PM Punjab Security Breach: Is Modi Counting Congress' '101 Sins' Before Acting?

The major security lapse encountered by the Prime Minister’s convoy in Punjab is distressfully shocking. This seems to be the latest of provocations in a recent series which began when Prime Minister Narendra Modi repealed the farm laws. All were aimed at humiliating the prime minister of India.

Before this, the hooliganism on display on Republic Day last year was also a calculated attempt to humiliate India and to provoke the Indian government. One wrong move, one bullet fired, and the entire 'Breaking India' ecosystem was ready to go to town. Remember how a popular TV anchor spread fake news that day that a 'protestor' had been shot by the police?

Had it not been fake, imagine the kind of propaganda that would have been unleashed against India and PM Modi.

The events in Punjab are not without context. There is a history to this.

Nehruvian discourse consistently discounted the Khalsa contribution to nation-building in their version of history. This was done by sanitising the atrocities of the aggressors against India. Once the aggressors were made to appear benign, naturally the resistance movements to such invaders had no important place in such a version of history. This led to the consensus that Sikhism was akin to a Punjabi Protestant movement against priestcraft.

Indira Gandhi tried to take political advantage out of the manufactured schism between Hinduism and Sikhism and ultimately the nation paid a heavy price for it through the events of 1984.

The reason we need to understand this history in the present context is because today, the Indian National Congress appears to be playing the same game under a 'scorched earth' policy.

PM Modi could well give into popular sentiments and play the same game in return. He could well play up fears of Khalistani terrorism. It will at once give him the image of strong-willed leader, something that received a setback after the repeal of the farm laws. But he has consistently refused to do that.

He can perhaps see the consequences of such an action: The Khalistan movement would resurface and as before, would create a lot of human misery, and into this human tragedy would enter this time the evangelist organisations which have been steadily building a strong base in Punjab.

A border state besieged by separatist and evangelist forces is the last thing India needs now.

Prime Minister Modi has always taken the difficult path – despite taunts from impatient elements of his own support base.

In the case of Sri Ram Janmabhoomi temple, an ordinance could have earned him a lot of praise from his support base. But he chose to wait and do it through the judicial route.

Our immediate response to the breach of PM's security in Punjab is to ask for retaliatory action, but the powers which want to revive the Khalistan movement want Modi to act on precisely such impulses.

I am reminded of the Shishupala episode from the Mahabharata. Sri Krishna, sitting in the Rajasuya Yajna of Yudhishthira, tolerated a hundred abusive transgressions of Shishupala because he had promised the same to Shishupala’s mother. Even as others were incensed at Shishupala's behaviour, Krishna asked them to remain calm.

He was waiting for the 101^st violation.