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.
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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…
Friends, In Daljit Ami’s and my opinion, the response of the Punjab Government towards the organizers of the November 10 Sarbat Khalsa is wrong and should be condemned.
‘If raising a voice against nepotism, corruption and political interference in religious matters is treason then it is a proud treason. Every conscientious, curious person who is a believer in justice must raise his/her voice against such repression. Count us (the writer and translator) among them.’
Please read …
I missed the fact that this piece was actually published. I notice how it is a fluid piece because the realities of protest were unraveling very quickly in those days. Yet, I notice, this is the only piece which will have the names of the two who died or suffered grievously the violent aspects of the protests against the sacrilege of the Sikh holy book.
Please read …
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 …