Having an ear to the ground in Punjab

Amid burning social issues, the farm laws repeal may not aid the BJP, while the Congress and AAP are in a tight contest

Punjab is restless. It is in pain. It feels let down by the State’s politics, its leaders and political parties. A sense of its political alienation from Delhi is palpable. It desperately wants to trust somebody. It is looking for that somebody. Perhaps it also knows, at the back of its mind, that there is hardly anybody it can depend on. And that finally, when the time comes, it has to choose a political platform that is less undependable, and unwillingly settle for it for the next five years. Price rise, drug menace, joblessness, farm laws, fall in incomes, increase in thefts, lawlessness, insult to sacred text cause anguish to its people. What is more painful to them is the perception that its political leaders and successive governments are indifferent to these issues. There is hopelessness in the young of the State. Even in tiny villages, the walls have the screaming advertisements of agencies that offer visa and immigration help to Canada and Australia. So too for institutes that coach students for the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) tests.

A few short months before the elections to the State Assembly, this is the mood of the State that I gathered after a 10-day intensive tour. I clocked about 2,000 kilometres, traversing the three main regions of the State — Malwa, Doaba and Majha. I met over 500 people representing almost all sections of society: men and women, in villages and towns, the rich and the poor, the young and the old, farmers, labourers, the unemployed, students, employees. Some individually and some in small groups. They were all surprisingly forthcoming in expressing their views and generous with their time. I also had long conversations with academics in universities and research institutes. I deliberately avoided meeting political party leaders.