ਪੰਜਾਬ ਦੇ ਵੋਟਰਾਂ ਅਤੇ ਬਾਕੀਆਂ ਨੂੰ ਅਪੀਲ: ਮਨਪ੍ਰੀਤ ਸਿੰਘ ਨੂੰ ਇੱਕ ਮੌਕਾ ਦੇ ਕੇ ਦੇਖਲੋ, ਨਹੀਂ ਤਾਂ ਅਗਲੀਆਂ ਵੋਟਾਂ ਫਿਰ ਵੱਟ ਤੇ ਹੀ ਪਂਙਾਂ। ਪਿਛਲੀਆਂ ਸਰਕਾਰਾਂ ਦੀਆਂ ਨਯੀਤੀਆਂ ਨਾਲੋਂ ਤਾ ਮਾੜੀ ਹਾਲਤ ਨਹੀਂ ਹੋ ਸਕਦੀ। Let's not screw ourselves over again. It's time for change.For those of us who think the congress is the savior of Punjab, let us not kid ourselves again folks. Check out what our 'Maharaja' sahib pulled off back in the day(right after 1984):
"When the government persisted and commissioned Budha Dal chief Santa Singh (a close confidant of Giani Zail
Singh and Buta Singh) to carry out the job, Captain Amarinder Singh, son of the last Maharaja of Patiala,
echoed the feeling of the Sikhs by declaring “If no one else pulls down this thing, then I will ..." (Jaijee P. 95 of the PDF version, check link below in this post)
The one thing that no ones had the guts to get at is the only solution to the Punjab Cancer: Tax chori. Tax enforcement! It may bar him from being elected, but it's quite the gutsy move. It is what's going to lead Punjab and indeed India into a slow and painful death, tax evasion. Much respect to him for coming out and saying it. Walter Mondale and the Democrats in the 1984 US Presidential election paid harshly for saying this publicly, let's set the course right this time and elect Mr Manpreet Singh Badal. We owe it to ourselves to give him a chance. I doubt the media in Punjab is going to support him, so let's see the light and offer him our unconditional support for the greater good. It'll sure be a new day in Punjab the likes of which we have not seen.
Let's bring in Manpreet Singh Badal! Lets bring in Peace, Progress, and Prosperity!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
This post is dedicated to Manpreet Singh Badal. And is driven by Rajinderpal Singh Gill a University Professor killed by the Punjab Police who declaredand on this day, February 15 1989 the Professor as another terrorist killed in a 'Police encounter' through a press conference. I have never endorsed anyone in Punjabi politics. If one has gone on to university or college, like Manpreet Singh Badal, they cannot bear to read this paragraph mentioning the killing of someone, a respected law-abiding citizen and above all, an academic beyond reproach, Professor Gill Sahib free of emotion.
The agenda setting media here in town, especially the ones who may have even been in touch with Professor Sahib back in Punjab when they were in school around that time and now have the microphones in front of their mouths and beam in radio signals into Canada from American transmitters free of CRTC scrutiny are completely silent about him. People see Bhagat Singh as a God and worship him year after year, that too fraudulently since if they were sincere at all they would not have let things sink so much into the gutter.
So the question I ask myself is a professor who thought to educate kids about agriculture of all things more relevant to Punjabis of today or Bhagat Singh about a centaury ago I doubt anyone even knows about him anymore. In terms of real change and influence and the impact to the Punjab of today shouldn’t someone who studied like crazy for years and then taught the kids of Punjab in higher learning and was driving a tractor as a mode of transportation when caught. The blame lies on the community as a while. In its entirely I think Mrs. Puja not Bhagat Singh is worshipped. Have a listen to the local radio stations. It’s a shame that my mechanic jokingly told me that my car will not be fixed until I stick a Ms. Puja CD in the slot. It’s a quite a sickening scene, you have the local media starting round two of the 1998 era crap all over again, going at each others’ throats over a bunch of useless lies. This is for another rant, another post, another time.
Moving forward, and staying on topic once again:
This time, the above endorsement to Manpreet Singh Badal is being put out since the story is different for a number of personal reasons. Chiefly, that research while writing an academic paper on the recent history of Punjab has lead me to a more holistic personal understanding of the things in the Punjab of today and a backgrounder on the thrashing the people of Pakistan have experienced post-independence has aided to this a great deal.
