Three numbers released over the last few months deserve to be read together: 7.8 per cent, $863 billion and $729 billion. They tell us something important about the Indian economy, particularly when viewed against what is happening in the rest of the world.

India’s real GDP grew 7.8 per cent in April-June 2026, substantially ahead of most major economies. China grew 4.3 per cent, Indonesia 5.29 per cent, Malaysia 6 per cent and Singapore 5.9 per cent. Vietnam, a much smaller economy, was slightly ahead of India. The more accurate claim, therefore, is not that India is the fastest-growing country in the world, but that it remains the fastest-growing large major economy.

And this growth has not come in comfortable circumstances. India has faced the West Asia war and its accompanying oil and supply-chain shock. Crude prices matter enormously to a country which imports most of its oil requirement. Yet manufacturing grew 9.2 per cent, services 10 per cent and gross fixed capital formation, an important indicator of investment, rose 11.9 per cent. Private investment is showing signs of becoming a broader contributor to growth.

Now add the second number. India’s total exports reached an all-time high of $863.1 billion in FY 2025-26, despite US tariff pressures and the disruption caused by the West Asia crisis. Merchandise exports were $441.8 billion and services exports $421.3 billion. The Commerce Ministry says total exports have nearly doubled over the last decade. That is no small change in the structure and global reach of the Indian economy.

Then comes the third number. India’s foreign exchange reserves have just touched an all-time high of $729.33 billion, as of August 21. The reserves increased by $12.42 billion in one week and have risen for eight consecutive weeks. Part of this increase has come from strong NRI deposit inflows under the RBI’s concessional swap facility and part from higher valuation of gold, so we should not pretend that every dollar represents export earnings. Even with that qualification, a $729 billion reserve cushion gives India considerable protection at precisely the time when oil prices, currencies and geopolitics are volatile.

What interests me most, however, is not that India has achieved these numbers. It is that India has achieved them despite carrying enormous self-created handicaps.

Our administrative system still carries much of the colonial-era mindset of permission, control and suspicion. An entrepreneur can build a modern factory but may still have to negotiate a government system built around files, approvals and multiple authorities. Our judiciary remains independent and respected, but commercial disputes can take years and property disputes sometimes generations. Capital cannot operate at twenty-first-century speed while justice moves at twentieth-century speed.

Agriculture is an even bigger contradiction. Nearly half our population remains connected to agriculture, yet serious structural reform has virtually stopped. Markets remain restricted, landholdings fragmented, diversification slow, technology politically controversial and farmers vulnerable to unpredictable import-export decisions. The three farm laws were withdrawn, but unfortunately the debate on what should replace them also largely disappeared.

This is why 7.8 per cent should not make us complacent. It should make us ambitious. If an economy can grow at nearly 8 per cent despite war, expensive oil, an outdated bureaucracy, a painfully slow judicial system and an almost unreformed agricultural structure, what could India achieve if these brakes were actually removed?

Perhaps the real message in these numbers is not merely that India is growing fast. It is that India may still be growing well below its potential.

For Viksit Bharat 2047, the next great economic reform cannot only be about spending more. It has to be about reforming agriculture, bureaucracy, judiciary, land and regulation. India’s economic engine has demonstrated its power. It is time we stopped driving it with the handbrake on

Sources / data references

• NSO / PIB: GDP estimates, April-June 2026

• Ministry of Commerce & Industry / PIB: FY 2025-26 exports

• Reserve Bank of India: Weekly Statistical Supplement / forex reserves

• Times of India: Forex reserves at $729.33 billion

But it also creates an opening which India and Canada would be foolish to ignore.

Canada cannot replace the American market with India. Geography does not change because Donald Trump has become aggressive or tariffs are rising. Yet Canada has learnt a hard lesson: excessive dependence on even a trusted neighbour carries a risk. India can become part of a more diversified Canadian economy.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s visit to Toronto is therefore very timely. She and Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne concluded the first India–Canada Finance Ministers’ Economic and Financial Dialogue. India is also ready to negotiate a Bilateral Investment Treaty. Both sides want bilateral trade to reach C$70 billion, or about ₹4.65 lakh crore, by 2030. Government of Canada.

But targets announced in conference rooms do not automatically produce trade. The proposed Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement will have to address tariffs, investment protection, standards and professional qualifications.

There is enough economic mutual interest. Canada has uranium, potash, pulses, timber, critical minerals and large pension funds. India offers scale, infrastructure demand, technology, pharmaceuticals and a rapidly growing market.

The strongest connection, however, is people.

Canada needs immigrants. This is not really debatable. Its population is ageing and large parts of its economy—from hospitals and elderly care to construction, farming and transport—will require younger workers. About 7.6 million Canadians were 65 or older in 2023. By 2030, this may rise to between 21.4 and 23.4 per cent of the population. The worker-to-retiree ratio is expected to fall to only two workers for every retiree by 2035. Statistics Canada, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

India has this young manpower. Punjab, perhaps more than any other Indian state, already has a long and complicated human relationship with Canada.

For Punjab, Canada is not some distant country on a map. In many villages and towns, someone’s son or daughter is studying there, working there or has settled there. More than 942,000 Canadians reported knowledge of Punjabi in the 2021 Census. No agreement has to create this bridge. It exists. Statistics Canada

The immigration process, unfortunately, hit rock bottom during Justin Trudeau’s confrontation with India. Study permits issued to Indians fell by 86 per cent in the last quarter of 2023. By October 2024, Canada had only four immigration officials left in India, compared with 27 earlier. Genuine students and families paid for a political quarrel they had not created. Reuters, Reuters.

This route needs to reopen properly. I stress “properly” with proper screening.

There were serious abuses in the earlier system. Unscrupulous agents, forged admission letters, doubtful colleges and students sent into useless courses damaged the whole process. Some young people sold land or put their families into heavy debt, only to discover that the promised education and employment pathway was not what it appeared to be.

Canada is entitled to check identity, finances, academic ability, security background and whether a skill is actually required. Punjab must act much harder against fraudulent travel and education agents. Screening is not discrimination. A clean system will protect genuine applicants.

The trade agreement should include a practical mobility chapter. Qualifications need recognition, documents can be jointly verified and processing times should be clear. Canada should identify the people it really needs—nurses, caregivers, engineers, technicians, construction workers, agricultural specialists and technology professionals. Students should go to credible institutions, not be used as cheap labour by inferior colleges.

Political differences cannot be pushed under the carpet. India’s concerns about extremism and sovereignty are real, while Canada’s laws must be respected. Trust will return slowly, through quiet cooperation rather than accusations before television cameras. At the same time, Canada has to set right its asylum policy, control its land for anti India use by elements, their handlers and the asylum lawyers.

Energy and investment remain important. Canadian pension funds have nearly C$110 billion invested in India, while a C$2.6 billion arrangement will supply Canadian uranium to India between 2027 and 2035. But money and minerals alone will not give this relationship its depth.

Canada needs young and skilled people. India needs respectable global opportunities for its youth. Punjab already has the language, family and cultural links. The fit is evidently visible.

This is not an anti-American alliance, nor should it be sold as one. It is simply two countries recognising that the world has changed and that both have something useful to offer to each other.

There is an opportunity for both, this time, neither country should allow bad politics or bad immigration practices to waste it.

Eight months later, alliance discussions are no longer just drawing-room gossip.

Sukhbir Singh Badal met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 7, their first political meeting since SAD left the NDA in 2020. Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Bikram Singh Majithia then spoke in favour of a reunion. BJP continues to publicly claim that it will contest all 117 seats. But The Indian Express reports that backroom talks with the Badal-led SAD are continuing.

Other formulas are also on the table. The Tribune reports that SAD (Punar Surjit) leaders are being considered in a broader BJP-Akali arrangement. Another possibility involves BJP, SAD (Punar Surjit), BSP and smaller Panthic groups, while keeping the Badals out.

Nothing is final. Hard bargaining is going on.

The arithmetic explains why. In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, BJP received around 18.5 per cent of Punjab’s vote but won no seat. SAD received approximately 13.5 per cent and won only Bathinda. Together, nearly 32 per cent.

But in politics, one plus one can become two, three—or even one-and-half.

An internal assessment cited by The Tribune found that their combined votes would have put them ahead in 57 of Punjab’s 117 Assembly segments, just two short of a majority. Tempting figures. But votes cannot simply be added like numbers in an account book. The chemistry matters.

The old alliance worked because the two parties occupied separate spaces. BJP connected with urban Hindu voters. SAD mobilised rural Sikh voters. They complemented each other and rarely fought for the same vote.

That neat division is now broken. BJP fields Sikh candidates, has inducted several Akali leaders and wants seats earlier treated as SAD territory. Former Congress leaders such as Kewal Singh Dhillon and Ravneet Singh Bittu, who have spent years attacking the Badals, are now important BJP faces. H S Phoolka, another fierce critic of the Badal family, is also in BJP.

Putting everyone on one stage is possible. Getting their voters to move together is much more difficult.

Will SAD’s Sikh voters support BJP candidates? Will BJP’s urban voters vote for Akalis? Will those who abandoned SAD over sacrilege and other painful controversies return merely because two leaders shake hands? These are not small questions.

Yet this difficulty does not weaken the case for an alliance. It shows why the old arrangement cannot be simply dusted, repainted and presented as new.

Despite Prime Minister Modi’s considerable efforts—the Kartarpur Corridor and national recognition of the martyrdom of Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji and the Sahibzadas—distrust of BJP survives among sections of rural Sikh society. Some came from the farmers’ agitation, some from relentless political messaging, and some is difficult to explain rationally. Fair or unfair, it exists.

A credible Panthic partner can give BJP the social and emotional acceptance that even a powerful election machinery cannot. It can dilute the accusation that BJP is “Sikh virodhi” and push this increasingly tired rhetoric back into hardline and diaspora corners.

There is also an uncomfortable rise in anti-Hindu language among a small section of Sikh hardliners. Thankfully, it is not the wider Sikh mood. Nor do we see comparable anti-Sikh hostility among Punjab’s Hindus. This ugly rhetoric should not be exaggerated, but ignoring it will also be foolish. It needs careful political recalibration. Very careful.

The Badal-led SAD cannot be wished away. It still has cadre, organisation, the traditional election symbol, a Lok Sabha MP and a visible vote. But an alliance confined to BJP and the Badals would leave the Panthic split wide open.

SAD (Punar Surjit) must therefore be accommodated with dignity, not as an afterthought. A forced merger is neither realistic nor required. BJP can reach separate but coordinated understandings with both Akali factions, allowing them to retain their identities under a common Punjab agenda.

BJP cannot return to the old formula of only 23 seats. Its claim over 45–50 seats has some logic. But a demand for 70–80 seats would make its Panthic partners helpless appendages. That is not partnership. It may actually deepen the very emotional resistance that the alliance is meant to reduce.

Punjab also badly needs a real political contest. AAP came to power with 92 seats, a massive and almost unchallenged majority. Congress had similarly won 77 seats in 2017. Such lopsided mandates can slowly disconnect governments from ordinary people. Leaders start behaving like superheroes. The Assembly becomes a formality and the police risks becoming a partisan political instrument.

No government should treat a divided opposition as permanent public approval and move like a powerful road roller. Congress remains a major force, but a broad BJP–SAD–Punar Surjit arrangement would rearrange the entire political field, challenge AAP and give Congress a sharp wake-up call.

Punjab needs a balanced Vidhan Sabha. A government strong enough to govern, yes—but an opposition equally strong enough to question it, restrain it and stop the misuse of power. That balance is not instability. That balance is democracy.

I am writing again about the “Temple of Justice”.

When a sitting Supreme Court judge writes not just one, but three letters accusing the acting Chief Justice of a High Court of corruption, nepotism and favouritism, the matter cannot be dismissed as an internal administrative disagreement. Justice Sandeep Mehta’s allegations against Rajasthan High Court Acting Chief Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma concern selective case listings, misuse of roster powers and decisions allegedly favouring influential litigants. The allegations require a fair inquiry. They also require an answer.

Chief Justice of India Surya Kant is right that Justice Sharma must be heard before any conclusion is reached. Nobody should be condemned through social media. But the public is entitled to know how the complaint is being examined and when a decision can be expected. Justice Sharma retires next month. Due process must not become a waiting room for retirement.

A transfer, settles nothing. If misconduct is established, accountability, to logical conclusion must follow. If the allegations are unfounded, the judge deserves a reasoned exoneration. Leaving the matter unresolved damages both the individual and the institution of Judiciary.

The history is not that comfortable. The removal motion against Justice V Ramaswami failed in 1993 despite adverse inquiry findings. Justice Soumitra Sen resigned after the Rajya Sabha voted for his removal in 2011. Justice Yashwant Varma resigned in April this year; a parliamentary inquiry committee later found all three charges against him proved in the cash-at-residence case. Different cases, different circumstances, but the failure to complete an effective accountability process is commonly evident.

I raised this issue earlier in “Judicial Accountability Is Not Defamation”, after an NCERT textbook’s discussion of judicial corruption created a controversy. If the Constitution itself provides for removing judges for misconduct, how can an informed discussion of misconduct amount to disrespect? Removing an uncomfortable reference from a textbook does not remove the problem.

There are many honest and hardworking judges. During the 2023 PCS Judicial Services selection process, I worked closely with judges of the Punjab and Haryana High Court and saw the seriousness they brought to the task. Their integrity also deserves protection from the damage caused by unresolved allegations. Judicial independence must remain non-negotiable. So must the accountability.

At the same time, I am myself involved in a few civil and financial cases that are taking years even to be heard. Arguments and decisions are still far away. Thereafter will come appeals, followed by the same lengthy process in the next court and perhaps the next court after that. Should I hope for justice or even a decision in a decade or two decades?

Our maid has been pursuing a case against a chit fund rea estate company for nearly twenty years. Every month she goes to court hoping that the decision will be announced on the next date. That “next date” has still not arrived. She was around 50 when the case was filed. She is now almost 70.

The National Judicial Data Grid shows more than 5.10 crore cases pending in district courts alone, including nearly 48 lakh older than ten years. These are not merely files. They are properties that cannot be used, businesses unable to recover money, families exhausting their savings and undertrials losing years of their lives. Massive infrastructure projects are delayed, causing massive national wastage. FDI is flying away due to the lengthy processes.

“Tareekh pe tareekh”, the famous dialogue from Damini, remains painfully true. A litigant travels, pays, waits and returns with another date. A favourable judgment after twenty years may establish that he was right. It cannot return those twenty years.

This is where frustration turns into anger. In my May open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, I wrote that the rise of the Cockroach Janta Party was a warning, not merely an internet joke. Whatever one thinks of CJP’s politics, the frustration it tapped cannot be dismissed. The reactions on X to the Rajasthan controversy contain anger, suspicion and demands for an investigation. Some accusations are sweeping, but the question is legitimate: will transfer or retirement once again substitute for accountability?

Reform must now become a programme with deadlines. The allegations from Rajasthan requires a time-bound inquiry and published for public view. India needs a credible judicial complaints mechanism protected from political interference, transparent appointments and transfers, and meaningful asset disclosure. Most important, first the judiciary should acknowledge that complaint is not a contempt. Vacancies must be filled, unnecessary adjournments controlled and old cases given enforceable hearing schedules. Governments must also reduce avoidable litigation. Technology should reduce waiting, not merely display the next date on a screen.

