[Released July 29, 2011]

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A memorandum to:
The Honorable Manpreet Badal
Founder, People’s Party of Punjab

Many politicians today sing the praises of secularity, which has been a favorite theme of Mr. Manpreet Badal since he formed the People’s Party of Punjab (PPP). Not all of them have divined the real meaning of secularity.

A secular nation is such because it recognizes the individual freedom of every man to make his own choices in life. As long as the right of its citizens to live their lives in any manner they choose (so long as they do not interfere with the rights of others) is cherished, a country will find peace and success. The most secular countries are those which place the greatest importance upon the preservation of individual liberty. That is why the United States, a nation with a grand tradition of reserving the utmost liberties to the individual, remained a rich and peaceful country for so long.

Being secular has nothing to do with foregoing religion, but rather with accepting and respecting the right of each man to believe or not believe as devoutly as he wishes. Badal’s concept of secularism is illustrated by his decision to leave his baptism and trim his beard. Yet his gurus showed that a true Punjabi need not discard the practices of religion, culture or even his own personal system of belief in order to support the just treatment of all people. Being willing to defend secularity with one’s life is what matters. Guru Arjan Dev Ji set the example by bringing together the rich and upper-caste with the low-caste and out-caste, whom he worked to unite as a single human race. The diverse collection of human beliefs can only live in harmony when guaranteed an open forum in which all can flourish alongside one another. The question which must then be posed to one who would guide the future of Punjab is if he truly believes in the virtues of justice and liberty.

Mr. Badal is credited with making Bhagat Singh, a famous victim of injustice, “the flavour of Punjab politics once again.” He often sings the revolutionary hero’s praises and launched his Jago Punjab Yatra at Singh’s ancestral village. [1] However, it remains to be proven that Badal can walk his talk. For one thing, he is inspired by Mohandas Gandhi, who created India as a Hindu nation and argued for the British right to hang Bhagat Singh. [2] Furthermore, if he is truly an admirer of Bhagat Singh, Badal’s inaction in seeking justice for Kuljeet Singh Dhatt is perplexing.

The son of Bhagat Singh’s younger sister, Kuljeet was abducted and murdered in custody by Indian police officers in 1989. Since 1997, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has been hearing a case against five police officers who are accused of killing Kuljeet. The case has dragged on for 14 years with no resolution. Meanwhile, Kuljeet’s family has only kept the case in court by working tooth and nail in a desperate hope for justice. The government has done nothing to protect them, even after an armed gang invaded the family home in 2002 and threatened to kill them for pursuing the case. Bhagat Singh’s family symbolizes the height of secularity. Yet even the descendants of India’s most renowned hero are not safe from arbitrary murder by government forces.

Although Badal has espoused communist sentiments, a political system so deeply corrupted as India’s will certainly not find its cure in the failed philosophies of Mao, Marx or Stalin, men whose attempts to micromanage and centrally plan peoples’ lives led to the most horrific genocides of the 20th century. Instead, Punjabis ought to turn to their own history for inspiration. Punjab has been a bastion of secularity for centuries. Even in the 14th century, noble souls such as Baba Namdev Ji discovered an incomparable environment of tolerance in Punjab. Having retained its historical tradition of religious freedom, Punjab became known as a land of saints and gurus. In return for acceptance of their right to religious liberty, many of these holy men and philosophers have defended the freedom of others.

In 1606, for instance, Punjab produced the first great salvo against the intolerance and injustice generated by the caste system. The fifth Sikh guru, Guru Arjan Dev Ji, encouraged unity among the common people by teaching a creed of “neither Hindu nor Muslim” and emphasized the importance of recognizing universal human equality. Emperor Jahangir, the Mughal ruler of India, mocked those who embraced this message, saying Guru Arjan “had captured many of the simple-hearted of the Hindus, and even of the ignorant and foolish followers of Islam, by his ways and manners.” [3] Those people to whom Jahangir referred were clearly low-castes and out-castes who found freedom from caste simply by denying its chains and embracing the practice of equality.

Guru Arjan paid with his life to defend the right of these sons of the soil to follow the teachings of proponents of secularism like Baba Farid and Guru Ravidas. Emperor Jahangir arrested him and ordered him to excise all portions of the Adi Granth that he claimed “were opposed to the Hindu and Musalman religions” and to pay a monstrously large fine. When the guru refused, he was tortured for days. He died on May 30, 1606, becoming the first victim of the Indian state’s attempt to suppress the Punjabi right to freedom of speech and religion. His legacy lives on forever in the hearts of the poor, low-caste and out-caste peoples of India. Punjabis should be wary against the possibility that the PPP might lead to the creation of another elite caste, which will seek to control the powerless and downtrodden peoples by placing political power in the hands of a few.

