BJP Offers Tribute to ‘Operation Blue Star’ Martyrs, Later Deletes Post

To mark the 41st anniversary of ‘Operation Blue Star’ at Darbar Sahib (Golden Temple) complex, on 1 Jun, the Panjab unit of Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) shared a post on X. The post in Panjabi read, 'June 1, 1984 Saka Neela Tara. A humble tribute to all the martyrs who lost their lives on the first day of the attack carried out by the Congress government on the Darbar Sahib.' Saka is a Sikh term meaning a historic event, especially tragedy involving valor and sacrifice. The tribute was political because the BJP blamed the Indian National Congress for the event. The image accompanying the tweet showed army tanks inside the Darbar Sahib premises and a picture of the damaged Akal Takht (Eternal Throne, AT). A few hours later, the BJP removed the post. In Aug 2023, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also condemned the army attack on Darbar Sahib in Parliament. This is an attempt by BJP to ingratiate itself to Sikhs but questions remain on why it withdrew the post. The officiating AT Jathedar (leader) Giani Kuldip Singh Gargajj appealed to Sikhs to commemorate the first week of June, as Shaheedi Hafta (martyrdom week). On 27 May, Giani Gargajj met parallel acting Jathedar AT Dhyan Singh Mand who was appointed by the Sarbat Khalsa (Plenary Meet of the Khalsa) in 2015. Giani Gargajj said there is ‘no place for factionalism’ in Panth (Sikh Collective). On 29 May, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) also met with the management committee of Takht (throne) Sri Patna Sahib to resolve their issues and will soon present a report. SGPC member Gurcharan Singh Grewal said, 'The aim is to restore harmony through dialogue.' However, the meeting between SGPC and Harnam Singh Khalsa, chief of Damdami Taksal (Sikh seminary) on 2 Jun has ended in a deadlock. Khalsa argues that Gargajj's appointment violated Sikh maryada (religious protocol) and has said he will not allow Giani Gargajj to deliver the traditional message to the Sikhs on 6 Jun from the AT (earlier coverage).

Last week, on two occasions, India's Chief of Defense Staff General Anil Chauhan spoke to news agencies Reuters and Bloomberg on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore. His statements shed new light on combat operations during Operation Sindoor (vermilion marker) and went beyond the media briefings by the Indian Armed Forces during the recent hostilities between India and Pakistan. He did not admit to exactly how many jets India lost but said, 'There were losses but that is not important. What is important is why they were downed. We were able to understand the tactical mistake which we made, remedy it, rectify it, and then implement it again after two days to hit air bases deep inside Pakistan. We penetrated all their air defenses with impunity, carried out precision strikes.' This version tallies with Indian Air Force's Director General of Air Operations, Air Marshal AK Bharti on 11 May acknowledging ‘losses are a part of combat.’ However, the impression that the Bharatiya Janata Party government is projecting is that India won the hostilities with no losses. Dassault Aviation, the manufacturer of the prized Rafale aircraft, admitted to loss of at least one jet and has dispatched investigators to India to evaluate whether technical failures contributed to the shootdowns. Reports have surfaced that the Indian govt. has denied the French audit team access to its Rafale fleet. Indian officials are complaining about Dassault’s refusal to share the Rafale source code. Without it, Indian engineers cannot modify software, integrate indigenous weapons, or make battlefield adjustments. This lack of control has turned India’s flagship fighter into a black box—expensive, elite, and strategically constrained. Meanwhile, on 1-2 Jun, northern Indian states including Panjab conducted mock drills and blackouts to bolster civil defence preparedness under Operation Shield, an initiative aimed at enhancing emergency response in the event of air strikes. On the other hand, the trade losses from India’s closure of the Wagah-Attari border post with Pakistan has resulted in a loss of USD1.4B (earlier coverage).

The Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Anita Anand recently spoke with her Indian counterpart S Jaishankar over the telephone on 25 May and called the discussion productive towards strengthening Canada-India ties. The ties between the two countries had fallen to an all-time low when then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada had said in September 2023 that agents of the Indian government had carried out the killing of a Sikh community leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia in June 2023. Canada had expelled Indian diplomat Pavan Kumar Rai who was station head of Indian intelligence. India had also expelled Canadian diplomat, station head of Canadian intelligence Olivier Sylvestre. The two countries paused their negotiations on a bilateral free trade agreement. Over the last 20 months the ties have spiralled downwards. The conversation between Anand and Jaishankar prompted the World Sikh Organization (WSO) of Canada to question the silence of the minister over India ‘targeting the Sikh community in Canada.’ In response, the Hindu Canadian Foundation (HCF) criticized WSO for disparaging Anand and bullying her. HCF said, 'Strengthening diplomatic ties with India has the potential to benefit all Canadians by facilitating trade and fostering economic growth, particularly at a time when Canada faces external geopolitical pressures.' Meanwhile, on 2 Jun, India said PM Narendra Modi is unlikely to visit Canada for the upcoming G7 Summit on 15-17 June 2025. Neither has the Canadian side approached India regarding the visit, nor is the Indian side inclined to attend. India is not part of G7 but over the last five years, the forum has invited India to the talks. Sikh organizations in Canada had called on Ottawa to not invite Modi this year. Meanwhile, a massive row has erupted in Canada after Members of Legislative Assembly from both the Conservative Party and New Democratic Party welcomed Jazzy B alias Jaswinder Singh Bains and Panjabi singers to the British Columbia Assembly. Many MLAs criticized the singers as known Khalistani sympathisers and called their presence as 'an insult to our legislature' (earlier coverage).

In his address to India on 12 May, commenting on India placing the Indus Water Treaty (IWT), 1960 into ‘abeyance’, Prime Minister Narender Modi said, 'Terror and trade cannot go together, water and blood cannot flow together.' On 1 Jun, Pakistan’s Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) said,  'A sharp decline of 91,000 cusecs in water flow into the Chenab river in the past two days.' The Chenab river is critical for Pakistan’s agriculture, especially in Panjab province. Pakistan is staring at a bleak summer sowing season with a major dip in live storage at its two key dams—Mangla on river Jhelum and Tarbela on Indus river. On 30 May, Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif raised this concern at a conference on glacier preservation in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. He said, Pakistan would not ‘allow India to cross the red line by holding the IWT in abeyance and endangering millions of lives for narrow political gains.’ On 31 May, Victor Zhikai Gao, Vice President of the Center for China and Globalization in Beijing,  expressed displeasure over India’s stand on the IWT. He said that one should not treat others in a way they themselves would not like to be treated. Victor highlighted China’s control over the Brahmaputra river, which is very important for India’s water security and suggested that if India stops water from reaching China’s friend Pakistan, China might also block water flowing into India. While it is true that about 65% of Brahmaputra river’s water is generated in India, China is building the world’s largest Great Bend Dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo river (the Brahmaputra's name in Tibet). When complete, if China suddenly releases the dam’s water it can destroy large parts of North East India. Meanwhile, opposing Panjab govt.’s plea against allocation of additional water to Haryana from Bhakra Nangal Dam project the union govt.’s counsel on 27 May invoked the tenth Sikh sovereign Guru Gobind Singh. It is ironic that when it comes to Panjab and Haryana the union govt. invokes the Guru, but forgets the Guru when it comes to India and Pakistan (earlier coverage).

On 2 Jun, the Panjab Council of Ministers approved the Land Pooling Policy, aimed at curbing illegal colonization. Under the policy, farmers can voluntarily offer their land for development and, in return, receive a residential plot and a commercial site in lieu of one acre of land. Farmers will have the choice to develop the land themselves or hand it over to private developers or government agencies. If a person contributes nine acres of land, three acres will be returned to the owner for developing a group housing society, i.e., one-third of the pooled land is returned to the owner. Under the scheme, for every one acre of land contributed to the developer, the owner will receive a 1,000-square-yard residential plot and a 200-square-yard commercial plot. The developer will be responsible for all external development work. Additionally, until the owners receive the residential and commercial sites, they will be paid USD 350 per acre per year for up to three years. Panjab Renewable Energy Minister Aman Arora clarified that the policy is entirely voluntary, with no element of coercion. 'This initiative will initially be launched in 27 cities across the state,' he said. Panjab Indian National Congress president and Ludhiana Member of Parliament Amarinder Singh Raja Warring sent a letter to Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann, stating, 'Panjab is an agricultural state. We cannot afford to sacrifice green fields to cement and concrete, especially when there is no urgent requirement. You are stripping tens of thousands of farmers of their livelihoods, pushing them from prosperity to poverty. The large-scale acquisition would not only cripple the rural economy but also threaten Panjab's agricultural identity. If executed, this will turn farmers into landless labourers in urban slums. The anger among affected communities is real and growing.’ He questioned the necessity of acquiring new land when many existing colonies around Ludhiana remain underdeveloped. Warring urged Mann to reconsider the proposal, saying, 'Our ancestors belong to this land and so will our children. Let's not destroy what they built.’ Chandigarh farmers too demand a land pooling policy on the Panjab pattern (earlier coverage).

