Chapter 26
ELECTIONS TO THE PUNJAB ASSEMBLY AND THEIR IMPACT
The year 1992 marked another important turning point in my professional career and also for Punjab as this year witnessed the beginning of the end of over a decade-long spell of terrorism.
My two-year contract with the Indian Express was prematurely terminated in December 1991 (details given later in this chapter). The dawn of 1992 saw the end of my 13-year-old association with the newspaper.
On 16 September 1991, I received a message from Prabhu Chawla, then executive editor of the Indian Express, asking me to meet him in Delhi the next day. On 17 September at the appointed time, I reached the IE building in Delhi and asked Chawla’s personal assistant to inform him about my arrival. After about 15 minutes, Chawla called me into his room. He told me that he was not satisfied with the work of the Express staffers in Punjab and Haryana. As regional news coordinator, I was in charge of the coverage by the paper’s district staffers. Disagreeing with him, I requested him to point out specific cases of staffers with whose performance he was not satisfied. He opened a couple of drawers, searched them but did not pull out any papers. Then he said he was not satisfied particularly with the work of the Hisar (in Haryana) staffer Pradeep Kaushal. I informed Chawla that Kaushal was one of our most efficient correspondents in the two states of Punjab and Haryana who came up with exclusive stories. He kept quiet and did not mention the name of any other ‘inefficient’ staffer. Embarrassing silence followed. After sometime, I came out of his room and left for Chandigarh carrying the impression of having met a self-righteous person who was not amenable to reason.
On reaching the Chandigarh office the next morning, my Delhi sources hinted that Chawla planned to terminate my contract with the Indian Express. I told them that after my discussion with him in Delhi, Chawla did not give any clue about his intentions to prematurely end my contract. But I got a letter on 27 September informing me that my contract with the Indian Express, which was to expire on 31 March 1993, had been terminated. The termination letter said: ‘You were appointed as Specialist in reporting on contract basis for a specific period of two years beginning from 1 April 1991, vide contract dated 25 March 1991, duly executed by you and us. Now, with a heavy heart, this is to inform you that as per Clause No. 5 of the said contract, you are hereby served with a notice for termination of contract. Accordingly you will be relieved after completion of your normal duties on 31 December 1991.’
I was surprised on receiving the letter. I had never expected that a person of an editor’s stature would hide the fact of having already decided to terminate my contract prematurely when I had met him on 17 September. Calling me to Delhi to express his ‘dissatisfaction’ about the functioning of Express staffers was merely a cover-up for his decision to end my contract.
I was not the only staffer of the newspaper’s Chandigarh edition who suffered this fate. The same day, the Chandigarh edition’s news editor Jaswant Singh was also handed over a similar letter informing him about the premature termination of his contract. In his case, no reasons were assigned.
According to Vijaya Krishnamurti, the staff correspondent covering Haryana, she was asked by Chawla in 1992 to give him a complaint against the Chandigarh edition’s resident editor Prem Kumar. She said that when she did not oblige Chawla, she was transferred to Lucknow, a post from which she later resigned.
Similarly, the Chandigarh edition’s chief photographer Swadesh Talwar was telephonically summoned by Chawla to Delhi. According to Talwar: ‘After 45 minutes of waiting, when Chawla called me in, I found him sitting on the chair with his back towards the entrance door. He was watching TV with his feet resting on the small table kept in front of him. After sometime he turned towards me and asked me about the details of my family members. After he found [out] that my family was well settled in Chandigarh and that we were living in a house allotted by the government, he asked me if I had any objection if transferred to Delhi. I told him “why Delhi, post me anywhere in India”. After he found [out] that his threatened vindictive move had not worked, he did not shift me from Chandigarh.’ Talwar said that his meeting with Chawla ended on a confrontationist note.
In 1992, Prem Kumar also quit the Indian Express because of Chawla’s behaviour, which he could not tolerate. All three of us, Jaswant Singh, Prem Kumar and I, had joined the Indian Express at the behest of Prabhash Joshi.