Two of the severest crises facing Punjab today are an epidemic of drugs and exhaustion of the agricultural industry. Leadership and truthfulness are crucial qualities for addressing these life or death issues, which must not be used as the stuff of political or religious games.

Punjab was recently ranked as the state with the second-highest number of drug abusers. Over 70 percent of young people reportedly abuse hard drugs like opium, heroin and synthetic painkillers. The infestation of drugs is particularly horrible in the districts bordering the Pakistani border, across which most drugs reaching Punjab are smuggled. [4]

The agricultural crisis is just as alarming. In 2003, one of the most recent years for which government figures are available, 17,107 Indian farmers committed suicide. No entire district in Punjab has been comprehensively surveyed for even a full year, so it is difficult to ascertain the exact number of Punjabi farmer suicides. However, an NGO called Movement Against State Repression extrapolated figures in 2007 suggesting that up to 40,000 farmers in Punjab had taken their own lives between 1988 and 2006, a rate which has not decreased. [5] The cause of distress for most of these farmers is a growing water shortage in a country where, according to the New York Times, 60 percent of agriculture “still depends entirely on the rains.” [6]

The central government has sold out the future of Punjab through gross misallocation of its water rights to other states and erosion of local control over agricultural policies. Farmer suicides are not the only consequence. Potable water has become an increasingly scarcer commodity in rural areas. Cancer brought on by extreme pollution is rampant. Moreover, agricultural water is swiftly disappearing as Punjab risks becoming a desert. According to the Earth Institute of Columbia University, “Over-cultivation of rice is a chief culprit in the groundwater depletion crisis. While not a traditional crop in semi-arid Punjab, since the 1960s the combination of new bore well technologies and government policies subsidizing both the price of rice and free electricity for farmers has turned the state into a major exporter of the crop.” [7] The provision of free electricity shifted agriculture in Punjab, land of five rivers, from employing surface water to being completely dependent on groundwater-base irrigation. Another report by the Earth Institute stated:

While extensive irrigation networks help to buffer seasonal rainfall variations, widespread rural electrification in the state has led to extensive groundwater based irrigation. Coupled with a flat-fee electricity subsidy that has led to a dramatic increase in the number of wells, groundwater-based irrigation now far surpasses surface water use…. The state is overdrawing its groundwater resources by a shockingly unsustainable 45 percent over that replenished by rainfall every year. [8]

It appears the core of the problem is the central government’s constant interference in affairs which ought to be solely the business of Punjabis. If left alone, no one knows better how to run a farm or what crops to grow than the farmer himself. Liberating the local farmer from the dictates of New Delhi, which manipulate and corrupt the natural, level playing field of a truly free market. Will Badal take the venturesome yet shrewd step of demanding decentralized control of Punjab’s economy?

Despite Badal’s nearly two decades of involvement in Punjabi politics, he has yet to take any initiative on this critical issue. Mr. Badal, Punjabi confidence in your promises would be greatly enhanced if, while serving your uncle, you had pursued solutions to this problem, including the over-dependence of Punjab on agriculture rather than industries of the future. Removing the state’s economic concerns from the central government’s purview would empower state and local governments to make wiser decisions about how to foster a robust economy. Even Captain Amarinder Singh of the Congress Party has supported economic sovereignty for Punjab, signing a bill while Chief Minister in 2004 to cancel the central government’s plans for diversion of Punjabi river waters to other states.

Similarly, the drug epidemic might be curtailed through sovereign action. In his agenda for PPP, Badal warned about what he terms the “drug menace,” but will he prove that those words are sincere and not mere sentiment? Although President Obama has secured the U.S. border against the flow of illegal immigration and drugs, India seems incapable of controlling its own borders. Punjabis should not have to depend upon the negligent central government when the state is perfectly capable of securing its borders without the assistance of the centre.

The time has come for Badal’s mettle to be tested. Will he support Punjab taking the initiative to secure its own borders to preserve the safety, well-being and very lives of its citizens? Mr. Badal, you have so far done nothing tangible to demonstrate the seriousness of your drug policy. Encouraging Red Ribbon Awareness Week, as used in the U.S. to promote a drug-free lifestyle, might have reassured Punjabis about the security of their sons and daughters. An even bolder move would be to request that international aid to India from the United States and the United Nations organization be cut conditional upon the centre making real progress towards eliminating drug abuse.