As I argued recently, Viksit Bharat 2047 cannot be built with institutions attuned for another century. The judiciary is best placed to reform itself, and it is far better that reform comes from within. It will not lose respect by acting transparently. It will regain trust, and become “Temple of Justice” again.

“Tareekh pe tareekh” cannot be the judiciary’s answer to its own reform.

Political parties have a simple relationship with opinion polls. When the numbers suit them, the poll is scientific. When they do not, the methodology is doubtful. A survey is useful, but it is only a snapshot. It is not the result, and not the last word.

The Vote Vibe State Vibe report released on August 25, 2026 covers Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. In Punjab, AAP gets 34 per cent and Congress 30.2. BJP is at 12.2, SAD at 11.3 and Akali Dal (Waris Punjab De) at 6.6 per cent. Another 4.7 per cent are undecided.

My first reading is quite simple. AAP is ahead, but only just. A gap of 3.8 percentage points over Congress is not a wave. It is not even a comfortable lead. Punjab remains open.

Figure 1. Punjab vote intention in the Vote Vibe survey.

Source: Vote Vibe State Vibe report

AAP also has the advantage of perception. Vote Vibe says 36.7 per cent expect AAP to win, against 26.8 per cent for Congress. This matters. Closer to polling day, many voters move towards the party they think will form the government.

AAP’s real strength is Bhagwant Mann. He is the preferred chief minister for 40.1 per cent, ahead of Channi at 20.6 and Sukhbir Badal at 11.7 per cent. Mann is six points above AAP’s vote share. He is carrying the party more than the party is carrying him.

There is another number AAP should not brush aside. Satisfaction with the government is 40 per cent, against 35.4 per cent dissatisfied. For sitting MLAs, it falls to 32.2 per cent, while dissatisfaction rises to 45.3 per cent. Much of the anger is local.

Ticket distribution can therefore become AAP’s biggest headache. It may replace unpopular candidates, but denied tickets create rebels. In a close seat, a rebel does not have to win. He only has to damage the official candidate.

Drugs, gangsters and law and order

Drugs are Punjab’s biggest issue in the survey at 25.7 per cent. Unemployment and migration follow at 24.3 per cent. Inside a Punjabi home these worries meet: one child has no job, another plans to leave, while the family fears drugs, gangsters and easy money. Drugs and law and order are intertwined.

I had raised this warning much earlier. In my Hindustan Times article, ‘Gangsters or terrorists? Punjab needs courage to call them what they are’, I argued that law and order could become the main issue of the 2027 election. I still believe so. Welfare schemes matter. But when traders receive extortion calls and shootings become regular news, the voter asks a basic question: is the State in control?

Two Punjab surveys, one broad direction

Vote Vibe becomes more revealing when compared with the earlier People’s Pulse ‘Mood Punjab Da’ report. People’s Pulse placed AAP at 37 per cent and Congress at 31. Vote Vibe gives them 34 and 30.2. The broad picture is the same: AAP first, Congress second, and a much closer contest than in 2022.

Figure 2. Punjab vote-share estimate in the Mood Punjab Da survey.

Source: People’s Pulse Punjab Mood Report 2026

People’s Pulse projects 58-63 seats for AAP and 36-43 for Congress. Vote Vibe gives no seat projection. Perhaps that is sensible. In a five-cornered election, where the vote is concentrated matters as much as the statewide percentage.

The disagreement is over the smaller parties. People’s Pulse gives WPD 14 per cent, BJP 8 and SAD 6. Vote Vibe gives BJP 12.2, SAD 11.3 and WPD only 6.6. One makes WPD the third force; the other puts it fifth. That can change several seats in Majha and Malwa.

The leadership figures also need care. Both put Mann around 40 per cent, but People’s Pulse gives Channi 33 while Vote Vibe gives him 20.6. The options differed. Vote Vibe leaves out Opposition leader Partap Singh Bajwa; People’s Pulse includes Amritpal Singh, while Vote Vibe does not. Change the names and the answer can change.

Figure 3. Preferred Chief Minister figures, with different candidate lists shown transparently.

Source: Vote Vibe and People’s Pulse reports

Photo sources: The Tribune, Webdunia, Dil Se Desi, NDTV, X profile, WikiBio and The New Indian Express.

The common findings matter. AAP is ahead. Congress is close enough to overtake it. Mann remains popular, but many AAP MLAs do not. The freebies and the women power are helping AAP. That is the position today, not necessarily the position after candidates are announced.

SAD’s Panthic space is under pressure from WPD. Even at the lower estimate, WPD can affect several seats. BJP’s 12.2 per cent in Vote Vibe is above its 2022 Assembly share, but below the 18.56 per cent it received in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. People’s Pulse puts it at 8 per cent.

Figure 4. Government formation: public perception and projected seat ranges, not a calculated probability.

Source: Vote Vibe and People’s Pulse reports

The methods differ. People’s Pulse conducted 8,000 face-to-face interviews across all 117 constituencies. Vote Vibe gives a combined telephone sample of over 6,000 for three states, without a Punjab breakup. That gap matters. Precise decimals are still not election results.

UP and Uttarakhand: BJP ahead, but not secure

In Uttar Pradesh, Vote Vibe gives the BJP alliance 41.8 per cent and the SP alliance 38.7. Yogi Adityanath leads Akhilesh Yadav as the preferred chief minister. Yet BJP and SP are tied at around 41 per cent when people are asked who will win. UP is competitive, and many sitting MLAs face dissatisfaction.

In Uttarakhand, BJP leads Congress 40.9 to 36.7 per cent. Pushkar Singh Dhami is the leading CM choice at 28.2 per cent. Here too, the local MLA appears to be a bigger problem than the government.

Conclusion of Punjab and my take: Punjab is interesting, yet still open

Punjab is interesting, yet still open. A SAD-BJP alliance, if it happens, with splinter groups such as SAD (Punar Surjit), can alter the equation. It may move urban and rural voters alike, cutting into AAP, Congress and Waris Punjab De. In a close election, even two or three points can change many seats.

Congress has the largest un-utilised political space. I have always argued that its latent power will show only when it sets its house in order. It should read the leadership survey carefully, especially Channi’s popularity. If the internal squabbling ends, Congress can move from being seen as a party fighting itself to a serious challenger, even the possible winner. That matters: a lot of people vote for the perceived winner.

BJP, on its own, still has to work very hard. It must understand Punjab better and make inroads through the emotional route, not just organisation, arithmetic or central schemes. SAD alone is not a potent force today. Waris Punjab De, in my assessment, will get a higher vote share than these surveys predict. AAP leads, yes—but this election is not settled yet.

That is why the new Hardeep Singh Nijjar development cannot be brushed aside. In a purported leaked conversation played on Ritesh Lakhi Unplugged, the gangster Goldy Brar claims that he and his team had Nijjar killed. He alleges that Nijjar supported people who recruited and blackmailed youngsters into selling drugs and becoming informers. The audio has not been independently authenticated, and Brar’s charge against Nijjar is not a proof. Then came another recording in which Arsh Dalla abuses Brar and threatens to eliminate him. Arsh Dalla admits his closeness to harddep Singh Nijjar. What are we hearing: religious leadership, or a gang war speaking the under shield language of community?

This is not merely a chatter on the YouTube. In July, the US Justice Department and FBI’s Operation Hard Ball charged Lawrence Bishnoi and Goldy Brar with ordering Nijjar’s assassination. Across three indictments, 37 people were charged, 24 arrested and about 1,000 kilograms of cocaine seized. These may not convictions yet, but murder, extortion and drugs across the diaspora make the organised-crime angle impossible to ignore.

Lets go back to June 18, 2023. Nijjar, who was president of Surrey’s Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara and a Khalistan activist, was shot outside the gurdwara. On September 18, Justin Trudeau told Parliament that Canadian agencies were pursuing “credible allegations of a potential link” between Indian government agents and the killing. India denied it. What followed was a painful chapter in the relation of two nations.

Diplomats were expelled, visas disrupted and the India–Canada relationship pushed into a deep freeze.

Canada has every right to investigate a murder on its soil and any foreign interference. But Trudeau took an intelligence input to the Parliament before evidence was properly verified. His minority government was then sustained by Jagmeet Singh’s NDP under a supply-and-confidence agreement. Trudeau allowed domestic Sikh politics to weigh too heavily on the India relationship. Nijjar was rapidly presented as a community leader, almost a martyr, while basic questions about the world around him still have remained unanswered.

Mark Carney has been more balanced. After the 2025 election, I had written that Jagmeet Singh’s defeat had opened a political space for Ottawa to reset relations. I had then argued for moving from discord to diplomacy and for an India–Canada intelligence pact against extremism, gang finance and transnational crime. Carney invited Narendra Modi to the G7 despite protests, restored high commissioners and resumed law-enforcement engagement. He also raised sovereignty and transnational repression.

That is statecraft: protect Canada without letting any diaspora lobby hold a bilateral relationship hostage.

The US indictment had named gangsters, not the Indian government or agents. A RCMP deputy commissioner said the July organised-crime investigation produced no evidence that Indian officials were charged or involved in those indictments. That does not erase Canada’s separate foreign-interference allegations. Nor does Brar’s recording prove Nijjar dealt drugs. Courts and evidence—not gangsters, governments or YouTube—must decide.

But Canada’s Public Safety establishment, RCMP and CSIS must clarify what they can. Who exactly was Nijjar? Only a gurdwara president and separatist organiser? Did agencies have intelligence about criminal associations? Did they verify or reject India’s dossiers? Is Brar’s drug allegation false, partly true, or deliberate gang propaganda? If Nijjar lived a camouflaged second life, evidence must be shown. A murdered man should neither be demonised without proof nor made a saint for political compulsion or convenience.

I read the comments under both Ritesh Lakhi videos. Some viewers declared Goldy a man of Indian agencies. Others call him a liar or traitor. Some glorify Arsh Dalla for threatening him. None of this is evidence. It shows how free thinking disappears when every fact must first pass a religious or political loyalty test.

I warned in “Adapt—Don’t Resist” that faith must not occupy every public space. In “Adapt or Be Rejected”, I wrote about young immigrants trapped in Desi bubbles, vulnerable to handlers, their asylum lawyers, and radicalisation. Operation Hard Ball shows where that road can end. Meanwhile, reported anti-Sikh hate crimes in the US rose about 25 per cent in 2025. Hate is never justified. But refusing to confront criminals who are hiding behind faith does not protect Sikhs, rather, it leaves ordinary Sikhs to face the backlash.

In the end I will conclude with that Faith is like a vessel. Keep filling it with prayer, humility, seva and discipline. The fuller it becomes, the stronger the person. Till then, it is beautiful. But every vessel has a rim. When faith spills over that rim onto roads, into political intimidation, flag wars and gang rivalries: the problem starts. It stops being only faith. It becomes power wearing religion as a cover.

Canada must protect Sikh citizens, expose gangsters and answer the uncomfortable questions. Faith should never become a shield for crime. And crime should never become an excuse to hate a faith. Keep the vessel full but do not let it spill. Community must decide with logical mind rather than myopic hatred.

Canada under the leadership of Mark Carney, must expose the truth about Nijjar. Let no pressure, whatsoever may come in the way of the truth, whatever it may be.

• The Indian Express: Three years after Nijjar’s killing, Goldy Brar claims responsibility

• The Tribune: In leaked audio, Goldy Brar claims responsibility for killing Hardeep Nijjar

• Hindustan Times: Goldy Brar claims responsibility for Nijjar’s killing: What the leaked audio reveals

• The Indian Express: Who is Goldy Brar, the gangster now linked to Nijjar’s killing?

• The Indian Express: No evidence linking India to Nijjar killing, says Canadian police

• The Tribune: Goldy Brar and Arsh Dalla trade barbs after Nijjar claim

• The Tribune: Former Indian envoy describes Nijjar killing as a possible gang war

In May 2026, I wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi after the “Cockroach Janta Party” meme swept through social media. The immediate trigger was a judicial observation, but the response was triggered something much larger. A generation accustomed to digital speed was expressing its frustration with institutions that still make citizens wait, plead and mocked by the ecosystem. The erosion of confidence in the institutions is something to take serious note of. (Link Below)

My argument then was that this anger should not be dismissed as another passing internet storm. It was a warning that trust in the judiciary, the bureaucracy and the everyday machinery of government was beginning to eroding. It was also an opportunity to reform before this anger hardens into permanent alienation.

Three months later, two important interventions have brought that question back into focus.

Captain Amarinder Singh, writing in The Indian Express, has argued that “Modi-ism” must evolve from leader-centred mobilisation into institution-centred nation-building. He acknowledges the gains of the Modi years, but says they now need deeper foundations. Parliament must deliberate seriously, appointments to constitutional bodies must inspire confidence, federal consultation must precede decisions affecting the states, and the BJP must develop institutional depth beyond one personality. Written by Capt Amarinder Singh is something to take note of. He is visionary. When he speaks, people listen. (Link Below)

Even if the driver is excellent, the vehicle should be equally good, the tyres should be aligned, the engine regularly and properly tuned. The vehicle cannot run a lakh Km without a mandatory check up every 10000 KM.

Manish Tewari, writing in The Tribune a day earlier, is more plain. He points to declining parliamentary sittings, poorly functioning state assemblies, judicial vacancies, crores of pending cases and the failure to meaningfully devolve power to local institutions. His conclusion is blunt: the institutional balance is breaking down and public confidence is paying the price. (Link below)

Both arguments are important. But the issue goes beyond constitutional health. India’s institutional crisis has now become an economic constraint.

The reforms of 1991 released Indian industry from much of the licence-permit raj. Private enterprise was allowed to invest, compete, innovate and export. Agriculture, however, was largely left outside that reform process. As I wrote recently, the factory owner received freedom while the farmer remained a controlled supplier of cheap food. PM Modi had shown his intent and taken a baby step for agri reforms in 2020 but that initiative failed.

The farmer can produce, but his market is repeatedly disrupted. Export bans arrive when prices improve. Imports are opened when domestic prices rise. Stock limits discourage investment in warehouses and value chains. The Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices must balance farmers’ interests against consumer prices and inflation. The National Food Security Act creates a legitimate obligation to provide affordable food, but its procurement compulsions influence the entire pricing system.

We praise the farmer as annadata while quietly using him and his economic shoulder, as an instrument of food subsidy.

Economist Surjit Bhalla has made the same point directly: practically every major sector was reformed in 1991 except agriculture; in some respects, “agriculture experienced negative reform”. He also connects weak private investment with policy uncertainty, restrictive investment rules, retrospective taxation, bureaucratic risk aversion and the absence of sustained structural reform. (Link below)

The contrast with China is revealing. China’s reform process began in rural areas. Agricultural households received greater responsibility, production incentives and decision-making freedom before reform expanded into industry, foreign trade and investment. China did not become an economic power merely by building roads and factories. It repeatedly altered the rules and incentives governing economic activity.

Reform is never comfortable. Reforms are tough, painful, vested interests oppose them, they feel threatened, they feel territorial encroachment. But without reforms, viksit bharat 2047 will be difficult. The ecosystem resists change. A department sees a single-window authority as an encroachment on its territory. An official may see the change as threat to his “other income”. A well-meaning official may prefer the safety of refusing a decision to taking the risk of approving one.