In this regard, just listening to Manpreet Singh Badal’s voice-only interview on the issue of rotting wheat in state granaries in English about a year ago (Spring of 2010) made me realize that this guy is very different in all respects. His command of the English language verbally alone is something that almost every Indian Politician lacks, perhaps not P Chandarabham so much(The fella who ducked Jarnail Singh’s shoe at a press conference a couple of years ago). Further he seems to be genuine in all respects. Someone who has an understanding of things and more importantly can be a part of the solution not being in bed with the problem like all of his opponents.
The last and only time I supported a politician on the Blog was Sukh Dhaliwal who since then is my local MP here in my riding. I have been very pleased at his performance and the kind of things he has done for this riding and the community in general. Come on people! We ought to give him a chance at it. Things in Punjab need a fixing right now, just go there and have a look for yourselves, or read about what is going on there. Surely, it’s comparable to what went down in Egypt recently in terms of the state structure and problems that the electorate has to deal with, and he from the looks of it appears to be the right individual to do this the right way for once. We owe it to ourselves to offer him our support.
I now see a glimmer of hope for not just the traditional farming Akali electrode who need help most at this time, but having read some of the most marvelous books on the subject over the past months, books and texts on the subject that no one I know and respect have ever heard of; the most educated of people that I thought would know had no clue. This is classic, being ignorant and not doing personal research on thing when there's an ocean of knowledge around us and acting dumb while being academically literate. No wonder the community gets herded like sheep and are left to regret in the end when getting screwed over.
Keeping all this mind I think that Manpreet Singh Badal is the one person who can fix things. And in light of the present state of Punjab, is the best fit individual to govern and usher in an era of peace, prosperity and progress. He is the messiah that Punjab has been waiting for and needs, not Baba Bhindranaala. Check out the literature made available to you. Let’s not hate, but educate ourselves and others about the things that happened and why today we are at a crossroads and have a chance to make it right for once.
Formerly, I did not see any hope at all regarding a political solution that would deal justice and lead to fair play for the average Punajbi. After periodically going through the literature of the past Punjab, stuff that was available here through the normal channels it lead to a feeling of utter helplessness because the situation would be next to impossible to fix given the culture of politics and power and the systemic collapse of the bureaucracy due to corruption and political interference. The scope was very limited and most of the stuff that I read was not ‘scholarly’ at all and missed out huge chunks of the puzzle and so the complete picture could not be comprehended.
The last few weeks have been different. And anyone that reads up on the stuff I have would never dare say that history is boring. The material I read up on made me realize the enormous complexity of the present situation that the people of Punjab face. So, up until now I really didn’t see there could be any effective response and that things would never improve. The preliminary platform of Manpreet Singh Badal looks very promising looking at comparable stuff that has come out of previous elections in both the US and Canada over the years there are very promising indicators that lead me to believe that if elected with a majority Sardar Sahib would change things for the better for a long time to come.
Having seen what has been happening on the world political stage in Washington, the Canadian Parliament proceedings at Ottawa and the CBC radio reporting about the Egypt ‘Crisis’ one thing is certain: times have changed even in the Middle East of all places! For the better! Perhaps this is something that may finally wake the people of India, specifically the Punjabis. The rest of India is getting screwed over too, even more so at some places but the situation of Punjab to me is more relevant.
All this is mind, there are a few things that have made me more educated about this subject. The most effective in this regard I think is Professor ShinderPal Singh Purewals text Sikh Ethnonationalism and the political Economy of Punjab based on his PhD thesis from 2000. This book offered something to me that no other book had ever done, it put things in a totally different light and made re realize that in order to be a scholar you need to be objective and not take sides at all and understand and present a balanced and fair picture of history. Although not a historical work, I think this is the one book everyone ought to read.
The second is Gurdarshan Singh Dhillon’s White Paper on 1984. The third is the Politics of Genocide written by Inderjit Singh JaiJee which mentions the things behind the politics behind and writing, marketing and sale of the aforementioned White Paper by the SGPC.
Check the links:
1)Here
2)Here
3)Here.
So coming back to the beginning of this post, without which it would be utterly useless and incomplete the following two essentials are directly quoted below. First is from the 1984 White Paper, second from the Politics of Genocide. Both of these books are available in searchable PDF format. My stuff ends here and the quotes are:
“1984 saw a replay with troops of the Indian Army in the role of Abdali. After the Darbar Sahib was captured, the Army refused to hand it back to the SGPC without imposing certain conditions. Sikh opinion was divided.
Most of them wanted the Darbar Sahib back without conditions and delay in handing back the complex to the Sikhs was working out to be a unifying factor in the community. The Army realised it and worked to reach an agreement with the SGPC. The SGPC’s nominated jathedars met the Army generals and the Jathedars accepted the conditions.
