There is urgent need to bring down temperatures in Punjab. Polarized politics, and the frustration of the newly politically marginalized parties – the Akali Dal, Congress and BJP – are feeding a strident debate on the ‘revival’ of the Khalistan movement that is far out of proportion with the realities of the ground as, indeed, is the inflated image of Amritpal Singh in the media and political discourse.
The massive mobilization of Police and paramilitary forces, the suspension of the Internet for three full days, and a continuing suspension in some select Districts and areas, the flag marches, the theatrical habeas corpus appeals to the High Court and equally theatrical and perhaps gratuitous observations by the Court, and the continuous stream of high-decibel commentary has conferred a significance on the events – the arrest of Amritpal’s associates, and the failure to arrest him – that is entirely disproportionate to any police action which may have been necessary, and possibly made the task of enforcement agencies more difficult that it need have been.
This appears to be in keeping with the rapid build-up of the Amritpal myth over the months since his arrival as a virtual unknown on Indian soil, on August 10, 2022, after an absence of 10 years; and the projection through a pliant media of an augmenting threat. Through all this, action against an individual who was, at least initially, of no great significance, was eschewed. Within months, Amritpal had engaged in a number of illegal actions, certainly including hate speech, threats to prominent leaders including the Home Minister of India and the Chief Minister of Punjab, the public flaunting of weapons, violence and vandalism at the Gurudwara Singh Sabha in Jalandhar, abduction and assault, and eventually, the overrunning of the Police Station at Ajnala. The media and political leadership continued to drum up the threat, even as nothing was done; and Amritpal, with no background in the politics of Punjab, was transformed into the central figure of the Khalistan movement in the state.
This build-up continues, as the Police mount what is now the fifth day of the search for the ‘absconder’. At least 154 of his associates had been arrested by March 21, of whom seven have already been transported, inexplicably, to Dibrugarh in Assam. There are minute-by-minute leaks and plants in the media, creating an impression of enormous instability and threat in Punjab.
There have been repeated exhortations from high offices, for the public not to spread rumours in the present situation, but a steady stream of leaks from ‘unidentified security and intelligence sources’ are constantly adding fat to the fire.
All that has actually been officially disclosed by the Police till now is that Amritpal’s possible Pakistan ISI connection and foreign funding would also be investigated. This fairly modest assertion has been transformed into frenzied and authoritative claims that Amritpal is linked to the ISI, to drug and weapons traffickers and to prominent Khalistani terrorists, and to increasing drone crossings from Pakistan; and that he had received vast sums of money from abroad. The seizure of just 12 licensed weapons (till March 21), as well as some ammunition that is likely beyond the authorized quantity, has been transformed into claims that he was using his ‘deaddiction clinics’ to store arms, ammunition and explosives, and to raise a cadre of suicide bombers; further, that he was raising a private army, the Anandpur Khalsa Force to wage war against the country. One channel imaginatively dubbed him the “lord of drugs” and claimed to expose his rather insubstantial “terror file”.
It is abundantly clear that the enforcement agencies have no significant problem with the proliferation, through established public media, of such rumours – indeed, manifest fabrications – even as they threaten others with arrest for raising questions regarding the staging of two TV interviews with jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi.
It must be abundantly clear that this is not how the Police normally run an operation. Amritpal’s activities and arrest are not – or at least, should not have been – a national issue; nor, indeed, was the Ajanal fiasco. The source of this campaign to exaggerate the significance of the man, his actions and the actions against him, can only be speculated upon.
To have mounted an operation of this scale, moreover, displays a level of fear in the in the minds of the Government, at the Centre and in the State, that sits ill with the authority of the state, and reflects poorly on the state’s relationship with its people.
What is clear, further, is that this strident campaign is provoking a general sense of panic and crisis, and this can only harm Punjab. People outside the state, including those abroad, are concerned that a situation of crisis is prevailing. The national and global projection of instability and disorder is a complete distortion of the reality on the ground, and will have enduring impact on perceptions, and on the state’s potential.
A parallel campaign is being run against the Police. Everyone except the Police, it seems, and including the Courts, is now an expert on how Amritpal’s arrest should have been planned and executed. At the same time, rumours are rife that Amritpal has been in Police custody since the very beginning of the operation on March 18, even as many suggest that he is slated for a false encounter. No action has been taken against a single individual or media/social media channel for these sweeping allegations, which persist despite multiple images of Amritpal at different locations, making his escape, after repeatedly switching vehicles.
The authority of the state rests on legitimacy, on trust, on public perceptions. Amritpal has lost credibility, certainly after the Ajnala incident and his choice to shield himself behind the Guru Granth Sahib; and now, immensely more, after his flight from the Police. However, trust in the Government is also being eroded, as the impression grows – rightly or otherwise – that the objective of the orchestrated and protracted spectacle around Amritpal is intended to divert attention from more urgent issues in the state, or to serve partisan political ends. The present situation raises many and troubling questions. Unfortunately, most of these will never be answered.
(Edited version published in Money Control, March 23, 2023)