Of A Party, A Portrait & Else

[JagtarSinghKhalsa]

Of A Party, A Portrait & Else

Written by Editorial Board

Friday, December 07, 2007

Quickly browsing through the hundreds of emails that the WSN receives every week, it is surprising how well versed the Diaspora Sikhs remain about happenings back home and the convulsions through which the Sikh and Akali polity keeps going. In a single breath, one reader asked what exactly was the purpose of the NRI Sammelan planned by the Parkash Singh Badal government, and also wanted to be educated about the brouhaha raised by political outfits in India about the installation of a portrait of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. "And of course I presume your coming issue will have some details about why Bhai Daljit Singh has chosen to stress the rift within the party so strongly?" he wrote.

Exactly our point. Nothing in the life of a quom which is alive to the concerns of the people happens in a vacuum. These, and all other issues, are interlinked, and it is greatly appreciated at the WSN that the Diaspora remains proactively engaged with the larger spectrum of the concerns of the Sikhs.

At a time when politics in Punjab itself is becoming so depoliticised that the ruling Akali Dal thinks it can survive by surreptitiously changing its Constitution, assuming a secular avatar overnight and escaping without the media taking any notice, it is but natural for the few panthic forces to wake up and smell the coffee. When Sardar Simranjit Singh Mann had risen in limelight, public perception and among the adoring crowds of Sikhs, it was hoped that he will prove to be the beacon light for the community.

For some time, he was. No one, certainly not the WSN, has ever denied the personal sacrifices made by Sardar Mann, but unfortunately, political parties cannot survive on the basis of old news clippings. Running a political party, that too, a party which has a mission and an agenda as big as the larger objective of the Sikh quom, requires continuous innovation and ability to evolve with the times. Throwing up a regular pool of new leadership and creating a multi-layer structure of command and control is the basic premise for such a forum. That Sardar Mann failed in this, and instead tried to foist autocratic decisions, will be stating the obvious. That Bhai Daljit Singh seems to have learnt from the mistakes made by the coterie around Sardar Mann is heartening. One only hopes that he takes the Presidium-led party further and exhibits an ability to accommodate while remaining steadfastly committed to the stated aims.

The furore over Sant Bhindranwale's portrait would never have happened had men like Sardar Mann and parties like the Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) stuck to the stated course and gotten the backing of the community. When one's own house in not in order, even clowns of Indian politics like the Shiv Sena-Bajrang Dal ruffians think they have the guts to issue threats publicly. One of the remarkable ways in which one's stature is known is the measure of one's enemies. We hope Sardar Mann will take time out and study this fact of political demography.

Keeping in view the composition of the Punjabi Diaspora, the WSN has taken up in this issue the cause of the particular section of the emigrants which is almost always ignored. We did so because being Sikhs, and the WSN being a Sikh community newspaper, no issue is more dear to us than any that concerns the underdog, the disadvantaged, the kirti who earns his honest living through hard work. If our entertainment page takes great umbrage at a Hindi film song, it is the same feeling. At WSN, just as among the Diaspora, or rather, just as in life, everything is interwoven with a thing called ideology.

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