Dear Friends,
Last evening I spoke to Arfa Khanum of The Wire Hindi on Canada’s PM Justin Trudeau raising concern about farmer protests in India against the draconian Farm Laws.
I urged us – as India – to look within ourselves and ask why such comments come up every now and then? I also mentioned nowhere it happens that a PM of an independent nation goes and campaigns in another country for its leader’s re-election. I spoke about the need to nuance the 100 year old term Khalistan and how now it is about human rights. Yet, the irony is now India has itself become Hindu Rashtra.
The discussion is short, we could not get to the actual protest but I did put on record that at present 7 years of Hindutva is challenged by 700 years of Panjab rising against Delhi.
Hindi. 22 minutes. Please listen here …
Note: I am being massively trolled for this in right-wing Hindutva circles.
Tags: Arfa Khanum, Justin Trudeau, Khalistan, The Wire
Dear Friends,
three days back, a message by Prathmesh Patil from Pune-based Indie Journal popped-up in my inbox seeking my mobile phone number. I shared it thinking they want a comment on the ongoing protests by farmers in Panjab against the draconian Farm Laws.
Pradeep Biradar spoke to me on the issue and the context. The Marathi story came out a few days back but I am now glad the magazine has decided to put out parts of the interview as well. Especially, on the state’s way of using the term ‘Khalistan’ for everything it does not want to address – an avoidance tactic.
Thank you! Please read here…
Tags: Indie Journal. Prathmesh Patil, Khalistan, Pradeep Biradar
Dear Friends,
a few days back, on a talk, a senior journalist remarked that the news from Panjab, about the anti-Farm Laws protests, is hardly being carried on national media. This is shocking but a familiar apathy, especially in these times where most media has become part of a propaganda machinery. Then there is another familiar twist to stories of dissent and protest that rise from Panjab – that the agitations are anti-national, pro-Khalistan.
That is why I am glad that today a Marathi media Indie Journal chose to talk to me and others – we all debunked Centre’s ploy. Here is the story about these protests and the Centre’s arrogance and how the Centre is punishing Panjab.
Please read the article here…
Tags: India Journal, Khalistan, Marathi, Panjab Farmer Protest
The week the Canadian PM Justin Trudeau visited I watched the blown up controversy between two friendly nations with increasing dismay. The word that caused the controversy was Khalistan. Honestly, I felt cheated of my own decision in the mid 1990s to not opt for a PhD abroad and choosing to stay in India and deal with issues here. I felt now, a quarter century later, the very people I believed in had betrayed me by going silent.
This is a piece written with a weary heart. I am very thankful to Aditi Sengupta for carrying it without cuts, it gives me hope. After all one friend be one’s reason to stay, find home.
Please read here …
Later Punjab Today also carried it with original headline. Please read here …
Tags: Amarjit Sohi, Harjit Sajjan, Justin Trudeau, Khalistan, Liberals, Punjab, Sikhs
Canadian Prime Minister had barely finished a successful meeting with Panjab Chief Minister when another controversy erupted: a past offender Jaspal Atwal showed up at Trudeau’s dinner previous, his pictures with Sophie Trudeau and Amarjit Sohi splashed in newspapers. He had a dinner invite to the Canadian High Commission. Canada rescinded the invite.
This is why it is so hard to arrive any simplistic, black and white understanding of Panjab, Sikhs, Khalistan. As I said in the earlier interview – Panjab remains a landmine. By themselves the pictures are not conclusive, but the questions are:
a) How did Atwal land a dinner invite with Trudeau?
b) How did the Indian government allow Atwal entry?
Could this controversy have been avoided? YES. YES. YES. Especially at such a sensitive time, by all parties: Atwal himself by not coming, not going around getting photographed, MP Sarai by not recommending Atwal, Canadian High Commission by doing due diligence, Canadian PMO by not inviting Atwal. Now, of course, they have rescinded the invitation. Again, too little, too late. I do believe that after conviction, imprisonment, and release people should be allowed to merge with society with dignity. After all, we must not be prisoners of our past. But that is the razor’s edge of liberal politics: has Atwal adequately distanced himself from Khalistan? Has Atwal committed himself to peace? I do not know.