These conditions were:
i. The complex road dividing Ram Das Sarai from the Golden Temple was to be made a public thoroughfare.
ii. Pickets would be placed on either side of this road.
iii. No firearms were to go inside the complex.
iv. Police were given the liberty to search the complex.
v. A secret condition was the SGPC was not to challenge the official White Paper and was to obliterate all tell tale marks of the war on the Golden Temple and other Gurdwaras forthwith.
SGPC president G.S. Tohra, faithfully implemented these conditions, and true to his word to the government and in spite of repeated demands from the community, stalled all efforts to bring out an independent White Paper on the
1984 events. Twelve years later, under extreme pressure, he agreed to commission a Sikh historian to bring out a White Paper on Operation Bluestar.
That was for public consumption. What he actually commissioned the Sikh historian to bring out was a “White Paper on the Sikh Problem.” This obviously diluted the focus on Operation Bluestar. It is amazing that where thousands were killed, 74 gurdwaras attacked, property worth thousands of crores destroyed, the SGPC could only spare Rupees 40,000 to the professor for his research into a period spanning 500 years. A clear attempt was made to dilute focus on operation Bluestar. Professor G.S. Dhillon returned the money in disgust and frustration. He was later to accuse Tohra for deliberately restricting the sale of his book through the SGPC.”
“Teachers draw security from their very powerful labour union. Professors, not having all-state unions, were easier to hit. Some were killed as militants or killed and made to appear as militants’ victims. It was only at the later stages when the police had become all-powerful and resistance to it had broken down at all levels that arrest of teachers and
professors started. It is interesting to observe that most of the leaders of the militant movement were highly qualified academically.
Some professors became “ideologues” but by and large the universities remained quiet.
One major reason for this is that vice chancellors of Indian universities are hand-picked by the government with little consideration for their academic merit; secondly 95 per
cent of the staff of Panjab University is non-Sikh. This university has never had a Sikh vice chancellor in 50 years of independent India. Where this was not so, notably the
Agricultural University, Ludhiana, or Punjabi University, Patiala, one did hear persistent protest.
On February 6, 1989, Rajinder Kaur, wife of Rajinder Paul Singh Gill, Assistant Professor in the Punjab Agricultural University’s Department of Horticulture, filed a habeas corpus petition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court averring that her husband had come to Chandigarh on January 25 to meet his daughter who was studying in Panjab University. The Ludhiana police had picked him up in Sector 15, on that day.
She said that she learned that the Ludhiana SSP had interrogated him but when she met the SSP and asked to be allowed to meet her husband, he threatened her with dire consequences. She feared that her husband would be, or already had been, killed in a fake encounter and mentioned the encounter listed in FIR 45 of the Ludhiana Police in which the identity of the slain terrorists had not been disclosed.
On February 15, 1989, the Ludhiana SSP, S.S. Saini, announced at a press conference that Rajinder Paul Singh Gill, assistant professor in the Punjab Agricultural University’s Department of Horticulture, was among three terrorists killed in an encounter on the night of January 26 near village Khehra Bet, district Ludhiana. He claimed that Gill was the leader of the gang responsible for the murder of state BJP president Hit Abhilashi and Major General B.N. Kumar, chairman of the Bhakra-Beas Management Board, and that he had planned the attack on United Akali Dal president Jagdev Singh Talwandi.
The PHRO investigated the case. Witnesses said that Sant Kumar, SHO of Payal police station district Ludhiana led the party that arrested Gill around noon in Sector 15, and
impounded the tractor on which he was travelling. An advocate, Major Singh Mangat, who had gone to the Ludhiana police station around 10 p.m. on January 20, saw the tractor parked at the station and overheard the SHO reprimanding his juniors for bringing the tractor there when it was supposed to be taken to Ladhowal near Ludhiana. (Ladhowal is very near the place where the “encounter” supposedly took place.)
At 10:30 p.m. on January 25, Gill and some others were brought to the CIA head office in Ludhiana. Harpreet Singh, a close relative of a United Akali Dal leader, saw him there at 9 a.m. on January 26. Gill, a resident of village Juggiana, district Ludhiana, was a member of the United Akali Dal advisory board.
Following the robbery of Rs 5.7 crore from a Ludhiana bank (February, 1987) he had been kept in custody for three days and since then had been underground to avoid police harassment. Another reason why Gill and his wife, Rajinder Kaur, were suspect was that the marriage of Rajinder Kaur’s brother’s daughter had been arranged with Charanjit Singh Channi, a wanted terrorist.
