Man From Rajoana

[Singh, Mahan]

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Man From Rajoana

This article appeared in two parts at the source given below.

Source: Part I http://sikhchic.com/..._rajoana_part_i

Part II http://sikhchic.com/...rajoana_part_ii

The Man From Rajoana:

Part I

by AMANDEEP SINGH SANDHU

The death sentence of Balwant Singh Rajoana was stayed a few weeks ago, after he waited for 17 years on death row, on the eve of the scheduled hanging. It came with the intervention of Beant Singh's successor, the current Akali Dal chief minister of Punjab, with the president of India.

Shortly after the stay, I embarked on a personal journey.

I wanted to know what - in the intervening years since Balwant Singh act of personal sacrifice two decades ago - has changed in Balwant Singh’s village and what has stayed the same. I wanted to see what, if freed and allowed to return home, would Balwant Singh find in his village.

* * * * *

Sikhism teaches that every one, man or woman, should be willing to give one’s life to protect the oppressed and the downtrodden.

The sacrifice vindicates one as a martyr, a hero.

But what happens if the sacrifice were not to be of life but of time? If the sacrifice meant an unending wait and in the meantime the soldier has to live, and has to acknowledge the changes in society and yet keep one’s stance alive and meaningful?

Balwant Singh Rajoana, convicted - on the basis of his voluntary confession - as an accessory for the assassination of the chief minister of Punjab, Beant Singh, is a story that illustrates this dilemma. He could have been the actual assassin and died in the execution of his action, but has now been on the death row for the last 17 years.

Recently, after worldwide outrage and protests, his hanging was stayed by the Court.

At the end of the 1980s the situation in Punjab was so complex that no one ever imagined things could go back to normal. That is when the Punjab Police, under the leadership of its chief K.P.S. Gill, conducted wholesale massacres of innocent youth across the state - their only crime that they were young Sikh men, and thus potential recruits to a separatist cause!

With the backdrop of continuing militancy triggered by, and directed against gross human rights violations by the state, the police and para-military personnel saw it as an oportunity to seek promotions and benefits, by "mopping up" the country-side - a term coined for picking up innocent Sikh boys and young men from their homes and killing them in fake encounters.

No one can cite the numbers of the innocent killed ... estimates vary from 20 thousand to 50 thousand. But the militancy - which had by now developed into a resistance movement and a separatist cause, now had three groups of players: the police, the resistance, and the people.

Innocent boys and young men, now unaccounted for in the tens of thousands, bore the brunt of it all.

That is when two Punjab Police constables, Balwant Singh and his colleague, Dilawar Singh, along with others including the Babbar Khalsa member Jagtar Singh Hawara, planned to assassinate Beant Singh. The intent was to shock the state machinery into stopping the wholesale murder of innocents.

A coin was tossed and Dilawar Singh was chosen to act as the human bomb. In the explosion in front of the Chandigarh Secretariat, Beant Singh was assassinated. 17 others died.

Balwant Singh was the stand-by, scheduled to go into action if the first attempt failed.

He was arrested in December 1995. He immediately confessed to his role. His stance was that it was an act of conscience, which would not permit him to deny his own role in it.

At trial, Balwant Singh readily acknowledged his actions. He refused to contest the prosecution's charges, challenge ts evidence, engage a lawyer or accept a court-appointed lawyer.

Instead, he spoke from the dock and from the prison through statements to the courts and letters to the judges. He described the deep wounds on the Sikh psyche caused by the state's despoiling of the Golden Temple by the Indian army during Operation Bluestar. He spoke of the 1984 anti-Sikh pogroms - actively encouraged and facilitated by the Indian state - when thousands of Sikhs were burnt alive, mutilated and left for carrion, funeral rites denied, when women were dishonoured, the youth emasculated and homes burnt.

He demanded that the Chief Justice first determine who were the terrorists: those who did these acts or those who defended the victims?

When convicted by the Court, Balwant Singh refused to appeal the death sentence and instructed his friends and family not to

petition the government for mercy. He also turned away similar offers from social, religious and political groups.

In an open letter to the media, Balwant Singh proclaimed: ‘Asking for mercy from them (Indian courts) is not even in my distant dreams.’

