‘Chandigarh Belongs To Punjab; It Doesn’t Connect With Haryana’

Amrit Grewal says making Chandigarh the sole Capital of Punjab will not only help the City Beautiful but also Haryana citizens

Mention the word Chandigarh, and the first association that comes to one’s mind is Punjab. Mention Gurgaon and… you see my point. That more or less settles the debate. However, as in most cases, it is the politics behind the issue that will not allow it to settle that easily. For, if Haryana leaders were to give up their claims on Chandigarh, it would be seen as a political defeat for them.

The reality is making Chandigarh the sole, and not shared, Capital of Punjab will also help Haryana. Because right now, everything official – be it a legal or civic matter – has to be routed through Chandigarh, because senior officers of Haryana are all sitting out of Panchkula. Panchkula is a stone’s throw away from Chandigarh. So essentially anything that has to be done for Haryana, one has to trek to Chandigarh and then Panchkula.

Grewal (inset) says Chandigarh cannot hold the onslaught of more people

Thus, as a layperson who is not politically inclined, I would say if Gurgaon is the Capital for Haryana, which would entail that all state affairs of Haryana run from Gurgaon, rather than Chandigarh – it would make more sense; make life easier for Haryana citizens.

ALSO READ: ‘Chandigarh is A Cosmo City, Belongs To Both Punjab & Haryana’

Besides, Chandigarh cannot take the load of being a twin capital any more. It is bursting at the seams. I have known Chandigarh since I was an infant. I went to my school, college there. We got a whole history there. The whole family is there. Chandigarh means home

Though it is still a very clean city, a very well planned one at that, the traffic is now crazy. Because suddenly there are a lot of people coming in from all across. A majority of them are moving in from Haryana and Punjab essentially. I don’t think that the city can, or is equipped to, hold such an onslaught of people; it cannot accommodate that many people.

So there is New Chandigarh that has come up ahead of the PGI area, some very big hotels have also come up to host more people. This five-star and four-star culture wasn’t there when I was young; we had just two hotels, Mountview and Shivalikview. The club culture used to be very strong like in most old urban locales.

Now that F&B (food and beverage) culture has changed, there are lots of high-end brands stepping foot in, big names from Tier A cities moving into Chandigarh because it is a market they know. And hence the claustrophobia setting too.

We know the whole UT status was put in place because of a certain background of Haryana and Punjab staking claims to Chandigarh. But the way the city connects with Punjab, it does not with Haryana. Just ask anyone outside the two states what is the capital of Haryana, and he or she would think twice before saying Chandigarh. If you were to ask the capital of Punjab, it would be pat Chandigarh. Connect, you see.

But I also see Haryana would not let go of Chandigarh as its capital. It is more of an ego issue. Allowing Chandigarh to be sole capital of Punjab will be seen as some kind of a setback for Haryana history. Yet, if one sees things beyond politics and ego, Chandigarh belongs to Punjab.

‘Chandigarh Is A Cosmo City, Belongs To Both Punjab, Haryana’

Simar Onkar, a citizen of Chandigarh for three decades, says its status quo as the twin capital should be maintained

It was the year 1993-94, when I got my first job posting in Chandigarh as a sales promotion manager for a telecommunication company. That was the time when the paging service had just launched in India, and Chandigarh was the perfect place for the new technology revolution.

I just fell in love with the city. It was the ‘love at first sight’ kind of thing. A well-planned, calm, peaceful and cosmopolitan city, it ticked every box in my list of how a habitable metropolis should be.

Being the child of an army personnel, I could never call any city my home. But after arriving in Chandigarh, I decided that I was going to make this city my home. It has been almost 30 years since I settled here.

I believe that its cosmopolitan nature makes it more unique than anything. This city belongs to everyone — Sikhs, Jats, Muslims, Hindus, Christians or anyone from any other ethnicity, religious or professional groups. In the last 28 years, I haven’t witnessed any communal disturbances in the city unlike other cities in the country.

But, it seems that politicians can never bear the calm. To stir new debates and disturbances, they keep raising the ownership of Chandigarh. Who does the city belong to — Punjab or Haryana? After every few years, this issue crops up, debates get heated and gradually cools down after the electoral heat.

Recently, the Aam Admi Party-led Punjab government staked a claim over Chandigarh by passing a unanimous resolution in the state assembly. They argued that in case of carving out a new state out of any parent state, the capital city remained with the parent city.

The Haryana government has also presented its counter argument as to why it should be the Capital of both the states.

The moot point is that there’s no such city like Chandigarh in both Punjab and Haryana which they can turn into the respective Capital of their states. The next biggest city in Punjab is Amritsar, which carries the tag of more a historic and holy city; it lacks the infrastructure to be recognized as the capital city of Punjab.

However, in case of Haryana, they do have developed Gurgaon with respect to infrastructure, but it is haphazardly created and will be a poor match to Chandigarh.

I believe that the city should be kept out of the controversy. This discord and the political tug of war between the two states is detrimental to the growth of Chandigarh. The status quo, in which it belongs to both the states, should be maintained.

