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The bitter waters of the Punjab Rivers
read more →: The bitter waters of the Punjab RiversI joined the Punjab IAS in 1958. In 1960, Prime Minister Nehru signed the World Bank Sponsored Agreement with Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan, to divide the river waters of the old Punjab. The East Punjab was allotted 15.2 MAF and the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej rivers, while the West Punjab got Chenab, Jhelum and…
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Tshering Dorje, my Lahaul-Spiti brother
read more →: Tshering Dorje, my Lahaul-Spiti brotherThe Tribune, Tribute | November 22, 2020 In 1959, the Chinese suddenly attacked an Indian police patrol in Ladakh. Chief Minister Partap Singh Kairon immediately created a border district beyond Manali, across the Rohtang Pass (13,050 feet). We had to walk over the Pass and all over this mountain district of two valleys, Lahaul and…
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Where serfs are taking on sahibs
read more →: Where serfs are taking on sahibsCan the Hindu caste system, which has always held India’s 576,000 villages together, survive the coming of modern farming? Evidently not, if one looks to the prospering Punjab, where the familiar trinity of tractors, combines and electric power is rapidly displacing human labour. Strip away the age-old economic basis for caste – the exchange of…
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At Baba Nanak’s dwar, in Pakistan
read more →: At Baba Nanak’s dwar, in PakistanThe Sunday Tribune, Chandigarh | November 10, 2019 I was born in Aldinpur, a kilometer from Tarn Taran, Punjab. The township was founded by Guru Arjan, the fifth Guru, who stayed there for 25 years, till tortured and martyred by Emperor Jahangir in Lahore. I believe Guru Nanak is the daata of everything in Sikhism,…
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‘Even after 33 years, the idea of Apni Mandi has survived’
read more →: ‘Even after 33 years, the idea of Apni Mandi has survived’The Tribune, Ludhiana | June 11, 2019 In 1985, on return from the World Bank, I became Development Commissioner, Punjab, responsible for the agriculture and rural sector. This unified authority, now split, was created by Kairon. I had spent the year 1967 in Cambridge and gone again on invitation in 1974-75 to write my book…
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Punjab’s never-ending woes
read more →: Punjab’s never-ending woesThe Tribune, Chandigarh | April 7, 2019 Partition was a great disaster – lost lives, migration, and other horrors. We left the west canal colonies created by the Sikhs, and got one-third sandy land in return. Laudhiana was all tibbas, growing groundnut. The rivers were divided and Punjab got 15 million acre-foot (MAF). Against the Constitution…
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Remembering Kalkat, the farm officer
read more →: Remembering Kalkat, the farm officerThe Tribune, Chandigarh | February 1, 2018 The success of Punjab’s Green Revolution is well known and, I think today, that Dr Kalkat and others were not adequately recognised. The Punjab Agriculture University at Ludhiana was set up in 1960 by Sardar Pratap Singh Kairon. Mr PN Thapar, ICS, was the first Vice-Chancellor. A remarkable…
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Gas crematoria for Punjab
read more →: Gas crematoria for PunjabThe Sunday Tribune, Chandigarh | June 25, 2017 Kaffeeklatsch: ‘Media would not be intimidated’, dated June 11, was a good read. Heera Chand Guglani’s verse on the futility of expenditure on last rites drew my attention in particular. When I was a Rajya Sabha MP from Punjab (2004-2016), the then Deputy Commissioner, Amritsar, who also…
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Blame it on the machines
read more →: Blame it on the machinesThe Tribune, Chandigarh | March 21, 2017 After the results of the UP assembly polls, EVMs are in focus. Losers claim EVMs were “rigged,” while ECI swears by the safe and tamper-proof system. Critics say the core issue is democracy and the transparency of the electoral process. In early 1997, when I was the Chief…
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Men and Memories: A walk down history lane
read more →: Men and Memories: A walk down history laneThe Tribune, Chandigarh | November 3, 2016 Partition in 1947 was the greatest subcontinental disaster, leading to migration and misery for the people of Punjab. Governor Glancey wrote to M.A. Jinnah that he was doing everything to clear out the rural Sikhs from the rich canal colonies. Daily violence in Lahore pushed out Hindus and…
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Time to invoke the Sufi culture
read more →: Time to invoke the Sufi cultureThe Tribune, Chandigarh | June 18, 2016 The conversion of the Lal Khoohi gurdwara, historically recorded as a gurdwara, into a Muslim shrine makes one regret that the pluralistic culture and tradition of the subcontinent is being violated. We must revive universal love preached by Baba Farid. I come from a village, just outside Tarn…
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My Spot Of Green
read more →: My Spot Of GreenOutlook | May 16, 2016 I’ll miss the birds in my garden, but will they miss me? In life, there is a time to come, and a time to go. Eight years ago, we came to this Lutyen’s creation, in great excitement. Set in about 3 acres of park, with giant trees, this white elegance…