However, through all this I noticed one man, former Liberal and Premier of British Columbia Ujjal Dosanjh, play a role on social media: he was blaming Khalistan, Trudeau and over-liberal politics. I have a few questions for him.
Tags: Jaspal Atwal, Khalistan, Trudeau, Ujjal Dosanjh
Friends, if you heard about the Sarbat Khalsa near Amritsar November 10 you may want to read my report on the proeedings and critical remarks. If you have not heard of it because regular media managed to blank it out, you must now get acquainted with how Punjab is inching towards risky times. It needs your attention. Also read for the resolutions passed at the plenary meet. In spite of one and a half days now, I have not found them anywhere on the web in English.
‘I do not know what to derive from the resolutions as they put me squarely back into the dilemma: am I first a Sikh, and then an Indian, or vice versa, or only one of the two?’
Please read …
Tags: Gurmata, Hawara, Khalistan, Parliament, Punjab, Sarbat Khalsa, Sikh
Friends, here is my translation of Daljit Ami’s column on how the politics of Punjab is now informed and even controlled by voices outside Punjab. How these moves reduce the issue to sloganeering and not much else.
Please read …
Tags: 1984, Khalistan, Punjab, Punjabi diaspora
A day ago I put up a mock post on Facebook saying I was starting an Indian Grocery store in Germany. I got over 75 comments and 275 Likes. Friends were so encouraging. It is nice. I felt a lot of people have by best interest in their mind.
Yet, I have a different interest. I want to write. I want to write to get reviews like this one Sakoon N Singh did for ‘Roll of Honour’. To be reminded of greats like Amitav Ghosh and Agha Shahid Ali in a review by someone who has been an insider to Punjab all these decades and is a Professor of English literature. Thank you Sakoon. I am touched.
‘… here is an attempt to unearth Punjabiyat as a more valid marker of identity as opposed to religion. Sandhu does a good job with deconstructing a lot of Punjabi lore, Sikh shabads and mannerisms in an attempt to take the wider readership into the heart of Punjab.’
Please read, you will relish this review. …
Tags: 1984, Khalistan, Roll of Honour, Sakoon Singh, Sikh
On June 6, 2014, as the world watched the Sikh community mark the 30th anniversary of the Army attack on Golden Temple, Operation Blue Star, factions pulled out swords and there was a free for all in the holy premises for one and a half hour. My piece in Tehelka on one of the deeper reasons behind this event.
‘Though Punjab has largely been peaceful after the violent 1980s, it remains a land with deep fissures. One of the reasons is that the Sikh community’s management body, the cash-rich SGPC, has over the past two decades been converted into an extension of the SAD (Badal). Instead of practising inclusive Sikhism, solving the community’s problems, furthering education and healthcare, and raising and solving the identity issues that had led to the separatist movement, the SGPC has become rife with nepotism and dynasty politics. It manipulates Sikh sentiments for political and commercial gains.’
Read more here …
Tags: 1984, Akal Takht, Army, Bluestar, Khalistan, Punjab, SGPC, Simranjit Singh Mann
Thanks to Margerie from Ireland for chasing me to to this interview. It has come out well.
‘I battled my own self for the longest period, even went through clinical depression for a few months. There are issues like masculinity, sodomy, gay sex, my own views on the events of 1984, the code of honour among schoolmates, communal violence and so on. All of them troubled me when I wanted to write about them. I felt I will earn enemies. It is best to stay silent rather than invite criticism. But I could not sleep. I felt I was cheating by not writing. This is my truth of communal violence and of public schooling in our country. I needed to write it, put it out, to gain some semblance of equanimity in my life. I am very thankful the people have accepted my truths. The book has been lauded, nominated for awards; I have earned a good scholarship from it. The acceptance is a validation of my effort. I feel, in our world, we have space for truth. Let us work to bringing out those truths.’
Read more here …
Tags: 1984, Bluestar, Khalistan, military school, Mrs. Gandhi, Punjab, Roll of Honour, schizophrenia, Sepia Leaves