Chapter 1
THE PUNJABI SUBA DEMAND
My 60-year-long journalistic career can be broadly divided into five important phases: 1953–68; 1969–78, 1979–91, 1992–95; and 1996–2013. During these six decades, Punjab first and later Haryana (which came into existence on 1 November 1966) witnessed events, which, in many ways, changed the course of Indian politics.
The 1953–68 phase saw a major turning point in my professional life. It marked my venturing from Urdu journalism into English journalism when, after my two-year stint with the Urdu daily Naya Zamana, I was appointed by the The Times of India as its stringer at Ludhiana. I still cherish the day when I received my first cheque of Rs 256 by way of my monthly retainer on the basis of per column inch of the published news (sent by me). Unlike at present, when almost all English newspapers have their staffers in the districts, in those days, even the well-off newspapers used to have stringers to cover news from the districts.
My tenure with The Times of India paved the way for my appointment in subsequent years as a stringer for other leading English dailies, including The Tribune, The Statesman, The Economic Times, The Indian Express, The Financial Express and the now defunct Patriot. As the remuneration of a part-time newsman working for a single newspaper used to be paltry, a reporter had to work as a stringer for a number of newspapers to earn a decent living. My working for half a dozen English dailies as a stringer enabled me to earn around Rs 1000 per month, which made my family’s position relatively comfortable.
Journalism had become a passion with me. Even in my supposedly honeymoon period, I would be daily pounding away on my typewriter (to finish five to ten stories) till 11 p.m. and then I would walk down to the railway station, a kilometre away, to deliver them at the Frontier Mail’s RMS (Railway Mail Service) bogey. (The train usually arrived at 11.30 p.m.) This was to ensure that the news reached the newspapers the next day. This daily exercise continued till I shifted to Chandigarh in 1968 to join as staff correspondent of the National Herald.
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The 1953–68 phase was marked by two major events that later changed Punjab’s political and economic scenarios. The first was the movement launched, in the early 1950s, by Master Tara Singh in support of the Akali Dal’s demand for the formation of a Punjabi Suba (a unilingual Punjabi-speaking state). The second was the ushering in of the Green Revolution, in the early 1960s, by the Ludhiana-based Punjab Agricultural University, which led to India becoming self-reliant in foodgrains.
For the first time since independence, during the first half of the 1950s, Akali politics assumed a volatile form when Master Tara Singh’s Punjabi Suba movement began to generate communal tension between Sikhs and Hindus in Punjab. Although the movement was avowedly for the formation of a unilingual Punjabi-speaking state,1 its real objective was to carve out a Sikh-majority state where the Sikhs could have control over all levers of power including the government, the services and the economy. The Akalis believed that it was only in such a state that, being the Sikhs’ mainstream politico-religious party, the Akali Dal, could capture power, which was otherwise seemingly impossible in the then Hindu-majority Punjab.
As expected, the Punjabi Suba demand was opposed by the Congress Party and the Hindu organizations, including the Jan Sangh (which re-emerged as the Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP in 1980). The opposition to the Punjabi Suba was so strong that, at the clarion call of some Hindu outfits, a large number of the state’s Hindus declared Hindi, instead of Punjabi, as their mother tongue in the census.
As the Punjabi Suba movement led by Master Tara Singh later took a violent and communal turn, Ludhiana became its nerve centre. The movement was spearheaded by urban Sikh youths and backed by the Sikh traders who had migrated from Pakistan after the August 1947 partition and were trying to find business space that had been monopolized by the ‘locals’. But it was the predominantly rural poor and the small peasantry that provided manpower for the movement and faced the police action.
The slogan-shouting Akali youths, waving unsheathed swords, used to take out processions in Ludhiana’s Hindu-dominated main business centres. In retaliation, the activists of Maha Punjab (greater Punjab) Front, a Ludhiana-based extremist Hindu body, after perching themselves on the rooftops of the market’s surrounding buildings, pelted stones on the agitators. This led to imposition of curfew in the main agitation-hit business centres of the industrial town.
The Maha Punjab Front had been set up by a local dentist, Dr Kali Charan Sharma, at the behest of Partap Singh Kairon (a Sikh), then development minister in the Bhim Sen Sachar-led Congress Government. Kairon apparently wanted to achieve two objectives: to foil the Akalis’ move to get a Punjabi Suba and to destabilize Chief Minister Bhim Sen Sachar’s position. Kairon was opposed to the formation of linguistic states and wanted a bigger Punjab (what he termed Maha Punjab) for boosting the economic viability, self-reliance and industrialization of the state.
