages Price Rs 10/-

Changes in The Forum Gazette Since the new team hellded by Dr. Amrik Singh. responsible

for editing and Business operation of The Forum Gazette is taking over after this issue, the present team Baljit Malik, Harji Malik and Jatinder Kaur Lall thank all their readers for valuable support during the last year. Following the changes in the Gazette management. Khushwant Singh. Jaya Jaitly and Madhu Kishwar have resigned from the panel of consulting editors.

20 April- 4 May 1987 15

:The

_Sp~o_tl_i~g_h_t _________________________ ~~~ __________________ R_._N._4_57_6_3_/8_6_;~_S_E_)_15_/8_6

The Origins of Sri Lanka's Ethnic Strife

Sri Lanka's developments make front page news but the origins of the SinhalaTam!! conflict tend to be forgotten in the rapidly changing situation. In the first of two articles Karan Sawhny traces the growing alienation of the Tamils.

Most historians are ~d that the first Sinhala migration to Sri Lanka

took place some 2500 years ago and that perhaps within another 100 years !lie first Tamils also started aniving. These migrations, as also Tamil invasions from South India, continued until 1200 AD.

In the third Century B.C. missionaries sent by the Indian

. Emperor Ashoka converted the Sinhalese to Buddhism. Today the countIY. is acknowledged as Lenghier discussion on these of Buddhism (followed also in Burma and Thailand). This is more austere than the Mahayana School (followed in the north Asian countries).

The Tamils who migrated to Sri Lanka were Hindus, which most of them remained. Several kingdoms flourished on the island during the next 2000 years. These included Tamil dynasties such as the Cholas who ruled also in South India. But the Tamils remained concentrated in the north .and east of the island. Nevertheless, as might be expected, 2500 years of living together on the same island did result in some intenningling, so that Sinhalas have some Tamil blood and most "indigenous" Tamils some Sinhala blood.

Buddhism continued to flourish and is acknowledge today as their religion by the majority of the Sinhalese, who make up 74 per cent of the population. This is partly because a deliberate policy was followed from the mid 1950's to promote Buddhism and give it the status of the State Religion. .

Consequently, the . Buddhist clergy and Sinhalese national feeling are strongly interlinked. This . linkage has developed chauvinistic aspects, and since 60 million Tamils live across the Palk Straits in India, something of a minority complex. The President of Sri Lanka, describing the priests said "they learn only Sinhalese. To them the history books always speak of a war between the Sinhalese and 'Demaeas' (Tamils) for 2,500 years".

The Plantation TamllsInnocent Victim

The British ruled the island for nearly 200 years (the Portugese and Dutch were there earlier). In the 19th Century they imported into Sri Lanka inden-. tured labour to work in new plantations set up by them in the Central highlands of the island. Most of these persons were Tamils, from what was then called the Madras Presidency. They were vital to the growth of production and export from the plantations and

1 6 20 April - 4 May 1987

the drawing in of the 'Plantation Tamils' into the conflict and the rise of the milItants. In our next issue the concluding article describes the negotiations between ·the Jayewardene governme!'.t and the Tamils.

even today exports of tea from these plantations bring the island half its foreign earnings.

When Sri Lanka became an independent dominion in 1948, the country's new Citizenship Act made these "Tamils of recent Indian origin" stateless. This legislation was passed wi~hin six months of independence. At one stroke the new political masters of Ceylon spilt the Tamils and disenfranchised 1/3 rd of them. After prolonged negotiations India and Sri Lanka reached an agreement, in October 1964 to deal with the result· ing problems. The Stateless were then estimated at 975,000. India agreed to confer citizenship of 525,000 and Sri Lanka on 300,000, in the ratio of 7:4. The fate of the remaining 150,000 was to be decided later with the apportioning taking care also of the natural iRcrease. This process was to be completed over 15 years.

In January 1974 an agreement was reached apportioning the remaining 150,000 . equally between the two countries and subsequently the 15 years validity of the 1964 agreements was extended by another 2 years. But due to a delay in Sri Lanka adopting an Implementation Act along with more people seeking Sri Lankan Citizenship than the country's quota of 375,000 and . others reasons, 94,000 persons remained stateless.

The leader of the plantation Tamils, S. Thondaman, who is also leader of the largest trade union (the Ceylon Workers Congress) and a Cabinet Minister in the Government since 1978, was 'able to get the Sri Lankan Cabinet to agree to the granting of citizenship to the remaining 94,000 on the 15th January this year. He had broken with the main Tamil Party in 1978 mainly to protect the interests of the plantation Tamils. The problem of the Stateless Tamils could be said to be solved. However a great inany of them became. drawn into the conflict between the "indigenous" Tamils and the Sinhala majority.

Tamil Apprehensions In British Times

In the early 1920's the British colonial rulers. began transferring some political power to the native inhabitants of Ceylon (the name by which the island was known until 1972). Tamil leaders at that time began to fear that they would have a subordinate position in the island's politics because of their numerical infe- . riority. Some of their leaders therefore advocated a federal constitution for Ceylon, or one in which there would be balanced representation for the. minority.

By Karan Sawhny

TAMILS IN SRI LANKA ~

CO,."NTIIATIOI<. OF T~I~c;, I>OPVL.ATlON

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When they granted independence to Ceylon, the British left behind a Constitution with two safeguards for the Tamils. These were a clause preventing Parliament from passing laws bestowing a benefit~r imposing a disability on . any community without doing so on other ' communities and a system of demarcation of electorates based on population and area which would give weightage to minorities . These safeguards were annulled in the 1972 and 1978 constitutions.