Sometime after my ‘retirement’ from the Indian Express in December 1991, Vijay Kumar Chopra, chief editor of Punjab’s widely circulated Punjab Kesari Group of newspapers invited me to Jalandhar to discuss ‘an important matter’. At our meeting, he said that his son was keen to bring out an English daily as part of his newspaper chain. He wanted me to take over as its editor. I expressed my inability to accept the offer for personal reasons. I did not want to shift from Chandigarh to Jalandhar from where the proposed English daily was to be brought out. Secondly, I thought it was too late in the day for me to take up an assignment involving administrative duties, which an editor has also to perform as head of the staff. I had spent my whole career as a reporter and columnist and abhorred doing administrative work.
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It was not the first time during my then 40-year journalistic career that I had turned down the offer of editorship of a newspaper. During the Emergency (June 1975 to March 1977), I did not give my consent to the move initiated by the Sanjay Gandhi caucus proposing my name as editor of the region’s leading Chandigarh-based English daily: The Tribune. (I have already explained in Chapter 8 the reasons for not accepting the post.)
During my association with the Indian Express from 1978 to 1991, I had also declined the offer of appointment as resident editor of its Chandigarh edition and later of the Chandigarh edition of Jansatta, the Hindi daily of the Indian Express Group.
After I expressed my inability to accept Chopra’s offer of editorship of his group’s proposed English daily, he asked me to name somebody I thought would be suitable for the post. I suggested that he could consider Prem Kumar. A few days later, Prem Kumar and I met Chopra. After preliminary discussions, Prem Kumar was appointed as editor of the proposed daily. I agreed to organize the paper’s news network.
Unfortunately, after a few months, the proposal for bringing out the English daily was shelved for reasons best known to the Chopra family.
***
Later in 1992, O. P. Sabherwal, editor of the India Press Agency (IPA), appointed me as the agency’s special correspondent for the north-western states. (He hailed from my home town Ludhiana and died on 16 May 2013 at the age of 90. He was IPA’s chief editor from 1980 to 2000. Sabherwal was an expert on nuclear issues and the author of a book titled India’s Tryst with the Atom – Unfolding the Nuclear Story, UBS Publishers and Distributors, Delhi, 2004.)
IPA had been set up in 1958 by two dedicated individuals – Nikhil Chakravartty (editor of the Mainstream magazine, known in later years as the doyen of Indian journalism and the first chairman of Prasar Bharati1) and David Cohen, a genius of sorts, a Bengalized Jew who translated his name as Priyaranjan Thakur! Never static while on the typewriter. David Cohen eventually moved on to publishing books. He died in London in 1988.
Although my long and eventful association with the Indian Express ended on an unpleasant note, I had the satisfaction of receiving a pleasant letter from the Indian Express boss Vivek Goenka, to whom I had written a letter about my ‘retirement’ from the IE and thanking him for the love shown to me by the staff and its editors during my association with the newspaper. I did not mention the fact that my contract had been prematurely terminated by Prabhu Chawla.
Vivek Goenka’s letter was not the customary farewell communication. In his 17 January 1992 letter, which I considered more than a formal goodbye the retiring employees usually get from their employers, Goenka wrote:
Dear Mr Chum,
Thanks for your nice letter. I feel sad to learn that you have retired the Indian Express. Express loses a distinguished journalist and a loyal friend. It has become a great institution because it had persons like you – committed to their calling, conscience and the paper.
During our various struggles for upholding the freedom and dignity of the Press and democracy in India, the reassuring feeling that we had colleagues like you was part of the things that gave us courage and belief in our ultimate victory.
I gratefully acknowledge your stellar contribution to the Indian Express. I am sure our readers would miss a byline whose accuracy, analysis and judgement they could trust. Your colleagues would miss a wise, valuable and affectionate friend and co-worker.
I wish your days outside Express are even more satisfying than they have been inside it. And I wish you years of good health and a sense of satisfaction during reflection of the years gone by.
***
Let us move on from matters personal to the political scene. In Punjab, the year 1991 witnessed the peak of violence with more than 5000 people reported killed. Criminal gangs had joined the ranks of the militant outfits. Extortions in rural areas led to the migration of even a large number of well-off Sikh families to urban centres.
To deal with the highly alarming security situation, K. P. S. Gill who was Punjab DGP from May 1988 to December 1990 was again appointed by the Government of India as chief of the Punjab Police in November 1991.