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A part of Chandigarh in Zurich
read more →: A part of Chandigarh in ZurichThe Sunday Tribune, Chandigarh | October 25, 2015 The foundation of the new Punjab capital, Chandigarh, was laid in 1952 by Prime Minister Nehru. I was pursuing my MA from Government College, Ludhiana, and travelled for the first time to Chandigarh in 1956. Panjab University, under Dr Joshi, had moved from Solan to a few administrative…
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Delhi lobby can hit Chandigarh airport takeoff
read more →: Delhi lobby can hit Chandigarh airport takeoffThe Tribune, Chandigarh | September 19, 2015 Sitting in Zurich on the 50th Anniversary of Corbusier passing away, I read that the international airport at Chandigarh has, finally, been inaugurated by the Prime Minister. The occasion fortuitously got linked with the memories of Corbusier, who is being celebrated in Chandigarh, as in Europe and particularly…
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DC in thick of war effort in Punjab sector
read more →: DC in thick of war effort in Punjab sectorThe Sunday Tribune, Chandigarh | July 26, 2015 I joined the Punjab Cadre of the IAS in 1958. In August, 1965 with seven year service, I was appointed Deputy Commissioner of Ambala, the old British district which stretched, from the Sutlej at Bhakra, to the Yamuna on the border of the U.P. There was no…
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Remembering Ajit
read more →: Remembering AjitIn August 1965, newly married and barely 30, I became Deputy Commissioner of the old British District of Ambala, which stretched from Bhakra to the Yamuna, below the hills. There was no Haryana till November, 1966. The Indo-Pak war started on the 6th September. Those were exciting times; we were bombed twice, by Pak Air.…
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In Defence Of Swami Agnivesh
read more →: In Defence Of Swami AgniveshCricket is my favourite game. In school at St. George’s College, Mussoorie, I was as feared a left-arm demon bowler as Bedi has been on the international scene. I followed the doings of the great Bradman, Hutton, and Denis Compton with a diligence that few could match. We kept scrapbooks of the pictures of all…
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A Journey To The Other Punjab
read more →: A Journey To The Other PunjabOutlook | April 23, 2015 On 18th August, 2014, the University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan decided to confer on me an Honorary Doctorate for my work in Agriculture and Rural Development, in my Punjab, as Secretary, Agriculture India, as head of a huge programme of agricultural and rural development in Sokoto, Nigeria, and for my…
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The Warmth of Lahore
read more →: The Warmth of LahoreHT City, Chandigarh | March 11, 2012 When I was a little boy in Tarn Taran, a doggerel known to every Punjabi was oft quoted: “The man who has not been to Lahore, is not born”. A second lesser known, but often said in verbal jousts ran: The Donkey has been to Lahore, and now puts…
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Changing a Name
read more →: Changing a NameThe Tribune | February 17, 2012 Punjab lost Chandigarh in 1966. In 1968 Lachman Singh Gill became Chief Minister for a short while. In those nine months, he forced the PWD to build metal link roads to villages, and made Punjabi the state language. Having lost Chandigarh, he started the Mohali town development project, continuing…
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Delhi Diary
read more →: Delhi DiaryOutlook | August 15, 2011 A Murder At The Waterhole The months of April and May bring hot, dust-laden winds from Rajasthan to Delhi. The sky turns brassy, the trees, the birds and even the roving troupes of monkeys from Raisina Hill who regularly traipse through my garden, long for water to moisten their parched…
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Joy, And The River Of Sorrow
read more →: Joy, And The River Of SorrowOutlook | June 27, 2011 At the end of May, I undertook a joyride in the districts of Amritsar, Ferozepur, Muktsar, Faridkot and Tarn Taran, on both sides of the Sutlej. It was a chance to see and learn—a rare thing these days. The hot, dry summer had set in; the wheat had been harvested,…
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The Whisky King o’Blighty
read more →: The Whisky King o’BlightyOutlook | March 14, 2011 I went to school in St George’s, Mussoorie. Some years back, I was in London and a chap called Narinder Singh Sawhney rang me up. He turned out to be from my school, a product of the ’60s who had migrated to the UK soon after and settled in Hanwell,…
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Kumarajiva’s Passage
read more →: Kumarajiva’s PassageOutlook | November 22, 2010 Recently, I spent two days in Shanghai, and felt like doing something different, seeing some unknown part of this vast country. Buddhism was taken long ago to China, by Chinese monks, and it flourished and expanded there, and beyond, with regular sustenance from the monks of Nalanda university and other…
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Chandigarh Diary
read more →: Chandigarh DiaryOutlook | October 5, 2009 The Chandigarh of Nehru and Corbusier has almost become a curiosity for a stream of visitors from the West who continue to see him as a giant of 20th century architecture. The year 1947 was India’s Annus Horribilis. From March that year, murder and mayhem stalked the Punjab. By autumn,…