* * * * *

The village Rajoana is about 2 km off the state highway. The village starts, like most Punjab villages, with a pond but its houses are aligned towards the left and not on the road, so one crosses the village too quickly.

I passed them by and then stopped at a brick kiln where I met Amarjit and asked him if the village was indeed the one I sought. He answered in the affirmative and I asked in jest, ‘Are the gurdwaras in your village divided on lines of caste, as are most of them now-a-days in Punjab?’

‘Brother,’ said Amarjit, ‘The more gurdwaras we build, the more we divide our community. We have four but that is because of the grace of Guru Gobind Singh and not because we discriminate on lines of caste. All are welcome.’

That was reason enough for me to have tea with him. He tells me that the literacy rate in the 4000 strong village is 100 per cent. They have a middle school and then kids go to high school three km away. The village grows two crops: wheat and rice. No canal or river touches the village, so everyone depends on ground water.

Though now, equipped with submersible pumps, the water table has fallen to 250 feet.

A farmer with 15 acres is considered to be a rich man and since most families are not split over land, farming remains a viable option. The sugarcane plantation stopped when the sugar mill at Jagraon shut down.

People indulge in liquor and opiates but not in synthetic drugs or heroin or smack. Hence no one from these villages has ever been to a detoxification camp or been treated for addiction. Hardly anyone has migrated abroad and there is no craze for Canada or Italy.

Interestingly, since the mid-90s, the state assembly constituency in which the village falls, Raikot, and the central constituency, Fategarh Sahib, has always voted in opposition to the parties that gained power in either the State Assembly or the Centre.

‘No politician, except for Simranjeet Singh Mann, has ever stepped into our village. Forget expressing solidarity with Balwant Singh, they do not even come here for campaigning. As if our village has done something they can’t even comprehend.’

I felt, maybe that is why this sort of self-governed village remains an island in the murky waters of Punjab and India today.

"Jagdeep just announced his wish to be sarpanch (head of the village council) and no one opposed him. We always elect our

panchayat (village council) like that ... through consensus.’

As is the custom, Amarjit Singh takes the name of his village as his surname but his birth surname is Natt.

Similarly, Balwant Singh Rajoana was born Balwant Singh Natt.

* * * * *

The Natts of Rajoana Kalan trace back their history to a woman known as Mai Bhatti. She lived during the life and times of Guru Gobind Singh.

The legend relates to the time the Guru was engaged in challenging the tyrants of the region - the ruling Mughals and the petty Hindu rajas that fed off them. While on his way from Chamkaur Sahib and Machhiwada, he came to the village where Mai Bhatti lived with her three sons. Spent and exhausted and without even a horse, he came upon the family and requested the sons to find one for him.

He spent the night there and the next morning Mai Bhatti, together with her three sons, carried the Guru on a manji (a small light cot). Once awake, the Guru noticed that one end of the manji was dipping lower than the other three, but could not see the reason for this. Before long, he realized that it was because the mother, Mai Bhatti, was supporting that end of the manji on her frail shoulders.

Guru Gobind Singh was moved by their devotion and blessed Mai Bhatti and her family in gratitude for their support and commitment.

Later, when he asked Mai Bhatti if he could help them in any way, she merely asked for his blessings so that each of her sons would soon find a bride and settle down. Guru Gobind Singh was amused by the simplicity of her wishes and asked if he could help materially, with money, for example. But all she wanted was that each of her sons be well-settled and flourish.

The Guru, in his munificence, showered them with his blessings.

Before long, the story goes, each son prospered and founded a village.

The three villages, peopled by Mai Bhatti's descendants, thrive to this day: Rajoana Kalan (the main village); Chotta Rajoana (small Rajoana) also known officially as Rajoana Khurd; and the village of Tugal.

Initially all the families and descendants of Mai Bhatti’s sons lived together within the Qila (fort).

The current sarpanch of Rajoana Kalan, Jagdeep Singh, still lives in the Qila.

* * * * *

One of the residents of Rajoana is a man named M. Khan.

During the partition of Punjab and India in 1947, Jagdeep’s father had encouraged Khan’s father to stay back at the village, promising him and his beleagured co-religionists safety. Khan tells how even at the peak of communal violence, his family and the other Muslims in the village had felt and remained absolutely safe amongst its Sikh residents.

