Why Punjab Should Be Watchful Post-Pulwama 

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh may have sounded like a muscle-flexing Punjabi chauvinist while condemning the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama, but he hit the nail on the head when it comes to political judgement.

His speech in the assembly clearly indicated that he understands the cloak-and-dagger game that the Pakistan military and political establishment is playing against India. It is a game in which Punjab, once again, is as much a target as Jammu and Kashmir.

Singh spoke no-holds-barred as he condemned the Pakistan Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa: “Let their Bajwa, who is a Punjabi, know, that we Punjabis (of India) are going to knock him face down.” “Tun (Punjab) wad ke dekh; asi siddha karange tainu (You dare mess with Punjab; we will fix you),” Singh dared Bajwa as he read out a resolution in the Punjab legislative assembly condemning the “barbaric attack” in Pulwama on 14 February.

Other than flexing his muscle at the Pakistan army chief, Singh touched upon three major points in his speech. Firstly, Pakistan has renewed its “active support” to terrorist outfits in the state; secondly, the “81,000-strong Punjab Police is fully geared to countering the challenge of terrorism”.

The final and the most important point that the national leadership should be on guard against the “double game” being played by Pakistan, where they are “pulling the Sikhs towards itself on the one hand and…killing the Indian soldiers on the other.”

The Pulwama attack, the chief minister underlined, needed to be viewed against the backdrop of Pakistan’s long-cherished goal of destabilising India by keeping the separatist pot boiling in both Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab. The idea of a separate Sikh state or Khalistan, with Pakistan as its architect and engineer, is still very much alive — a quarter century after Khalistani militants tore through the state of Punjab and all but destroyed it.

According to Indian intelligence, even today, a Khalistani, Gopal Chawla, is the right hand man of Lashker-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed. It is an open secret that all the terrorist outfits operating from Pakistan are working together with the Inter-services Intelligence (ISI) and the Pakistan military bosses.

Having failed to break Punjab away from India through its decade-long support to Punjab militants during the 1980s, the Pakistan political and military establishment, metaphorically speaking, is trying to woo the Punjabis with roses. This is what the Punjab chief minister was referring to when he talked about Pakistan’s double game and the strategy of pulling the Sikhs towards itself. He was clearly referring to the recently agreed India-Pakistan deal on building a corridor between Dera Baba Nanak in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district and Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan’s side of Punjab.

The sentimental appeal of a visa-free visit to Kartarpur Sahib on the west bank of River Ravi, where Guru Nanak lived the last years of his life, is huge for the ordinary Punjabi, both Sikh and Hindu. As of now, the pilgrims who go to Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur, the Indian side of the township spreading across the river, see Kartarpur Sahib through a telescope as visits to it require a visa.

The idea of a corridor had long been in the making and was revived after Imran Khan took over as Pakistan’s Prime Minister last August. It is, however, no coincidence that it was Gen Bajwa who used the ears of the Punjab Tourism Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu to convey it to India. Sidhu had gone in his personal capacity to attend the swearing-in of “friend” Khan, who, like Sidhu, is a cricketer-turned-politician.

Sidhu’s infamous and controversial hug with Bajwa invited wide criticism, especially from right-wing groups. Even the Punjab chief minister expressed his disapproval of it. The fact that the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government agreed to the idea and sent its representative to the foundation-laying ceremony at Kartarpur, took the sting out of that controversy involving Sidhu.

On our side of the border, it was the chief minister who laid the foundation. While Singh is in perfect agreement with the idea of a corridor, he has the political maturity to see through Pakistan’s motives.

Regardless of the sentimental and populist aspects of the issue, Singh wants to tread cautiously. In a veiled way, he has also been cautioning Sidhu against getting swayed by emotions. However, Sidhu, compared to Singh, continues to drive in the “Ferrari lane” on most political issues (as he himself described the difference in the two approaches in a recent interview to TV Punjab).

The response of the two to the Pulwama attack is also a study in contrasts. Singh exhorted the national leadership to give a “befitting reply” to Pakistan and called upon India to “kill 82 (of the other side) for the 41” Indian soldiers martyred in Pulwama. On the other hand, Sidhu almost sounded like he was holding a brief for the enemy when he said that “Pakistan as a country cannot be held responsible for the actions of a handful of terrorists”.

Even after the Pulwama attack, he advocated the need for dialogue as the way forward in India-Pakistan relations. The Sikh political groups, who feel he has stolen a march over them in striking the deal, have, predictably, condemned Sidhu for his stance on Pulwama.

The right-wing social media has also intensified its campaign against Sidhu. He has been trolled as a “traitor” after his picture with Chawla at the foundation-laying ceremony in Kartarpur was seen on the social media. In his defence, Sidhu said he did not know who Chawla was, but there are no takers for this argument. He has also been condemned as a “double-faced politician” after his about-turn on the Congress leadership — condemning it when he was in the Bharatiya Janata Party and showering praises on it after he left it and joined the Congress.

But riding high on the wave of Sikh sentiments over the corridor issue, Sidhu remains undeterred. Having attained fame in the material world as a cricketer, commentator and popular television personality, Sidhu now seems eager to enter the spiritual history books. Like millions of devout Sikhs across the globe, he seems to be emotional about the corridor issue.

Yet, as pointed out by the Punjab Chief Minister, it is important to be watchful against Pakistan’s intentions at every step — even when it couches them in holy ideas like that of building the Kartarpur corridor.

The Pulwama story, indeed, has a sub-text about Punjab which needs to be read carefully by the state as well as the national leaders.