Rebuilding Punjab from the new low of deportation flights

Punjab’s slide has reached its nadir. The exodus of its youth through clandestine routes and the eventual cruel deportation of some of them from the US to the holy city of Amritsar lately are the new lows. Once the number one state of the country across indices, even up to 2003, it has fallen drastically over the past two decades. One may sound like a prophet of doom, but the reality truly bites. Mindboggling as it may seem, even during the era of militancy, the state's agrarian economy sustained itself remarkably.

Historically, the people of the state have been happy, progressive and extremely hardworking. The youth took to the armed forces, administrative services, entrepreneurship and innovative farming like fish to water. And yet, this industrious state and its enterprising people are now at a loss and looking for avenues of escape.

Punjab's industrial prowess and its avenues of trade and business, took multiple hits during the Partition of 1947, and further in the Indo-Pak wars, and still more during the over a decade of militancy. The state's debt exceeds Rs 3,50,000 crore and it ranks at the bottom of the 18-state Fiscal Health Index 2025.

But the slide is not just economic. There is also a severe political trust deficit, across party lines. The Akali Dal is decimated and its leadership lately shamed by the Sikh clergy itself. The Akali Dal under Prakash Singh Badal has had the longest reign of nearly 19 years, including the period of slide from 2007-2017, even though it was in partnership with the powerful national ally, the BJP, for much of this period.

The present-day ruling party of the state, the AAP, has done precious little to improve the lot of its people or its economy although it is halfway through its term of office.

Since Independence, the Punjabis have been pivoting between the Congress and the Akalis and finally mandated the AAP for political control after lacklustre terms of the other two favoured parties. However, in the last two decades, every promise of prosperity by each party has been but a chimera for the people of Punjab.

Terming the problems of Punjab today as existential may not be an overstatement. For too long, the youth have watched their leaders head for the national capital and return thumping their chests, parroting perceived victories, easily befogged and befooled by the powers-that-be, only to find their Punjab further diminished.

Also, its bargaining chips, political or otherwise, are few, and most have been pawned away for the personal greed of politicians. In the numbers game of politics, our once numero uno state is today befuddled, landlocked, politically unimportant and hopelessly in debt.

The next generation, thus, yearns for a path forward and needs a clear thought and vision for the future. Look around you, they tell their elders: name one leader who can guide you through the morass and pull Punjab out of the quicksand!

They look at their remarkable legacy, the Khalsa sarkaar of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, when Punjab's boundaries extended across the entire Indus Valley up to Tibet and Ladakh, all the way to Khyber, and down to Delhi. And yet, they find that the state has not had a single stalwart who could match the vision and dynamism of Partap Singh Kairon, who, in his term (1957-1964), ushered in not only the Green Revolution but also invited industry leaders. He even had Le Corbusier build the new capital city of the state, Chandigarh.

It was after his assassination in 1965 that the Punjab state was reorganised on a linguistic basis, a possibility that Kairon had resisted tooth and nail. With this new development, this proud state, which had lost over 2,00,000 square km of its territory to Pakistan due to the line drawn by Radcliffe partitioning the subcontinent, lost another 58.8 per cent of itself to a three-state solution brought about by the Akali Punjabi Suba movement.

The Great Land of Punjab which comprised a massive 3,60,000 sq km pre-Independence, has been squeezed to just 50362 sq km. Indeed, a Punjab diminished by stature and by size!

This remarkable downside of the land of the Khalsa has a contrarian upside as well. The faith moved on, so it seemed, across the globe.

Historically, the Sikhs were never backseat drivers and, thus, led from the front in the wars raged against the British (the Anglo-Sikh wars) and for the British later. Post the fall of the Khalsa Raj, evidence of Sikhs battling it out in Malta, China, Tibet, Japan, Somalia, Iraq, Mesopotamia, Sudan and elsewhere during the two World Wars is extensive. And, they dug roots in these territories.

In the contemporary times, they have expanded their universe manifold into the global village. It is this fact that makes the latest deportations of youth even more unpalatable.

The frustration of the young Punjabi flows from the downright illogic of Punjab's reality. It grows the staples, wheat and rice, in mindboggling tonnage, yet processes minuscule amounts into foodstuff. It has the iconic Golden Temple that attracts the highest number of visitors — 40 million per annum -— but no MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) tourism and no plans for synergetic journeys across the state.

It has a border that opens out the subcontinent to the entire Asian plate and beyond, and no trade. It has nurtured entrepreneurship, but its businessmen have funnelled their major investments elsewhere. It has been the food basket for the nation, yet its farmers are in penury.

Only a holistic overhaul can excite the youth again — perhaps, a short-term strategy to counter the fall, a mid-term policy to steady the boat and a long-term approach striding new technologies.

Diversifying the economy, enabling a surge in exports, reforming education, straddling environmental degradation; doubling down on such low-hanging fruits as tourism, entrepreneurship, and services; bringing young women centre stage; creating a calendar of events for tourism and business; rethinking the agrarian basket and adding value — all this requires a master plan and a systemic change in its execution methodology.

Perhaps the bugle, rather the "nagada", of renaissance has already been sounded by Diljit Dosanjh in his clarion call: "Oh, Punjabi aa gaye oye" (the Punjabis have arrived). As an icon of the youth, he may just have lit a beacon of hope in them.

It is about time the Punjabis stepped out of hibernation and took a pride of place in the nation and elsewhere, one that is rightfully theirs, on a high in life and not hanging low in nadir.