As the Centre was determined to hold elections in Punjab, the Election Commission announced that they would be held in February 1992. Under intense pressure from militants who had started targeting those candidates intending to contest the elections, the Akalis decided to boycott the polls.
It was an extraordinary situation. Violence stalked Punjab with a marked spurt in the killing of innocent people. In view of the deteriorating law and order situation, the government stepped up security measures. The candidates were provided protection from the day of their filing nominations. The Indian Army, which had been deployed in Punjab, intensified its campaign against the militants.
In late January 1992, the government decided not to ban public rallies by the Akalis. Instead, it tried to prevent senior Akali leaders and main organizers of the rallies from attending by ‘temporarily detaining’ them before the rallies. According to official sources: ‘The Government’s effort will be to stop the poll-boycott campaign from gaining momentum.’ As Governor Surendra Nath insisted on immediate action, the top Akali leaders were thus detained.
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It was in such a violence-ridden and chaotic atmosphere that the people of Punjab, which had been under president’s rule since 1987, went to cast their votes on 19 February 1992. Given the fear psychosis and the boycott call by the Akalis, the turnout was very low: only 23.82 per cent polling, the lowest in Punjab’s electoral history.
The Congress, which secured 87 of the 115 seats (for which voting took place), elected Beant Singh as its leader. He was sworn in as chief minister on 25 February 1992.
Beant Singh (19 February 1922 to 31 August 1995) was a Punjabi Jat Sikh born in village Bilaspur of Ludhiana district. Later, he moved to village Kotli in the same district. He attended Government College, Lahore (now in Pakistan). At the age of 23, he joined the army. He quit after two years of service and started concentrating on politics, social work and public affairs.
History is witness to the fact that whenever nations face crisis situations, providence throws up persons who prove turn out to be saviours. Beant Singh was one among such persons. He pulled Punjab out of the dark tunnel of terrorism and disaster. His taking over as chief minister was a turning point in the 12-year-long terror-ridden history of the border state. He restored peace by suppressing the foreign-backed militants. Unfortunately, he was assassinated on 31 August 1995 in a bomb blast outside the high-security area of the Punjab and Haryana Civil Secretariat, Chandigarh.
On assuming office as chief minister, the politically experienced, but slow-to-react, 70-year-old Beant Singh did not find it easy to overcome the problems Punjab then faced. The biggest handicap his 27-member ministry suffered from was the stigma that it was not a truly representative government. The Congress had secured less than 14 lakh votes, representing just over 10 per cent of the state’s total electorate of about 1.3 crore. Of the 28 lakh votes polled, the ruling party’s share was around 44 per cent. (It should be kept in mind that the voter turnout was very low.)
The situation in Punjab had taken on the dimensions of a national problem, causing worry to both the government and the political parties as they had been rendered irrelevant in the border state by the militants. The developments in Punjab also posed a threat to India’s unity and integrity given the fact Pakistan was training and actively backing the terrorists, obviously, as earlier mentioned, to avenge India’s role in splitting Pakistan, leading to the birth of Bangladesh in 1971.
After a few days in office, Beant Singh, accompanied by his newly appointed chief secretary, A. S. Chatha, met Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao in New Delhi. Understandably, Rao was worried about the situation in Punjab. He wanted to know how the ‘complicated problem’ could be resolved. Beant Singh who, like Rao, was a man of few words, told him ‘to leave the matter to us. Please give me three months’ time and we will sort it out’.
As Beant Singh was a Jat Sikh, a community known for its toughness and for its determined response to challenges, his reply was a clear indication of what was going to happen in the state. Beant Singh obviously believed in Winston Churchill’s inspiring statement: ‘A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.’
He decided to launch a four-point plan of action. His first priority was to make Punjab free from terrorist violence. The second priority was to revive the democratic institutions, which had become a casualty of the extraordinary developments that had taken place in the state. The third priority was to put Punjab’s virtually ruined economy back on the rails. The fourth priority was to undertake extensive development of the state, particularly of the rural areas, in order to expand the Congress base in the Akali Dal’s stronghold.
It did not take long for Beant Singh (with the help of K. P. S. Gill) to suppress terrorism. With the improvement in the security environment in about six months following the elimination of most of the top militant leaders, political activity was revived and the political parties re-established their contacts with the people. Even the Akalis, who had boycotted the 19 February 1992 polls, started participating in the political process once again.
