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 …
Tags: Barnala, Caravan Magazine, Mother-Son Suicide, Punjab Government, Rural Indebtedness Bill
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.
Tags: Daljit Ami, Obituary, Ranjana Padhi, Satnam, Tribute
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 …
Tags: identity, India Today, Jasdeep Singh, madness, Punjab, Sukant Deepak
Friends, some times domestic conversations become public discourses. I remain proud of Lakshmi’s endeavour to extend conversations in classrooms with artists who continue to work with students and learners.
‘In the current age, the human being is most vulnerable and is in grave danger of being appropriated by the external powers. Whether it’s a nation state, or a political discourse or a religious identity or if it’s a question of language or of gender or of caste, all these are supra-narratives that will want to appropriate your voice. So the big effort in today’s age is to create a voice that cannot be easily appropriated.’
Tags: Bol Hyderabad, Lakshmi Karunakaran, Radio, Teacher Plus
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 …
Tags: Blasphemy Law, Granth Sahib, Punaj, sacrilege, Section 295 A IPC
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 …
Tags: Amritdhari, Gurdwara Act 1925, Keshdhari, Sehajdhari, SGPC, Tat Khalsa
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 …
Tags: Amarinder, Badal, Blasphemy, Guru Granth Sahib, Punjab, Rivers, sacrilege, Sutlej, SYL Canal, Waters, Yamuna
Friends, my translation of Daljit Ami’s last week’s column in which he says: It won’t be wrong to assert that Kanhiaya Kumar has really been arrested for not agreeing to become ‘reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind.’
Please read …
Tags: Education, JNU, Kanhaiya Kumar, Rohith Vemula, Sedition
Friends, here is my translation of Daljit Ami’s piece in which he asks some tough questions which could lead to introspection by those very groups which seek to fight the oppressive forces. Every life is precious: Rohith’s, Navkaran’s …
‘Paash said, ‘If those engaged in changing the times won’t die from fever.’ If Paash were alive today, he would have said, ‘they won’t die from analyses either.’’
Please read …
Tags: Activist, Navkaran, Paash, Rohith Vemula, suicide
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 …
Tags: Bull Race, Hockey, Kila Raipur, Punjab, Rural Olympics