As told to Md Tausif Alam

Weekly Update: Khan Loses Match; BJP Stunt On Chandiargh; India Tells UK To Move On

Khan The Pathan Brought Down: The great Khan Pathan, Imran Khan, has also been shafted back to earth and his assumption of invincibility punctured by the real power of Pakistan, the Army. Khan was toying with outsmarting the Army. When on the verge of being removed from office, dismissing the C in C of the Pakistan Army seems to be the favourite last desperate preoccupation of many Prime Ministers of Pakistan. But they soon realise their office is a clerical extension of the Army and not the throne of power. They get into a habitual error of thinking that because they got the mandate through votes, they must be more popular and powerful than the Army. The Pakistan Army, like armies elsewhere, does not have a single vote nor does it seek any. It has the tanks and the finance, both of which tend to be more powerful in any political set up.

Now why our westernised anti-west star, the great Imran, international cricketer and once sought after by every socialite lady in the west, thought he could become pro Kremlin and at the same time recruit the democratic mandate in his favour is a mystery. Democracy wallahs are supposed to side with USA and authoritarian leaders on the side of China and Russia. In Pakistan, it is a bit topsy turvy. The Army that hasn’t a single vote, is pro USA, while the democratic elected leader is pro authoritarian Russia.

Pakistan’s perennial problems has been a failure to institute a constitutional structure that reflects the real structure and distribution of power in the country. But it was forced by the United Kingdom to adopt a democratic constitution. The UK calls itself as mother of democracy.

Contrary to popular myth, the UK is really a monarchy and power exercised by some powerful business interests. The System is all in the name of the Monarchy. The Queen has a Government to do the running around and manage the country. The Government is elected. But the leader that pleases Mr Murdoch and a few other British Barons, usually gets the seat of power. The one they don’t like, tends to get hammered in the media, owned by powerful barons.  Even though elected, the Government rules and acts on behalf of the Monarch, not the people. In effect, the Monarch asks the people to elect among themselves a leader and a party to manage her country. Brilliant. Its rule by the Barons, for the Monarch, with the people.

Pakistan on the other hand was bullied by this Monarchical -Baronial UK to adopt a democratic system to be consistent with the requirements of that other non-democratic institution, the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth insists that all member countries be democratic as Britain supposedly is. But it has a permanent non-elected leader, the Queen. And no one has asked when will Britain become a truly democratic State, except for the Sikhs. Once in Britain when the Government patronisingly lectured the Sikhs to become modern and adopt elections in their Gurdwaras, the Sikh leaders told the Government that when the head of State in UK is elected, then they will also pay more attention to Government sermons. The Government backed off.

So we have perpetual issues in Pakistan. Power is with the Army. The Army has set up a democratic front to shut the Brits and Americans up. Meanwhile Pakistani people think they are democratically holding power to account. It serves everyone. When things go wrong, the Army blames the elected leadership and people get a chance to elect another leader who can’t sort the mess either. UK and USA are happy that the country is listed as ‘democratic’ and can tick the boxes. A bit like medieval crusades, when the converted could do anything such as rapes, pillages etc, as long as they called themselves Christian. But if they weren’t Christian, they were called the devil incarnate, child eaters, witches and any grotesque character adjective that the pious Vatican could think of for non-Christians. In modern times, the UK-USA alliance does the same for countries who are not ‘democratic’. India therefore is saved from this name calling.

Time changes but nothing changes. Let’s hope one day Pakistan will have the ability to set up a constitutional structure that reflects the levers and distribution of power as it really is. In the meantime Mr Khan has been bowled out. We hope he has enough money to go into exile in Dubai.

Chandigarh For BJP?

Well, who would have thought that one day the nationalist Hindu party, BJP would be screaming for Chandigarh to be recognised as capital of Punjab? ‘Qudrat’ (Nature) indeed is ironical.

During the militant days of Akali run Anandpur Sahib Resolution campaigns in the late 1970s and then Khalistan campaigns of 1980s, one of the key demands was that Chandigarh should solely be the capital of Punjab. The Punjabi Hindus opposed it.

Ever since the family run Akali Dal Badal came to power, the issue of Chandigarh seemed to have evaporated just as the rest of Anandpur Sahib resolution did. Now that Akali Dal can only be seen with the Hubble Space telescope from outer space, as otherwise it is no where to be seen in the levers of power, the BJP decided it was going to raise the issue of Chandigarh. Obviously it is to start a headache for Aam Admi party in Punjab, but the irony is too much not to be commented on. Fact is that in reality all BJP Punjab has to do is ask its Daddy BJP in Lok Sabha to hand over Chandigarh to Punjab. But where is the fun if it does that?

Britain Told To Look Around

The Indian Foreign Minister is not as much of a rottweiler as the Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov is, but S Jaishankar certainly gave the British Foreign Minister an earful. In reality Jaishankar is not aggressive at all in dealing with other leaders. He is the epitome of a diplomat. Lavrov, on the other hand can get annoyed and throw put downs with ease.

When the British Foreign Minister, Liz Truss, went over to India to give a colonial dressing down to Jaishankar reminding him that India is part of the democratic block and further told him to get in line and oppose Russia, the mild mannered Jaishankar did a Lavrov.

He told her that times had moved on and the world is in a period of multipolar power blocks. India will make its own decisions and not be dictated to by the Brits. Liz Truss, who likes posing as Ms Rambo in tanks, quickly belted up, took the next flight home and sat mopping in her toy tank in the back garden, firing soap bubble shots at the Indian Foreign Minister. That has not been reported or verified yet, but not one beyond possibility. Liz Truss always has the look of a Captain Britain with raised eyebrows.