Navigating the Intersection of Politics, Commemoration, and Historical Sensitivity in Punjab’s Collective Memory

THESE ARE THE dying days of May of 2024, and Punjab is in the throes of electioneering. Temperatures are soaring, and you can bet that mercury will only rise further with the advent of June. More heat, more electioneering, more youtube journalism, and more dirt flung all around.

Voting on June 1, exit polls on June 1 and June 2, massive build-up and countdown by June 3, and the ecstasy of Lok Sabha results on June 4.

The assassination of memory is the final aim of any enemy. We should know that we have been defeated in the mindscape.

Arvind Kejriwal, Bhagwant Mann, Sukhbir Singh Badal and Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, Sukhpal Singh Khaira, Sunil Jakhar, Ravneet Bittu — you will be discussing many a names and their political future.

Studio pundits will be pontificating on the efficacy of AAP-Congress alliance, the expanding space for saffron politics in Punjab, the comeback or dejection of Akali Dal, the near demise of Dalit politics, and the rise or fall of panthic politics in Khadoor Sahib.

It will be followed by the internal shenanigans of I.N.D.I.A., the swearing-in date, cabinet formation, jostling for ministerial berths, and those mandatory pictures of Rahul Gandhi-Priyanka Gandhi Vadra waving hands, and of a Narendra Modi walking in step with Amit Shah, under a shower of marigold petals.

All of it will be executed in keeping with the script, and you will relish the spectacle. Only when you notice what happened!

By the time you pause and notice, it would have already happened. That’s how the game of pick pocketing goes.

The 40th anniversary of the Indian army’s attack on the panthic, religious and temporal power centre in Amritsar, Sri Darbar Sahib and Sri Akal Takht Sahib, would have passed when you were keeping a count of Raja Warring’s votes or Ravneet Bittu’s margin.

Punjabis would spend this momentous event talking about whether Bains’ brothers joining the Congress was an electorally wise move! The quandary in which panthic politics finds itself would be limited to the performance of a fire-spitting young man in Khadoor Sahib whose stated aim is to shift his provisional address from Dibrugarh to Punjab.

Is this how you would have planned ways to mark the 40th anniversary of what the regime code-named ‘Operation Bluestar’?

It just takes my mind back to the 20th anniversary of Operation Bluestar.

It was 2004. Prakash Singh Badal was the Chief Minister of Punjab. Sukhbir Singh Badal was a recently baptised Akali leader. Gurcharan Singh Tohra had died a couple of months earlier. A year had passed since Tohra and Badal had savoured ladoos at the house of Harmail Singh Tohra to announce panthic unity. The SGPC election, the first after Tohra’s death, was scheduled on July 11, 2004.

On June 5, 2004, Prakash Singh Badal had issued the first list of SGPC candidates. Next day, on June 6, he called a press conference at his official residence in Sector 2 of Chandigarh, and issued the list of remaining candidates for the July 11 SGPC election.

It was an unusual time slot to call a presser, since the scribes wanted it to be quickly over so that they can rush to their offices and file the stories. Badal Sr. was addressing the journalists in one room, while tea, sweetmeats and snacks awaited hungry hacks in the adjacent room. Badal’s media advisor Harcharan Bains was handing out printouts of a two-page press release that basically contained names of the SAD’s SGPC nominees.

Some perfunctory questions later, journalists realised they were getting late for the office, and the ever so mild mannered CM Badal apologised for having called scribes at this late hour. “Tuhanoo taqleef ditti,” he said. I found the politeness in politicos-hacks relationship in Punjab really touching.

Suddenly piped a voice from one end of the media crowd – “Badal Sahib, jee ikk chotta jiha sawaal hai, je ijaazat hove tan?” Wow, politeness galore! Everyone was all ears. Badal Sr. was surely not expecting a Q & A.

“Jee, ajj June 6, Operation Bluestar di veehvin (20th) anniversary utte, Akali Dal de pardhan da patarkaran nu ghar bula kec hah, samose te gulab jamun khawaun ton bina koyee hor vee program hai? Kyonke shaam tan pai hee gayee hai, din beet chaliya hai. Koyee hor vee program hai, ajj da?”

(Trans: On this June 6th, today, the 20th anniversary of Op Bluestar, does the Akali Dal president have any other engagement in his day schedule except for calling journalists home and offering them sweet delicacies, since it is already late evening? Is there any other engagement scheduled?)

