Author: Satbir Singh Bedi
Publication:
Date: July 30, 2008
I remember 31st August, 1995 vividly. On that
day, my father died but I do not remember it because of that event but a much
more sadder event in the Indian history for on that day, the gutsy Chief Minister
of Punjab who rooted out terrorism from the face of Punjab, died. Beant Singh
(February 19, 1922 - August 31, 1995, Chandigarh) was the Chief Minister of
Punjab from 1992 to 1995. Singh was a secular Sikh and member of the Congress
Party.
Born in the village of Bilaspur, Ludhiana,
he later lived in Kotli. He attended the Government College University in
Lahore and later joined the British Indian Army. He began his political career
with Akali Dal, but was elected to the State Assembly in 1969 as an independent.
During the 1970s he joined the Congress Party, and he remained in office even
after 1977, when Indira Gandhi was voted out. When the Congress Party regained
power in 1980, Singh was made a minister.
During the bloody years after Gandhi's assassination,
Singh was the party president in the Punjab. When the government called elections
in 1992, Sikh nationalists boycotted; Singh was elected with fewer than a
quarter of eligible votes. Despite that shaky start, Singh's tenure was in
some respects successful. He helped restore agriculture and industry after
the turmoil of the late 1980s; however, he did so by means of a ruthlessly
enforced, often extrajudicial, discipline. Singh (and Rao's central government)
argued that such means were necessary to control terrorism; however, at the
time of Singh's death more than a hundred cases of police abuse were pending
in the state courts.
He was assassinated by a car bomb on August
31, 1995 in Chandigarh. The bomb killed eleven other people, including three
members of Singh's security detail. Separatist group Babbar Khalsa took responsibility
for the assassination.
Similarly, Darshan Singh Canadian also laid
down his life fighting terrorism. Darshan Singh Canadian (aka Darshan A. Sangha)
(born 1917, Langeri, Punjab, India; died September 25, 1986) was a trade union
activist and Communist organizer in Canada and India.
He immigrated to Vancouver, British Columbia,
Canada in 1937. Upon his arrival his uncle attempted to get him a job at Dominion
Sawmills resulting in the uncle being fired and Sangha being hired at five
cents less pay an hour. He became active in the Labour-Progressive Party (as
the Communist Party of Canada was known). He was one of the founders of the
International Woodworkers of America and served as one of the union's organizers
as well as its general secretary from 1942 to 1946. He led striking woodworkers
on a march on the provincial capital of Victoria in 1946. He fought for the
rights of B.C.'s East Indian woodworkers.
He returned to India upon its independence
in 1947 and adopted "Canadian" as his surname.
He became active in the Communist Party of
India becoming party secretary in Punjab. He represented Garhshanker, Hoshiarpur
district as member of Punjab State Legislature for three terms until his assassination
in 1986, in retaliation for his comments against Sikh extremism.
The other person to be murdered for opposing
Sikh extremism was Lala Jagat Narain who was the founder of the Hind Samachar
group.
Lala Jagat Narain, a Chopra Khatri and an
Arya Samaji, was born at Wazirabad, District Gujranwala (now in Pakistan)
in 1889. He graduated from D.A.V. College, Lahore in 1919, and joined the
Law College, Lahore. He left his studies in 1920 at the call of Mahatma Gandhi
to join the non-cooperation movement. He was sentenced in two and a half years
imprisonment, in jail he acted as Lala Lajpat Rai's Personal Secretary. In
1924 he became the editor of Bhai Parmanand's Weekly Hindi Paper Akashvani.
He participated in all the Satyagraha movement and was in jail for about nine
years on different occasions. His wife was in jail for six months. His eldest
son, Ramesh Chandra, was arrested during the Quit India movement.
Lala Jagat Narain was President of the Lahore
City Congress Committee for seven years, leader of the Congress Party in the
Lahore Corporation, a member of the Punjab Provincial Congress Committee for
more than thirty years and member of the All-India Congress Committee for
about 30 years.
Jagat Narain had come to Jalandhar as a refugee
from Lahore and started an Urdu daily, Hind Samachar in 1948. Urdu then was
the language of the salaried urban men of Punjab, the people who could afford
the time and money for a newspaper. But Urdu in independent India lacked government
support. In the schools of Punjab, Punjabi and Hindi became the languages
and Gurmukhi and Devanagari the scripts of instruction. In 1965, Jagat Narain
founded Punjab Kesari, a Hindi daily.
Lala Jagat Narain, an Arya Samaji, was a prominent
critic of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.
Dilbir Singh,Public Relations Advisor at Guru
Nanak Dev University for seven years, has stated
"On that day in a great fury he [Bhindranwale]
called upon someone to read aloud what Lala had said. There was quiet. 'Our
turban has been torn from our heads,' he proclaimed. Then one of his followers
asked, 'What are your orders?' Again in anger, he said 'Orders, you need orders!
What orders? Are you blind?' Now you see he did not say anything. And they
said it. 'O.K.' meaning thereby, we'll finish this man. So, then, 3-4 days
later, Lala was coming from Ludhiana and they fired upon him."
Bhindranwale spoke on September 20, 1983:
"Some son of his mother could stand it
no longer and put him (the Lala) on the train (killed him). After he was put
on the train on the 9th (September 1981), on the 12th warrants for my arrest
were issued." Mr H.K. Dua, Editor-in-Chief of The Tribune said in a tribute
to Jagat Narain
The White Paper issued by the government of
India, mentioned that Lala was murdered because of his criticism of murders
of Nirankaris in Amritsar. He was present during the clash that occurred between
Nirankaris and Akhand Kirtni Jatha Members, and stood witness at the Karnal
Trial, in favour of the accused. Thirteen Sikhs and Two Nirankaris were killed
in the clash. The Nirankaris fired from their guns and were acquitted by court
on grounds of self defence. He was shot dead on September 9, 1981, near Amaltas
Motel on the national highway while returning to Jalandhar from Patiala. Both
the Government and Surjeet Jalandhari, project the murder as the murder of
a person deeply involved in criminal cases in Punjab.
In 1981, Bhindranwale barricaded himself inside
the fortified Gurudwara Gurdarshan Parkash at Mehta Chowk, but was persuaded
to surrender on September 20, 1981. For 25 days, violence exploded all over
Punjab, while Bhindranwale was jailed in a Circuit House. India´s then
Home Minister, Giani Zail Singh, announced to Parliament that there was no
evidence that Bhindranwale was involved in Lala Jagat Narain´s murder,
and was released in Oct. 15, 1981.
A chair in the name of Lala Jagat Narain was
established at Kurukshetra University in 1998.
Ramesh Chandra, eldest son of Lala Jagat Narain
was also murdered because of his opposition to Sikh extremism.
There are, of couse, many other people who
also laid down their lives for fighting terrorism in Punjab but I have not
been able to find details about them. I think that Balramji Das Tandan, the
BJP leader and Gobind Ram, a police officer also lost their lives fighting
against terrorism in Punjab.
My request to all nationalist people is that
just as so called Khalistani people celebrate the so called martyrdom of Bhinderanwale
and assassins of Indira Gandhi etc., similarly, they should celebrate the
martyrdom of those people who died while fighting Khalistani terrorism.