In brief, the following were the main factors that helped in curbing terrorism:
Some of the aforementioned measures, which successfully worked in Punjab, can serve as guidelines for tackling the situation in other militancy-hit areas, particularly Jammu and Kashmir and the north-eastern region, where foreign elements have been helping the insurgents.
Besides the foregoing measures, the fencing of the India—Pakistan border also played a major role in checking trans-border crossing by militants and smuggling of arms from Pakistan. The latest in the list was India’s diplomatic offensive against Pakistan in various world forums to exert pressure on its rulers to stop helping militants.
One other factor that also substantially helped eliminate militants and anti-social gangs operating in villages of Punjab was Beant Singh’s grassroots level personal contacts he had developed during his stewardship of the state Congress since 1985. During his extensive tours of the state’s rural areas, he had acquainted himself with the names of suspected militants, their companions and other anti-social elements. He had an amazing memory. He would give Gill the list of names of such characters in every village. In the no-holds-barred campaign against terrorism, the groups of trusted police officers formed by Gill would then ‘take care’ of these elements. Among the methods used for decimating the terrorists were the ‘cordon-and-search strategy’ adopted by the police and the army and the use of ‘reformed’ militants as spotters to identify new targets. This strategy was also later gainfully employed to counter terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir.
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By September-October 1992, the terrorist violence in Punjab had been, to a great extent, brought under control. In 1993 the reported death toll came down to 500 from 5000 in 1991. Around that time, the New York Times reported that ‘the people of Punjab no longer feared the Sikh “rebels or gangs”, but instead feared the Army and police’.
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An objective assessment of the Punjab situation, as it prevailed in the early 1990s, is impossible without analysing the intricacies of Akali politics and the attitude of the disparate Akali factions.
The restoration of peace in Punjab made the Akalis review their past attitudes and deliberate on their future course of action in the state’s changed scenario. Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa2 told me on 12 March 1992 that as the top leaders were still in jail, the second-rung leaders of six Akali groups, held a meeting where a consensus was reached for forging unity. It was, however, affirmed that the decision would be finalized only after the senior party leaders were released.
Bringing together the diverse Akali groups was not an easy task as differences with regard to the objectives of each faction created hurdles. Such differences needed to be resolved first. Whereas Simranjit Singh Mann insisted on azadi (independence or freedom), Badal favoured a ‘commonwealth of autonomous states’; the others wanted Khalistan.
The Akali leaders admitted that they were greatly relieved as there was no longer any fear of the militants targeting them. They also declared: ‘There should be closer unity between all Akali Dal factions. We do not want confrontation. It is Beant Singh who wants this.’
Despite the unity call given by the six factions, differences among their leaders continued to plague Akali politics. Prominent leaders of the moderate Akali Dal faction held a meeting, on 12 March 1992 at Chandigarh, which was also attended by the former chief minister, Surjit Singh Barnala, the former state home minister, Captain Kanwaljit Singh, and the former state finance minister, Balwant Singh, apart from their other colleagues such as Kabul Singh and Baldev Singh Mann. In this meeting, the unanimous feeling was that the Akali Dal was still relevant despite the fact that it had boycotted the February 1992 elections. The party stuck to its stand that the Punjab problem should be solved by resolving the outstanding political issues. The leaders declared that they were opposed to militancy, which had no place in politics. They decided to strengthen the party organization and induct young blood into it. They blamed the Congress for ‘rigging and encouraging Akalis’ boycott of the [1992] elections’. The top brass decided to adopt ‘a non-cooperation attitude’ towards the new government. The party felt that since the factions led by Parkash Singh Badal and Simranjit Singh Mann had become subservient to the militants, their independent entity did not matter much.
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As 1993 saw the return of some sort of normalcy to Punjab, Beant Singh was keen to implement the remaining three points of his four-point priority plan. He initiated steps with regard to his second priority of reviving the grassroots democratic institutions as he believed that they would enable the people and the political parties, which had become irrelevant due to the all-pervasive militancy, to assert themselves against the terrorists. Even the Akalis, who had boycotted the 1992 Assembly elections, participated in the local body elections.
