Wrong to tar a community with the same brush
A CISF constable, Kulwinder Kaur, slapped newly elected BJP MP Kangana Ranaut at the Chandigarh airport last week. The constable was upset over controversial remarks made by
the actor-turned-politician about the women who had participated in the farmers’ agitation at Delhi’s borders in 2020-21. Punjab’s farming community had spearheaded the year-long stir against the three farm laws, which were eventually repealed by the Centre. Soon after the recent incident, Kangana expressed concern over a ‘shocking rise in terror and violence in Punjab’.
Misconduct by an on-duty uniformed officer can neither be defended nor justified. It’s a case of gross indiscipline deserving the due process of legal action. Whatever the grievances or grudges of any Indian in any state, no one can be allowed to resort to an act which demoralises his/her unit, force and those whose duty it is to ensure that safety and security in sensitive operational areas are not breached. Unfortunately, the keepers of the law brazenly failed to do that.
Having said that, let us dispassionately and objectively go beyond the ‘slapgate’ and dig deep into history and polity to remember not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Brutal facts of Indian history are often forgotten or ignored. Bengal in the east and Punjab in the north-west were the two biggest provinces of British India. Had India not been partitioned in 1947, both Bengal and Punjab would have sent more than 100 MPs each to the Lok Sabha, far more than Uttar Pradesh’s 80.
Ironically, the two ‘biggest’ provinces were dismembered. To the misfortune of post-1947 Punjab, a reorganisation took place in 1966. The shrinking of territory, however, was followed by epochal events which created chronic problems. It happened due to the lapses of India’s ruling class, which, in turn, contaminated the psyche of a sizeable proportion of the people. The latter, though apolitical, were nevertheless lured into harbouring animosity towards Bengalis from the 1960s and then Punjabis (particularly Sikhs) since the 1980s.
Seeing is believing, it’s rightly said. The Mao Zedong-led Communist Party of China and the People’s Liberation Army did not stop their machinations even after invading India in October 1962. First, they penetrated the entire North-East and followed it up with an assault on the truncated state of West Bengal, which witnessed the Naxalbari firing on May 24, 1967. A few thousand Hindu Bengalis, ‘brainwashed’ by leftist ideology and unscrupulously nurtured by local traders, politicians and intellectuals as well as propped up by Chinese money, caused untold damage to the eastern state for over 10 years. The result — it gave birth to ‘racial/ethnic profiling’, an ‘effective’ way to prevent even the best and the brightest minds from moving forward. Virtually every Bengali was a ‘communist’ in the eyes of all outside the state, especially in the national capital. In March 1972, this author was asked by a UPSC member: “Oh, you are a Bengali! Are you a Naxalite?”
After the Bengali ‘racial/ethnic profiling’ came the turn of Sikhs in the 1980s amid the Khalistan movement. The vilification was also seen during the 2020-21 farmers’ agitation, when some political leaders branded protesters as Khalistanis and anti-nationals.
Since one has had the experience of gross humiliation and the choicest of unprovoked abuse on several occasions, including in an office of the Government of India at least twice in 35 years, one has invariably taken pains to ensure that the ignominy one faced without any reason must not be inflicted on our countrymen from Punjab for the fault of a few. ‘Ethnic profiling’ and reckless public abuse of a community must be eschewed by all, however high or mighty. Else, anything can happen, as witnessed at the Chandigarh airport.
Indeed, one must never forget that 1.4 billion Indians constitute a bewildering variety of people. Hence, there is a need for circumspection, sensitivity, understanding and empathy. Ignorance cannot be an excuse for an Indian even if he/she is not conversant with the language of a state where his professional work takes him/her. It’s time to make efforts to identify oneself with the people of the state where one works, and vice versa. Thus, every non-Punjabi in Punjab would be a Punjabi; every non-Tamil in Chennai a Tamil; every non-Marathi in Mumbai a Marathi; and every non-Bengali in Kolkata a Bengali. It’s axiomatic that people en masse learn to respect fellow Indians from other states and avoid making unprovoked remarks dripping with communal venom.
The point is simple: The Constitution needs to be thoroughly studied to understand the spirit and ethos of the country. This nation can never be governed by anyone on the basis of a make-believe scenario. Every province/state is unique and different from others. Hence, a few or one individual’s crime or error doesn’t make the entire state a den of criminals. And such mistakes are creating and increasing tension, animosity and hatred in the society and polity of India.
It’s time to learn lessons from historical blunders to avoid recurrence of the Chandigarh episode. If one uniformed officer is charged with dereliction of duty, that does not give anyone the licence to tar an entire state or community with the same brush. It happened in Chandigarh. It could easily have been Kanpur, Kolkata, Kannur, Jammu, Jodhpur or Delhi. It’s time for justice, fair play and objectivity, not impulsive provocation. India is too big a country to tolerate parochial thinking. Magnanimity will take India forward.
