The case for linguistic & religious assertion in Punjab

Punjab is in churn. From Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to the Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), the highest temporal body of the Sikhs, many have lately given calls for either linguistic or religious assertion.

Last month, Mann appealed to Punjabis to start a mass movement to use the Punjabi language on signboards on private and public buildings across the state. He said Punjabis should learn from Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, where people showed respect to their mother tongue by using their languages on signboards of shops and commercial establishments. Mann said Punjabis should adopt this “noble practice”, putting up Punjabi signboards before International Mother Language Day on February 21. He said the government would make those who do not by then fall in line.

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The AAP government hopes to make promoting Punjabi a mass movement. At the event on November 19 at the Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar, Mann asked Punjabis in India and abroad to promote their language and culture. Earlier in the year, the AAP government made it mandatory for all government and semi-government institutions, boards, corporations and educational institutes to have signboards, road milestones and road names in Punjabi in Gurmukhi script.

Days before Mann’s speech, on November 6, police lodged an FIR against gangster-turned-politician Lakhvir Singh alias Lakha Sidhana and a social media influencer, Bhagwan Singh alias Bhanna Sidhu, for defacing English text on the signboards installed at the toll plaza of a village. Sidhana had hit national headlines as a key behind-the-scenes organiser of the yearlong farmers’ protests against the Centre’s three farm laws. Sidhana said the Punjabi language was being discriminated against and painted the English text on signboards black.

According to Punjab watchers, political outfits keen to find a toehold are likely to push for Chandigarh, a Union Territory, to ensure the signboards were also in Punjabi since its the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana and not just English, as is the case now. The Chandigarh administration is yet to adopt Punjabi as an official language.

On November 15, the SGPC, on its foundation day, demanded that the RSS and the BJP stop their “unnecessary interference” in Sikh affairs. The SGPC shot off a letter to RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, which recounted the contribution of the Sikh body to India’s freedom struggle. “But sadly, the BJP-ruled central government and BJP leaders are interfering directly to complicate SGPC affairs. An example of this interference came to the fore during the annual election of office-bearers of the SGPC on November 9,” general secretary Gurcharan Singh Grewal claimed.

Earlier, the SGPC and Shiromani Akali Dal accused National Commission for Minorities Chairman Iqbal Singh Lalpura of interfering in the religious affairs of the Sikh community by trying to “break” the gurdwara body. The Akalis alleged that Lalpura sought support for now-expelled leader Bibi Jagir Kaur for the SGPC presidential poll on November 9.

In the letter to RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, Grewal said any interference “will create instability in the minds of Sikhs which is not good for the country.” The SGPC has also begun a nationwide signature campaign for the release of ‘Bandi Singhs’ (Sikh prisoners), which it claims are lodged in different prisons despite having completed their jail sentences.

SGPC chief Harjinder Singh Dhami pointed to the release of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassins and the remission of sentence of convicts in the 2002 Bilkis Bano gang-rape case to support his argument for the release of imprisoned Sikhs.

The SGPC has been wary of Lalpura since the BJP promoted him to be a member of its top decision-making body, the parliamentary board, in August - the first Sikh ever to be inducted in that body. On Friday, the BJP included former chief minister of Punjab Amarinder Singh and former Congress Punjab unit chief Sunil Jakhar in its national executive. The saffron party also appointed Jaiveer Singh Shergill as its national spokesperson.

Along with the assertion of the Punjabi language and Sikh religion, there are renewed concerns about the increasing gun culture in the state and incipient demands for Khalistan. On November 22, Sikh preacher Amritpal Singh Sandhu began a month-long ‘Khalsa vaheer’, or Khalsa march, across Punjab. For some months, the 29-year-old preacher, who was in Dubai for the last 10 years, has addressed gatherings across Punjab, advocating the cause of Khalistan, a separate homeland for the Sikhs and accusing the Centre of perpetrating a cultural genocide of the Sikhs. The march has the preacher’s supporters wielding automatic weapons.

Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has said the Centre is keeping an eye on the deteriorating law and order situation in Punjab. The Punjab government on November 13 issued fresh instructions to regulate gun ownership, including banning public display. Those flaunting guns in public or promoting gun culture on social media have been booked. On November 30, the Union government directed private FM channels to not play songs “glorifying” alcohol, drugs, weapons and “gangster/gun culture”.