Dr Sharma went on a fast against the Punjabi Suba demand. The confrontation between the Maha Punjab Front supporters and the Akali agitators further charged the communal atmosphere prevailing in the state. (Dr Sharma was gunned down by militants when Punjab was hit by terrorism during the 1980s.) The head of Ludhiana’s administrative service and the police chief were at loggerheads on the issue of dealing with the violent agitation. Deputy Commissioner B. B. Vohra wanted the police to tactfully handle the situation instead of taking action that could provoke communal sentiments in other parts of the state. On the other hand, the attitude of the police created a situation that provided an excuse for imposing curfew in the city. The curfew, however, was not strictly enforced as the situation in the city, except in the agitation-affected localities, was normal. Nevertheless, the news of Ludhiana being under curfew further vitiated the state’s communally charged atmosphere.
The confrontation between the civil and police authorities in Ludhiana took an ugly turn as the plainclothes policemen, backed by the district police chief, a protégé of Kairon, held a demonstration against Vohra when he and his family were at the railway station to board a train after he had been transferred from Ludhiana to New Delhi where he was due to join the Central Government. B. B. Vohra, a soft-spoken and mild-mannered gentleman, was the elder brother of N. N. Vohra, who was Punjab’s home secretary during the terror years and later went on to occupy senior positions in the Government of India and ultimately became the governor of Jammu and Kashmir.
After moving out of Ludhiana, the senior Vohra occupied top posts at the Centre, including that of secretary. I had developed a good equation with him and, after his retirement, whenever he and his wife visited Chandigarh, he would invite me to the Sector 17 Indian Coffee House, a popular haunt of writers, artists, journalists and retired officers. We would discuss Punjab’s contemporary situation and reminisce about the old times. He passed away a few years ago.
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Confronted with the danger of Punjab being turned into a communal cauldron, the Sachar-led government imposed a ban on sloganeering by the Punjabi Suba and the Maha Punjab Front. Later, Master Tara Singh and some Hindu organizations’ leaders were arrested. During my coverage of the agitation for The Times of India, I was able to establish a rapport with Master Tara Singh, which proved professionally rewarding in subsequent years.
My first big scoop was an interview with him after his release from jail in 1955, which contributed to the efforts then being made for bringing about positive changes in Punjab politics.
After the behind-the-scenes meetings between some Punjab Sikh leaders and the Central leaders, the ban on the Punjabi Suba slogan was lifted and Master Tara Singh released from jail. While he was travelling from Delhi to Amritsar by the Bombay Express, I decided to interview him when the train halted at Ludhiana. Karam Singh Musafir, a correspondent of the Jalandhar-based pro-Akali Urdu daily Prabhat, and I went to the railway station to meet Master Tara Singh only to find the platform jampacked with slogan-shouting and flag-waving Akali supporters. Such a situation made it very difficult for us to enter the Akali supremo’s compartment. Finally, we had to enter it from the other side after jumping over the fence dividing the two facing platforms.
As the train began moving, I confronted Master Tara Singh with my first question: ‘Will you consider an alternative to the Punjabi Suba now that the government has lifted the ban on raising the Punjabi Suba slogan?’ He replied: ‘Yes, provided the Sikhs’ separate identity is guaranteed’. It needs to be borne in mind that in Punjab’s surcharged atmosphere, it required immense courage for an Akali leader of Master Tara Singh’s stature to talk about considering an alternative to the Punjabi Suba. My second question was as follows: ‘If the government accepts your condition, could it lead to a political understanding between the Akali Dal and the Congress and the two sharing power both at the Centre and in Punjab?’ He said: ‘Yes.’ My next question: ‘Is there any possibility of the Akalis then joining the Congress?’ He responded in the affirmative but pointed out that he himself would not join the Congress.
I was surprised but happy that all my pointed questions, which a more astute politician would have avoided answering in the state’s surcharged atmosphere, had evoked uninhibited, positive responses from Master Tara Singh. With a rapport thus established with him, Master Tara Singh would always call me for a meeting whenever he visited Ludhiana.
I was disappointed when The Times of India did not carry the report the next morning. On inquiry, the telegraph office told me the message had been transmitted to Delhi immediately. Remember, during that time, the fax, the teleprinter, the email and the mobile phone were yet to make their appearance. The communication system was primitive! All telegraphic messages used to be transmitted through the cumbersome and time-consuming Morse code (named after its inventor Samuel Morse). The recipient telegraph office would then deliver them to the addressee through a messenger. Obviously, the newspaper had not received the message in time for publication in its next day’s edition. A day later, however, it carried the story as its second lead.
