Friends, Scroll.in has been kind to ask me to elaborate my yesterday’s post. I discuss how the Badals tame Punjab and what they should have done instead of perpetuating denial. The task is still ahead of anyone who wants to come into power in Punjab in the next elections.
Please read …
Friends, a few weeks ago I had raised the question of Sikh identity in my article on the Gurdwara Amendment Law regarding Sehajdharis in The Caravan Magazine. That went viral. Here is another argument in the context of a slightly older but even more revealing court case.
However, you look at it the Sikh identity is now severely compromised. The only way ahead, and I dread it, are the calls for ‘ghar wapsi’ which the right-wing is raising and what would lead to a split in the community – the way other established monotheistic religions have gone: Islam and Christianity. Ask ourselves, did we ask for this? Look at the Sikh identity question through these two angles.
‘The irony of a Sikh community, known much beyond its numbers for its service and egalitarianism, is that it fights its identity battles in the courts of a secular country and ends up losing in the real sense when it thinks it is winning court battles.’
Please read here …
Friends, you might have heard of the recent mother-son dual suicide in Barnala. It has jolted the state but the fact is it is not a one off case. Each day one or more farmers commits suicide in the tiny state. Once the granary of India, Punjab is fast reaching the dubious status of the suicide hot spot of the country.
My piece on it critiquing the 15-years-in-the-making Punjab government’s Rural Indebtedness Bill in The Caravan Magazine.
‘An undeniable cause that underlies these deaths is the state’s role in them. Through both the law and tone-deaf bills such as the recent Rural Indebtedness Bill, passed by the Punjab government in March this year, the state approves, aids and facilitates processes that invariably lead to the loss of a farmer’s land, and does little to resolve their indebtedness.’
Please read here …
You are young, you can walk!’ Satnam said as I entered the gate of his home in Ranjit Nagar, Patiala. ‘I walk, all the time.’ His eyes smiled.
I met Satnam more than a decade back through Ranjana Padhi who guided me to understand the non-state space of protests and activism. After that I have met Satnam often, talked late into the night with him, stayed with him, enjoyed his hospitality. His house was indeed open.
Three years back he took me to a Bhartiya Kisan Union rally where I heard these words from the stage and crumbled: ‘When India was hungry we gave it food, now we die of thirst and the state does not care for us.’ That line set me to retrace my journey to Punjab, a state I left more that two decades back.
Satnam, author of Jangalnama, walked away last night. As I travel Punjab, I have been telling myself, ‘He is here, in Patiala. I will meet him next time.’ Now it is just too late.
Red Salute Comrade.
Please read Daljit Ami’s tribute, obituary, and response here, in translation by me.
Friends, in the end of March I got Sukant Deepak’s call when I was driving to Barnala. He said he wanted to talk with me. I was very curious because India Today had never spoken to me. A few days later, Jasdeep Singh and I were on his Bullet mapping the dry SYL canal when we found ourselves in Ambala. We met Sukant.
The interview tilts towards the immediate because I am mid-project but then that is how it is: ‘On the surface, it might be about faultlines, but deep down, all the miles accumulated are a hunt for identity and sense of being.’
Please read here …
Friends my piece in The Hindu Business Line special edition BLink on the recent move by the Punjab Assembly to call for an amendment to the Indian Penal Code section section 295A by seeking an increase in the quantum of punishment to those found guilty of religious sacrilege to the Sikh holy book Guru Granth Sahib, popularly known as the Blasphemy Law. I find the move populist and retrograde.
Please read …
Friends, who is a Sikh?
The recent move by the Rajya Sabha to forbid Sehajdhari Sikhs from voting in the SGPC elections tells us that around 70 lakh Sikhs in Punjab and around 1 crore Sikhs all over the world are now ‘patit’ – heretics, apostates, and hence no longer Sikhs.
I wonder how the Sikh community feels about it but one thing is clear: anyone who has ever touched a scissor to his/her body is no longer a Sikh. The SGPC has effectively removed one third of the community population making Sikhs a minority in Punjab, like elsewhere.
Please read …
Posted by: aman Tags: Amarinder, Badal, Blasphemy, Guru Granth Sahib, Punjab, Rivers, sacrilege, Sutlej, SYL Canal, Waters, Yamuna
Friends, time is truly cyclical in Punjab. Old issues re-surface to become new issues, but nothing gets solved on the ground.
My story on the proposed blasphemy law and river waters in Scroll.in – with timeline so at least we know what happened when.
At this stage, all political parties are fishing in troubled waters.
Read more here …
Friends, I was really looking forward to these games this year but was deeply disappointed by what has transpired in terms of laws and the ownership of the stadium. Here is my peace for The Caravan.
Please read …
Friends, while we feel concerned about Punjab – recent Pathankot, drugs, caste issues, agrarian and industrial crises – I feel we also need to understand the state as it warms up to elections next year.
For a while now the Sikhs have been calling for reform within their highest religious institution. They are being thwarted by those in power and control the institutions. Over last year the common people have showed their displeasure to the political leaders but at the recent Jor Mela they boycotted their religious leaders too. After that the SGPC demonstrated its betrayal of the Sikh community. This is unprecedented.
This genuine unrest of the common people in their political and religious representatives is in turn exploited by radical forces – Khalistan etc. A story on one of the grave fault lines of Punjab.
Please read…