The Idea In Repose

They are the weary warriors of a lost cause. For them, the bloody memories of the Khalistan movement are now history and so are the old days of "armed struggle" when the only language spoken was the language of the gun. And then, the haunted life in the dark alleys of anonymity and imagined heroism, the police hounding them, the revenge killings, prison walls. Now, Punjab's green rural landscape—between mustard fields and sunflower beds—is, at last, witnessing the return of the militant native. The survivors of the movement, finally realising the futility of a life spent on the run, are now heading back home.

Those who have taken the "surrender route" in recent months include both militants with murder charges against them as well as hardline ideologues of Khalistan. And if those who are coming back can be believed, then "hundreds of former comrades", who had fled to Canada or the UK, are longing to return to India. The only thing that's keeping them back is the fear of persecution at the hands of the police.

Outside Chandigarh, in the satellite town of Mohali, Bhai Kanwar Singh Dhami, a political ideologue of the Akal Federation, has started his life anew. Along with his wife Kulbir Kaur (who was also once active in the Khalistan movement), he runs a chain of orphanages for the children of slain militants and homes for their widows. Dhami was arrested by the police in Ahmedabad in 1993 and released in 1997. Says he: "The movement is dead. No one is left to care for these hapless children who are today shunned and ostracised by society."

Dhami's Guru Asra Trust runs the orphanages and homes from a rented house in Mohali. They started with 20 children. Today, they shelter 250 women and children—the unwitting victims of that era of violence. Dhami gives financial support to 360 children of slain militants in nearby villages. He also distributes a monthly pension of Rs 250 to widows.

With a monthly budget of Rs 4 lakh, the trust brings up the orphaned children in strict adherence to the Sikh religious code. Girls in the orphanages have to wear a turban called keskhi. Besides gurbani and dhadhi varan (a form of classical music-based devotionals), girls and boys are trained in the traditional gatka, a Sikh martial art.

Serving the same people they terrorised, perhaps atoning for their sins, is what their new life is all about. So when Jagjit Singh Chohan, the prosperous self-styled leader of Khalistan, who had set up the Khalistan government in exile in London, returned after 25 years to old homestead Tanda in Hoshiarpur district in June 2001, one of the first things he did was to set up a charitable hospital in his ancestral village of Budhi Nangal. Says he: "The hospital has helped me re-establish contact with my people."

Chohan was the ideological patriarch of the movement. He supervised its many contours from the notorious Khalistan House in London. Today, he is a shadow of his old self, a frail 76-year-old man who travels the rugged village roads twice a week to dispense free medicines. His outpatient hospital, he claims, is based on the Chinese model with emphasis on prevention. Significantly, despite the 'legit' aspect to his political aura as a state finance minister in the late '60s, Chohan is too much of an anathema for even the Akali political fraternity.

After a public snub by Parkash Singh Badal on his return, Chohan established the obscure Khalsa Raj Party. Its aim is still to establish a separate Sikh nation. His former Khalistani confreres recognise that reviving the movement is impossible, but Chohan continues to potter about in the past. "Khalistan will be a reality and I will establish it through love and compassion", is his new mantra.

Is it just a longing for their homeland which is bringing back these ex-militants? Senior police officers who are monitoring the expatriate Khalistanis have an argument.They believe that in the post-September 11 scenario, the liberal democracies of the West—the UK, US, Canada and Germany—where the Khalistanis took refuge are no longer sympathetic. "There's certainly some pressure there which is forcing them to return to Punjab," says a police official.

A senior Khalistani militant who returned home last month is 35-year-old Manjinder Singh of Issi village in Sangrur district. Manjinder struck terror in Punjab during the '80s as the second-in-command of the Khalsa Liberation Front (klf). He had 14 cases of murder against him, including one under tada and one of kidnapping. Manjinder has been acquitted in 12 cases so far. On the run for 10 years as a truck driver in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, he surrendered in 1999.

After four years in jail, Manjinder returned to his village to pick up the pieces. It's back to farming. His 17 acres of land, which were lying fallow, are now ploughed and ready for sowing. The police had demolished his house, destroyed his tractor and farm implements. "My first task is to rebuild the house," says Manjinder. Wedding plans are also in the air. His father says, "All these years he had no time to get married. We've put the past behind us and are looking for a suitable girl."

It's ironical, the ease with which most former militants are being acquitted—given the legal rigmaroles of the past. A short jail term and it's back to normal life for most of them. Police officers admit that lack of "sufficient evidence" is helping most of them get away. "Few people come forward to testify against the militants. Besides, piecing together evidence for crimes that took place more than a decade ago is not easy," says a police officer. (There's also an alternate view within the administration and in civil society that the social rehabilitation of former militants is a clear "vindication of the inner strength of a large democracy like India".)

For the dreaded Wasan Singh Zaffarwal, head of the Khalistan Commando Force (KCF) and one of the top guns of the militancy years, the option of returning home was a safer bet. He was running into trouble with the authorities abroad. The return of Zaffarwal to his village in Gurdaspur this March has aroused interest in Punjab. He had negotiated his surrender with the police in 2001. On returning from Switzerland, he was whisked off to jail. During his two-year prison term, he was acquitted in seven of the nine cases against him. Currently out on bail, Zaffarwal sits in the warm circle of his family and friends after a separation of 19 years. "My two children were very small when I left. They did not recognise me when I came back," he says.

Like with Chohan, the implications of his return go beyond the merely personal. Perhaps buoyed by the enthusiastic welcome, Zaffarwal plans to join politics. "I realise we must fight for our cause through democratic means," says he. There are plans to float a political party. But that is easier said than done. "Who will believe Zaffarwal now, after all that he has done? People who have lost their relatives due to his violent ways won't forget or forgive so easily," says Jalandhar-based advocate Amarjit Singh Shergill who has fought cases for former militants and is a Khalistan sympathiser.

The manner in which the establishment is "treating" the militants—and indeed their political fortunes—is being closely watched by the "expat Khalistanis" as well as their kith and kin. In the interiors of Punjab, it's not always easy. There are uncanny questions from the past, etched in the mind, which can suddenly resurrect. For one, the militant-come-overground is seen as a "traitor of the cause" by hardcore Khalistanis. Says Shergill: "All this talk of joining the democratic mainstream is only to keep the government on their side and avoid more police harassment.But they have to consider their former comrades still based in Pakistan. It's like riding two boats through an invisible whirlpool. They are only hoping to hit still waters and sail through the times."

Still, between deceptive normalcy and the ghosts of the past, it's a new journey for the former militant. In the new Punjab, with its old wounds.