Forget Forgiveness:

June 28/2011: Union Home Minister P Chidambaram is on a merry ‘forgive and forget’ trip. Recently, he was felicitated by the Kendriya Guru Singh Sabha (KGSS) for delinking some 142 deadly ‘wanted’ Sikhs from the Government’s List. The list includes many criminals, Khalistani terrorists and their associates. In the commemoration ceremony of the KGSS, Chidambaram said all should forget the past and move on, referring to the 1984 anti Sikh riots. The riots were an aftermath of the killing of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by two Sikhs who worked as her personal bodyguards. The guards, Beant and Satwant were both hailed as martyrs by the community because the sentiments of the Sikhs were terribly hurt. Not so much by the Indian Army eliminating Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his pro Khalistan supporters but by attacking the Golden Temple at Amritsar and the destruction and desecration of the holiest of Shrines of the Sikhs itself.

In his speech, Chidambaram appealed to the nation to ‘forgive’ and build a new India, stressing that the country has moved on after the anti Sikh riots.

Chidambaram has lately developed a fondness for the noble words ‘forgive and forget’. Referring to the state of affairs in the country, the Home Minister had said that people should all forget the whole corruption issue also, including the 2G spectrum scam. Although forgiveness is definitely a pine virtue, there are serious doubts whether our well meaning PC’s intentions are as noble. In a last ditch effort to save the day for the party which is fast losing ground on all fronts, thanks to the innumerable  scams that have been hitting people on the face, PC has decided to put the eggs into the Sikh basket now.

Congress leaders like Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar and many other party workers were found to have a direct role in the anti Sikh riots. Congress lost favour of the Sikh community in the following elections. But now with the sad state of affairs of the party, every single vote would matter in future. In such a situation, getting Sikhs back on the Congress bandwagon seems like the obvious thing to do. It may be noted that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had personally apologised to the Sikhs in his speech before the Parliament in 2005. Now, the decision for removal of names of deadly terrorists seems to have been taken after all other efforts of winning over the community, including putting up a Sikh Prime Minister, yeilded little or no result. Congress remains as big an anathema to the majority Sikh community in Punjab as it did after Operation Blue Star.

PC’s idea could be expanded to encompass incidents involving Afzal Guru and the attack on the Temple of Democracy—Parliament--on 13 December 2001 as also the 26/11 incident involving Ajmal Kasab and his pals who went on a killing spree at Bombay. It would behove our honorable Union Home Minister to probably make an attempt at forgiving these terrorists if that could translate into gaining some kind of political edge in such a desperate scenario as he finds his party to be in now.

To return to the ‘forgive and forget’ theory, let us remember that Indians always forgive everybody who have trampled and abused them in the past. They forget all sins and are ready to mend fences with enemies at the slightest opportunity. It is rightly said that to err is human, to forgive is pine. However, we are not all pine. We are humans after all. Therefore, it may be that the Congress has started feeling that this time through, the nation might not forgive or forget what has been done to it. Probably the Grand old Party is realizing that people of this country now feel enough is enough.