Once again, the Khalistan issue has come to the fore in Punjab, after a mob led by Amrit Pal Singh, the self-styled leader of Waris Punjab De, rampaged across the Ajnala Police Station, provoking the question: is there a Khalistani resurgence in Punjab today?
The mob was shielded by a motorized palanquin bearing a copy of the Guru Granth Sahib, and the overwhelmingly Sikh police force deployed at the Police Station gave little more than token resistance, before allowing the armed horde to swarm in.
This is the narrative that has largely been accepted in the present commentary. What is little emphasized is that the mob did not appear magically on the gates of the Ajanala Police Station. It made a slow, long journey, and was blocked by the Police on at least two occasions – at the Dhilwan Toll Plaza in Kapurthala District, more than 75 kilometres from the Ajnala Police Station; and again, near the Bus Stand in Ajnala, nearly 700 metres short of the Police Station, where barricades were erected to block further advance. This was a slow-moving procession, not a commando raid, and Punjab’s leadership would be hard pressed to explain why effective action was not taken at these stages, rather than allowing the affray at the Police Station itself. This moving mob had a clear intention of attacking the Police Station long before this denouement finally occurred, and it is inconceivable that a large proportion of those participating was not party to the conspiracy – or that the Punjab Police Intelligence would be unaware of this. Nor, indeed, could the political executive have been kept in the dark. If the Centre was unaware, it would need to admit to a major intelligence failure as well. It is difficult to believe that the procession could have arrived at its violent culmination without some element of patronage. No definite conclusion can be drawn on specific responsibility – but explanations are needed, and must be demanded.
A Police Station is not merely the location out of which Police administration is carried out. It is the most visible public symbol of the state. The overrunning of a Police Station is tantamount to the overrunning of the state’s authority. There can be no normalization of what happened at Ajnala, no explaining away of the enormity of the incident. However, to believe that this is a decisive turning point in the history of Punjab and a regression into the darkness of the decade-and-a-half of terrorism, and to drum up national hysteria on the purported ‘breakdown’ of law and order in the state, is utterly misconceived.
The idea that the Khalistan movement has abruptly resurfaced at an unprecedented scale is a widely credited and false narrative dominating the present discourse. Major incidents and enormously disruptive agitations connected with the Khalistani or Sikh extremist cause have surfaced periodically in the decades since the comprehensive defeat of terrorism by 1995. Just weeks ago, on February 8, the Kaumi Insaaf Morcha demanding the release of Khalistani convicts, stormed Police barricades on the Mohali-Chandigarh border, injuring 33 Police men and women. Once again, the images of sword wielding, turbaned Sikhs were married to the Khalistan revival narrative. Another case is the protracted campaign over the orchestrated Bargari Beadbi (sacrilege) incidents, which opportunistically and periodically resurfaces in the political discourse to serve the divergent needs of various parties that seek to exploit the orthodox and extremist Sikh ‘vote bank’.
There have also been cyclical surges in Khalistani terrorism-linked violence over the past nearly three decades. Figures have largely remained in the low single digits in most years, with 12 years after 1995 recording zero fatalities. However, 1997 recorded 59 fatalities; and 18 persons (all civilians) were killed in 2000. Between 2008 and 2015, not a single Khalistan linked fatality was recorded in the State, but each year thereafter has seen at least two Khalistan terrorism-linked fatalities, with the highest number, six, in 2017.
This is not to suggest that any incident of terrorism is to be taken lightly. The tragedy and dangers of terrorism must never be underplayed, and even a single terrorist killing is unacceptable. It must be emphasized, moreover, that the relatively low numbers in most years are not the consequence of a lack of trying. There is an unrelenting effort, fueled from across the border and by extremist elements in the Diaspora, to orchestrate violence in Punjab, and this is reflected in a number of failed or non-fatal incidents, as well as the continuous stream or arrests of Khalistani terrorists, the smuggling of arms and explosives from Pakistan – including increasing numbers of drops by drones – and numerous incidents of the seizure of weapons each year. 254 drone sightings were reported by the Border Security Force in Punjab in 2022, a fourfold increase from 67 in 2021. Among high profile non-lethal incident in 2022, there was the Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) attack on the Punjab Police Intelligence Wing at Mohali on May 9; on August 16, an Improvised Explosive Device was planted under the SUV of Punjab Police Sub-Inspector in Amritsar; and on December 9, an RPG was fired at the Sarhali Police Station in the Tarn Taran District.
In this long and ongoing saga, every time there is a high-profile incident, or succession of incidents, the bogey of Khalistani revival and a “return to the 1980s” resurfaces. Part of the problem is, of course, an absence of historical memory and awareness of the sheer scale of the disorders of that dark period, among the most strident voices on the subject. The greater problem, however, is the partisan political interest in creating an environment of enveloping threat and communal polarization. This benefits both the Khalistani and Hindutva lobby, and creates incentives for ‘soft’ imitators in other parties.
Despite all that is said and written about the Punjab Police, when a clear mandate is given, the Force does not fail to act. As the gangster-terrorist networks in Punjab have become more active, the Government has launched a number of initiatives against this particular menace. According to data compiled by the Khalistan Extremism Monitor, at least 40 persons linked to the Khalistani terrorist-gangster networks were arrested in Punjab in January 2023 alone. Police disclosures indicate 623 proclaimed offenders were arrested between July 5, 2022, when the Police launched a special drive against them, and the end of the year.
In an environment where most State Police forces are eager to hand over dangerous responsibilities to Central Forces, it is useful to recall the day-long operation against Islamist terrorists at the Dinanagar Police Station in Gurdaspur, on July 27, 2015, where the Punjab Police leadership refused to hand over the task to much better equipped Army and National Security Guard units that had converged on the site.
Nevertheless, the Police in Punjab has been substantially eviscerated by political interference at every level under successive regimes, and this process is ongoing under the present dispensation as well. In the past over two decades, no regime has been willing to cede even the slightest measure of autonomy to the police leadership in Punjab. To believe that the Police acted ‘autonomously’ in Ajnala would be to ignore well know ground realities.
It is important, moreover, to underline that Amritpal Singh is playing within the current ‘rules of the game’, if not the bounds of law. He calibrates his speech and action to skirt the margins of what is accepted as political speech and action in the present environment, and couches his declarations and demonstrations in terms of constitutionally permissible dissent. Were he to graduate to explicit terrorism, action against him would abruptly become clearer and easier from an enforcement perspective, and he would be unlikely to survive in freedom for long. Hiding behind the Guru Granth Sahib, or in Gurudwaras would not, then, protect him, if he chose to remain on Indian soil. Alternately, he could escape to foreign climes to rail impotently against India, with other Khalistanis in the Diaspora.
(Edited version published in Times of India, March 3, 2023)