It was exactly 30 years ago, on August 31, 1995 the then sitting Chief Minister of Punjab, Beant Singh was assassinated in a suicide bomb blast in the Punjab Civil Secretariat compound. As he was leaving for the day and about to board his car, a massive bomb blast ripped off everything around.
On his 30th death anniversary on Sunday, the Punjab Congress did not organise any programme. There was a token tributary message on the official ‘X’ handle of the party, “remembering and paying tribute” to the late leader.
There was a ‘Sarv Dharam Sabha’ at his memorial which was attended by his family members, including his two grandsons, Ravneet Singh Bittu, who is now with the Bharatiya Janata Party and Union Minister of State for Railways and Gurkirat Singh Kotli, who is a former MLA and is with the Congress only.
None of the prominent Punjab Congress leaders, including Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, Congress Legislative Party leader Partap Singh Bajwa or others, showed up for the memorial service. It was completely left to the family.
There are multiple reasons for the Congress distancing itself from Beant Singh’s legacy. The former chief minister in today’s Punjab is a “polarising” figure. While one section of people credits him, and rightly so, for ending militancy in Punjab and restoring peace and order after a dark decade of terror and trauma, another section of people accuses him of encouraging or overlooking the grave human rights violations allegedly committed by the Punjab Police while fighting against terrorism.
While the former section describes him as ‘Shaheed-e-Azam’ (the greatest martyr, a title attached to Shaheed Bhagat Singh), the other section describes him as a “butcher”. During terrorism in Punjab, several innocent youths were killed in fake police encounters in the name of fighting terrorism and the blame is put on Beant Singh.
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While it was the Punjab Police, headed by an indomitable KPS Gill, which was in total command and control of law-and-order situation and fighting terrorism, everything that went wrong was attributed to Beant Singh. It is an irony that while Beant Singh paid with his life for fighting against terrorism, Gill is considered to be the “real hero” (again only for one section of people, while the other section calls him a villain).
It is also a fact that Gill was not made answerable to anyone. He would not report to the Chief Minister. It is a common knowledge that the Chief Minister did not have any say on the law-and-order issue and he could not help even a single person when it came to dealing with the police. As the police had absolute power and authority, with no oversight from the political executive, it turned into a law unto itself. Beant Singh paid for that with his life.
Beant Singh took over the reins of the state when it was completely soaked in blood. Mass killings were order of the day. Prime Minister PV Narsimha Rao, wanted to tackle the Punjab problem politically instead of administratively. For that, he wanted to install an elected “political government” and replace the governor’s rule.
When Assembly elections were announced in 1992, everyone was shocked and surprised. The Shiromani Akali Dal boycotted the elections under threat from the militants. The Congress, BJP, Bahujan Samaj Party, Communist Party of India and Communist Party of India-Marxist participated in the elections. Twenty candidates were killed in those elections. While the aggregate voter turnout was about 24 per cent, at some places it was even five per cent, and in certain booths no votes were cast.
The Congress won 87 of the 117 seats, while the BSP won nine and the BJP won six seats. Despite a low turnout in the elections, the “elected government” was considered more credible and more acceptable over a bureaucratic administration, which was accountable to no one. It did lead to the beginning of “political process” and a subtle resistance against militancy. Added to this was the aggressive campaign against militancy led by KPS Gill.
Those three years between 1992 and 1995, before Beant Singh was assassinated, were quite crucial in restoring peace and order in Punjab. Although selective killings did continue during this period, but these started subsiding gradually as the police had gained a completely upper hand. And it did come at a heavy price with no less a person than the sitting Chief Minister of the state getting assassinated.
By the next state Assembly elections in 1997, situation was completely normal. The Akalis also participated in the elections in alliance with the BJP and stormed to power with a thumping majority. Parkash Singh Badal became the Chief Minister for the third time. Rest is history.
Beant Singh, ended up as a forgotten hero, both for the Congress as well as Punjab. The Congress did compensate and rehabilitate his family. His son Tej Parkash Singh, daughter Gurkanwal Kaur became ministers in the subsequent Congress governments in 2002. One of his grandsons, Ravneet Bittu was specially picked up by Rahul Gandhi to contest the 2009 Parliamentary elections from Anandpur Sahib, which he won. Today he is in the BJP and a minister in the Central government. Beant Singh’s other grandson Gurkirat Kotli also served as a minister in the previous Congress government.
While the family did get compensated and rehabilitated handsomely, Beant Singh himself remains a forgotten leader. He was not even awarded any posthumous honours by any of the governments at the Centre, apparently because that might annoy or antagonise a section of the people in the state.
This also explains the reason as to why the Congress is trying to distance itself from his legacy.
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