UNP and SLFP Compete . for Sinhalese Vote Bank

Tensions began to grow when the two competing Sinhal parties the United National Party (which represented land-oweners and a westernised elite) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) campaigiled for the votes in the 1956 elections. The leader of the SLFP Solomon Bandaranaike won the election by raising the slogan that "Sinhalas and Buddhism were in danger". This made more credible the socialist rhetroic of his party to Sinhalese peasants and urban workers who had missed out on the fruits of the limi~ed development ' of the colonial period.

After winning the election the SLFP restricted the entry of Tamils into jobs, into universities and into the professions so that the Sinhalese could get a "just" place in their own country. Sinhala was made lite sole official language. The old Eqglish speaking elite · (based on diverse ethnic groups) was destroyed. Between 1956 and 1970 the percentage of Tamils in the Central seIVices fell from 30 to 5. In 1956, 1958 and 1961 pogroms against the Tamils in Colombo and other places were organised in which many persons were killed, women raped and property destroyed.

Dlscrlmlnltlon IIIInst Tlmlt.

The Si~ese deeply reSented the more educated Tamils from the island's North who had risen in the British period (they learnt Elij(tish, got on with the rulers and converted to Christianity, which they had to in order to progress, for they lived on less fertile land). In 1972 Ceylon became the Republic of Sri Lanka and the SLFP Government under Mrs. Bandaranaike (widow of S.w.R.D. Bandaranaike who had been assassinated by a Buddhist priest in a still unexplained murder), introduced differential conditions for university entrance so as to allow young Sinhalese to gain admission at the expense of Tamil children with better grades.

At this point the Tamils began their own numbers game and demanded regional autonomy in the north and east so as to ensure fur themselves education and jobs. The SLFP Government responded by settling Sinhalese peasants . in the eastern province to alter its ethnic balance. Thirty five years ago the Tamils constitued 70 per cent of the population in the East, today they are about 35 per cent and the rest are Sinhalese and Muslims. Muslims speak Tamil, and are mainly of Tamil ethnic origin but prefer to be called Moors. (There are also 40,000 "Burghers" in Sri-Lanka- partly desended from early Dutc~ and Portugese settlers.) ,

In 1977 the authori,tarian Mrs. Bandaranaike who had ruled with , emergency powers was defeated by the United Nation Party U.N.P. won 142 seats out of 168 with 50.6 per cent of the vote. Mrs. Bandaranaike's SLFP won 8 seats with 30 per cent of the vote. She herself was , ex-' pelled in 1980' from Parliament and deprived of civic rights for seven years, for "abuses of power" during her 1970-77 ad-

-. ministration. The Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) which was associated with the UNP won . 18 seats and it seemed possible that. it would reach agreement with the UNP to solve "the Tamil pr:oblem". The TULF had fought 'the election on the basis of a -demand for Eelam (Homeland).

UNP rejects TULF demand for EELAM

The UNP, however, instead embarked on major constitutional changes, abandoning the westminister style Parliamentary democracy in. 1979, for a Gaullist Presidency, and installed its leader J.R. Jayewardene as its first executive President. There was meanwhile another pogrom in August 1977 aimed at the defenceless plantation workers. About 200,000 Tamils" of recent Indian origin" sought safety by migrating to the North and East. The TULF leadership stated that the riots were organised "to punish the Tamils for demand-ing Eelam." .

Mr. Jayewardene rejected the TULF demand for Eelam. Much of the. next three years were spent by him in consolidating his position and that of the U.N.P. He sought and won reelection as President in October 1982 with 53 per cent of the valid votes cast. T!rls was followed by a referendum (held under an emergency) to extend . the life of the 1977 Paliament 1989 (3 million plus voted yes, 2.5 million said no). Meanwhile, in 1981, yet . another pogrom took place in the plantation areas. Separatist sentiments among young Tamils became stronger and were increasingly expressed in violence. Tamil militancy .had been growing since January 1974 when nine Tamils were killed during a charge by police on a large crowd . in Jaffna, . during the . fourth international Tamil conference.

This militancy was not assuaged by the moves Mr. Jayewardene's Govemment made, while amending the ' constitution in 1978, to make Tamil a national ~e and to abolish the di!iCriininatory system of university admissions devised by Mrs. Bandaranaike in 1972. seven years after it was given the status of the language of administration and litigation, Tamil is still not being used because of "the paucity of Tamil typewriters". And the university admissions system was yet again modified to the benefit of Sinhalese children. In the area of employment absolutely no progress was made so that in the 1st 7 years no Tamils were selected for the higher Civil service. And since 1981 (the date of the last census) a further 90,000 Sinhalese have been settled in the Eastern province so that its ethnic balance continues to be . altered.

Tamil Militancy provokes Sinhalese Chauvinism

Meanwhile Tamil militancy and especially the demand for .

Continued on page 15 , col1

.printed and published by A.S. Narang for the Ekta Trust. 2126 Sarvapriya Vihar. New Delhi ~ 100007 and Printed at Paredise Printers, Naraina Industrial Area. New Deihl

The forum gazette vol 2 no 8 april 20 may 4, 1987

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Transcript of The forum gazette vol 2 no 8 april 20 may 4, 1987