This is why reform cannot be announcing a portal or passing a law. The old ecosystem often survives inside the new structure. Files may become digital, but objections will remain analogue. A single window is opened, but the departmental walls behind it remain intact.

The warning from investors should be taken seriously, but stated accurately. An August 2026 Bank of America survey ranked India as the least-preferred Asia-Pacific equity market, excluding Japan, replacing Indonesia at the bottom. Thirty-two per cent of the fund managers surveyed were underweight India, while concern about the lack of reforms had increased. Weak growth, limited exposure to the artificial-intelligence boom and high valuations were also factors. So, we can forget attracting investors without tangible reforms. (Link Below)

Gross FDI reached a record $94.5 billion in 2025–26. But net FDI was only $7.7 billion. The amount of capital pulled out from Indian markets in last 2 years is staggering. The foreign capital has many alternatives. India cannot assume that its population and large market will persuade investors to accept indefinite delay, unpredictable regulation or slow dispute resolution. Here comes the need for a well thought of Tax reforms which are stable, consistent and not whimsically erratic or erratically whimsical.

India’s economic Vehicle has to travel at 90 kilometres per hour to reach 2047 Vikist Bharat destination, but its institutional “speed governors” remains calibrated at 40 KMPH. Judicial pendency clogging the system and eroding the confidence, bureaucratic discretion, regulatory uncertainty and sectoral protectionism repeatedly chokes and brakes the 1947 make engine, which needs an urgent overhaul, the vehicle needs new tyres, which are properly aligned and balanced to run on the expressways made by Nitin Gadkari. At the existing speed, Viksit Bharat 2047 may remain an distant destination which will be reached long after the scheduled arrival time.

India now needs a second generation of reform. Judicial appointments and vacancies need transparent timelines. The back log has to be cleared. Case management must curb endless adjournments. Commercial disputes require speed and predictability. Civil servants should be assessed for outcomes, innovation and timely decisions not merely for avoiding controversy. Parliament and state assemblies must recover their deliberative role. Federal consultation must become routine rather than ceremonial.

Agricultural reform must give farmers markets and choice, but also income protection, risk cover and a credible transition path. Those who genuinely lose from reform should be supported. Those who merely lose a monopoly, commission or discretionary power cannot be allowed to veto the future.

Strong leadership and strong institutions are not rivals. Leadership creates momentum, but institutions preserve it and carry it beyond one individual or one government.

Captain Amarinder is right that the present political energy must mature into institution-building. Manish Tewari is right that the deterioration is already visible. Surjit Bhalla is right that six per cent growth, however respectable, will not automatically deliver the ambition of 2047.

Reform will be tough. It will create anxiety and opposition. But postponing it risks losing investment, competitiveness, jobs and, “most importantly the youth itself.” Remember the Tinamen Square of 1989?

Wise nations reform before pressure becomes crisis. India still has that opportunity. An opportunity given by the political potholes. The engine is powerful, the destination is clear and the driver has political authority.

It is time to reset the speed governor and release the handbrake which is in the hands of pre independence era mindset.

Hyperlinks and references

1. An Open Letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi: The ‘Cockroach’ Anger Is a Warning That India’s Institutions Must Reform

2. Punjab Has Proved Its Nationalism. Has India Proved Its Federalism?

3. Punjab’s Agriculture: Next Election or Next Generation?

4. CACP, NFSA & ECA: The Actual Three Black Laws

5. When Montek Vindicated Mann

6. Modi-ism Must Evolve into Institution-Centred Nation-Building — Captain Amarinder Singh

7. India’s Institutions Are Failing the People — Manish Tewari

8. India’s Real Economic Crisis Is Structural, Not an Oil Shock — Surjit Bhalla

9. India’s Second 1991 Moment — Surjit Bhalla

10. Surjit Bhalla on the Reforms Required for Viksit Bharat 2047

11. India Replaces Indonesia as Asia’s Least-Preferred Stock Market: BofA Survey

12. Gross FDI Reaches $94.5 Billion; Net FDI Stands at $7.7 Billion

13. India Reviews Its Bilateral Investment Treaty Framework

14. China’s Reform and Economic Transformation — World Bank

By Gurpartap Singh Mann

The Bharatiya Janata Party appears to have entered election mode in Punjab. Its recent appointments are not routine changes; together, they resemble the opening of a campaign command centre.

Kewal Singh Dhillon was appointed Punjab BJP president in May. Turbulence followed the reorganisation of district and state office-bearers. A section of the old cadre felt that entrants from other parties were being rewarded while long-serving workers were being pushed aside. The public resentment damaged the new president’s early momentum.

Delhi has responded with three significant moves. Manpreet Singh Badal has been elevated as a national vice-president. Satish Poonia, an experienced organiser, has been appointed Punjab in-charge, filling the space left vacant after Vijay Rupani’s death. C. R. Paatil, Union Jal Shakti Minister, former Gujarat BJP president and a trusted political manager of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is reported to be the likely election in-charge. The appointment is not yet official, but the proposed deployment conveys seriousness.

The arrangement combines a Jat Sikh state president, an organiser to settle the cadre, a Punjab leader who can speak on economics and, possibly, a hard-driving election manager. It looks formidable, but multiple power centres can create confusion unless authority is clearly defined.

The urgency follows the rise and fall of the BJP’s expectations. In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, it secured 18.56 per cent about 25 lakh votes and led in 24 Assembly segments, its strongest statewide performance, yet won no parliamentary seat. At a Moga rally in March 2026, Amit Shah declared that wherever the BJP reaches 19 per cent, it forms the next government. For a cadre long confined to being the SAD’s junior partner, the claim was electrifying.

But rhetoric is not electoral law. Nineteen per cent is a foundation, not a bridge to 59 seats. Its value depends on its geographical and social spread.

The 2024 figure came in a national election shaped by the Modi factor, with the BJP contesting all 13 seats after its alliance with the SAD ended. Much of its support remained urban and semi-urban. An Assembly election is different: candidates, community equations, rural networks and state leadership carry greater weight. A parliamentary vote can become thinly scattered across 117 constituencies.

This is why the recent People’s Pulse “Mood Punjab Da” survey should neither be dismissed nor treated as scripture. It estimates AAP at 37 per cent and 58–63 seats; Congress at 31 per cent and 36–43 seats; Waris Punjab De at 14 per cent and 4–7 seats; BJP at 8 per cent and 2–6 seats; and SAD at 6 per cent and 2–4 seats.

People’s Pulse says it conducted 8,000 face-to-face interviews across all 117 constituencies between June 20 and July 31. I cannot independently verify its fieldwork, and one early survey is a snapshot, not a prophecy. Its figures are best read as a warning.

The timing matters. AAP’s advantage appears to rest substantially on its welfare architecture what supporters call delivery and opponents call freebies. But the fieldwork ended before the August 7 mass mobilisation of employees and pensioners over 18 per cent pending DA, the Old Pension Scheme and other demands. That escalating pressure is not reflected in the survey.

The leadership findings are equally revealing. Bhagwant Mann is the preferred chief minister at 40 per cent, followed by Charanjit Singh Channi at 33, Amritpal Singh at 13, Sukhbir Singh Badal at 5 and Kewal Singh Dhillon at 4.

Congress has still not converted Channi’s popularity into a clear leadership proposition. I have argued for more than a year that his social and political weight would make him difficult to ignore. I had written way back in April 2025 https://substack.com/@gpsmann/p-161857917 that how Channi can no longer be ignored. That political forecast stands vindicated. The survey reinforces that assessment.

For the BJP, the first challenge remains internal. Its Punjab unit contains three political cultures: the traditional urban cadre, former Congress leaders and leaders from the Akali tradition. Expansion required new faces, but growth cannot come by making the original cadre feel like tenants in its own house. New leaders bring reach and resources; old workers bring loyalty and booth-level endurance. The differences must be ironed out.

Nor should Sunil Jakhar’s contribution be overlooked. Under his presidency, the BJP recorded its highest statewide vote share and led in 24 Assembly segments. He gave it greater acceptability beyond its traditional cadre. Replacing him with Dhillon may reflect a new calculation, but the party cannot afford to marginalise Jakhar or squander the ground gained under him.

The larger challenge is understanding Punjab. It cannot be approached as another state or an extension of neighbouring Haryana. Its politics operates at three levels economic, social and emotional and emotion often overrides arithmetic.

The economic issues are debt, unemployment, agrarian stagnation, weak investment and migration. The social issues are drugs, gangsterism, law and order and eroding confidence. The emotional issues arise from Punjab’s history, Sikh identity, federal grievances and a belief that Delhi does not always understand the state’s sacrifices and claims. Any party that misses this third layer will misread Punjab.

Manpreet Badal brings administrative experience, knowledge of public finance and familiarity with Akali and Congress politics. He can frame an economic argument and provide a recognisable Sikh face nationally. But his usefulness depends on whether he is empowered to articulate a credible Punjab-specific programme.

Punjab faces more than conventional anti-incumbency. Law and order, drugs, unemployment, agricultural stagnation, industrial slowdown and debt are converging into a structural crisis. Outstanding debt is projected to approach Rs 4.48 lakh crore by March 2027 about 45 per cent of GSDP. Debt servicing consumes resources needed for infrastructure and jobs, while manufacturing remains too weak to employ Punjab’s youth.

Farmer anger, youth migration, drugs and gangsterism are not separate illnesses; they are symptoms of an economy no longer generating hope. Punjab needs a ten-year reconstruction plan covering debt, industry, border districts, small enterprises, agricultural research, assured diversification markets, water and above all employment for the youth.

The BJP has both an advantage and a burden. It governs at the Centre, but cannot pretend every problem begins and ends in Chandigarh. Drugs require state police, central agencies and border management to work together. Diversification depends on national procurement, trade, ethanol and pricing policies. “Double engine” will matter only if it produces measurable outcomes.

On Chandigarh, river waters, the BBMB and Bandi Singhs, the BJP cannot rely on ambiguity. As the ruling party at the Centre, it will be asked for answers, not sympathy. It must show that national integration and Punjab’s rights are not competing ideas.

The deepest obstacle is the trust deficit among farmers and much of rural Sikh society after the farm-law agitation. Sikh appointments may help, but symbolism cannot replace policy. The BJP must explain its position on MSP, markets, farm debt, diversification, groundwater and agricultural incomes.

The party also faces a choice over the SAD. Contesting alone may serve long-term expansion; an alliance may improve short-term arithmetic. But the votes of two weakened parties cannot simply be added, particularly when transferability is uncertain and Waris Punjab De is altering the Panthic space.

The appointments show that the BJP high command has begun to take Punjab seriously. Whether Punjab takes the BJP equally seriously will depend on what follows from here. If the BJP treats 19 per cent as an entitlement, even 8 per cent is possible. If it treats it as a starting point, repairs its organisation, respects Punjab’s federal concerns and offers a route out of economic decline, it can expand, beyond expectations because a large segment is looking at it with hope.

Punjab does not need another isolated scheme. It needs a new development model.

The Green Revolution succeeded because technology, public investment, assured procurement, credit and markets were aligned behind a common objective. The White Revolution similarly combined production with institutions and organised marketing. Punjab’s next transformation must be an Economic Revolution one that converts agricultural strength into higher productivity, competitive industry, modern services and well-paid employment.

Punjab is not a poor state. NITI Aayog’s SDG India Index 2023-24 gives it a composite score of 76, placing it sixth among 28 states. Its scores remain respectable in health, education and infrastructure. Multidimensional poverty was only 4.75 per cent in 2019-21, among the lowest levels in India. These achievements constitute a valuable social foundation. But they increasingly coexist with fiscal exhaustion and economic stagnation. NITI Aayog’s SDG India Index and Multidimensional Poverty Index reveal Punjab’s central paradox: relatively strong social outcomes, but an increasingly weak economic engine.

The warning from NITI Aayog’s latest Fiscal Health Index is unambiguous. Punjab scored 12.4 and ranked 18th out of 18 major states. It was last on fiscal prudence and the Debt Index, and near the bottom on expenditure quality. It has also remained last in every multi-year ranking period reported since 2014-15. This is no longer a temporary fiscal imbalance; it is a structural condition.

Punjab ranked 18th of 18 major states. Source: NITI Aayog, Fiscal Health Index 2026 (FY 2023-24).

The growth numbers explain why this matters. Punjab’s real GSDP is estimated to have grown by 6.1 per cent in 2025-26, against India’s 7.4 per cent. Agriculture—still contributing 23 per cent of the state economy—is estimated to have contracted by 2.5 per cent. Per-capita income, at ₹2,30,523, is now only about five per cent above the national average. A seemingly small annual growth differential, compounded over a decade, translates into a substantial loss of income, employment and fiscal capacity.

Punjab’s outstanding liabilities are budgeted at 45.1 per cent of GSDP in 2026-27. On the budget’s GSDP projection, that amounts to approximately ₹4.42 lakh crore—or roughly ₹1.4 lakh per resident. The per-capita figure should not be mistaken for personal debt; the economically relevant measure is the state’s capacity to service it. Here, too, the signs are disturbing. Interest payments are budgeted at ₹28,755 crore, compared with capital outlay of only ₹18,381 crore.

The composition of expenditure is equally important. Total power subsidy is budgeted at ₹15,550 crore, including ₹7,715 crore for agriculture, ₹5,771 crore for domestic consumers and ₹2,064 crore for industry. Agriculture and domestic electricity alone therefore cost ₹13,486 crore.

Add the ₹9,300 crore women’s cash-transfer scheme, ₹900 crore for free ration kits, ₹600 crore for free bus travel for women and ₹312 crore for the Mukh Mantri Tirath Yatra Scheme, and these selected power and welfare commitments reach approximately ₹24,598 crore annually. This is not the state’s entire welfare bill, but it demonstrates the scale of the fiscal choice.

The pilgrimage scheme deserves separate scrutiny. The 2026-27 Budget provides ₹312 crore to facilitate pilgrimages for nearly 7.15 lakh citizens. Faith deserves respect, but state-financed pilgrimage cannot be equated with essential social protection such as food, healthcare or support for the destitute. Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji itself cautions against mistaking outward ritual for inner transformation:

“Bathing at sacred shrines of pilgrimage, filth is not washed off. Religious rituals are all just egotistical displays.”

For a government struggling to finance infrastructure, schools, hospitals and employment, subsidising religious travel is difficult to defend as an economic priority. The state should guarantee every citizen freedom of faith—not finance faith as an instrument of political patronage.

Selected commitments: agriculture and domestic power ₹13,486 cr; women’s transfer ₹9,300 cr; ration kits ₹900 cr; free bus travel ₹600 cr; pilgrimage scheme ₹312 cr. Sources: Punjab Budget 2026-27 and PRS.

The answer is not the abrupt withdrawal of social protection. Welfare protects families against poverty, illness and economic shocks. But welfare must be targeted. Universal subsidies frequently benefit people who do not need them. The Sixteenth Finance Commission’s analysis, cited by PRS, found that 75 per cent of Punjab households in the highest consumption bracket received free electricity.

Punjab should meter agricultural power while replacing the present open-ended subsidy with a protected, fixed entitlement credited directly to farmers. Vulnerable domestic consumers should remain protected, while higher consumption should be priced progressively. The resulting savings should be transparently transferred into a Punjab Economic Renewal Fund for industrial infrastructure, urban services, water systems, logistics and skills.