To begin with, panchayat elections were held in early 1993. People enthusiastically participated in the polling. Some areas recorded 90 per cent voting! Panchayat elections were followed by elections to urban local bodies and cooperative institutions. It was after nearly 15 years that Punjab’s democratic structure was being restored, thereby giving the people a say in the functioning of grassroots level institutions.
After reviving such institutions, the government focused its attention on undertaking extensive development works, particularly in rural areas, which had suffered serious setbacks during the terrorism years. However, the government did not have adequate resources to fund its development plans. There was no alternative but to generate additional resources through taxes. It steeply raised the users’ charges for various services, increased tax rates and levied new taxes. It, however, tried to neutralize the negative impact of such resource mobilization measures by granting huge concessions of over Rs 800 crore to different sections of the people. Such concessions further aggravated the financial crunch that the government was facing. To overcome such a crunch, Beant Singh requested the Centre to come to Punjab’s help. New Delhi did not disappoint Punjab.
The accelerated development of rural areas and the grant of liberal concessions unnerved the Akali leaders. They were apprehensive that such measures would make it impossible for the Akali Dal to come to power in the foreseeable future.
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Though Beant Singh’s major achievement, i.e., curbing terrorism, earned him nation-wide applause, his politics had its dark side too. Like some of his predecessor Congress chief ministers, he also suffered from the obsession of mixing religion with politics; during his tenure, the state government was involved in performing religious rituals.
He once admitted that his government played ‘the religion card’ for promoting the ruling party’s political interests. He told me (sometime in August 1995): ‘My government, after restoring the sanctity of gurdwaras and freeing them from the clutches of anti-national elements, has undertaken various steps for glorifying the name of Sikh religion through a practical approach.’ Among the steps were:
The government also built link roads for providing proper access to gurdwaras and temples in the rural areas.
In normal course, nobody could have any objection to a government taking some of the aforementioned steps if they benefited the people. But such steps, if motivated by an intention to serve a political party’s interests, amount to involving the state in religious activities and violate the letter and spirit of the Constitution. Such steps usually prove counterproductive.
By playing ‘the religion card’, the ‘secular’ Congress leadership, particularly its Sikh ministers and legislators, also started, like the Akali leaders, to use the gurdwaras as platforms for public functions. They got captive audiences for promoting their politics. Their argument was that the deeply religious Sikh community could be won over only with a mix of religion and politics.
The Akalis could hardly be blamed for criticizing the Congress for using their religious plank for political purposes as the latter was merely following their dogmatic doctrine that ‘religion and politics are inseparable’. The Akali Dal and the Congress blaming each other for mixing religion and politics was like the pot calling the kettle black.
By involving the state in religious activities, the ruling Congress leadership in the early 1990s was repeating what Giani Zail Singh had done when he was chief minister of Punjab (1972–77). Zail Singh had also resorted to similar steps in an attempt to win over the Sikh community by entangling the state in religious affairs (see Chapter 13).
Beant Singh, however, forgot how the Giani’s attempt to make political capital out of the Guru Gobind Singh Marg, like his (Beant Singh’s) building the Guru Arjan Dev Marg, had proved counterproductive. At the time of Guru Gobind Singh Marg’s inauguration (April 1973), the Akali-controlled Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), which manages historical Sikh gurdwaras in the north-western regions of India, stole the show by taking a flower-bedecked vehicle on which the Sikhs’ holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib, was placed at the head of the government-organized march.
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History can teach lessons but cannot make the unwilling learn them. While promoting their political interests, political leaders and their parties usually fail to heed warnings from the past and indulge in actions that ultimately harm their own interests and also the state’s and the nation’s interests. The Congress leaders forgot that their party, which professes secularism, could not outmanoeuvre the communal parties by using their religious plank. Religion, when used for political purposes, ultimately takes the form of communalism. The Congress would have to bank on economic and other non-religious instruments to defeat the communal forces.
Punjab’s experience also clearly reveals that when the parties professing secularism use the religious plank to counter religion-based parties, obscurantist and extremist forces get a huge boost, which gives birth to terrorism. Then, not only temporary electoral gains accruing to the secular parties vanish but democracy also suffers a crippling blow. This is precisely what happened in Punjab.
Notwithstanding such aberrations, history cannot forget Beant Singh’s contribution in countering the ISI-CIA’s combined threat to India’s unity and integrity and their attempt to establish Khalistan for promoting their strategic interests in the region.