What you remember, how you remember and what do you do or neglect to do to mark an event in your history is the hallmark of your politics.

“Lo, pa ditta panga!” NS Parwana said, a samosa in his hand, and me holding the plate for his benefit.

Parwana was a very senior journalist, and I knew him for asking the most irrelevant question, always couched in his inimitable style – “Ehde naal hee lagda mera sawaal vee lai lavo ji…” But then, Parwanaji passed away some time ago and I should desist from any such anecdotes. Suffice it to say that a horde of hacks at his ‘shardhanjalisabha’ told us that in his going, ‘Punjab di patarkari nu na poora hon wala ghata piya hai!”

“Phir jee na kariye soochi jaari umeedvaran di?” a piqued Badal asked the young journalist. Bains helpfully explained that it was the last day and filing of nomination papers was to begin the next day.

I had re-adjusted my ideas about levels of politeness in journo-politician relationship in Punjab. Parwanaji had finished the samosa and was now having tea. I asked him what was wrong with that “panga”. He didn’t seem pleased. I also wondered why no one had prepped Badal Sr to handle the most expected question. “Because they never expected anyone to ask it!” a senior Akali Dal leader later told me.

* * *

Since around late 2007, newspapers in Punjab had begun carrying occasional gossipy stuff about then top Congress leader and former Punjab CM Amarinder Singh sheltering a potentially Pakistani spy at his residence.

Aroosa Alam had become a power centre, was a close friend of Amarinder, and carried an air of Lahori-fashion around her. Local BJP leaders routinely asked the Centre to take action but to no avail. For some years, Amarinder’s wife Preneet Kaur was MoS, and ruckus about Alam had become shrill.

In his second term as CM, from March 2017 to September 2021, Aroosa Alam remained a subterranean but hot subject, and I am sure by now you know a great deal about it, but the date I want to focus upon falls in the month of June.

It was the June of 2016. Amarinder Singh’s sightings had become a rare event, and viral videos of his partying with Aroosa Alam would tell more than any intelligent journalism. One fine evening, there were rumours on the journalistic grapevine that Amarinder Singh had been sighted at a Zirakpur hotel, with Aroosa Alam.

I paid little attention.

And then the news item appeared in a few newspapers, including the Punjabi Tribune. It said that the day before, Amarinder Singh was reported to be partying at the Ramada Hotel, located on the Chandigarh-Punjab border on NH22, and many scribes had landed there after being tipped off about the party, and Alam’s presence.

“Lal Singh, Rana Gurmit Sodhi, Kewal Singh Dhillon came down and met the journalists. Hans Raj Hans was also there. Amarinder also came and met the scribes. They all said they were all here with their families, having a private party, and Amarinder Singh denied Alam was there at all,” the report said, before adding, “Amarinder Singh’s friends denied Aroosa Alam was there but this journalist saw Aroosa Alam herself in the hotel that night.”

This Punjabi Tribune edition was dated June 7, 2016. So, the party was on the night of June 6, 2016, the anniversary of Operation Bluestar.

The Akali Dal was positioning itself to fight a very tough battle just months away against an Amarinder Singh-led Congress, but did not issue even a simple press release to point out the incongruity of holding a celebration exactly on the anniversary of Operation Bluestar.

Instead, what came out was a viral video from that party in which Amarinder Singh, Rana Sodhi and a score of other dignitaries with glasses filled with a golden liquid, were clinking glasses to the tune of ‘Suhaani raat dhal chuki, na jaane tum kab aaoge!’

It was the 32nd anniversary of Indian army tanks trundling through the parikarma of Sri Darbar Sahib.

It is no one’s case how or when you plan a party with friends, when do you call journalists home and offer them gulab jamuns and a press release of nominees for an election, or in which week the Election Commission decides to hold elections in Punjab.

What you remember, how you remember and what do you do or neglect to do to mark an event in your history is the hallmark of your politics.

Punjab will make that mark this 40th anniversary of a massacre by the regime. We would count Raja Warring’s, Karamjit Anmol’s, Ravneet Bittu’s and Pappi Parashar’s votes.

Talking Amritpal will be the height of our panthic politics.

The assassination of memory is the final aim of any enemy. We should know that we have been defeated in the mindscape.

__________

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