"I have been seeing Balwant since he was a young kid. A very quiet boy. We are all very proud of him. See the flags in the village?" points out Khan.

It was the day exactly a week after Balwant Singh was to be hanged. Each house and each tree in the village carries the Nishaan flag. The hot winds have not yet blown the flags to bits.

Jagdeep’s mother tells me how the annual Mai Bhatti langar has now become a big fair, a mela. Her daughter is trying to find more details on the Mai Bhatti story and maybe they will produce a CD depicting the saga from Guru’s life and how their villages are linked.

"Everyone in our village gets married," she says. "We are blessed."

But one man stayed a bachelor.

Balwant Singh never married.

Part II

Jagdeep’s mother stops mid-sentence. Her belief shines through her words.

"He is our son. We are with him. We are proud of him. Marriage is for the ordinary ones, he is special."

Gurmeet Kaur, Balwant Singh’s mother says: "We all tried convincing him. Even his father tried. He was very obedient, quiet, kept to himself, but in this one matter, that of his marriage, he never listened to us."

Though this is the first day Balwant Singh is allowed to meet family since the stay on his hanging, Gurmeet Kaur could not go to meet her son in the prison. But she does not dwell upon it. It's been too long, she has lost just too much.

A very old yellow tractor stares at me. One wall of her home is a blue plastic sheet. The ground is uneven.

On my asking her how she feels, she replies rhetorically, "How would a mother feel? Tell me, how would I feel? I have waited too long and nothing has changed. How would I feel?"

But, there is no trace of remorse or sympathy. She is with her son.

"What he did was right. Mainu manzoor hai. I accept it.Though I was very surprised he did it. When did these ideas come in his mind? He hardly talked to anyone. He read a bit, poems, stories but was very shy. [He was interested in the works of Surjit Paatar and Jaswant Singh Kanwal]. He was almost silent. Yes, he played hockey up to the zonal level and in his free time he would pull the cots together and jump over them. But he never grumbled or threw a tantrum. Never even asked for food. Whatever I gave him, he just ate it. He had a lot of free time because he never helped his elder brother Kulwant on the farm. He would tell Kulwant to hire someone for the field work; he didn’t want dirt to fall on his shoes."

On the possibility of an affiliation with the Resistance movement or his sympathy with the community over Operation Bluestar and the 1984 anti-Sikh pogroms, she says, "Nothing. As far as I know, nothing. At least, not as long as he was with us. Once he joined the police in 1986 he came home very rarely. His own father was killed by the militants; do you think he could be sympathetic towards them?"

* * * * *

Balwant Singh’s father, Malkiat Singh, ex-Army man, then Sarpanch of the village, was killed in the 1980s.

Gurmeet Kaur explains the situation: the militants were after my husband’s elder brother, Joginder Singh. In fact, they even met my husband and told him they had no enmity with him. But the brothers did not tell us that. They live close by and one night after dinner we heard sounds from their home. My husband ran towards Joginder’s house. My husband grabbed one of the men standing downstairs, he panicked and shot and then ran away. The other men also ran away. The shot felled my husband. But did Balwant Singh hold the militants as wrong for killing his father? No, he did not. He was later in the police, he could have pursued them. But no, he considered his own father’s death to be an accident. He always held that the death was not intentional. He was neither sympathetic towards them nor vengeful."

In his letter to his adopted sister, Kamaldeep Kaur, about three years ago, Balwant Singh wrote:

"I think that if sangharash (the struggle) has to be taken forward, we have to win the confidence of people of other religions and communities. All of them should feel secure in our ideology and should honour it. Our ideology should be of sarv dharam (respectful to, and accommodating of, all religions), justice and human progress and should not be confined to gurdwaras."

Kamaldeep Kaur is not Balwant Singh’s blood sister but has stood by the family. In fact, she perhaps is the only one, besides the village, who has stood by the family. Has anyone else - politician, media, lawyers, officials - come to their home over the years?

Gurmeet Kaur categorically says, ‘No. No one has ever come. When the date came up, suddenly some media came but they too vanished quickly. Our family has lived alone through these 17 years. When it becomes political one-upmanship, the leaders go talk about us but still do not come. No politician or jathedar has ever stepped in here. Else, tell me if we would have been in this predicament?"