Despite the restoration of peace in Punjab, there were fears that Pakistan would again begin to promote religious extremism and terrorism to force Hindus to migrate from the state and create a Sikh theocratic state, the policy it adopted in Jammu and Kashmir to force Kashmiri Pandits to migrate from the state. Such a fear was also expressed by T. K. A. Nair, Punjab’s home secretary, who had taken over from A. S. Chatha after the latter’s elevation as chief secretary when Beant Singh took over as chief minister on 25 February 1992. (Nair later became principal secretary to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and retired in 2011 to take up the post of the PM’s adviser.)
Nair told me on 11 May 1992 that at one of the high-level meetings in New Delhi, where he was also present, the issue of the Afghan Mujahideen playing a role on Indian borders was also discussed. There, the Indian intelligence agencies drew attention to the fact that, despite Pakistan not wanting elections to be held in Punjab, they were. Consequently, Islamabad wanted militancy to be stepped up in Punjab.
In late May 1992, there were fears among Punjab’s highest government circles that as the dreaded extremist outfit, Babbar Khalsa International, was divided between the Sukhdev Singh Babbar and the Balwinder Singh Babbar factions, they could resort to ‘competitive militancy’, which could claim the lives of some VVIPs, including top politicians and bureaucrats. Despite the depletion of the hard-core militants’ ranks following the killing of 17 of their top leaders earlier in the same month (May 1992), the remnant elements were in touch with the ISI for reviving militancy in Punjab. Criminal gangs had again joined the militants’ ranks after suffering a serious setback. Extortions in rural areas were again on the rise, leading to the migration even of a large number of well-off Sikh families from rural areas to urban areas or to other states. Chief Secretary A. S. Chatha told me on 30 May 1992 that Parkash Singh Badal had gone to the USA.
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Despite the sudden spurt in terrorist activities, the hero of the anti-terrorist crusade, DGP K. P. S. Gill, claimed that the remnant groups of militants would be eliminated within three months. His hope was based on the premise that the militants’ sources of funding from abroad were drying up and the control of the gurdwaras in foreign countries inhabited by large numbers of Sikhs was also going back into the hands of the moderate elements. Besides, there were reports that the sources of arms supply to the militants were also becoming scarce. The ISI was not as active as earlier partly because of the mounting international pressure against the terrorists and partly because the situation in Afghanistan was not as comfortable for Pakistan as had been expected.
The latest developments in Punjab prompted the government to ask the DGP to undertake a state-wide campaign to address the grievances of the people, particularly about police excesses, to which some sections of the public might have been subjected to during the security forces’ anti-terrorist campaign. It was particularly necessary to apply balm on the hurt psyche of the Sikhs. At the same time, however, the government felt that the police strength of 62,000 in Punjab would have to be retained at least for 5 to 10 years to check any possibility of terrorism again raising its head.
Although a semblance of peace and stability had been restored in Punjab within eight months of Beant Singh’s taking over as chief minister, the Akalis continued to be in a state of confusion. They had no cohesive political agenda. The increase in levies and taxes by the state government could provide them a plank for holding protests but such protests could not be a substitute for a well-thought-out political programme.
The divided Akali leadership realized that even if all the major factions had fought the 19 February 1992 Assembly elections jointly, they could not have been able to form a government. The people were suspicious of the Akali leaders’ intentions because of their vacillating role in the fight against terrorism. These suspicions were also strengthened by reports that some Akali leaders were attending the Bhog ceremonies held at some places in memory of the slain Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale (who was killed during the 1984 June Operation Bluestar).
Although Parkash Singh Badal had a positive image among the Sikhs, many of his colleagues felt that it had suffered a setback because of his contradictory and vacillating stands on crucial issues, including his attitudes towards the Centre and the extremists. They believed that Badal was trying to reach some understanding with the Centre, but except Rajesh Pilot (a Union minister in the Narasimha Rao cabinet), nobody at the Centre trusted him. There were reports that the Badal group had approached Krishan Kant3 and Rajesh Pilot for some sort of rapprochement with New Delhi. But Krishan Kant who earlier held the view that Punjab’s problems could be tackled by installing an Akali Government had changed his stance. He now favoured the Beant Singh Government’s continuance in office as he felt it had restored peace in the terrorism-torn state. Besides, the chief minister was also effectively handling the post-terrorism situation.
