THE PANTHIC FERMENT

New panthic leaders, some with a radical bent reminiscent of the Khalis tan days, are filling the space that political parties, particularly the SAD, have vacated, striving to find their own solutions to perceived crises

- Anilesh S. Mahajan

On the outskirts of Amritsar, a 10-minute ride off NH-3, lies Jallupur Khera. Till a year ago, it was just another quiet hamlet on the Majha continuum, typical of the soil-born prosperity of this northwestern frontier belt of Punjab. Soothing acres of flat greens, swanky SUVs parked in palatial bungalows, cheek by jowl with big tractors.

Not the hub of any activity larger than farming, except on Sangrand-or Sankranti-when Sandhu Jat Sikhs in the vicinity come visiting to pay obeisance at the gurdwara on the premises of the dera of their medieval-age patron saint, Baba Kala Mehar. That changed in the middle of August last year, when Jallupur Khera registered on Punjab's consciousness in a way that reawakened memories of a dark, stormy past. The man responsible for it: a 30-year-old Dubai-returned Sikh radical, Amritpal Singh Sandhu.

After a decade handling his family's transport business in the emirate, Amritpal returned to take charge of Waris Punjab De (Heirs of Punjab), a Sikh socio-religious group formed by actor-turned-activist Deep Sidhu, who died in February 2022 in a mysterious car accident. Turbanless and with a stylish Van Dyke beard, Amritpal looked like any other chic Punjabi youngster in Dubai. That image underwent a stark revision in public, when he took the baptismal amrit and had his dastarbandi (ceremonial turban-tying) at the end of last September. More striking was the venue: Rode in Moga district, ancestral village of slain terrorist and radical icon Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. Also of his nephew Lakhbir Singh Rode, chief of the Khalistan Zindabad Force, or KZF.