I look around. The house is in shambles while a new set of rooms being constructed further on the plot.

"In monsoon the water comes up to our knees. Our rooms drown. We needed to raise the floor. But the work is slow. When some money comes in we build. Kuldeep lost his wife two years back to a sudden heart attack. He tills the 10 acre farm

which gives us just enough to keep the light in our ovens and pay the court fees."

Before Balwant Singh, Kuldeep was picked up by the police.

He was tortured mercilessly for two months and then released. No charges were framed, no charges were proven. The torture has affected him. Still, he goes to meet his brother.

"Initially the police did not allow anyone to meet Balwant. Any short meetings would be through bars. The police on close watch, even monitoring what was said. Then Balwant was in solitary confinement. But these days the meetings are in a hall. Everyone goes to meet him, his brother, uncles, nephews, even I."

How does Balwant's mother feel when she hugs him? Her stoic face crumbles.

"I wish he lives on. I agree with his stance, but a mother’s heart is warmed by the blood in her son’s veins. I would never want it to turn cold. All of you prayed, I am told people from all around the world prayed. That is how his sentence was postponed. I hope he is released. We need to get our house in order, complete construction, before he comes. I do not have many years ahead. I hope I can see him enter the gates of his home."

How does he pass his time in jail?

"He has mostly passed his time reading the scriptures. He enjoys good health but a bad back."

In his initial days in jail the police had tortured him intensely.

Does she pray a lot?

"Son, I am illiterate. I can’t read the religious scriptures. All I can do is utter SatNaam, WaheGuru. I do that all the time. I walk to the Gurdwara Manji Sahib and attend Ardaas. What more can a mother do?"

Gurdwara Manji Sahib seems like an oasis of peace. Winding up from my trip I feel that in some ways the gurdwara’s aura and Mai Bhatti’s langar bestow their grace upon the village. The unity and solidarity in the village and their common respect for their famous son echoes the real values on which Guru Gobind Singh established the Khalsa.

I am reminded of a faded picture on a wall in Balwant Singh’s home, of running horses and the tag line: "Togetherness is happiness."

I ask Amarjit what does he think of Balwant Singh’s role in the history of Punjab and he responds with a question: ‘Why do you think he took the step?"

Then he tells a story.

A lion cub was placed in a sheep pen. As he grew up, the cub got used to bleating and lost all sense of is own individuality and voice. He felt sheep wool was better than a lion’s mane. One day a lion came near the pen and growled. The cub felt some familiarity but did not do anything; it kept its nose down and munched on the grass. The lion growled again, this time something stirred in the cub. By the third growl, the cub gave up its inhibition and growled back in unison with the lion.

That, says, Amarjit is Balwant Singh’s call. He has roused the sleeping Sikhs. It is now up to the Sikhs to take ahead their fight for justice.

Balwant Singh has not been swayed through two decades and Gurmeet Kaur’s words ring in my ears.

"He was the chosen one. Do you think it is possible for an ordinary man to dream up such an exercise and be so still in a storm? It is the Guru’s blessing and your goodwill. After all, every innocent boy who died at the hands of police was someone’s son. I pray that I bear more sons like him in my next life. Sons who give their lives so that innocent lives are saved and thus carry forward the tradition of honour and sacrifice which we Sikhs were meant to uphold.’

* * * * *

Balwant Singh listened to his conscience.

He stands for an ethical principle: equality in the system of justice in the country.

It is really up to us to either consider him a criminal or a conscience keeper of the Sikh community, as one who chose death but did not compromise on his impeccable principles.

CONCLUDED

Amandeep Singh Sandhu is the author of Sepia Leaves and the upcoming novel Roll of Honour, a novel on the split loyalties of a Sikh adolescent in a military school during the years of state oppression, and the resulting resistance movement and militancy in Punjab. Both books are by Rupa Publications.

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[papidas]

Vaheguru Ji Ka Khalsa Vaheguru Ji Ki Fateh ||

all i can say is :waheguru: an that too with HIS KIRPA. We need more Leaders like him do let his words fall on deaf ears. Remember a cherish them in your hearts forever.