All too often, international aid like that given by the U.S. merely serves to line the pockets of India’s ruling elite. This is hardly surprising in a country where, in 1989, the prime minister and other top echelon politicians were caught deciding what artillery to purchase for the military based on which arms company gave the largest bribes. According to an article in The Economist, this type of graft is even more endemic to the Indian political system than ever. As usual, unrestrained government power is the problem, as explained in the article:

India must redouble its efforts to liberalise. The state could outsource official tasks, cut red tape and sell wasteful and corrupt state-owned firms (why does the government make watches?). For all that the “licence Raj” was supposedly scrapped two decades ago, it can still take nearly 200 days to get a construction permit and seven years to close a business. Regulations are not, by and large, deterrents to corruption, but a source of it. [9]

When he became the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson promised not to indulge in business while in office. Similarly, George W. Bush placed his business interests in a blind trust while serving as president. Mr. Badal, will you make a similar commitment? Would you agree to releasing your personal financial records so that Punjabis might scrutinize them to ensure you are free from entangling and corrupting influences? Can the people of Punjab trust you to report every single financial interest, whether direct or indirect, and honestly admit how much you are worth? Additionally, many politicians have seized control of properties and businesses for their own personal gain and continue to hold these through sheer muscle. Mr. Badal, can you be trusted not to do the same?

As a servant of humanity, Nanak warned against these kinds of predatory rulers. He denounced their treasons, saying:

The kings are tigers, and their officials are dogs; they go out and awaken the sleeping people to harass them. The public servants inflict wounds with their nails. The dogs lick up the blood that is spilled. But there, in the Court of the Lord, all beings will be judged. Those who have violated the people’s trust will be disgraced. [10]

Badal projects a tempting vision of secularism and progress that seems unachievable in a society where practitioners of torture, perpetrators of cold-blooded murders and instigators of massacres currently work as everything from police officers to cabinet ministers. Will he address the related issues of human rights violations in Punjab and the rise of Hindu extremism (known as Hindutva) throughout India? Or will he turn a blind eye and pretend they do not exist? His message about the need for secularism is, oddly, targeted solely at the Sikhs, although it is the assimilationist forces of Hindutva which most commonly commit acts of violence.

Hindutva is a pan-Hindu worldview which preaches a goal of regional supremacy. This supremacist ideology was woven into the Indian Constitution through Article 25, which reads, in part: “…the reference to Hindus shall be construed as including a reference to persons professing the Sikh, Jaina or Buddhist religion.” This definition of “Hindu” is viewed by Indian minorities as an attempt to forcibly convert Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists with the stroke of a pen. Such misguided decrees are one major reason that many minorities never ascribed to the founding document, which they considered as giving far too much power to the central government. Even as eminent a figure as Dr. B. R. Ambedkar felt cheated by the constitution, saying:

People always keep on saying to me, “Oh, you are the maker of the Constitution.” My answer is I was a hack. What I was asked to do, I did much against my will…. My friends tell me that I made the Constitution. But I am quite prepared to say that I shall be the first person to burn it out. I do not want it. It does not suit anybody. [11]

Even in as far flung a country as Norway, mass killer Anders Behring Breivik applauded the nationalist sentiments of extremist Hindus. Buried amidst the lunacy of his manifesto one discovers that Breivik was “convinced that Hindus’ covert violence against Muslims is the right way to avenge their persecution during 1000-1525 AD.” [12] While such psychopaths encourage the Sangh Parivar in its genocidal goals, Punjabis must become more vigilant than ever. How would Badal respond to this indicator of growing international support for the violence of Hindutva? As its poisonous influence grows and assimilationist attempts increase, Punjab will need a time-tested leader to face off against this treacherous ideology. Mr. Badal, your failure to highlight these issues is not reassuring.

The expansion of Hindutva is made clear by the impunity with which the Indian state treats virtually all violent crimes against non-Hindus. Had justice ever been passed down for the November 1984 Sikh Genocide or the murder by police of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, India might not have endured the rise of a national culture of impunity. As a result, massacres of minorities in Orissa, Gujarat and Kashmir have likewise been ignored. Badal has maintained his silence on these atrocities.

When the government bothers to investigate such crimes at all, it targets minorities as suspects. Illustrating the ludicrous extent to which this occurs, Arundhati Roy wrote: “In Gujarat after the 2002 state-assisted pogrom in which an estimated 2000 Muslims were killed and 150,000 driven from their homes, 287 people have been accused under POTA. Of these, 286 are Muslim and one is a Sikh!” [13] Excoriating the centre for its toleration of the most savage atrocities, Roy queried:

When a government more or less openly supports a pogrom against members of a minority community in which up to 2,000 people are brutally killed, is it fascism? When women of that community are publicly raped and burned alive, is it fascism? When authorities see to it that nobody is punished for these crimes, is it fascism? When a 150,000 people are driven from their homes, ghettoised and economically and socially boycotted, is it fascism? [14]