Used as equity, matching finance or viability-gap funding, these resources could support investment several times larger than the state’s initial contribution. The multiplier, however, is not automatic. Projects must have credible revenue models, independent appraisal, professional execution and public disclosure.

Agricultural reform must similarly change incentives rather than merely lecture farmers about diversification. ICRIER estimates that paddy received approximately ₹40,577 per hectare in input subsidies in Punjab in 2022-23, against ₹8,685 for oilseeds and ₹6,382 for pulses. Farmers are behaving rationally in response to public policy. Diversification requires transitional income support, assured markets, processing capacity and risk protection not administrative instructions.

The second engine must be industry and services. NITI Aayog’s Investment Friendliness Index places Punjab only 14th among 17 large states and 22nd overall. Yet the same report recognises its rail density, institutional environment and grievance-redressal capacity. Punjab therefore does not begin from zero.

It must build export-oriented clusters around its existing strengths food processing, agricultural machinery, bicycles, auto components, textiles, sports goods, healthcare and digital services supported by testing facilities, industrial land, logistics, skilled workers and dependable urban infrastructure.

Punjab’s social disorders must also be viewed through an economic lens. Not every addiction or crime can be explained by economics alone. But prolonged economic failure creates the environment in which despair, drugs, gangster recruitment and social unrest flourish. When educated young people see no credible ladder of mobility, migration becomes a rational choice. When farming offers security but no future, farmer unrest becomes inevitable. When investors encounter fiscal uncertainty and weak infrastructure, capital also migrates.

We should not blame Punjab’s youth for seeking foreign shores, falling into addiction or being drawn towards violence. These are not simply individual moral failures. They are warnings from an economy that has failed to generate sufficient opportunity for decades. The economic erosion has not stopped; left uncorrected, the slide could soon become a landslide.

Reform will entail political risk. Its costs are immediate, while its benefits arrive after several years often beyond the next election. That is precisely why Punjab requires a cross-party, 15-year economic compact: protection for the genuinely vulnerable, gradual subsidy reform, measurable capital-investment targets and continuity in agricultural, industrial and urban policy.

Punjab still has a strong base productive farmers, entrepreneurial communities, industrial traditions, social infrastructure, a global diaspora and an advantageous location. But it now needs a strong long-term vision, beyond the politics of the next election, to usher Punjab into an Economic Revolution.

The Green Revolution answered how India would feed itself. Punjab’s Economic Revolution must answer how the state will employ its youth, reward its farmers and finance its future.

Data sources

NITI Aayog: SDG India Index 2023-24; National Multidimensional Poverty Index 2023; Fiscal Health Index 2026; Investment Friendliness Index 2026. Punjab Budget 2026-27; PRS Legislative Research, Punjab Budget Analysis 2026-27. ICRIER, Diversification to Augment Farmers’ Incomes and Promote Sustainable Agriculture in Punjab and Haryana.

ਗੁਰਪ੍ਰਤਾਪ ਸਿੰਘ ਮਾਨ

ਲੀਡਰਸ਼ਿਪ ਉੱਤੇ ਹਜ਼ਾਰਾਂ ਕਿਤਾਬਾਂ ਲਿਖੀਆਂ ਗਈਆਂ ਹਨ। ਕੋਈ ਦੂਰਅੰਦੇਸ਼ੀ ਦੀ ਗੱਲ ਕਰਦੀ ਹੈ, ਕੋਈ ਇਮਾਨਦਾਰੀ ਦੀ, ਕੋਈ ਹਿੰਮਤ, ਕੁਰਬਾਨੀ ਅਤੇ ਲੋਕ-ਸੇਵਾ ਦੀ।

ਇਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਸਭ ਨੂੰ ਛੱਡੋ।

ਲੀਡਰ ਬਣਨ ਦਾ ਇੱਕ ਹੋਰ ਵੀ ਆਸਾਨ ਰਸਤਾ ਹੈ। ਹੇਠਾਂ ਦਸ ਨੁਸਖੇ ਹਨ—ਸੌਖੇ, ਤੇਜ਼ ਅਤੇ ਸਿਆਸਤ ਵਿੱਚ ਕਾਫ਼ੀ ਅਜ਼ਮਾਏ ਹੋਏ।

1. ਡਰ ਪੈਦਾ ਕਰੋ। ਲੋਕਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਦੱਸੋ ਕਿ ਉਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਦਾ ਧਰਮ ਖਤਰੇ ਵਿੱਚ ਹੈ, ਕੌਮ ਖਤਰੇ ਵਿੱਚ ਹੈ, ਸੱਭਿਆਚਾਰ ਖਤਰੇ ਵਿੱਚ ਹੈ, ਰੋਜ਼ੀ-ਰੋਟੀ ਖਤਰੇ ਵਿੱਚ ਹੈ, ਭਵਿੱਖ ਖਤਰੇ ਵਿੱਚ ਹੈ। ਹੋਰ ਵਧੀਆ ਹੋਵੇ ਤਾਂ ਇਹ ਯਕੀਨ ਦਿਵਾਓ ਕਿ ਸਾਰੀ ਦੁਨੀਆ ਹੀ “ਸਾਡੇ” ਖ਼ਿਲਾਫ਼ ਸਾਜ਼ਿਸ਼ ਕਰ ਰਹੀ ਹੈ। ਜਦੋਂ ਲੋਕਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਹਰ ਪਾਸੇ ਦੁਸ਼ਮਣ ਦਿਖਣ ਲੱਗ ਪੈਣ, ਉਹ ਸਵਾਲ ਪੁੱਛਣੇ ਛੱਡ ਦਿੰਦੇ ਹਨ ਅਤੇ ਕਿਸੇ ਰੱਖਿਅਕ ਦੀ ਭਾਲ ਕਰਨ ਲੱਗਦੇ ਹਨ। ਬੱਸ, ਓਥੇ ਤੁਸੀਂ ਆਪਣੀ ਐਂਟਰੀ ਮਾਰੋ।

2. ਝੂਠ ਬੋਲੋ—ਪਰ ਪੂਰੇ ਵਿਸ਼ਵਾਸ ਨਾਲ। ਝੂਠ ਇਸ ਅੰਦਾਜ਼ ਨਾਲ ਬੋਲੋ ਕਿ ਇਕ ਵਾਰ ਤਾਂ ਸੱਚ ਵੀ ਆਪਣੇ ਆਪ ਉੱਤੇ ਸ਼ੱਕ ਕਰਨ ਲੱਗ ਪਏ। ਇੱਕੋ ਗੱਲ ਵਾਰ-ਵਾਰ ਕਹੋ। ਕੁਝ ਸਮੇਂ ਬਾਅਦ ਤੁਹਾਡੇ ਸਮਰਥਕ ਉਹੀ ਝੂਠ ਤੁਹਾਡੇ ਲਈ ਦੁਹਰਾਉਣਗੇ, ਉਸਦੀ ਰੱਖਿਆ ਕਰਨਗੇ ਅਤੇ ਸਵਾਲ ਪੁੱਛਣ ਵਾਲੇ ਨੂੰ ਹੀ ਗਲਤ ਸਾਬਤ ਕਰਨ ਲੱਗ ਪੈਣਗੇ। ਫੈਕਟ ਚੈੱਕ ਕੌਣ ਕਰਦਾ ਹੈ? ਇਸ ਲਈ ਝੂਠ ਚੱਲਣ ਦਿਓ—ਵਿਰੋਧੀ ਨਾਲ ਵੀ, ਆਪਣੇ ਨਾਲ ਵੀ, ਨੇੜੇ ਵਾਲਿਆਂ ਨਾਲ ਵੀ। ਸਿਆਸਤ ਵਿੱਚ ਕਈ ਵਾਰ consistency ਨਾਲੋਂ confidence ਵੱਧ ਕੰਮ ਆਉਂਦਾ ਹੈ।

3. ਸੱਚ ਨਹੀਂ, narrative ਬਣਾਓ। ਤੱਥ ਔਖੇ ਹੁੰਦੇ ਹਨ, narrative ਸੌਖਾ ਹੁੰਦਾ ਹੈ। ਜਿਹੜੇ ਤੱਥ ਤੁਹਾਡੇ ਕੰਮ ਦੇ ਹਨ, ਉਹ ਚੁੱਕ ਲਓ; ਜਿਹੜੇ ਰਾਹ ਵਿੱਚ ਆਉਣ, ਉਹ ਦੱਬ ਦਿਓ। ਥੋੜ੍ਹਾ ਗੁੱਸਾ, ਥੋੜ੍ਹੀ ਭਾਵਨਾ ਅਤੇ ਥੋੜ੍ਹੀ ਸਾਜ਼ਿਸ਼ ਮਿਲਾ ਦਿਓ। “ਅਸੀਂ” ਹਮੇਸ਼ਾ ਬੇਕਸੂਰ ਅਤੇ “ਉਹ” ਹਮੇਸ਼ਾ ਦੋਸ਼ੀ। ਜਿਹੜਾ ਸਵਾਲ ਕਰੇ, ਉਸਨੂੰ ਗੱਦਾਰ, ਏਜੰਟ, ਵਿਕਿਆ ਹੋਇਆ ਜਾਂ ਲੋਕਾਂ ਦਾ ਦੁਸ਼ਮਣ ਕਹਿ ਦਿਓ। ਜਦੋਂ ਬੰਦੇ ਨੂੰ ਬਦਨਾਮ ਕਰਕੇ ਕੰਮ ਚੱਲ ਸਕਦਾ ਹੈ ਤਾਂ ਉਸਦੇ ਸਵਾਲ ਦਾ ਜਵਾਬ ਕਿਉਂ ਦੇਣਾ?

4. ਲੋਕਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਅਣਪੜ੍ਹ, ਬੇਖ਼ਬਰ ਅਤੇ ਨਿਰਭਰ ਰੱਖੋ। ਅਣਪੜ੍ਹ ਸਮਾਜ ਸੁਣਦਾ ਹੈ, ਪੜ੍ਹਿਆ-ਲਿਖਿਆ ਸਮਾਜ ਸਵਾਲ ਕਰਦਾ ਹੈ। ਅਤੇ ਸਵਾਲ ਬੜੀ ਖ਼ਤਰਨਾਕ ਚੀਜ਼ ਹੁੰਦੇ ਹਨ। ਇਸ ਲਈ ਲੋਕਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਨਾਅਰੇ ਦਿਓ, ਧਰਨੇ ਦਿਓ, ਡਰ ਦਿਓ, ਦੁਸ਼ਮਣ ਦਿਓ, ਤਿਆਰ-ਮਾਲ narrative ਦਿਓ—ਪਰ ਗਿਆਨ ਘੱਟ ਦਿਓ। ਉਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਇੰਨਾ ਵੰਚਿਤ ਰੱਖੋ ਕਿ ਉਹ ਤੁਹਾਡੇ ਮੁਹਤਾਜ ਰਹਿਣ ਅਤੇ ਇੰਨੀ ਉਮੀਦ ਦਿੰਦੇ ਰਹੋ ਕਿ ਉਹ ਤੁਹਾਡੇ ਪਿੱਛੇ ਚੱਲਦੇ ਰਹਿਣ। ਹੋਰ ਉੱਚੀ ਕਲਾ ਇਹ ਹੈ ਕਿ ਮਸਲਾ ਚੁੱਪਚਾਪ ਖੜ੍ਹਾ ਵੀ ਤੁਸੀਂ ਕਰੋ ਅਤੇ ਹੱਲ ਖੈਰਾਤ ਵਾਂਗ ਤੁਸੀਂ ਹੀ ਵੰਡੋ। ਅੱਗ ਬੁਝਾਉਣ ਦਾ ਸਿਹਰਾ ਲੈ ਲਓ; ਮਾਚਿਸ ਕਿਸਨੇ ਸਲਗਾਈ ਸੀ, ਇਹ ਗੱਲ ਰਹਿਣ ਦਿਓ।

5. ਹਰ ਚੀਜ਼ ਦਾ ਵਿਰੋਧ ਕਰੋ। ਸਰਕਾਰ ਸੜਕ ਬਣਾਏ—ਘਪਲਾ ਲੱਭੋ। ਯੂਨੀਵਰਸਿਟੀ ਖੋਲੇ—ਸਾਜ਼ਿਸ਼ ਲੱਭੋ। ਉਦਯੋਗ ਲਿਆਵੇ—ਤਬਾਹੀ ਦੀ ਭਵਿੱਖਬਾਣੀ ਕਰੋ। ਲੋਕਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਕੋਈ ਸਹੂਲਤ ਦੇਵੇ—ਉਸ ਪਿੱਛੇ hidden agenda ਲੱਭੋ। ਕੁਝ ਨਾ ਕਰੇ ਤਾਂ ਨਾਕਾਮੀ, ਕੁਝ ਕਰੇ ਤਾਂ ਸਾਜ਼ਿਸ਼। ਮੁੱਢਲਾ ਨਿਯਮ ਇਹ ਹੈ ਕਿ ਵਿਰੋਧੀ ਵੱਲੋਂ ਕੀਤਾ ਕੋਈ ਵੀ ਚੰਗਾ ਕੰਮ ਚੰਗਾ ਦਿਸਣਾ ਨਹੀਂ ਚਾਹੀਦਾ।

6. ਬਹਿਸ ਨੂੰ ਕਦੇ ਨਤੀਜੇ ਤੱਕ ਨਾ ਪਹੁੰਚਣ ਦਿਓ। ਬਹਿਸ ਖ਼ਤਰਨਾਕ ਹੁੰਦੀ ਹੈ, ਕਿਉਂਕਿ ਕਿਤੇ ਨਾ ਕਿਤੇ ਤੱਥ ਸਾਹਮਣੇ ਆ ਹੀ ਜਾਂਦੇ ਹਨ। ਘਿਰ ਜਾਓ ਤਾਂ ਵਿਸ਼ਾ ਬਦਲ ਦਿਓ। ਸਵਾਲ ਹੋਵੇ ਤਾਂ ਅੱਗੋਂ ਹੋਰ ਸਵਾਲ ਸੁੱਟ ਦਿਓ। ਗੱਲ ਨਾ ਬਣੇ ਤਾਂ ਉੱਚੀ ਆਵਾਜ਼ ਕਰੋ, ਵਿਚਕਾਰ ਟੋਕੋ, ਨਵਾਂ ਇਲਜ਼ਾਮ ਲਗਾਓ। ਫਿਰ ਵੀ ਗੱਲ ਨਾ ਬਣੇ ਤਾਂ ਉੱਠ ਕੇ ਚਲੇ ਜਾਓ। ਅਤੇ ਆਖ਼ਰੀ ਹਥਿਆਰ—ਧਰਨੇ ਦੀ ਧਮਕੀ। ਮਕਸਦ ਬਹਿਸ ਜਿੱਤਣਾ ਨਹੀਂ, ਬਹਿਸ ਨੂੰ ਮੁਕੰਮਲ ਹੀ ਨਾ ਹੋਣ ਦੇਣਾ ਹੈ।

