MANSA/MUKTSAR/BATHINDA(PUNJAB): It is not yet eight in the morning as a motley group of farmers, milk cans in hand, congregate next to verdurous wheat fields in Jawahar Singh Wala village, Faridkot.
“The main issues in the elections are unemployment and drugs, not sacrilege,” said Sukhmander Singh, 58, as he and the others load their cans on to an electric-powered tempo that will take their milk to a nearby dairy.
Sukhmander’s view is a little surprising, given that his village hit headlines in Punjab and beyond when the first incident of desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib, or the Sikh religious scripture, took place on June 1, 2015. Pages from the holy book were allegedly torn and stolen. Later, at least three more incidents of sacrilege took place in other parts.
“All the parties promised they will bring the culprits to book but all the accused are out on bail. Politicians only make promises but do nothing so the issue is now forgotten,” said another farmer Sandeep Singh, 32, a reformed drug addict who lost his coveted job in the police because of the habit.
The sacrilege issue unites everyone in rage against the political class, with the anger directed at the Congress and the Akali Dal in equal measure.
Most people are convinced that successive governments have not done enough against the culprits, putting up weak cases against them.
Yet, the issue that is said to have felled the Akali Dal-BJP government in 2017 is not top priority, at least on the surface.
“This was a big issue in 2017 (elections) but not this time. The public now wants jobs, development and end to corruption and the drug problem,” said Sarabjit Singh, 36, an electrical shop owner in Gurdaspur’s Dera Baba Nanak, one of the most sacred places of the Sikhs and a part of the Kartapur Corridor with Pakistan.
His sentiment is shared by Tarsem Singh, 73, a farmer in Parmanand village, Pathankot.
“Sonia (Gandhi) removed Captain (Amarinder Singh) as the chief minister because he did not do anything, now that (Charanjit Singh) Channi is there people feel he will take action so the issue is forgotten,” he said, sunning himself as the midday zephyr blew away the dust kicked up passing traffic.
Months after the Jawahar Singh Wala sacrilege incident, pages of the torn Guru Granth Sahib were found in Bargari village, Faridkot, in October 2015. In a subsequent protest against this, police fired on the protesters, killing two persons in Behbal Kalan village.
But the sacrilege and the firing cases appear to have fallen apart, with the Central Bureau of Investigation, to whom the sacrilege case was shifted from the Punjab Police, filing a closure report in July 2019, although the Justice Ranjit Singh (retd) Commission of Inquiry, instituted by the Amarinder government, described the theft as “an incident of unprecedented nature.”
“One can say without fear of contradiction that such incidents may not have happened even during Mughal rule. This incident ought to have sent alarm bells for everyone in the highest echelons of the government. It was certainly not a routine crime to be dealt with in a routine manner,” the commission had said.
Even if voters have put the sacrilege incidents on the backburner, Sukhraj Singh, 30, the son of Krishan Bhagwan Singh, one of the protesters who died in the police firing, is waging a lone battle for justice.
Inside a temporary, plastic enclosed shed with a concrete stage in Behbal Kalan next to the Ludhiana-Amritsar National Highway 54, the same on which PM Narendra Modi was stopped by protesting farmers when he was on his way to Ferozepur in January, Sukhraj has been sitting in protest against the government for the past 60 days, demanding action against those responsible for his father’s death.
“The Congress government did not conduct a fair probe against the Akali leaders involved in the incident. The people should punish the Congress for playing politics over the issue. I even met Channi but he has also not done anything,” he seethed.
But while Sukhraj is on a cathartic mission for justice over the sacrilege incidents, the priority for others in the elections is more basic.
“The most important thing is people should get two square meals a day, all other issues are secondary,” said Satnam Singh, 53, a vendor outside Baba Mohan Singh Namdhari Gurdwara Sahib in Baghowal village, Gurdaspur.