That India’s security forces should fail to bring to justice those who torment the country’s minority communities is not surprising considering their own reputation. The use of torture, execution and illegal disposal of the dead are all tactics regularly employed by the Indian police. In December 2010, for instance, cables obtained by Wikileaks revealed that the U.S. embassy in Delhi has concluded in recent years that India “condones torture.” That determination was reached after the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) advised U.S. officials that Indian authorities commonly employ electrocution, beatings and sexual humiliation to torture detainees. Noting that all branches of India’s security forces engage in such misconduct, one ICRC cable stated: “The abuse always takes place in the presence of officers and … detainees were rarely militants (they are routinely killed).” [16] Six years earlier, Roy reached a similar conclusion, writing:

Last month I was a member of a peoples’ tribunal on POTA. Over a period of two days we listened to harrowing testimonies of what goes on in our wonderful democracy. Let me assure you that in our police stations it’s everything: from people being forced to drink urine, to being stripped, humiliated, given electric shocks, burned with cigarette butts, having iron rods put up their anuses to being beaten and kicked to death.[16]

If Badal wants to know what a true Punjabi looks like, there are many examples which have gone before him. Guru Arjan is not the least of those. As Badal is tested in the field in the coming days and months, he must show that he bears the same commitment to preserving liberty as held by the secular heroes of Punjab. Punjabis must serve as watchdogs and remain alert to see if Badal is of the caliber necessary to resist the forces of extremism and tyranny. Mr. Badal, are you made of Punjabi soil or are you merely a feudal landlord lusting after power?

The poor and clean-spirited people of Punjab can ill afford another political game. The Punjab needs a visionary and his vision, not gimmicks. Whether they are people of the Bible, of the Gita, of the Guru Granth, of the Koran or of no faith whatsoever, Punjabis of every ethnicity, creed and persuasion deserve an end to the cycle of misery in which the central government has trapped their homeland. Punjabis will not endure another mockery of their lives by the ruling elite.

All the people of Punjab bear an obligation to keep their fellow Punjabis awake. We call upon all Punjabis to knock hard upon the vessel to discover if Manpreet Badal is indeed sound. Is he a wise vessel in which to hold the future of Punjab? Many politicians have hidden their wolf snouts beneath the soft wool of sheep. Can Mr. Badal be trusted as a herald of hope rather than deceit? It appears he has already broken his promises to end nepotism by providing tickets to his father and cousin. [17] Will his vision truly produce liberty or simply extend the pattern of tyranny that has been the hallmark history of the land of five rivers?

1. Bhatia, Ramaninder K. “Manpreet Badal: A man with a mission.” The Times of India, March 26, 2011.
2. Rataul, Dharmendra. “Time ripe for third front, but not sure of own role, says Manpreet.” Indian Express, December 31, 2010.
3. Jahangir’s Memoirs, pp. 72-73.
4. Bedi, Rahul. “Youth drug addiction crisis ravages Punjab’s heartlands.” New Zealand Herald, June 17, 2010.
5. Bharadwaj, Ajay. “Punjab goofs on farmer suicide figures.” DNA India, March 6, 2008.
6. Sengupta, Somini. “On India’s Farms, a Plague of Suicide.” The New York Times, September 19, 2006.
7. Polycarpou, Lakis. “‘Small is Also Beautiful’ – Appropriate Technology Cuts Rice Farmers’ Water Use by 30 Percent in Punjab, India.” Earth Institute, Columbia University, November 17, 2010.
8. Perveen, Shama. “Finding Sustainable Solutions As Water Crisis in India’s Food Bowl Grows.” Earth Institute, Columbia University, December 15, 2010.
9. “Corruption in India: A rotten state.” The Economist, March 10, 2011.
10. The Guru Granth Sahib, p. 1288.
11. Bazaz, Prem Nath. The Role of Bhagavad Gita in Indian History (Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd; New Delhi, 1975), p. 619.
12. Singh, Dr. Amrik. “Aftermath of Otoeya massacre and Anders Behring Breivik’s delusional games.” Sacramento Examiner, July 27, 2011.
13. Roy, Arundhati. “How Deep Shall We Dig?” Outlook India, May 6, 2004.
14. Ibid.
15. Nevers, Patrick and Bhajan Singh Bhinder. “Faces of Terror in India.” Sikh Information Centre, June 2011.
16. Roy, Arundhati. “How Deep Shall We Dig?” Outlook India, May 6, 2004.
17. “Shiromani Akali Dal asks congress led UPA government to immediately convening all party meet.” Punjab Newsline Network, April 8, 2011.