On 31 May, a Special Central Bureau of Investigation Court in Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar (SAS Nagar) sentenced three former Panjab Police officers to three to eight years of rigorous imprisonment with fines and acquitted two constables of all charges. Special Judge-II Baljinder Singh Sra held Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) Karamjit Singh, former Inspector Manjit Singh, and former Sub-Inspector Gurmej Singh guilty of extrajudiciously killing Palwinder Singh from Rawalpindi village in Kapurthala district. The policemen abducted Palwinder on 27 Mar 1993. The First Information Report (FIR) was registered on 5 Apr 1993 at Sultanpur Lodhi police station. Meanwhile, as part of Panjab government’s War on Drugs, on 23 May, Bathinda police’s Crime Investigative Agency (CIA) picked up Goniana town residents Narinderdeep Singh and Gagandeep Singh when they were coming from Ferozepur to Bathinda. Narinderdeep died in police custody and his family refused to cremate him until an FIR was filed. Post-mortem revealed marks on the body and scalp from torture using electricity. The four CIA staff members were suspended and are absconding. Under the War on Drugs that started on 1 Mar and formally ended on 31 May, Panjab police arrested 13,866 smugglers. That means in the last 87 days, the police caught an average of 159 smugglers every day. Before the Panjab govt. launched the campaign against drugs, there were about 31K prisoners in the state’s jails. At present, there are 37,516 prisoners. This shows at least half of those arrested in the last three months have been released on bail. At a press conference on 31 May, Panjab Director General of Police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav said its intelligence reports and informal surveys indicate a disruption in the drug supply chain across the state, resulting in a 50% increase in street-level heroin prices and a 40% rise in the prices of synthetic drugs. He said the War of Drugs will continue for another 60 days. Panjab govt. claims in the last three years, 10K police personnel involved in trafficking have been transferred and 100 police officers arrested (earlier coverage).

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has named party leader Jiwan Gupta as its candidate for the 19 Jun Ludhiana West Assembly by-poll. With assets worth USD 32M, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate Sanjeev Arora is the richest candidate ever in Panjab elections. Arora landed himself in a controversy when he fenced off the grounds of Government College for Girls to make a parking lot. When students of the college came to know of it, they protested against the move and finally removed the fences and locked the college gate. Arora is also getting flak from BJP for claiming many union govt. schemes such as Halwara airport, the Ludhiana railway station revamp, elevated roads, and bridges over the Sidhwan Canal as his initiatives. Meanwhile, Satnam Singh Sunny Master, a sitting AAP councilor from Ward 58, which falls in Ludhiana West assembly segment joined the Indian National Congress (INC). Sunny Master said he was completely disillusioned with the AAP after seeing it from inside. He said they were all fake revolutionaries. He said he was deeply disturbed the way the AAP leadership was handing over the posts and positions, which are the right of the Panjabis, to people from Delhi and other places. Recently, Preeti Malhotra, AAP's women wing president also aired the same grievance. On 2 Jun, AAP removed her from the post. Malhotra has been protesting against the alleged lack of attention given to the party’s old activists. She claimed that the party was now 'dominated by people who have come from other parties' or were imported from Delhi. She alleged that these defeated leaders from Delhi were damaging the party’s policy and vision in Panjab. INC's Member of Parliament Charanjit Singh Channi said AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal aspires to be the 'only Hindu community leader in the Panjab.' Channi also claimed that a month before his death, Gurpreet Gogi, who was then the AAP’s Ludhiana West MLA, had expressed desire to return to the INC fold as he was fed up with the AAP (earlier coverage).