Amidst reports about his making efforts for a rapprochement with the Centre, Badal told me on 4 October 1992 that ‘we cannot think of approaching Delhi which [is] responsible for the present situation in Punjab by not accepting the state’s demands for long years’. He was opposed to the demand being made by some people for holding fresh elections in Punjab. He pertinently asked: ‘Why should the Centre order new elections in Punjab or replace the Beant Singh ministry when it is efficiently performing the tasks assigned to it by the Centre? The Akalis have no alternative but to continue their struggle.’
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Political and security aspects apart, the years of militancy in Punjab had created uncertainties, which brought about a qualitative change in the work culture of the state administration. Instead of taking up the issues directly with Beant Singh, ministers had started approaching the officers-on-special- duty (OSDs) of the chief minister for getting even petty jobs done.
On 6 December 1992, an important development took place. The Babri Masjid (mosque) in Ayodhya (Uttar Pradesh) was demolished by some Hindu fundamentalists. Communal tensions were rising in some states, which resulted in large-scale riots and high casualties. The Government of India sent a directive to the Punjab Government to ban five communal outfits, including the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, a pro-Hindu organization) and the BJP. The Punjab Government, however, pointed out to the Union Home Ministry that the state should be made an exception as the RSS and BJP activists were helping the government in curbing terrorism. The Punjab Government did not want another crisis on its hands by banning them. But New Delhi insisted that Punjab could not be made an exception as it might create problems for the Centre in other states. Punjab, therefore, decided to take selective action. It informed New Delhi that it would seize the properties of the RSS and the BJP and ban RSS journals and freeze their bank accounts. But soon the state government received information that the RSS’s front organizations, including the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal, had changed their names overnight and had replaced their name boards. Ultimately, the Punjab Government did not take any action.
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Although Punjab was witnessing relative peace and calm after the elimination of virtually all major terrorist groups, the state government was informed by the intelligence agencies in September 1993 that Pakistan was ‘making a last bid’ to again promote terrorism in the state. Some groups of terrorists who had left Punjab and crossed over to Pakistan were trying to come back to the state with the intention of killing VVIPs, particularly Chief Minister Beant Singh. The police was able to nab some members of one group at Jagraon in Ludhiana district in late 1993.
The state government warned all concerned not to be complacent and lax in their security. At a cabinet meeting held on 1 September 1993, the chief minister asked his ministers to take full security precautions as they used to when terrorism was at its peak.
Amidst these warnings about the possibility of terrorist activities being revived, an interesting development took place in late 1993. Some separatist-extremist leaders became disillusioned with Pakistan as it had started propping up their rivals. The rebels began using Nepal as their base. This fact was revealed during the interrogation of Dr Sohan Singh, Punjab’s former director of health and one of the radicals who was arrested by the Nepali police from Kathmandu along with two others and was handed over to India’s external intelligence agency: RAW (Research and Analysis Wing). Sohan Singh was in possession a cyanide capsule, which he could not or did not use, probably because he was convinced that Khalistan would soon be formed.
As 1993 drew to a close, India’s intelligence agencies reported that Malaysia, Nepal and Bangladesh (mainly the capital Dhaka) had become centres for planning operations by the ISI and the terrorists. The Government of India had earlier alerted Nepal that the country was being used by militants as a base to destabilize India. Dr Sohan Singh had told his interrogators that, from Nepal, they had planned to go to Dhaka, from where they were to contact Beijing and seek help to establish bases in Tibet to resume their anti-India activities. Dr Sohan Singh and others travelled on fake passports.
A feeling was growing in Punjab’s official circles that no one should feel euphoric about the seemingly improved security environment in the state as the unemployed youth could be roped in by the terrorists for resuming their killing sprees. Besides, the officials were conscious of the fact that Pakistan would not sit idle and would seek revenge for its various defeats. For instance: in the 1971 war with India that led to the formation of Bangladesh. Pakistan had also suffered humiliation in Punjab where the ISI-backed separatist militants had suffered serious setbacks first during Operation Bluestar (June 1984), then during the two Black Thunder Operations (I and II, in April 1986 and May 1988, respectively) and later during the Beant Singh Government’s tenure.