7. ਪਹਿਲਾਂ ਲੀਡਰ ਵਰਗੇ ਦਿਸੋ, ਲੀਡਰਸ਼ਿਪ ਬਾਅਦ ਵਿੱਚ ਆ ਜਾਵੇਗੀ। ਚਿੱਟਾ ਕੁੜਤਾ-ਪਜਾਮਾ ਲਾਜ਼ਮੀ। ਚਮਕਦੀ ਵੱਡੀ SUV ਹੋਵੇ ਤਾਂ ਹੋਰ ਚੰਗਾ। ਸਿਕਿਉਰਿਟੀ ਤਾਂ ਹੋਣੀ ਹੀ ਚਾਹੀਦੀ ਹੈ। ਸਰਕਾਰੀ ਨਾ ਮਿਲੇ ਤਾਂ ਪ੍ਰਾਈਵੇਟ ਬਾਊਂਸਰ ਰੱਖ ਲਓ। ਸੜਕ ਉੱਤੇ ਉਹ ਆਮ ਲੋਕਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਘੂਰਦੇ-ਗਰਜਦੇ ਚੱਲਣ—ਰੁਤਬਾ ਦਿਖਣਾ ਚਾਹੀਦਾ ਹੈ। ਨਾਲ ਦੋ-ਚਾਰ ਪੱਕੇ ਚਮਚੇ ਵੀ ਹੋਣ, ਜਿਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਸਹੀ ਵੇਲੇ “ਲੀਡਰ ਸਾਹਿਬ ਜ਼ਿੰਦਾਬਾਦ!” ਲਾਉਣਾ ਆਉਂਦਾ ਹੋਵੇ। ਲੀਡਰ ਜੇ ਇਕੱਲਾ ਫਿਰਦਾ ਦਿਸ ਪਏ ਤਾਂ ਆਮ ਬੰਦਾ ਲੱਗਣ ਦਾ ਖ਼ਤਰਾ ਰਹਿੰਦਾ ਹੈ।

8. ਕੈਮਰੇ ਲਈ ਜੀਓ। ਜੇ Facebook ਉੱਤੇ ਨਹੀਂ ਪਾਇਆ ਤਾਂ ਸ਼ਾਇਦ ਹੋਇਆ ਹੀ ਨਹੀਂ। ਵਿਆਹ, ਭੋਗ, ਹਸਪਤਾਲ, ਚਾਹ, ਮੀਟਿੰਗ, ਹਾਰ, ਫੁੱਲ, ਧਰਨਾ, ਅਰਦਾਸ—ਹਰ ਚੀਜ਼ ਪੋਸਟ ਕਰੋ। ਖ਼ਾਸ ਕਰਕੇ ਦੁੱਖ-ਸੁੱਖ ਵਾਲੀਆਂ ਫੋਟੋਆਂ। ਸਮਾਜਿਕ ਸਮਾਗਮ ਵਿੱਚ ਜਿਉਂ ਹੀ ਕੈਮਰਾ ਦਿਸੇ, ਨੇੜੇ ਬੈਠੇ ਹਰ ਬਜ਼ੁਰਗ ਨੂੰ ਲੱਭੋ। ਝੁਕੋ, ਪੈਰ ਛੂਹੋ, ਗੋਡਿਆਂ ਤੱਕ ਪਹੁੰਚੋ—ਪਰ ਪਹਿਲਾਂ ਯਕੀਨੀ ਬਣਾਓ ਕਿ ਕੈਮਰਾਮੈਨ ਨੇ ਫਰੇਮ ਲੈ ਲਿਆ ਹੈ। ਅੱਜ ਦੀ ਸਿਆਸਤ ਵੀ theatre ਹੈ—ਫਰਕ ਸਿਰਫ਼ ਇਹ ਹੈ ਕਿ ਫਿਲਮੀ ਅਦਾਕਾਰ ਮੰਨਦੇ ਹਨ ਕਿ ਉਹ acting ਕਰ ਰਹੇ ਹਨ। ਕਈ ਸਿਆਸਤਦਾਨ ਤਾਂ ਚੌਵੀ ਘੰਟੇ character ਵਿੱਚ ਰਹਿੰਦੇ ਹਨ। ਅਮਿਤਾਭ ਬੱਚਨ ਤੇ ਸ਼ਾਹਰੁਖ ਖ਼ਾਨ ਨੂੰ ਵੀ ਕਦੇ-ਕਦੇ ਮੁਕਾਬਲਾ ਮਹਿਸੂਸ ਹੋ ਸਕਦਾ ਹੈ। ਸਿਆਸਤ ਲਈ ਵੀ ਇੱਕ Oscar ਹੋਣਾ ਚਾਹੀਦਾ—Best Actor in a Political Role.

9. ਆਪਣਾ ਜ਼ਮੀਰ ਦਸ ਫੁੱਟ ਹੇਠਾਂ ਦੱਬ ਦਿਓ। ਇਹ ਸਭ ਤੋਂ ਜ਼ਰੂਰੀ ਨਿਯਮ ਹੈ। Golden rule ਇਹ ਹੈ ਕਿ ਸਿਆਸੀ ambition ਅਤੇ ਜ਼ਮੀਰ inversely proportional ਹੁੰਦੇ ਹਨ। ਜਿੰਨਾ ਜ਼ਮੀਰ ਹੇਠਾਂ, ਉੱਨੀ ਤਰੱਕੀ ਉੱਪਰ। ਵੱਡੇ ਸਿਆਸੀ ਆਕਾਵਾਂ ਦੇ ਕਮਰੇ ਵਿੱਚ ਜਾਣ ਤੋਂ ਪਹਿਲਾਂ self-respect ਬਾਹਰ ਜੁੱਤੀਆਂ-ਚੱਪਲਾਂ ਨਾਲ ਰੱਖ ਆਓ। ਲੋੜ ਪਵੇ ਤਾਂ ਝੁਕੋ, ਖੁਸ਼ਾਮਦ ਕਰੋ, ਪੈਰ ਛੂਹੋ, ਟਿਕਟ ਲਈ ਪੈਰਾਂ ਵਿੱਚ ਡਿੱਗਣਾ ਪਏ ਤਾਂ ਉਹ ਵੀ ਕਰ ਲਓ। ਪਰ ਹੰਕਾਰ ਜੂਨੀਅਰਾਂ ਲਈ ਬਚਾ ਕੇ ਰੱਖੋ। ਮੰਜ਼ਿਲ ਮਿਲ ਜਾਵੇ ਤਾਂ ਪੁਰਾਣੇ ਵਫ਼ਾਦਾਰਾਂ ਤੋਂ ਛੁਟਕਾਰਾ ਪਾਓ। ਉਹ ਬਹੁਤ ਕੁਝ ਜਾਣਦੇ ਹਨ—ਤੁਸੀਂ ਕਿੱਥੋਂ ਚਲੇ ਸੀ, ਕੀ ਕਹਿੰਦੇ ਸੀ, ਕਿਸਨੂੰ ਗਾਲਾਂ ਕੱਢਦੇ ਸੀ ਅਤੇ ਕਿਸਦੇ ਪੈਰ ਛੂਹਦੇ ਸੀ। ਨਵੇਂ ਚਮਚੇ ਵੱਧ ਸੁਰੱਖਿਅਤ ਹੁੰਦੇ ਹਨ; ਉਹ ਤੁਹਾਡਾ ਸਿਰਫ਼ ਨਵਾਂ version ਜਾਣਦੇ ਹਨ। ਨਿਯਮ ਸੌਖਾ ਹੈ—Use, Rise, Throw and Forget.

10. ਕਿਸੇ ਕੰਮ ਦੇ ਮਸਲੇ ਨੂੰ ਕਦੇ ਪੂਰੀ ਤਰ੍ਹਾਂ ਹੱਲ ਨਾ ਕਰੋ। ਹੱਲ ਹੋਇਆ ਮਸਲਾ ਵੋਟ ਨਹੀਂ ਦਿੰਦਾ। ਅਧੂਰਾ ਮਸਲਾ ਸਿਆਸੀ ਪੂੰਜੀ ਹੁੰਦਾ ਹੈ। ਕੁਝ ਜ਼ਖ਼ਮ ਹਰੇ ਰੱਖੋ, ਕੁਝ ਡਰ ਜਿਉਂਦੇ ਰੱਖੋ, ਕੁਝ ਦੁਸ਼ਮਣ ਸਦਾ ਲਈ ਰੱਖੋ ਅਤੇ ਕੁਝ ਵਾਅਦੇ ਅਗਲੀ ਚੋਣ ਲਈ ਬਚਾ ਕੇ ਰੱਖੋ। ਹਰ ਕੁਝ ਸਾਲਾਂ ਬਾਅਦ ਉਹੀ ਮਸਲਾ ਚੁੱਕੋ, ਨਵਾਂ ਭਾਸ਼ਣ ਦਿਓ, ਨਵਾਂ ਧਰਨਾ ਲਾਓ, ਨਵਾਂ ਦੁਸ਼ਮਣ ਲੱਭੋ ਅਤੇ ਨਵਾਂ ਹੱਲ ਐਲਾਨ ਦਿਓ। ਆਖ਼ਰ ਸਾਰੇ ਮਸਲੇ ਹੱਲ ਹੋ ਗਏ ਤਾਂ ਅਗਲੀ ਚੋਣ ਲੜੋਗੇ ਕਿਸ ਗੱਲ ’ਤੇ?

ਅਤੇ ਸਭ ਤੋਂ ਆਖ਼ਰ ਵਿੱਚ ਇੱਕ ਗੱਲ ਕਦੇ ਨਾ ਭੁੱਲੋ—ਡਰ ਹੋਵੇ, ਝੂਠ ਹੋਵੇ, narrative ਹੋਵੇ, ਧਰਨਾ ਹੋਵੇ, ਚਮਚੇ ਹੋਣ, ਬਾਊਂਸਰ ਹੋਣ, ਕੈਮਰੇ ਹੋਣ ਜਾਂ ਅਧੂਰੇ ਮਸਲੇ—

ਇਹ ਸਭ ਨੂੰ ਕਹਿਣਾ ਹੈ:

“ਲੋਕਾਂ ਦੀ ਸੇਵਾ।”

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There are thousands of books on leadership. Most talk about vision, courage, integrity, sacrifice and service. Ignore them.

Here are ten lessons, easy and quick.

1. Spread fear.
Tell people their religion, community, culture, livelihood and future are under attack. Better still, convince them that the entire universe is conspiring against “Us.” Once people feel surrounded, they stop asking questions and start looking for a saviour.

2. Lie — With full confidence.
A lie spoken with confidence often travels faster than a truth spoken with caution. Speak a lie with so much confidence that even the “truth” starts doubting itself. Repeat it endlessly. Soon your followers will repeat it for you, defend it for you and attack anyone who questions it. No one is going to check the facts, so keep on lying. Lie to everyone, near and dear included.

3. Manufacture a narrative.
Facts are cumbersome. Narratives are neat, quick and easy to manufacture. Pick convenient facts, bury inconvenient ones, add outrage and emotion. Keep “Us” permanently innocent and “Them” permanently guilty. Anyone who disagrees? Brand him a traitor, agent, anti-national, sell-out or enemy.

4. Keep people uneducated, uninformed and dependent.
An uneducated society listens. An educated society questions. Questions are dangerous. So give people slogans, give them dharnas, give them fear, give them a false narrative, but not knowledge. Keep them deprived enough to need you and hopeful enough to keep waiting for you. Create the problem incognito and give solution like alms.

5. Oppose everything.
If the government builds a road, find a scam. Opens a university? Find a conspiracy. Announces a welfare scheme? Create doubt. Brings development? Question its motive. Never allow your opponent even accidental credit.

6. Never finish a debate.
Debate is dangerous because it may reach facts. If trapped, change the subject. Shout. Interrupt. Make a fresh allegation. Walk out. Run away if necessary. The objective is not to win the argument; it is to prevent the argument from concluding. Threat of dharna is easiest way.

7. First look like a leader.
White kurta-pyjama: compulsory. Flashy SUV: desirable. Keep a few permanent chamchas nearby to shout, Leader sahib ---- Zindabad!!!. Importance must be displayed before it is earned.

8. Live on camera.
Post everything on Facebook. Meeting, wedding, condolence visit, tea, handshake, garland, especially over the dead. At social functions, if a camera is recording, locate every elderly person in sight and touch their knees or feet. Bend deeply. Make sure the cameraman gets the frame right. Politics has become theatre with better costumes and larger audiences. Film stars at least admit they are acting. Some politicians perform twenty-four hours a day. At times, Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan may have reason to worry. There should be Oscars for best actors amongst politicians too.

9. Bury your conscience (Zamreer) ten feet deep.
Golden rule: Leader and conscience are inversely proportional. Lower the conscience, better it is for becoming a good leader. Before political bosses, self-respect is to be left out of the room, like shoes or slippers. Bend when required. Flatter when useful. Fall at feet if the ticket demands it. Use ego on the juniors. Once you reach your goal, cut the old loyals, find new one. Old ones know your past and truth. So cut them out, find new ones. In other words, use, throw and forget.

So bury it 10 feet deep.

10. Never solve a useful problem.
A solved problem has no electoral value. Keep grievances alive, fears simmering and enemies permanently available. Every few years, revive the same issue, make the same speech and promise a new solution.

And remember: call all of this “service to the people.”

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Caste will dominate the politics of Census 2027. But the more interesting question may be why the Indian State now wants to know so much more about each of us than it did in 2011.

For the first time since 1931, caste beyond the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe categories will be counted in the regular Census. The numbers, when they eventually emerge, could influence debates over reservation, representation, backwardness and welfare for years.

But describing Census 2027 simply as a caste census would miss a much bigger story. Look closely at the other 39 questions and it becomes clear that the government is attempting to build a far more detailed picture of Indian society than ever before. It is a complete social map.

The Census will seek information on digital literacy, educational qualifications and field of study, occupation, migration, permanent residence, number of bank accounts and several personal identifiers. It will also ask for particulars relating to parents and spouse, besides Aadhaar, voter ID, passport, mobile number and driving licence, where applicable. There is even a question relating to the place of Covid vaccination.

This is no longer merely a headcount.

The caste question may be the hardest

Even the apparently simple question of caste could prove complicated.

Reports indicate that the caste entry will be open-ended. Instead of choosing from a fixed nationwide list, respondents can state their caste and the enumerator will record it.

There is some logic to this. India’s caste structure is extraordinarily complicated. The same community can be known by different names in different regions. There are castes, sub-castes and local identities that may not fit neatly into a single national list.

But this flexibility creates another difficulty. If one person gives the name of a broad caste, another a sub-caste and a third a regional variation, how will the government eventually classify them?

The Congress has questioned the absence of prepared state-wise lists and cited the caste exercises undertaken in Bihar and Telangana. The government may have valid reasons for choosing an open-ended format, but it should explain how millions of responses will ultimately be standardised. The credibility of a caste census will depend not merely on collecting names, but on classifying them consistently.

And once the figures are available, another debate will begin. Population strength may become an important element in arguments over reservation and representation. But numerical strength cannot automatically be treated as proof of social or educational backwardness. Census data should inform policy, not substitute for policy.

What do the other questions achieve?

This is where Census 2027 becomes particularly interesting.

Caste by itself tells us the population of a community. But combine caste with education, occupation, gender, age, digital literacy and geography, and the government can obtain a much deeper picture.

It could identify communities or regions where educational attainment remains low, where women lag behind, where digital exclusion is high or where particular groups remain concentrated in certain occupations. Such information can make welfare and development policies more evidence-based.

Digital literacy is an especially relevant addition. In 2011, being able to read and write was an adequate basic measure of literacy. India has since moved rapidly towards digital banking, online payments, smartphones and electronic delivery of government services.

