Had a few thoughts about the Khalistan sentiment in Punjab that we hear of every now and then. In 1990 the situation was so bad that night buses from Jammu to Delhi could not ply due to fear of getting ambushed in Punjab by terrorists (1/n)

Later, as a student in Punjab university, I travelled across the state with friends, many of them comrades, older to me, who taught me so many things I was not even aware of. Their english faltering but never their grasp, all my political education came from there (2/n)

When CM Beant Singh was assassinated, I was just a few hundred metres away, working a part-time job to pay for my education, and saw how it brought back fears of what had just passed (3/n)

During my travels I met some amazing people. Even years later, an odd man here and there would speak of “Sant ji” (Bhindranwale) or allude to Khalistan, but most people had nothing to do with it. The wounds of Partition, I realised, were more deep than anything else (4/n)

Not many people know, but dozens of people, Sikhs and Hindus, died fighting the idea of Khalistan. One of them was Hardev Singh Babbu from Majha’s Harsha da Sheena village (5/n)

Babbu was instrumental in breaking blockades set up by terrorists in Hindu areas to deny them access to essential commodities. He also killed a dreaded terrorist, Kuldeep Singh Tolanangal (6/n)

Babbu was later deceived by a woman sympathiser of terrorists who posed as a journalist and laced his drink. Terrorists cut his head and hung it outside the village Gurudwara (7/n)

So many others were killed. Darshan Canadian, Jaimal Padda, Avtar Singh Paash, Hansraj, Baldev Mann, Sarwan Singh Cheema, Varinder Gagan, and so many others (8/n)

I remember once spending a whole day with Satpal Dang on his office terrace, a high wall on one side, which he said was to shield them from getting shot. But nothing deterred them (9/n)

As farmers stand by our border and some silly man thinks of Bhindranwale as a man who fought for federalism, let us keep this in mind. An odd man out here and there and a few stupid NRIs is not what Punjab is all about (10/10)