From The Back Cover Of 'The Sikh Unrest And The Indian State' By Ram Narayan Kumar

Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, with no organization or money to match the vast resources of the traditional Akali, rose from an obscure religious background to become the epitome of Sikh aspirations. How and why did this happen?

For all its fierceness, the Sikh unrest has not found clear articulation so far. What is it precisely that forms the hard core of the Sikh discon­tent, and what goals has the militant movement been trying to achieve?

Concrete grievances nursed by the Sikhs could never inspire such frenzied responses unless they resonated ultrasensitive chords of their collective consciousness. What are these visceral sentiments that pro­voke intransigent reactions sustaining the unrest? What are the frustra­tions seething in the fragmented and tortured consciousness of Punjab that tend towards violent and anarchic manifestation ? Is there, at this source of discontent, enough latitude to adapt the aspirations of those who stand for the unity of India? Or, are the visions of destiny held by the warring parties, irreconcilable in their essence?

Secessionist movements are not new to India, especially to its peripheral regions. But the unrest in Punjab is unique in so far as it accentuates a complete reversal of political sentiments in a people who, together with Punjab's Hindus, had joined India by violently insisting on a truncation of eastern Punjab. What accounts for the evaporation of their faith in India? Has India betrayed the commitments of 1947, as the Sikh leaders of today allege? What were those commitments? Was India. such as it emerged after independence, at all in a position to give them the communal safeguards and the regional autonomy for which they struggle? What scope is there for reconciliation now, and in which framework?

The book explores these questions with a thoroughness that represents condensation of very exhaustive researches into the ground realities, historical conditions that generate them as well as the constitutional background to the involved issues. It clothes politics with the flesh and blood of the people who are its instruments, and compels attention on the implacable realities of the situation by reflecting them as the products of India's historical blunders. By underpinning arguments on new-information and insights, and by introducing standards of inter­pretation that are unique, the book liberates the debate on this important subject from the treadmill of hackneyed understanding.