A citizen may be literate but still unable to comfortably use these systems. Knowing where this digital gap exists could become important for future public policy.

The expanded education question is equally useful. Knowing not merely whether a person is a graduate but what he or she studied can help India understand its actual pool of skills and human resources.

Migration information may be even more valuable. Millions of Indians live and work away from their permanent homes. Better information about birthplace, previous residence, reason for migration, permanent address and employment can help governments understand where people actually live and where public services are needed.

Cities must plan roads, transport, housing, hospitals and sanitation for the population they serve, not merely for people permanently registered there.

But what about privacy?

The increasing amount of personal information naturally raises a question: what if a citizen does not want to disclose it? Can someone refuse to answer, or deliberately give an incorrect answer?

Under the Census Act, a person is legally required to answer duly notified Census questions to the best of his or her knowledge or belief. Wilfully refusing to answer, or knowingly giving a false answer, can attract legal consequences.

At the same time, the constitutional right to privacy remains relevant. Privacy does not necessarily give a citizen an unrestricted right to refuse information sought under a valid law for a legitimate public purpose. But it does place a corresponding responsibility upon the State to justify the information it collects and protect it properly.

The Census Act provides strong confidentiality safeguards for individual returns. Personal Census information is not meant to become an ordinary government database available for use by different departments.

That creates a simple but important principle: the citizen has a duty to answer; the State has a duty to protect the answer.

As Census 2027 becomes digital and asks for identifiers such as Aadhaar, voter ID and mobile number, the government should clearly explain why these details are required and how their confidentiality will be secured. A successful Census ultimately depends as much upon public trust as upon legal authority.

A new mirror for India

Caste will undoubtedly dominate the politics of Census 2027. But the real importance of this Census may lie in what the complete questionnaire reveals.

India will learn not simply how many people belong to different castes, but how Indians are educated, where they move, what work they perform, how digitally connected they are and how different forms of advantage and disadvantage overlap.

India has changed enormously since the last Census in 2011. Census 2027 will finally provide a new mirror in which the country can see itself.

A Census is supposed to count a country. Census 2027 may do something more ambitious: it may tell India, in unprecedented detail, what kind of society it has become. The challenge will be to ensure that this knowledge improves governance without weakening trust and safeguarding privacy.

By Gurpartap Singh Mann

From the ramparts of the Red Fort on Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a distinction that deserves attention. India, he said, had succeeded in eliminating armed Naxalism, but warned of “dimaagi Naxals”, people who continue to carry the Maoist mindset even after the gun has been defeated.

I listened with particular interest. On February 9 this year, a day after Home Minister Amit Shah said Naxalism had reached the verge of its end, I wrote an article titled Naxalism on the Verge of End? I Beg to Differ, Mr Home Minister.

My argument was simple: “Naxalism is not merely a 303 gun. It is a method, it is an ideology which is not dead. It is changing forms and shapes.”

I added: “By this definition, Naxalism has not vanished; it has evolved.”

Six months later, the Prime Minister has, in different words, raised essentially the same question. Can an ideology be declared dead merely because its armed organisation has been defeated?

The Government deserves full credit for its success against armed Maoism. For decades, parts of central and eastern India lived under guns, landmines, extortion and parallel authority. Security personnel, tribal communities and ordinary citizens paid a terrible price. In May, Amit Shah declared that India had become Naxal-free, marking the collapse of the organised armed challenge.

But the defeat of an insurgency is not necessarily the defeat of the thinking that sustained it.

Traditional Naxalism was easy to identify: the red flag, the gun, the underground cadre, the forest hideout and the language of revolution. Its new variants need not resemble that picture.

The rifle can be replaced by the smartphone. The pamphlet can become a viral reel. The jungle meeting can become a podcast, a campus platform or a digital campaign. As I wrote in February, “Gun shoots one, a YouTube podcast, a reel hits thousands.”

The objective too can evolve. It may no longer be the physical overthrow of the state. Permanent distrust of institutions, romanticising disruption, blocking development as a reflex and converting every grievance into confrontation can also hollow out governance. Anarchy need not always arrive with an armed squad. It can also be created by making normal governance, investment and public life permanently impossible.

This is where a very important caution is necessary.

Criticism of government is not Naxalism. Protest is not Naxalism. A farmer demanding a better price, a student questioning authority, a journalist exposing wrongdoing or an opposition party challenging the government is exercising a democratic right. If “dimaagi Naxal” becomes a convenient label for every dissenter, it will damage democracy and ultimately strengthen extremist narratives.

The distinction must therefore be between dissent and deliberate destabilisation, degradation of the government, defaming the nation.

Punjab makes this distinction especially important.

In my February article, I argued that Punjab did not face forest-based insurgency but was vulnerable to a subtler politics of permanent agitation, where social media, campuses, toll plazas, protest sites and development projects could become the new battlefield.

The red flag need not always remain red. It can turn green. The mutation from red to green is something to keep a watch on.

That does not mean the green flag of a farmer organisation is Naxalite. I come from the farmers’ movement myself and know its democratic history. But ideological groups can appropriate genuine causes. The danger begins when the farmer becomes a shield for forces whose real objective is not agricultural reform but permanent confrontation with institutions, investment and development and objective of anarchy.

Punjab cannot afford a culture in which every project (industry) becomes suspect, every investor an exploiter (a thief), every road a protest site and every government (state or central) decision a conspiracy. A society cannot live permanently at a dharna. Nor can a state seeking jobs for its youth treat disruption as a substitute for policy.

Interestingly, Amit Shah himself had earlier acknowledged this distinction. In September 2025, he said the fight would not end until society understood those providing ideological, legal and financial support to Naxalism. The Government therefore appears increasingly to distinguish between armed Maoism and the ecosystem of ideas that can survive it.

Modi’s phrase “dimaagi Naxals” brings that distinction sharply into public debate.

The armed battle may have been won. The battle of ideas has not. It has mutated.

And that battle cannot be won by police action alone. Ideas must be defeated by better ideas, better communication, better social media out reach. False narratives require facts and aggressively countered. Genuine grievances require solutions. Development must be fair, and democratic institutions must remain open enough that extremists cannot monopolise public anger.

The Naxalite carrying the gun may be disappearing.

The method can survive without one.

The jungle may have been cleared. The battle of the mind has only begun.

Earlier writings by the author

1. Naxalism on the Verge of End? I Beg to Differ, Mr Home Minister, GPS Mann/Substack, February 9, 2026. The public Substack link is confirmed in the author’s publication notification.

2. From Kisan Cause to Personal Fiefdoms: The Tragedy of Punjab’s Fragmented Farmer Unions, Punjab Outlook, December 27, 2025.

3. The Lobby That Challenged Modi — Can Bhagwant Mann Tame It?, Hill Post, April 13, 2026.

References

1. PM Modi warns of “dimaagi Naxals” in Independence Day address, The Economic Times, August 15, 2026.

2. Amit Shah: Naxalism on the verge of its end, Press Information Bureau, February 8, 2026.

3. Amit Shah declares India Naxal-free, Press Information Bureau, May 18, 2026.

4. Amit Shah on ideological, legal and financial support to Naxalism, Press Information Bureau, September 2025.

By Gurpartap Singh Mann

Readers are urged to check References and links the end of this research based op-ed

The Punjab Assembly’s resolution asking the Union Government to suspend compulsory E20 petrol for vehicles not certified for it is surprising. Punjab is battling falling groundwater, paddy-straw burning and the absence of assured markets for alternative crops. Yet its Assembly has opposed a policy that can help address all three.

A Phased Transition, Not a Sudden Experiment

Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema has questioned why the E20 target was advanced from 2030. But ethanol blending did not appear overnight. Pilot projects began in 2001 and the national programme followed in 2003. India reached E10 in June 2022, while E20 was introduced at outlets in February 2023. The decision to advance the E20 target to 2025-26 was announced years ago.

Why, then, has an alarming narrative suddenly appeared? Once E20 became widely available, owners of older vehicles began asking legitimate questions about mileage, compatibility and warranties. Social media converted individual complaints into sweeping claims of engines being destroyed.

Mileage Loss Is Not Engine Destruction

Ethanol contains less energy per litre than petrol, so some reduction in mileage is expected. The NITI Aayog roadmap estimated a loss of 6-7 per cent in older four-wheelers designed for unblended petrol, 3-4 per cent in older two-wheelers and 1-2 per cent in four-wheelers designed and calibrated for E20. This concern should not be dismissed, but lower efficiency is not evidence of widespread engine failure.

The Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) and oil companies have tested vehicles over tens of thousands of kilometres without finding significant abnormal damage. Automakers have not reported systemic corrosion or unusual component failure attributable to standard-quality E20. Mechanics interviewed by The Indian Express said complaints were mainly about mileage. A viral Toyota Hycross malfunction blamed on E20 was traced by the company to contaminated fuel. Contamination is a quality-control failure, not proof that ethanol destroys vehicles.

The government must publish complete test data, issue model-wise guidance, enforce quality checks at every outlet and protect owners of legacy vehicles. If feasible, an alternative grade should be available for genuinely incompatible vehicles at its actual market price. These safeguards do not justify abandoning ethanol.

Crop Diversification Needs a Market

The farmer movement recognised ethanol’s potential long before it became fashionable. During the 1981 sugarcane agitation led by my father, S Bhupinder Singh Mann, his organisation argued that sugar mills must diversify into ethanol. Sharad Joshi and the Shetkari Sanghatana advanced the same broad principle: agriculture must be allowed to supply energy and industrial markets, not remain trapped within the traditional mandi.

Crop pattern change is the necessity of the moment, especially in Punjab where the subsoil water is over exploited. But the change requires a market.

Punjab’s farmers have been told for decades to leave the wheat-paddy cycle. But no farmer will diversify on speeches alone. An alternative crop needs an assured buyer, a competitive price and regular demand. Ethanol can provide that market.

Maize uses far less water than paddy and does not create the same stubble problem. Punjab offers ₹17,500 per hectare for shifting to maize. It cannot subsidise maize with one hand while weakening its strongest emerging market with the other. This is a clear policy contradiction.

Ethanol gives sugar mills another revenue stream, enabling timely cane payments and improving the viability of cooperative mills. Sorghum and other lower-water crops offer further choices. Damaged grain unfit for human consumption can be converted instead of occupying storage space and deteriorating further. Second-generation ethanol can turn paddy straw from a pollution problem into industrial raw material and additional farm income.

Make Ethanol Farmer-Owned

Ethanol is not automatically farmer-friendly merely because it uses agricultural material. AIKCC has objected to heavily discounted FCI rice being supplied to distilleries at prices that undercut maize. If distilleries receive cheap government rice, why would they pay maize growers a remunerative price? Policy should use only genuinely surplus or damaged grain while prioritising maize, sorghum and crop residue.

Ethanol production is not rocket science. Fermentation and distillation are centuries-old processes. Fuel-grade ethanol, however, must meet strict purity and safety standards. Licensing, finance and procurement should be reformed so farmer groups, FPOs and cooperatives can establish compliant units, hold equity in distilleries and secure long-term agreements with oil companies. Farmers should not remain mere suppliers of raw material; they should become owners in the energy value chain.

The National Dividend Is Measurable

A Petroleum Ministry projection indicates that every additional litre of ethanol can save about ₹48.75 in foreign exchange, channel around ₹40 to farmers, displace approximately 0.7 kg of crude oil and avoid about 2.15 kg of carbon dioxide. These are gross impacts and cannot simply be added as a net benefit, but their scale is undeniable.

Official figures say blending since 2014-15 has saved over ₹1.97 lakh crore in foreign exchange, transferred more than ₹1.66 lakh crore to farmers, substituted nearly 316 lakh tonnes of crude oil and avoided around 952 lakh tonnes of CO₂.

A 2025 input-output study found that maize-based ethanol produced the strongest gains among major feedstocks in GDP, output and employment, with a lower water and greenhouse-gas footprint than rice or sugarcane ethanol. It also warned against excessive dependence on maize. The answer is a diversified feedstock mix.

A world renowned consulting company KPMG’s Beyond E20 report strengthens the case for second-generation ethanol made from agricultural residue. It notes that India’s limited commercial 2G capacity includes a 100-KLPD paddy-straw plant at Bathinda. This matters deeply to Punjab. Its farmers are repeatedly blamed whenever stubble smoke coincides with Delhi’s winter smog, although no single source explains that crisis. Converting straw into ethanol would provide a paid alternative to burning, reduce pressure on food crops and create rural employment.

KPMG also warns that 2G ethanol is presently costlier and depends on assured offtake and policy support. Bathinda cannot remain an isolated demonstration. Punjab needs reliable systems for collecting, baling, transporting, pricing and purchasing straw.

Farmers Need a United Voice

On August 4, an AIKCC delegation led by S Bhupinder Singh Mann Ex MP, and Gunvant Patil General Secretary AIKCC, met Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. It met Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari the following day and urged the government not to retreat under political or commercial pressure or the pressure of the lobbies.

Farmers remain divided by organisational rivalry and political allegiance. The influence of Left-wing groups becomes worrying when ideological hostility to markets overrides farm economics. But no farmers’ organisation should become an extension of the Left, the Right or any political party or toe a particular hidden agenda. The core agenda should remain farmers welfare.

Farmers have no coherent lobby and too few MPs consistently speaking for them. A hundred competing voices create noise that governments can ignore. Agitations may draw attention, but lasting solutions emerge through legislation, negotiation and the negotiating table.

Educate the Consumer

Consumer interests must be protected through facts, not slogans. The government should publish test results, label fuel clearly, provide model-wise compatibility information and counter rumours with scientific evidence. Where feasible, owners of legacy vehicles should be able to buy E10 or unblended petrol at transparent, unsubsidised market prices. Any future blending in diesel must follow independent trials and full technical validation.

Punjab should demand better implementation, not suspension: scientific testing, strict fuel-quality monitoring, a stable five-year feedstock policy, assured markets for low-water crops and faster investment in straw-based ethanol. Protect motorists and punish every quality failure. But do not sacrifice farmers’ long-term interests to rumours, political competition or ideological rigidity. Science must drive technology; politics must not overrule evidence.

References

1. Punjab Assembly passes resolution against Centre’s E20 fuel policy: The Tribune

2. Roadmap for Ethanol Blending in India 2020-25: NITI Aayog and Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas

3. Ethanol Blended Petrol Programme timeline and official data: Press Information Bureau

4. ARAI vehicle testing and E20 performance assessment: Press Information Bureau

5. E20 may reduce mileage but won’t harm engines, say government and automakers: The Tribune

6. Mileage complaints more common than engine damage: The Indian Express

7. Toyota attributes viral Hycross malfunction to contaminated fuel: The Tribune

8. Punjab’s ₹17,500-per-hectare incentive for maize cultivation: The Tribune

9. Per-litre economic, agricultural and environmental effects of ethanol: Press Information Bureau

10. Updated national benefits of the Ethanol Blended Petrol Programme: Press Information Bureau

11. Beyond E20: Repositioning Ethanol as India’s Transport Energy Backbone: KPMG India

12. Reassessing the Debate on Food vs Fuel Considering the Expansion of the Ethanol Industry in India: BioEnergy Research

13. Farmers seek a farmer-centred ethanol policy: The Tribune

14. A short history of the BKU and fragmentation of the farmers’ movement: The Indian Express

15. Shetkari Sanghatana’s demand for ethanol production from sugarcane: The Times of India

16. Indian standards for anhydrous ethanol and E20 reference fuel: Bureau of Indian Standards

17. National Policy on Biofuels and ethanol policy framework: Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas

Changing the Education Minister may calm public anger for a few days. The minister heads the department and must accept political responsibility when an examination affecting millions of students collapses.