This news item galvanized Punjab politics and accelerated the process for holding talks between the Akali Dal and the state government that could lead to a resolution of the Punjab problem. The latter responded positively to Master Tara Singh’s offer to consider an alternative to his Punjabi Suba demand. This was followed by parleys between the Akali Dal and Central leaders. Master Tara Singh wrote a letter to the prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and asked the senior Akali leader, Hukam Singh, to deliver it. Hukam Singh who earlier used to contest the Lok Sabha elections as an Akali candidate fought the 1962 Lok Sabha elections as a Congress candidate and was elected Lok Sabha speaker (17 April 1962 to 16 March 1967). He met the prime minister and, after a brief discussion, 24 October 1955 was fixed as the date for holding a bilateral meeting. Conciliatory intercession brought Jawaharlal Nehru and the Sikh leaders to the conference table. This was followed by another meeting held on 23 November. The meetings resulted in the evolvement of a regional formula.
The parleys were interrupted at the end of December 1955 as a general session of the Indian National Congress was to be held at Amritsar on 11-12 February 1956. The Akali Dal also announced that a parallel session would be held in the same city.
The two sessions (both of which were well attended), followed by behind-the-scenes efforts by some senior Central and Akali leaders, helped resume the interaction between the two sides, with both parties making reconciliatory moves.
The regional formula was later approved at a general body meeting of the Akali Dal held at Amritsar on 11 March 1956. Consequently, most of the front-rank Akali leaders joined the Congress. On 30 September 1956, the Akali Dal renounced politics. It proposed to hold a rally a few weeks later and ‘present’ two lakh Akali members to the Congress.
After the Assembly elections, the Congress Government that came to power in Punjab on 3 April 1957, with Partap Singh Kairon as chief minister, included former Akalis Giani Kartar Singh and Gian Singh Rarewala, as members of his cabinet. It would be interesting to note that Parkash Singh Badal, Punjab’s five-time Akali Dal chief minister, fought the 1957 elections as a Congress candidate.
As Master Tara Singh had told me in the interview, he did not join the Congress.
Disillusioned by subsequent developments that failed to achieve the objective of a ‘wholesome’ Punjabi-speaking state of his dreams, Master Tara Singh repudiated the regional formula on 14 June 1958 and resurrected the demand for a Punjabi Suba. On 14 February 1959 he called a general body meeting of the Akali Dal at Patiala. The meeting resolved, among other things, to restore the political character of the party.
Later, however, the rival leaders of the factionalism-ridden Akali Dal succeeded in isolating Master Tara Singh, resulting in the emergence of a new Akali leadership in the form of a secular and saintly figure: Sant Fateh Singh. Chief Minister Partap Singh Kairon played a covert role in bringing about the change in the Akali leadership’s hierarchy.
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As revealed by subsequent events, the Akali leaders’ obsession with holding the reins of power in a Sikh-majority Punjabi Suba led to the fragmentation of the state into four parts on 1 November 1966:
However, some of the Punjabi-speaking areas continued to be part of the Hindi-speaking Haryana and the hill state of Himachal Pradesh on considerations of their mixed demographic compositions and contiguity factors. The reorganized Punjab lost not only its hilly areas having vast hydroelectric power resources and rich horticulture belts to Himachal Pradesh but also the potentially important business and industrial hubs of Gurgaon and Faridabad went to the newly born Haryana state.
Chandigarh, ‘the city beautiful’, acquired the unique status of being the joint capital of both Punjab and Haryana. The ten-storey Civil Secretariat and the Assembly buildings of the Le Corbusier2-designed Capital Complex were divided between Punjab and Haryana in the ratio of 60:40. The Civil Secretariat building served as the state headquarters of both the governments. The two states have their separate Raj Bhawans (governor’s residences) but have a common Punjab and Haryana High Court functioning from the complex’s common building.
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Punjab’s reorganization was ‘the second partition’ of the fertile land of five rivers within two decades. In August 1947, the Muslim-majority part of the united Punjab had gone to the newly formed nation called Pakistan after India had been partitioned. The portion left in India was initially called East Punjab.
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1 Both Sikhs and Hindus spoke the Punjabi language.
2 His real name was Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris.