Activists challenge political parties for issue-based engagement

CHANDIGARH: At a time when established political parties in Punjab, as well as the new comer Aam Aadmi Party, are fast moving into electoral top gear, a number of intellectuals, academicians and activists today challenged the political players for a broadbased engagement and underlined the need for identifying issues, coming up with solutions and presenting a route map to the people of Punjab.
“Intellectuals in Punjab, be they academicians, activists, trade unionists or other inspired people who want things to change, must actually discuss, thrash out and draft skeletal issues before 2017 Assembly elections in the state. We need a counter-agenda since the politics pursued by political parties is increasingly issue-less, irrespective of their claims to be elected representatives,” Dr S S Johl, a leading expert on agro-economy, urged the state’s think tanks and all other stakeholders.
Organised under the banner of Pind Bachao-Punjab Bachao (Save Village-Save Punjab), speakers at the seminar, including Dr S S Gill, economist, CRRID; Dr Harshinder Kaur, women, health and child rights activist; Giani Kewal Singh, a former Sikh cleric and now a social worker; Dr Piare Lal Garg, former registrar, Baba Farid University of Health Sciences and activist; and Gurmit Palahi, social activist working on rural development models underscored the need to engage with all political forces, while maintaining that it was all the more important for new political players to address these issues.
Dr Sucha Singh Gill said political parties must be forced to present complete truth about the state of the economy. He also spoke about the ingenious ways in which large scale tax evasion was happening in the corporate sector.
Speaking about massive unemployment, he said the very fact that the Punjab government has now announced recruitment of 1.13 lakh government employees was proof enough of artificially suppressed job opportunities. “These unemployed then become grist for the mill for unscrupulous politicians, and end up in a quagmire of drugs, liquor and muscle power wielded by the same politicians,” he said.
Amid calls by many at the seminar to “do something practical” and popular exhortations that intellectuals must lead instead of politicians, it was left to senior journalist Hamir Singh to point out that the need was to redefine politics, make it people centric, shift the focus back to village, and understand the issues of farming, dalits, women and other marginalised sections.
“Notwithstanding the slogan-centric imagery of Punjab being a prosperous state and Punjabis being the best people, the fact is that Punjab is facing a bankruptcy not just on economic and social fronts but also on intellectual and political fronts,” many speakers said at the seminar, held at Kisan Bhawan, Chandigarh.
Samuel John, film and theater activist, and his life partner and fellow traveller Jaswinder, stressed the need to put dalit issues in the forefront. “Dalits are one section that remains on the margins even in seminars,” Samuel, known for his activist theater, said. Jaswinder’s song about the atrocities that dalits go through as a matter of routine, lent a poignant tone to the proceedings.
The interactive session saw a large number of audience posing searching, and often aggressive, questions to key speakers, and demanding a solutions-based approach. Many questioned the new entrant Aam Aadmi Party and Arvind Kejriwal’s recent engagement with Punjab, and said the party must spell out in detail its approach on various issues facing the state.
“No agenda of saving Punjab can succeed without talking about women rights, child rights, dalit rights, granting Punjabi language its rightful place and engaging with the issues of landless labourers. If political parties run away from these, people must force them to deal with these issues,” said Harpreet Kaur, student activist from Panjab University.Rejection of established political parties remained a common theme in the debate, but the massive response and enthusiasm for change did underline a strong wish to see change succeeding.Speakers said political parties must agree to make manifesto a legally enforceable document and include right to recall elected representatives in their list of promises. They also said that the concept of Gram Sabha, a pivotal feature of Panchayati Raj Act, is almost missing from the state, but has not become a political issue.
Among others who participated in the animated discussion were Prof Manjit Singh and Rajiv Godara, both activists with Swaraj Abhiyan, Sumail Singh Sidhu of Punjab Sanjhiwal Jatha, journalist and author Jaspal Singh Sidhu, Malvinder Singh Mali, Jagtar Sanghera, Karnail Singh Jakhepal and Dheeraj Khanna.