But let us be honest. The minister would probably be the last person to see or handle the question paper.

Removing him may punish one political face. It will not stop the next leak. Ministers will change, officials will be transferred and middlemen will be arrested. The system will remain.

Paper leaks are not isolated crimes. They are the criminal end of a parallel education economy built around coaching centres, dummy schools, scarce seats and unbearable competition.

Regular schools and colleges are no longer trusted to prepare students for competitive examinations. A child may be enrolled in a recognised school, but the real teaching happens at a coaching centre. The school often provides only attendance, internal marks and board-examination eligibility.

These are dummy schools in everything except name. The focus has shifted from education to selection.

Coaching centres compete to produce a few IIT, medical and professional-course selections. Successful students are displayed in full-page advertisements, on hoardings and across social media. One student’s rank becomes the institute’s advertisement for the next batch.

The more selections an institute claims, the more students it attracts. The more students it attracts, the more money it earns. In such a business, access to an insider, a few genuine questions or a complete paper may be worth crores.

This is the crux of the problem.

The paper may be stolen by someone in an examination agency, university, printing press, courier company or testing centre. But a leaked paper needs buyers. Coaching networks provide the market. They have access to thousands of anxious students and ambitious parents. They know who is desperate, who can pay and who will remain silent.

Not every coaching centre is corrupt. Many teachers work honestly. But parts of this industry have acquired mafia-like features, with money, influence, links with schools and access to students.

The problem is not new.

It was 1984. I was studying pre-engineering at DAV College, Chandigarh. That was the first year of the entrance examination for Punjab Engineering College, Guru Nanak Engineering College and Thapar Institute.

There were no giant coaching factories. There were group tuitions. During cold Chandigarh mornings, I rode my Bajaj scooter from physics tuition to chemistry and then mathematics. Like students today, we believed one examination could decide our future.

Just before the examination, rumours spread that a middleman was demanding money for the question paper. I never discovered whether it was genuine or merely a fraud meant to exploit frightened parents.

I prepared and secured admission to Guru Nanak Engineering College. But even in 1984, a market for the promise of a leaked paper existed.

Three decades later, in 2014, my son appeared in an entrance examination. He came out smiling and said the paper had gone well. Then reports of a leak emerged. The examination was cancelled, and he had to appear again.

Technology had changed. The number of candidates had multiplied. Coaching had become a huge industry. But the honest student was still the victim.

India has a massive population and too few quality seats. Reservation adds to the pressure on general-category students, who feel that even very high marks may not be enough.

This should not become hostility towards students from reserved communities. They did not create the shortage. The real failure is that successive governments have not expanded quality institutions in proportion to the population.

Reservation distributes scarce seats. It does not create more seats.

Kota represents the harshest face of this system. The series Kota Factory gives a disturbing insight into endless tests, batch divisions, loneliness, parental financial pressure and the fear of failure.

The student is no longer treated as a child. He becomes a rank.

At least 127 coaching students reportedly died by suicide in Kota between 2015 and 2024. The crisis peaked in 2023, with around 26 reported deaths, followed by 17 in 2024. These are not merely personal tragedies. They are warnings from a system that monetises fear and celebrates toppers while forgetting everyone else.

Why are question papers still printed days in advance and passed through many hands in a high-technology age?

For computer-based examinations, a secure system can generate papers from a large encrypted question bank just minutes before the examination. Every login, transfer and download can be recorded. No individual should have advance access to the complete paper.

Even for written examinations, encrypted papers can be transmitted shortly before the test and printed under camera supervision.

India must also regulate coaching centres as a major commercial industry. Their ownership, fees, finances, actual success rates and links with schools must be disclosed. They should not be allowed to claim every successful student who merely bought a test series.

Dummy admissions and fabricated attendance must lead to cancellation of affiliation and criminal prosecution. The financial relationship between schools and coaching centres must also be investigated.

Changing a minister will not alter this.

A minister must take responsibility, but resignation cannot become a substitute for reform. Strengthen the education in schools and colleges. Expand quality seats. Eliminate dummy schools. Regulate coaching centres. Use technology to reduce human access to question papers.

Otherwise, another paper will leak, another examination will be cancelled and another minister will be sacrificed.

The Nobel Peace Prize is not reserved for those who end wars or sign agreements. Over time, it has also become the world’s highest recognition for people who defend human dignity through peaceful means. The Nobel tradition accepts a basic truth: there can be no real peace where citizens are picked up, made to disappear, killed and denied even the dignity of a known grave. (Nobel Prize)

Martin Luther King Jr was honoured for his non-violent struggle for civil rights. Andrei Sakharov stood against repression in the Soviet Union. Adolfo Pérez Esquivel defended victims of dictatorship in Latin America. Liu Xiaobo struggled peacefully for fundamental rights in China. Narges Mohammadi resisted the oppression of women in Iran. Memorial and other civil society organisations were recognised for documenting human rights abuses and the misuse of state power. (Nobel Prize)

Measured against this standard, Jaswant Singh Khalra’s claim stands beside the strongest of them.

Khalra was neither a minister nor an international celebrity. He had no government, no NGO, large institution or publicity machinery behind him. His weapons were cremation registers, firewood receipts, names, dates and extraordinary courage. His inquiry did not distinguish between the religions of the dead. A body secretly cremated as “unclaimed” was a human rights violation, whatever the victim’s faith.

During Punjab’s years of militancy and counter-insurgency, families were searching for young men who had been taken away and never returned. Khalra followed the paper trail. Along with fellow activists, he examined records from cremation grounds in Amritsar, Patti and Tarn Taran. The records showed bodies brought by the police and cremated as unidentified or unclaimed, even when information existed that could help establish their identity.

These were not merely political allegations. Acting on petitions concerning Khalra’s disappearance and the mass cremations, the Supreme Court ordered a CBI investigation. The final report dealt with 2,097 cremations in Amritsar district. Of these, 585 bodies were fully identified, 274 partially identified and 1,238 remained unidentified. The Supreme Court said the findings disclosed a flagrant violation of human rights on a mass scale. The National Human Rights Commission later took up identification and compensation. (The Indian Express)

Khalra knew the danger. He had received threats, but he continued to speak, including before Canadian parliamentarians. On September 6, 1995, he was abducted from outside his home in Amritsar. Evidence later established that he remained in illegal police custody, was severely tortured and was killed on October 27, after nearly seven weeks of detention. His body was thrown into a canal and never returned to his family. Five police officials ultimately received life sentences, upheld by the Supreme Court in 2011. (House of Commons of Canada)

That is what makes Khalra’s sacrifice exceptional. He did not discuss human rights from the safety of a seminar hall. He recovered evidence from the records of the very system accused of erasing the dead. He stood between grieving families and official silence. He knew those he was exposing had the power to eliminate him, yet he refused to stop.

Canada heard him while much of India looked away. Three decades later, the film Satluj has brought his story before a new generation and shaken Punjab out of its long silence. Popular remembrance, however, cannot substitute for institutional recognition. (House of Commons of Canada)

A search of publicly available records reveals no disclosed nomination of Khalra for the Nobel Peace Prize by any government, political party or eligible individual. Nobel nominations remain secret for 50 years, so no absolute claim can be made about the official record. What can be said is that no serious public campaign was mounted while he was alive. (Nobel Prize)

There is now a painful obstacle. Nobel rules do not permit a posthumous prize, except when a selected laureate dies after the announcement. Khalra, therefore, cannot be validly nominated today under the existing rules. (Nobel Prize)

That must not become another excuse for silence.

The Punjab government should pass a unanimous Assembly resolution recognising Jaswant Singh Khalra as one of the great human rights defenders of the modern era. It should approach the Nobel Foundation and the Norwegian Nobel Committee for an exceptional commemorative acknowledgement of his work. This may not fall in the category, but at least the Nobel Committee and the world should also know about the story of a unmatched human rights activist.

The government should also establish an independent Khalra archive, publish all available records relating to the disappearances and cremations, and support the Nobel nomination of an eligible institution carrying forward his mission.

This would not be a favour to one family, community or political party. It would be Punjab’s apology to truth and its tribute to a man who gave his life so that the disappeared would not also be forgotten.

Khalra may now be beyond the reach of the Nobel medal. His sacrifice, however, stands at the very heart of the Nobel ideal.

References and hyperlinks

1. The Nobel Peace Prize: From peace negotiations to human rights

2. Official list of Nobel Peace Prize laureates

3. What legal records reveal about Jaswant Singh Khalra’s work and murder

4. NHRC Annual Report on the Punjab mass cremation case

5. Amnesty International: A Mockery of Justice

6. Canadian Parliament record of Khalra’s 1995 visit

7. Nobel Peace Prize nomination and confidentiality rules

8. Nobel Prize rules concerning posthumous awards

Punjab Governor Gulab Chand Kataria has said what most Punjabis have believed for years, but few people holding constitutional office have stated so openly: “drug trafficking on this scale cannot survive without support from within the police and administration.”

This was not an ordinary statement. It should have started a major public debate. Unfortunately, it did not get the news space it deserved.

https://indianexpress.com/article/political-pulse/punjab-governor-kataria-drug-trafficking-cannot-flourish-without-police-administration-connivance-10797409/

Punjab has been fighting the drug menace for nearly three decades. Governments have changed. Police chiefs have changed. New slogans and campaigns have been launched. Yet synthetic drugs continue to reach our villages and towns. Young men continue to die, families are destroyed and one network is quickly replaced by another.

The question is simple.

AI Generated image

Can huge quantities of drugs cross the border, travel across Punjab, reach small villages and generate hundreds of crores without help from people inside the system?

Governor Kataria has given a clear answer. No, it cannot.

His statement is important because it takes the debate beyond addicts and small-time peddlers. Catching a few peddlers may produce good headlines, but it does not break the larger network.

Drug cartels need money, transport, information and protection. They need someone to inform them about police movements. They need someone to ignore what is happening. At times, they may also need police officers and officials who actively help them.

Recent events show how serious the degradation has become.

In July, the FBI and the United States Department of Justice linked a local Punjab Police SHO, Gurinderjit Singh Nagra, to an alleged $400,000 extortion attempt against a family in the United States. The allegation was part of Operation Hard Ball, an international crackdown on organised criminal groups involved in extortion, drugs, shootings and illegal weapons. (link below)

It raises a frightening question: if the officer sitting in the police station is himself accused of being part of an extortion network, where will an ordinary citizen go for protection?

Punjab did not need the FBI to tell us that gangsters operate from abroad and from inside jails. Traders, transporters, builders and NRI families already know this. Extortion calls come from foreign numbers. Threats are issued from jails. Local shooters are arranged, and money is collected through fear.

What the FBI case exposed was something more disturbing. Punjab’s criminal network has not only gone international. Parts of the police system itself may have become mixed up with it.

I had written earlier that organised crime in Punjab now works almost like a company (link below). It has investors, managers and workers on the ground. Its workforce includes drug peddlers, shooters, extortionists and local gang members. But no such company can function for long without political, police or administrative protection.

Governor Kataria also linked the drug problem with extortion, corruption and the worsening law and order situation. These are not seperate problems. They are different parts of the same criminal system.

Drug money buys illegal weapons. Weapons are used for extortion and murders. Gangsters sitting abroad issue threats while their local men carry out the crime. The money is then moved through properties, businesses, middlemen or benami transactions.

Punjab’s fight against drugs cannot be won through awareness marches and publicity campaigns alone. Awareness is needed. Rehabilitation is important. Border security must be strengthened. But none of this will work unless the links between traffickers, gangsters and compromised police officers are broken.

Punjab needs investigations that follow the money, not just the packets of heroin. Police postings, jail contacts, mobile phones inside prisons, benami properties and political links must be investigated.

Officials found helping criminal networks must face the same law as the traffickers. Honest police officers must be protected. Cases should be taken to their logical end instead of being forgotten after the press conference.

Political parties must also stop treating drugs and law and order as election slogans. Every government has promised a clean-up. Yet the dirt has only gone deeper.

Governor Kataria has said aloud what Punjab has whispered for years. If police and administrative collusion is the oxygen keeping the drug trade alive, then cutting off that oxygen must be the first priority.

Punjab does not need another slogan but needs a clean-up of the police system itself. Every trafficker must know there is nowhere to hide, and every corrupt officer must know that his uniform, rank or political connection will not save him. Only then will people believe that the police protects citizens, and not the criminals who threaten them.

References

1. Punjab Governor Kataria: ‘Drug trafficking cannot flourish without police, administration connivance’ — The Indian Express
   The Governor’s interview on police and administrative collusion, extortion, corruption and law and order. (The Indian Express)

2. ‘Drug trade at this level cannot survive without administrative and police collusion’ — OpIndia
   A report summarising Kataria’s remarks on the drug network and insider support. (OpIndia)

3. International crackdown on India-based organised crime gangs results in 24 arrests — US Department of Justice
   The official US government statement on Operation Hard Ball, covering extortion, shootings, killings and international narcotics trafficking. (Department of Justice)

4. FBI accuses Punjab SHO of plotting $400,000 extortion bid for jailed gangster — The New Indian Express
   Report on the allegations against former Tanda SHO Gurinderjit Singh Nagra. (The New Indian Express)

5. Punjab cop arrested after US charges him in gang-linked extortion case — NDTV
   Report on Nagra’s arrest and the alleged use of false criminal charges to extort a US-based family. (www.ndtv.com)

6. Punjab cop who allegedly tried to extort $400,000 from US family arrested — The Times of India
   Further details regarding the arrest and the international nature of the alleged extortion racket. (The Times of India)

7. FBI names Punjab cop Gurinderjit Singh Nagra in alleged $400,000 gang-linked extortion case — The Times of India
   Initial report on Nagra being named and subsequently shifted from his posting. (The Times of India)

8. Bishnoi, a Punjab cop and Operation Hard Ball: Names and alleged roles — The Wire
   A wider account of the people and criminal networks named in the international investigation. (The Wire)

9. FBI Accuses Local Punjab SHO in $400,000 Extortion Bid: Punjab’s Gangster Raj Stands Exposed — Gurpartap Singh Mann
   My earlier op-ed on police degradation and the gangster-police nexus.

10. Drones, Drugs and Guns: Punjab’s New Internal War — Gurpartap Singh Mann
    My earlier argument that organised crime in Punjab now functions like a company with financiers, managers, foot soldiers and protection inside the system.

By Gurpartap Singh Mann

Citations and references at the end

Six months ago, Punjab Congress looked like the natural government-in-waiting.

The AAP government faced questions over law and order, drugs and governance. The Akali Dal remained fractured, while the BJP carried a rural trust deficit. Congress had won seven of Punjab’s 13 Lok Sabha seats in 2024 and possessed an organisation spread across the state.

Congress had every chance to form the government in 2027. Today, it is struggling to keep itself afloat.

What went wrong?

Congress became too confident too early. Its leaders treated a favourable situation as a guaranteed victory. The contest stopped being about defeating AAP and became a contest over who would control the party, distribute tickets and occupy the Chief Minister’s chair.

