The moment word Punjab comes across anybody’s mind it feels like something progressively prosperous, charmingly cheerful, lively live, carefree and happy go lucky. That was the Punjab of the pre-1980s. The dark spell of a decade-long terror has pushed Punjab back by generations. Once at the top of the table in all developmental parameters, Punjab has now slipped down to count among the least performing states in the country.
It is not that Punjab has reached the saturation point in progress and development, but only because Punjab has been callously, carelessly and criminally mismanaged continuously. The mismanagement is in all aspects, be it political governance, bureaucratic or police administration, industrial or agricultural management, whatever.
A vibrant and robust state, with its equally robust and aspiring people, has been turned fatalist, as everyone seems to have resigned to his/her fate. The only escape looks like to be the far off shores across the seven seas like Canada, America, Europe or Australia. Even those shores are fast turning inaccessible. Desperate deportees from the United States are the true reflection of a desperate Punjab, crying in helplessness.
So, what ails Punjab? Probably the failure of its political leadership. Punjabis have tried and given a chance to everyone. After a decade long era of terror, they experimented with the Congress government, which was installed after a poorly polled election. It was followed by the Akali-BJP government. Punjab even gave chance, not once but twice, to the Congress as well despite the Operation Bluestar and the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Nothing seemed to work for Punjab. The aspirations either remained subdued and subjugated or misguided.
Punjab even tried a “dreamy dispensation” in 2022, after having been fed up with the traditional parties/alliances like the Congress and the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party. The hopes and expectations the Punjabis had put on the Aam Aadmi Party can be gauged from the fact that it won 92 of the 117 assembly segments.
Great stalwarts including a five-time and a two-time former Chief Ministers, Parkash Singh Badal and Captain Amarinder Singh were defeated. So were other two former Chief Ministers, Ms Rajinder Kaur Bhattal and Charanjit Singh Channi.
Even the AAP experiment did not deliver what had been expected of it. Punjab still remains there at the same place, if not having drifted down further, where it had been left by the Akalis or the Congress. The curse of drugs still haunts the Punjabi homes fatally. Every now and then we have reports of deaths with drug overdose. The supply chains remain intact. The helplessness of the state to curb drugs was best summed up by a former Director General of Punjab Police, who lost his son to drugs. He was quoted saying that despite having all the resources, power and authority, he could not stop the supply of drugs to his only son.
It would be unfair to the AAP if it is exclusively blamed for the failure to curb this scourge. Even if its leaders had promised to finish the curse in a time bound manner, it cannot be possible. The drugs are not an AAP problem alone. The AAP has inherited the problem from its predecessors, who also had made similar promises, which could not be fulfilled. The problem is much graver than to be politicized for partisan interests. It will need a collective and non-partisan approach to deal with it.
The second worst thing to happen to Punjab is the “gangster-culture”. It will not be an exaggeration to warn that Punjab risks turning into a gang-land like the erstwhile pre-Yogi Uttar Pradesh or Bihar. Gangsters are threatening and intimidating people with impunity with no fear of law. Ransoms are a routine and any resistance is met with fatal retribution.
Punjab’s economy is in complete doldrums. There have been no fresh investments in the state for a long time. Every government tries to persuade the industry and investors to invest in Punjab. There are always a plethora of promises but none is implemented or executed on the ground. It is Punjab’s original industry, whatever has been left of it, that is sustaining the state with whatever revenue it can contribute.
Obviously it is not any single government that can be blamed exclusively. The blame deserves to be uniformly shared. If one government did not do the right things, the other followed with the same things thus adding to the problems and woes of Punjab. Expectations of people were successively belied.
Punjab is burdened with a huge debt worth about Rs four lakh crores. While there are several factors responsible for it, one of the main and major factors is the recurring deficit the Punjab government has to suffer on account of the power subsidy in the agriculture sector. This was probably the worst thing that happened to Punjab that power was made freely available to farmers. It not only leads to misuse of power, but also the abuse of water. Plus, the drain on the state’s finances and economy is perennial.
To top it all, corruption in Punjab, at all levels, from the grassroots to the top is perennial. The system has evolved in such a way that nothing moves forward without greasing the palms of concerned officials. The recent seizure of Rs 7.5 crores in cash from a senior police officer’s possession is just one of the cases. It is like the proverbial “tip of the iceberg”. Merely scratch anywhere, may be there would be more serious and sensational revelations. However, there indeed are honest officers with a high degree of honesty and integrity. But they are quite rare and mostly remain marginalised and sidelined.
It is not that Punjab has reached a state of no return. Punjab can and Punjab shall be redeemed. It still has huge agricultural and industrial potential and resources. On top of that, it needs to retain its human resources, which are slipping away to foreign countries.
It is a tragic state of affairs that the most deserving people sell their precious possessions like land to take risky illegal routes to reach countries like the US or Canada only to be humiliatingly deported back. Punjab only needs to reassure its youth, which is its future, that it will be better off at home, than struggling it hard in foreign shores.
That will need a lot of sincere and sustained efforts and not the fake and false short-lived dreams that are sold for free, without any intention of getting them realized. Punjab, today stands on the crossroads of history and needs to be navigated cautiously, carefully, sensibly and smartly.