The state government realized that there was an urgent need for restructuring the Punjab Police in order to bring back normalcy in its functioning so that it could perform regular duties. Such a restructuring required enforcing rules and regulations in a strict manner as some of the police personnel had – during the terrorism-dominated period – ‘tasted blood’, enjoyed enormous power and amassed wealth. One positive outcome of the ‘terrorist era’ was that the police had been virtually immunized against political interference. The official view was that the reform in the police functioning could be initiated by splitting the force into two distinct wings. One wing would be given the responsibility of policing the state and carrying out the normal police duties. The other wing, comprising commando companies, Punjab Armed Police (PAP) and the new India reserve battalions made up of 20,000 personnel, should be kept in their barracks (but should remain active and alert) and should be deputed to deal with emergency situations whenever they arose. The restructuring move also stipulated setting up an agency to coordinate the activities of the aforementioned bodies. At that point of time, the state needed 38,000 police and 35,000 Home Guards personnel.
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With the passage of time the Beant Singh Government started losing its sheen. Nepotism was rampant in appointments to government jobs. Most of those appointed were relatives of ministers or MLAs. In early 1994, some ministers, including those whose portfolios had been changed, started lobbying against Beant Singh. They complained to the Congress high command in New Delhi against some of his decisions.
Because of the prolonged period of president’s rule (June 1987 to February 1992), which was necessitated by Punjab’s abnormal politico-security environment, the office of the state governor assumed special significance. Raj Bhawan (the governor’s residence) had become a beehive of official and political activity, particularly when Arjun Singh (14 May 1985 to 14 November 1985) and later Siddharth Shanker Ray (2 April 1986 to 8 December 1989) were its occupants.
Ray was succeeded by three governors in quick succession: Nirmal Mukarji, Virender Verma and General O. P. Malhotra during 1989–91. Surendra Nath who had taken over as governor on 7 August 1991 was killed on 9 July 1994 in a plane crash near Kulu in Himachal Pradesh. His entire family, except his Jammu-based son, was also killed in the crash.
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The post-terrorism period saw technology playing an important role in people’s lives. For instance, the electronic media brought about significant socio-economic changes in Punjab’s rural areas. With the advent of cable networks in the villages, attendance at public meetings started coming down sharply in the evenings when feature films and news items were telecast.
Prosperity levels went up. The incomes of farmers increased appreciably as a result of the high prices that their farm produce commanded. Also, higher land prices brought equity culture to the villages. The sales of consumer goods such as TV sets and refrigerators as well as furniture, motorcycles, scooters and cars sharply rose. Affluent farmers also started installing direct-to-home dish antennas.
When terrorism was at its peak in 1991, the militants threatened the common people with dire consequences if they did not obey their diktats. The militants had banned certain social and cultural activities and had ‘ordered’ the people to wear specific kinds of dresses. At that time, there were no entertainment channels or cable networks in rural areas. Hence, there was an insignificant impact of TV on the lives of the rural population. However, by 1995, the socio-economic scene of the Punjab countryside had changed considerably. With the proliferation of TV channels and cable networks, social taboos had become almost extinct. According to the district police officers, the number of complaints about boys and girls eloping increased manifold. Also, more cases of rapes were being reported. People in the rural areas, who could afford to do so, preferred to send their children to English medium public schools, which had been set up in villages, irrespective of the high costs involved. Instead of cultivating the land themselves, farmers started giving it on lease. In one village, a farmer owning 40 kilas of land earned Rs 11, 000 per kila per year. (One kila is approximately equal to one acre.) All his four children started studying in elitist schools. Overall, the face of rural Punjab was undergoing a distinct change.
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1 Prasar Bharati is a statutory autonomous body functioning from 23 November 1997 onwards. All India Radio and Doordarshan (the national TV network), which were earlier under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, became constituents of Prasar Bharati.
2 A senior Akali leader who later became a minister in the Atal Behari Vajpayee-led NDA Government in 2000.
3 Krishan Kant (born on 28 February 1927) was a former Congressman from Punjab who opposed the Emergency and was expelled from the party. He went on to become the governor of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh before becoming the vice-president of India on 21 August 1997. He passed away on 27 July 2002 while still in office.