Conduct unbecoming

AN occasion like laying the foundation stone of the Dera Baba Nanak-Kartarpur Sahib corridor is too momentous to be tainted by politicking. The presence of Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu should have ensured that proper dignity was maintained at the event. Shamefully, our political leaders, long accustomed to a low bar, could not rise to the occasion and let down the very Punjabis on whose behalf they purported to speak.  

Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal’s speech, and the reaction of Punjab minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, created a situation where low rhetoric trumped what should have been a day of high oratory and exultations over the realisation of a long-cherished dream of Sikhs in Punjab to be able to visit the historical Darbar Sahib gurdwara in Kartarpur, now in Pakistan. This was an occasion to celebrate Guru Nanak Dev and his message of oneness of humanity and his opposition to divisiveness in any form, as the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan demonstrated in their messages. The people of Punjab do remember when Congress and Akali leaders, along with the SGPC, worked together to mark religious functions connected with the Gurus. If everyone had been taken into confidence and were on board, a strong bipartisan presence on the stage would have raised the political leaders to the level of statesmen. However, this was not done. Central leaders, state leaders and representatives of religious organisations played different tunes, making for a jarring discordance. That too an event which the Vice-President termed as ‘passage of humanity, humility, faith and universal brotherhood’.

The two ministers' spat was ugly, but it was not an isolated one. There is a general tendency to bring in politics into virtually everything, as was evident from the manner in which the inauguration stone was etched, and then replaced with a digital display. Petty politics vitiated the sanctity of a function dedicated to Guru Nanak. The Central and state governments which took such pains to choreograph the event should have demonstrated their ability to bring everyone on board. A pity that leaders let down the people they represent, again.