A very serious crisis could be looming in Punjab. The portents have been there for some time now, but no government seems to have done anything about it.
On Thursday (February 23), a mob armed with sticks, swords and guns attacked the police station at Ajnala in Amritsar district. They wanted Lovepreet Singh Toofan, arrested on a kidnapping charge, released. Toofan is an aide of Amritpal Singh Sandhu, a man hardly anyone outside Punjab had heard of till that day. But now we know that he is a self-appointed leader of the resurgent Khalistan movement which had claimed thousands of lives in the 1970s and 1980s.
Amritpal Singh was confident enough to serve an ultimatum that Toofan must be released within an hour or the Punjab government would be responsible for the consequences. The government caved in. The police quickly announced that Toofan was innocent and freed him the next day, as soon as the courts opened. Regardless of whether there was a credible case against Toofan or not, this was a craven act of surrender that should worry all Indians.
This man, Amritpal Singh, appears to have been projecting himself openly as a 21st century version of the original Khalistani leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. He spouts nonsense like Khalistan is not “a negative or taboo concept”, but should be viewed “from an intellectual standpoint for its potential geopolitical advantages”. He has even gone to the extent of saying that home minister Amit Shah could meet the same fate as Indira Gandhi, who was assassinated by two of her Sikh bodyguards. That this man is roaming around freely is quite amazing.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won the assembly elections in Punjab last year. Many of us knew that the state would be the first real test for Arvind Kejriwal’s administrative abilities. Yes, let’s face it—it is Kejriwal who rules the state via proxy.
Delhi is little more than a hyped-up municipal corporation and its government does not have to deal with critical areas like law and order, which is the Union home ministry’s responsibility. Punjab is a Pakistan-bordering state with many problems, from an entitled and unruly rich farmer class and severe drug addiction issues to enormous government debt and rampant corruption. It was alleged by several politicians during the assembly election campaign that AAP was taking help from Khalistani lobbies. If true, then the chickens have come home to roost.
The Central government is equally to blame. It seemed helpless in the face of the farmers' agitation which opposed the three 2020 farm laws which would have benefited millions of farmers. The very fact that the agitation was limited to less than two and a half states—Punjab, Haryana and a bit of western Uttar Pradesh—is proof that it did not have support from the average Indian farmer. The agitation represented the interests of a few thousand rich north Indian farmers and middlemen.
There was evidence that these agitators were receiving funds from anti-India pro-Khalistani elements based in the West. Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau, who owes his slim majority in parliament to Sikh politicians who openly espouse the Khalistani cause, went so far as to express support for the farmers’ protests. In October last year, the Canadian Khalistanis even held a “referendum” on Punjab seceding from India. Khalistani flags were on display during the blockade of Delhi, including an attack on Red Fort on Republic Day, 2021.
Yet the Narendra Modi government buckled and withdrew the three farm laws. Perhaps the BJP thought that it stood some chance in the Punjab elections if the laws were rescinded. This was, of course, unwise. Those who were agitating would anyway have never voted for the BJP and those in Punjab who supported the farm laws felt totally let down. And the government’s decision sent a signal of weakness—that if you could sit on roads for a long enough period, you would get your way. It was a booster dose for the Khalistani movement, which had been comatose for 30 years.
Technically, Khalistani violence in Punjab is something that the state government has to deal with. But the matter is too important to be left to an administration that has zero experience of governance. Soon after the AAP assumed power last year, Simranjit Singh Mann, who spent five years in prison on the charge of conspiring in Indira Gandhi’s assassination, was elected to the Lok Sabha from Sangrur, a seat that AAP’s Bhagwant Mann had vacated to become the state’s chief minister. This was Mann’s first election win since 1999.
Arvind Kejriwal needs to take some decisive action in Punjab. And the Union government must get involved right now. Our intelligence agencies should be investigating the sources of funds that these Khalistani sympathizers are using and these funding channels need to be shut down immediately.
One of the consistent features of Modi’s and Amit Shah’s strategies has been to give opponents a long rope and move in only when they are about to hang themselves. That is not going to work in Punjab today. Because what we are looking at is an escalation of violence and the rise of terrorism. There have been several acts of violence against Hindus and Hindu temples in Canada and Australia in the last few weeks.
This is a national security threat with international connivance that needs to be nipped in the bud and buried 18 feet under the ground in an unmarked grave sealed with concrete.
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