The Indian government's Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved an increase in the Minimum Support Prices (MSP) for 14 summer crops for the marketing season of 2025-26. The total outlay stands at USD 24.1B a majority of which is to fulfil the free ration promise to 800M citizens. Paddy MSP has been raised to USD 27.6 per quintal based on the A2+FL formula which is the cost incurred by the farmer and the value of family labor. It is not based on the C2+50% formula which includes the input cost of capital and the rent on the land plus 50% returns to the farmer and is the primary demand of Panjab's farmers. Under pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Pakistan govt. did not declareMSP for 2024-25. Nor has Pakistan’s Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation Ltd, the country’s equivalent of India's Food Corporation of India procured a single tonne this harvest season. Pakistan’s decision to dispense with MSP and govt. procurement of wheat are part of the conditions linked to an Extended Fund Facility loan of $7,113M from the IMF to be disbursed from 2024-25 to 2027-28. Meanwhile, in Panjab the paddy sowing season has started. The crop is cultivated on over 3.3M hectares in the state, of which 73% is irrigated by tubewells. Of the 3.2M hectares under paddy last year, 680K hectare area was under basmati paddy. It is expected to go up to 700K hectares in 2024-25. However, Panjab faces a severe diammonium phosphate (DAP) fertilizer shortage. Against the requirement of 200K MT for both paddy and maize crops, the total fertilizer allocated to the state this season so far is just 47K MT. Power demand is expected to cross 17K MW this season, given the recent trend of high consumption and it all depends on monsoon rains. Meanwhile in 2025, India's major banks have already written off corporate loans worth USD 5.5B as against USD 3.8B in 2024 (earlier coverage).

On 29 May, Panjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann accused leaders of farm unions of making money through illegal means and using that wealth to acquire huge tracts of land, and shares in hospitals and hotels. He challenged farm union leaders to a debate on the agrarian crisis. Senior farm leaders Balbir Singh Rajewal and Joginder Singh Ugrahan have accepted Mann's challenge and asked him to fix the place, date and time for an open debate on agrarian issues. They said that they are eager to listen to him and raise issues. Other farm unions accused Mann of 'dancing to the tunes of the union government and corporates.' Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ekta Ugrahan) secretary Shingara Singh Mann said, ‘If he has a problem with farmer organisations or their leaders, he should come out with facts, but should not try to show them in a bad light without proof and try to create a wedge between urban people and farmers. Such behavior clearly shows how arrogant he has become, and this arrogance will not last long.’ Earlier, on 11 May, while the Haryana-Panjab river water dispute was brimming, in a fiery statement from the protest site at Nangal Dam, Mann had lashed out at farmer organizations, accusing them of being silent on the ongoing water dispute and acting in self-interest. 'Not a single organization has issued a statement in support of Panjab’s water. This makes it clear—they are only interested in running their own shops.' At that time, Panjab Indian National Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring had fact-checked Mann that he had personally met the farmers when they had protested against the Dam Safety Act in May 2022. When it came to farmers, former Panjab chief ministers were always restrained, especially in showcasing their body language and words, in dealing with protesting farmers. In his initial days, Mann mirrored this attitude. During the initial part of the Farmers Protest 2.0 2024-25 on the borders of Panjab and Haryana, Mann's statements were mostly in favor of farmers.

Panjab University professor of Political Science Pampa Mukherjee has reviewed sociologist and academic Santok Kumar Singh's book The Deras: Culture, Diversity and Politics. She says the book comes at a time when issues of caste, identity, and the politicization of religion are deeply embedded in India’s social and political life. Singh offers a nuanced and detailed account of the diverse role of Deras—non-Brahminical, sectarian religious institutions that have existed for decades in Panjab’s socio-cultural and political landscape. Singh argues that deras are more than religious sites, they are dynamic entities combining spiritual guidance with social activism. These institutions enable community connect and a sense of belonging, and are thus a unique example of social capital—trust within communities. The book draws insights from various sociological theories of identity, power, and subaltern agency to argue that Deras serve as counter-hegemonic spaces for marginalized communities, especially Dalits, to assert their dignity outside the framework of Sikh orthodoxy and Hindu ritualism. One of the central arguments is that the Deras embody a form of religious democratization. In particular, Dalit Deras challenge the exclusionary practices of mainstream Sikh religion, which, despite its egalitarian theological claims, is often marked by caste stratification. Through rituals, iconography, and devotional narratives, these deras offer an inclusive space where marginalized communities can reclaim spiritual agency. The author discusses how political parties have engaged with or co-opted Deras to consolidate vote banks. The case of the 2007 Panjab Assembly elections and the growing influence of Dera Sacha Sauda on Dalit voters is analyzed in detail. Singh is careful to distinguish between the spiritual motives of followers and the strategic calculus of political actors. He shows how leaders of Deras have navigated state power, police scrutiny, and media attention while maintaining their spiritual authority. He also does not shy away from discussing the controversies that have maligned many Deras. The book might also have benefitted from a more systematic engagement with gender dynamics within Deras.