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Chohan wanted own country of the purest, leaves behind merely sneers

S P Singh

Chandigarh: Half a century after he first entered the Punjab Assembly after being elected from Tanda, Jagjit Singh Chohan covered a remarkable distance in politics, remained exiled across the Atlantic, propagated the concept of Khalistan, declared himself to be its President, returned to India at the beginning of the third millennium, vowed to keep up the peaceful fight for the Sikh home state, and finally died on Wednesday morning in the sleepy little town of Tanda from where he had started his eventful journey. He was 78, and leaves behind a concept that still baffles political scientists, remains a dream which most consider ridiculous and some unachievable.  

Chohan drummed the concept of Khalistan at a time when many would not have touched the idea with a barge pole, and one of the best memory-recall images from his time would be a white turbaned Chohan precariously managing a small radio transmitter on his head in the parikarma of the Darbar Sahib to bring into focus the then hot Sikh demand to broadcast ‘live’ kirtan from the holy place on radio. 

Times, technology and sifting political stances of the Akalis left Chohan way behind. By the time the TV channels vied with each other to fill up tender notices for telecasting from Darbar Sahib, state politics had been de-linked from ideology, ‘panthic’ leaders secularized the polity and got busy with power and pelf while the Sikh quom seemed stuck in an ideological quagmire where forces of Hindutva and globalization posed equal dangers. 

Left by the wayside, the work and persona of Chohan have been often derided in the Indian national or nationalist (often both) media, and Chohan himself provided occasions enough for the media not to take him too seriously, even famously saying in a 2006 TV interview that “Khalistan will become a reality by 2007.” The polity still lacks the objective conditions in which the significance of Chohan's role could be analyzed dispassionately and prejudices pile up on the table sooner than reasoned arguments when it comes to discussing Chohan and Khalistan. 

The demand for Khalistan, which remained a much misunderstood political construct, apart from being other things, was also an expression of revulsion against the establishment. But the rabidly national media only saw the Blue-and-gold passports, postage stamps and Khalistan dollars -- all symbolic -- as expressions of 'separatism for separatism's sake'.  

Chohan used to narrate how he lost his right hand throwing away a grenade that had been tossed at a crowd of women and children in 1947, the year of Indian independence.  

Dr. Jagjit Singh Chohan was an ex-finance minister of Punjab and a medical doctor by profession. He quit his job with the Punjab government and started supporting the Khalistan movement. He was first elected to the Punjab Vidhan Sabha from Tanda as a candidate of the Republican Party of India in 1967, became a Deputy Speaker when the Akali Dal-led coalition government assumed office in the state. Later, when Lachman Singh Gill became the Chief Minister, Dr Chohan was made the Finance Minister. He is credited with introducing state lotteries in the country during his brief tenure as Finance Minister. 

In 1969, he lost the Assembly election and two years later moved to the United Kingdom. He returned in 1977 and at a public rally in Tanda, raised the demand of “Khalistan”. And before he flew back to England in 1980, he had generated much heat by demanding “Khalistan”. 

Since then, he spent his time in England, returning only in 2001. There was a case against him for trying to set up a transmitter in the Golden Temple complex. In England, he spearheaded the Khalistani propaganda after becoming Chairman of the Council of Khalistan. While residing in the UK in exile, Chohan declared himself to be the President of the Council of Khalistan.

While Chohan was in UK he issued Khalistani passports, Khalistani currency and Khalistani postage stamps, all symbolic gestures clearly aimed at keeping the issue of the Sikhs' political aspirations on centre stage. A June 14, 1984 report in the New York Times, immediately after the Operation Bluestar, brought out how Chohan “named a Cabinet, set up a bank account and opened a new headquarters for the Republic of Khalistan, of which, he said, he is both the ideal and the president.” 

After 21 years in exile, he returned to Punjab in 2001 and set up a Khalsa Raj Party, apparently with the aim of propagating the cause of Khalistan through peaceful means. But the ground conditions had changed to such an extent that Chohan seemed to have been left standing by the roadside, the community's leaders had boarded a different bus which took them to power and pelf while the Sikhs at large seemed to have been left bereft of an agenda, a leadership and a political legacy. 

Incidentally, Chohan was allowed to return to India on June 27, 2001 by the NDA government led by Atal Behari Vajpayee (when Badal was in power in Punjab). And it was the Janata Dal Government in 1979 (Badal was the Chief Minister then too) that had earlier allowed Chohan to return to India after the previous government had impounded his passport.  

When India's Zee News channel telecast a rabble rousing program about the alleged activities of Khalistanis last year, Kanwar Sandhu, Resident Editor of Hindustan Times' Chandigarh edition, blamed the TV channel for airing a program with a pre-determined stance, much like the irresponsible journalism undertaken in the '70's in Punjab. Clearly, nothing much had changed since Chohan left Tanda in 1967. In 2007, Indian establishment and media understand only that much as they did half a century ago. 

April 4, 2007

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