Optimism produced ambition. Ambition became greed for the top post. That greed created competition among leaders aplenty.

Punjab Congress has a state president, a Leader of the Opposition, a former Chief Minister, former Deputy Chief Ministers, MPs and regional heavyweights. But when too many leaders prepare for the same chair, strength becomes weakness.

The party started dividing the spoils before it had won the battle.

The warning signs were visible in the municipal elections. AAP won 958 wards, while Congress managed only 397. Instead of forcing an organisational review, the setback produced more factional warfare.

The crisis did not begin in July. In January, the high command ruled out a leadership change. In March, Rahul Gandhi told Punjab leaders to become team players or sit on the reserve bench. His warning had little effect.

After the civic-poll setback, a May meeting with the high command reportedly became stormy.

Then came Congress strategist Sunil Kanugolu’s assessment. Its figures are not public, but its reported message was clear: Congress could win only through unity. At the latest Delhi meeting, Kanugolu reportedly indicated a decline in Malwa after Amarinder Singh Raja Warring was retained as PPCC president.

If Congress trusts surveys while selecting candidates and planning campaigns, it cannot simply ignore them when they raise questions about its leadership.

The July 1 arrangement retained Warring, made Charanjit Singh Channi Campaign Committee chairman and gave Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa the Core Committee. It created several power centres without one accepted command: power-sharing without shared purpose.

Channi’s supporters organised shows of strength at Morinda and Mohali. At one meeting with Punjab in-charge Bhupesh Baghel, around 90 leaders, including at least 12 sitting MLAs, reportedly supported a leadership change. Randhawa said the party did not need a “compromised president”.

For the anti-Warring camp, removing Warring became non-negotiable.

The high command took the opposite position. Baghel said organisational appointments could not be changed whenever someone applied pressure, describing the party as not a “gudda-guddi ka khel”. Rahul Gandhi’s continued support for Warring made his retention equally non-negotiable.

Two non-negotiable positions cannot produce unity. They produce paralysis.

The latest Delhi meeting exposed the deterioration. KC Venugopal reportedly expressed strong annoyance with Warring, Channi and Randhawa for washing the party’s dirty linen in public. Even this sharp reprimand failed to produce a settlement.

Channi reportedly offered to resign as Campaign Committee chairman if Warring continued. Randhawa and Rana Gurjeet Singh questioned why survey reports were being ignored. The meeting remained inconclusive.

Congress now proposes a Unity Bus Yatra. But placing rival leaders in one bus cannot create unity if every passenger wants to grab the steering wheel.

The high command’s hesitation is understandable. In Madhya Pradesh, the Kamal Nath-Jyotiraditya Scindia conflict ended with Scindia and 22 MLAs leaving and the Congress government collapsing. In Assam, it lost Himanta Biswa Sarma, who became the BJP Chief Minister.

Delhi does not want another split. But Congress can remain united on paper while being hollowed out by mistrust, parallel commands and silent sabotage.

Warring cannot be blamed for everything. Channi and Randhawa cannot demand unity while building competing power centres. Nor can every disagreement become a contest over the next Chief Minister.

The problem is larger than one individual. Punjab Congress has an abundance of leaders but no accepted leadership.

Meanwhile, AAP is enjoying the spectacle. Bhagwant Mann can point towards Congress and say that every leader there wants to become Chief Minister. This allows AAP to avoid questions about its own record and argue that Congress cannot provide a stable government because it cannot govern itself.

The damage is greater because the BJP’s 18.56 per cent vote from the 2024 Lok Sabha election may come under pressure. The Ram Mandir donation controversy and the youth-led Cockroach agitation over examination leaks have placed the BJP on the defensive nationally, with consequences in Punjab too.

The BJP’s entire vote is not transferable. But its floating urban, trading, Hindu and anti-incumbency voters may move towards AAP or Congress, generally favouring the party most likely to form the government.

Six months ago, Congress appeared to be the natural beneficiary of any BJP decline. Today, its infighting makes AAP look more coherent and therefore more likely to win.

Congress is not merely losing its existing support. It is surrendering the opportunity to inherit a part of the BJP’s nearly 19 per cent vote. In a close election, even a movement of a few percentage points could become decisive.

What happens now?

The high command will probably retain Warring because removing him under pressure would reward rebellion. Channi and Randhawa are also unlikely to leave because their influence remains tied to Congress.

The greater danger is a cold civil war. Leaders will stay but operate through separate camps. Every rally will become a headcount, every survey a weapon. Unity will be performed in public while sabotage continues in private.

Congress must decide now. If Warring is to remain, he must be given clear authority and every camp must face the same discipline. If the party’s internal evidence shows that his continuation is causing serious electoral damage, the change should be made now, not in panic on the eve of the election. Each day delay is causing more damage.

But it is still not late. If all things are put in right place, Congress still has strong chance to harness power. It has the strongest cadre, strongest baseline vote bank. In a five cornered contest, it just has to keep its core vote bank intact and not allow it to shift.

The worst option is the present one: retaining Warring formally while allowing every senior leader to run a parallel command.

Six months ago, Congress had every chance to form the next Punjab government. Its leaders mistook that opportunity for an accomplished victory and began fighting over the Chief Minister’s chair.

But it is still not late!!!

Punjab Congress infighting and leadership crisis

• Punjab Congress differences come to fore again at Delhi meeting: Venugopal pulls up leaders, Kanugolu reports decline in Malwa, The Tribune

• Captain to Sidhu, Channi to Warring: Punjab Congress’s history of infighting, The Indian Express

• Why the Channi-Warring leadership battle matters, The Hindu

• Punjab Congress leadership decision delayed; Unity Bus Yatra planned, The New Indian Express

• Channi and Randhawa absent from Punjab Congress meeting, The News Mill

• Channi camp stays away from key meetings; Baghel rules out leadership change, Hindustan Times

• Rift in Punjab Congress: Rahul Gandhi reviews Baghel’s report, Hindustan Times

Channi camp’s shows of strength

• Channi’s Morinda show of strength exposes Congress fissures, The Tribune

• Punjab Congress crisis deepens as Channi camp seeks leadership change, Hindustan Times

• Several Punjab Congress leaders meet in Mohali to support Channi for PPCC chief, ThePrint

• Twelve MLAs and around 90 leaders demand Warring’s removal, Hindustan Times

High command, surveys and warnings

• Sunil Kanugolu survey says Congress can win Punjab only through unity, The Tribune

• Congress high command signals no Punjab leadership change, The Tribune

• Partap Bajwa walks out as Punjab Congress rift widens during high-command meeting, Hindustan Times

• Rahul Gandhi warns Punjab leaders: Be team players or be benched, The Indian Express

• Congress rules out change of guard in Punjab, The Tribune

• Leadership decision is not a “gudda-guddi ka khel”, Aaj Tak

• Baghel says Punjab Congress leadership decision is final, Hindustan Times

Electoral setbacks and AAP’s response

• Municipal setback brings Punjab Congress factionalism to the fore, NDTV

• Every Punjab Congress leader wants to become Chief Minister: Bhagwant Mann, ThePrint

BJP’s Punjab vote and possible floating voters

• BJP secures 18.56% of Punjab’s vote but wins no Lok Sabha seat, Moneycontrol

• BJP expands Punjab vote share and leads in 24 Assembly segments, The Indian Express

Ram Mandir donation controversy

• Ram Mandir donation investigation widens after eight arrests, India Today

• Ram temple trust reshuffles leadership after donation-theft scandal, Reuters

• SIT flags security lapses and nearly 70 suspicious incidents, The New Indian Express

Cockroach movement and student agitation

• Dharmendra Pradhan resigns amid student-led CJP protests, The Indian Express

• “Cockroaches won, democracy won”: CJP reacts to Pradhan’s resignation, The Indian Express

• Education Minister quits as youth protesters claim victory, Reuters

• How the examination scandal sparked a student uprising, Reuters

Congress’s fear of another split

• Scindia and 22 MLAs leave Congress, bringing down the Madhya Pradesh government, The Times of India

• How former Congress leader Himanta Biswa Sarma rebuilt the BJP in Assam, The Indian Express

Video and social-media citations

• Punjab Congress video reference, YouTube

• The NewsDrum post on the Punjab Congress dispute, X

I often wonder why a society facing so many visible problems spends so much time talking about its past greatness. Incomes are under pressure, landholdings are shrinking, education is poor, jobs are scarce and young people want to leave. Yet much of our public conversation remains centred on how superior we are.

A few days ago, I watched Manvir Kaur’s Social Post podcast with Sirdar Anant Bir Singh Attari, a descendant of Sardar Sham Singh Attariwala. His account of historical events drawn from his family legacy was worth hearing. The comments below were not. They were full of vulgar abuse, sweeping claims and astonishing ignorance.

I see the same under interviews with scholars such as Sardar Sardara Singh Johl. People who have studied history, economics or agriculture for decades are abused by youngsters who may not have read one serious book on the subject. WhatsApp forwards and reels have become their only source of knowledge, accepted without question.

At some point, pride stops being a strength and becomes an excuse for avoiding reality. Psychologists call this collective narcissism: a group considers itself exceptional and morally superior, yet believes the whole world is conspiring against it. It wants recognition but treats every question as an insult.

This gives us a comfortable explanation for failure. We did not fall behind because we neglected education, industry, discipline or honest leadership. Others kept us down. The ego is protected and reform is postponed.

We love the glamour of history, but facts that disturb our preferred version are unwelcome. A Sikh historian known to me spent years studying lakhs of pages of historical records. I urged him to write a book or record a podcast about his findings. His reply was blunt: “Main gaalan nahin khanian. Main Akal Takht te ja ke Panth vichon chhekia nahin jaana.” He feared abuse and excommunication merely for presenting what he had found. What kind of society frightens its own historians into silence?

We increasingly see life in black and white: either you are with us or you are our enemy. Real life is mostly grey. People can disagree without becoming enemies, and a person can be right on one issue and wrong on another.

We claim to follow Guru Nanak and Guru Gobind Singh and bow before the Guru Granth Sahib, but make little effort to understand its basic message. We repeat, “Hum nahi change, bura nahi koi” (ਹਮ ਨਹੀ ਚੰਗੇ ਬੁਰਾ ਨਹੀ ਕੋਇ), asking us to look within before judging others. In practice, we have adopted the opposite position: we alone are right and everyone else is wrong.

A loud section of the younger generation knows a few names and emotional incidents picked up from videos, but not their sequence or context. They behave as if history began when they were born. Patience and courtesy are mocked as weakness. When knowledge runs out, abuse begins. This is not bravery. It is ignorance trying to look powerful.

Such people are easy to mislead. Give them an enemy, an emotional video and a selective version of history, and they are ready for battle. Political and religious leaders understand this. They do not have to prove anything. They only have to speak loudly and repeat the same story.

Popular culture adds aggression to this insecurity. The admired man is armed, feared and above the law. The teacher, researcher, entrepreneur or honest officer receives little glamour. This model of masculinity leaves no room for fear, depression or failure. Suppressed fear returns as anger, and emotional pain may find an outlet in drugs, domestic violence, reckless behaviour or gangs.

Pride alone does not cause addiction, gangsterism or political militancy. Each has deeper social, political and historical causes. But a culture that glorifies weapons, revenge and victimhood makes all three easier to sell.

Politicians know this well. A calm citizen asks about schools, hospitals, drugs, corruption and jobs. An angry citizen can be distracted by a rumour, religious controversy or manufactured threat. I once heard a senior leader say, “Je eh lok padh likh gaye taan sanu vote kaun paauga? Ehna nu galiyan-naaliyan vich hi rakho.” If people become educated, who will vote for us? Keep them occupied with streets and drains.

A flattering past can comfort a declining society, but it cannot rescue it. Learning from the past and living in it are entirely different. Living in the past prevents a society from evolving and leads to educational, social, religious and economic decline.

Recovery will begin when questioning ourselves is no longer treated as betrayal. We must read, listen, verify and admit mistakes. Otherwise, pride will achieve what no external enemy could: keep us satisfied with our image while our future quietly slips away.

By Gurpartap Singh Mann

Punjab Police has arrested former Tanda SHO Gurinderjit Singh Nagra, the officer named by the FBI in Operation Hard Ball.

Nagra has reportedly been arrested in FIR No. 20, registered at Tanda police station after the murder of Balvinder Singh on January 15, 2026. Extortion charges and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act have now been added to the case.

The FBI has accused Nagra of trying to extort $400,000, nearly ₹4 crore, from an Indian-origin family in the United States. According to the allegation, the family was told to pay up or face implication in the murder case.

The charges have yet to be proved. Nagra must get a fair trial. But the seriousness of the case cannot be played down.

This is not a case of an SHO allegedly taking a few thousand rupees at a police station. The charge is that a serving police officer used a murder investigation and the threat of a false case to demand nearly ₹4 crore from a family in America.

Operation Hard Ball is not a small investigation either. US authorities have charged 37 people linked to major criminal networks. The names include Lawrence Bishnoi, Jaggu Bhagwanpuria (both in Indian jails) and Goldy Brar in USA or Canada.

So, arresting Nagra cannot be the end of the matter. It is where the real investigation must actually begin.

Could one SHO have planned and carried out an international extortion attempt on his own? Who connected him with the gangsters? Who identified the family? Where was the money supposed to go? Who would have protected him if the payment had been made?

And the most uncomfortable question: was any senior police officer or politician involved, aware of it or providing cover?

The police must examine call records, phones, financial transactions, case diaries and Nagra’s links within the department. His postings and the people who backed those postings also need to be examined. Punjab Police should seek the full evidence collected by the FBI. A routine departmental inquiry will not be enough.

Punjab has heard similar stories before.

Inspector Inderjit Singh was once celebrated as a “drug specialist”. He was arrested in 2017 after drugs, cash and weapons were allegedly recovered. DSP Daljit Singh Dhillon was dismissed and arrested over allegations that he protected drug dealers. Inspector Parminder Singh Bajwa and two other policemen were accused of planting heroin and cash on innocent people to frame and extort them.

Since then, other police personnel, from constables to DSPs, have been arrested or dismissed in cases involving heroin, drug money, smugglers and extortion.

Every time this happens, we are told that another “black sheep” has been caught. But how many black sheep does it take before we admit that something is wrong with the flock?

The problem has survived different officers, districts and governments. That points to something bigger than individual corruption. It points towards a system in which gangsters make the threats, police officers misuse the law, and political protectors may keep the arrangement running.

The film Satluj, based on Jaswant Singh Khalra, has forced a new generation to look at what sections of the Punjab Police did during the years of militancy. Many young Punjabis are horrified by what they are learning.

We should not leave behind another such record.

Twenty years from now, our children should not hear that gangsters ran their operations from foreign countries and high-security jails, while police officers allegedly used murder cases to extort money and politicians looked the other way.

Punjab Police has thousands of honest officers. They work under pressure, take risks and carry the burden created by the bad ones. Their uniform should not be disgraced by officers who may be working with the very gangsters the police are supposed to fight.

The Mann government now has a chance to clean house. It should order an independent, time-bound investigation into the entire network behind the Nagra case. Every police officer, gangster, middleman and politician connected with it must be examined. The findings should be made public.

Nagra’s arrest is necessary. But one arrest will change nothing if the people behind him remain untouched.

Do not close the case by calling him another black sheep. Find the shepherds who protected the flock.