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A rags-to-riches story
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City professor to attend international meet on Hepatitis B virus
‘Only people of India, Pak can prevent nuclear war’
SEZ dream turns sour
International craft contest begins
Improvement Trust to set up shopping complex
Partition still haunts Channo Devi
Dr Furrukh Khan, Assistant Professor, Lahore University of Management Science, visited Amritsar on August 17
Contract farming the bane of
agriculture, say experts
Van Mahotsav at Khalsa College
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Suraj Bali from Uttar Pradesh, who started earning his living by polishing shoes in the streets of Amritsar four decades ago, is now a big landlord of the Holy City. This is a unique success story of rags-to-riches and it speaks volumes about hard work. “Starve, die, but don’t beg…Do something with your two hands,” has been this man’s motto.
Mr Bali always wanted to explore, to look beyond the borders of his homeland in Uttar Pradesh when he was a young lad. His yearning to explore brought him to Amritsar. He wanted to eke out his livelihood with dignity. Like Mr Bali, the success stories of many migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are great inspiration for the locals who wish to eke out their livelihood with dignity. “I used to get five paisa for polishing shoes in 1965 when I came to Amritsar. However, the Indo-Pak War broke out and I returned to my native town Rai Bareli and later came back after one and a half years to resume shoe shining,” he says. The trials and tribulations are now left behind. Now he owns a double-storey house in a posh colony and his children are well educated. Today his business is thriving. Now, migrants who had come here as unskilled labourers are providing jobs to the Punjabis. Continuing success for them means once more rolling up their sleeves and applying business and motivational skills.
Initially, the migrants had to face offensive behaviour. However, most of the manual workers found their jobs very challenging and rewarding in Punjab – the Land of Five Rivers. How most of the migrants who had moved to Punjab penniless turned their dreams into a reality is a unique story of rags-to-riches. It’s poverty that leaves little choice and creates conditions in which peasants, small-scale farmers and workers become migrants. However, migrant farm workers confront deplorable living and working conditions. Fear and economic necessity are the main deterrents in taking action to improve these conditions. The migrants have made themselves indispensable as they are willing to work in jobs that are commonly considered “ dangerous and demeaning”. They had come to Punjab in increasing numbers to fill the labour shortage, as Punjabis started shying away from the petty manual works. The migrants are particularly vulnerable to various forms of discrimination, exploitation and abuse, according to a report prepared by the UP Kalyan Parishad.
Uttar Pradesh is one of the most ancient cradles of the Indian culture, while Bihar is known for its geographical location, natural beauty, mythological and historical importance. Even then large-scale migration from such lands of rainbow to Punjab have taken everybody by surprise. The spectre of poverty that looms large over the lower strata in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar is believed to have compelled the people to leave their home states in search of greener pastures. Dr J.P. Singh, Managing Director, Shri Dhanwantri Ayurvedic Pharmacy, who had come to Amritsar from Gonda district of UP after Partition with only Rs 700 in his pocket, is now a renowned figure of Amritsar. The annual turnover of his two pharmacies in Amritsar and Baddi (Himachal Pradesh) is more than Rs 11 crore. Earlier, his father had come to Lahore as a skilled labour in a pharmacy in 1927. Now he speaks Punjabi more comfortably than his mother tongue Avdhi. Belonging to upper caste, he attributes large-scale migration to deep-rooted casteism in UP and Bihar. “It was certainly painful decision to leave Uttar Pradesh – the land of opportunities, but destiny brought us here,” said Mr Sugriv who rose from the petty job of a “munim” in a private mill to that of a Senior Lecture Assistant Laboratory, Hindu College. He is the senior vice-president of the UP Kalyan Parishad. Out of the total 30 lakh migrants from UP and Bihar, more than 1.5 lakhs have settled in Amritsar alone. Most of the migrants are voters and are in a position to tilt the balance in almost all the Assembly constituencies of the state. They are mainly concentrated in Verka Assembly constituency (28,000 votes), South Assembly constituency (14,000 votes), North Assembly constituency (about 10,000 votes) and Chheharta Assembly constituency (approximately 12,000 votes). The colonies where migrants dominate include Nehru Nagar, Sandhu Colony, Parkash Vihar, Mustafabad, Indira Colony, Kundewala Khuh, Jawahar Nagar. Though most of them are unskilled, yet they dominate in the processing units, embroidery and marble work. The first attempt to organise the scattered strength of the migrants was made by the then Commissioner Income Tax (Amritsar), Mr E.Saroj, who encouraged Mr R.C Yadav and other migrants to form the joint forum for the labour class that was passing through miseries. The joint forum, “Uttar Pradesh Kalyan Parishad” came into being on October 2, 1980, to mark the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. More IAS and IPS officers from both the states put their weight behind the Parishad. Now, Mr Parveen Sinha, SSP, Tarn Taran, and Mr V.K. Singh, a senior IAS officer from Chandigarh, are patrons of the Parishad. The Shiromani Akali Dal supremo, Mr Parkash Singh Badal, had donated Rs 10 lakh for building “Mazdoor Rain Basera” , built opposite Escorts Hospital from his discretionary quota when he was the chief minister. Many BJP ministers in the Badal government and Congress MLAs also donated funds generously. The multi-purpose “Mazdoor Rain Basera” now is first of its kind in the state, which has become hub of activities for the migrants. The State President of the Parishad, Mr Yadav, claims that many migrants have practically lost their roots in their home states and have fully absorbed the Punjabi culture. Some of them have become granthis (Sikh priests) in the SGPC-controlled gurdwaras. Many migrants have married in Punjabi families. Even during the peak of militancy and Kargil conflict, the migrants were seen working in fields up to the zero line. It is, however, a matter of great satisfaction that they never became the target for gun-totting youths who would resort to indiscriminate firing during the peak of militancy, barring isolated incidents. The Chief of the UP Kalyan Parishad had come to Amritsar as a tourist and decided to made Amritsar as his permanent abode. He started his career as a supervisor in a private mill at meagre salary. Now the annual turnover from his finance companies and PTU’s centre is more than Rs 7 crore – a big leap indeed. He owns a double-storey house in the posh Rose Avenue. The braindrain of skilled workers from Punjab to foreign shores and a big influx of unskilled workers from UP and Bihar here have created a unique scenario. Punjab has also become a safe haven for some criminal elements from UP and Bihar. However, the UP Kalyan Parishad has favoured various preventive measures so that migrants should not be blamed for the rise of crime graph in the state. The migrants from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have also brought their rich culture and cuisine to Amritsar. They celebrate their festivals and religious functions with gaiety. Both the states have old tradition of beautiful folk songs sung during important family occasions such as marriage, birth ceremonies, festivals. They are sung mainly in group settings without the help of many musical instruments. These states have a tradition of lively Holi songs with melodious rhythms. The dance forms of Bihar are another expression of rich traditions and ethnic identity. There are several folk dance forms that can keep one enthralled. These include dhobi nach, jhumarnach, manjhi, gondnach, jitiyanach, more morni, dom-domin, bhuiababa, rah baba, kathghorwa nach, jat jatin, launda nach, bamar nach, jharni, jhijhia, natua nach, bidapad nach, sohrai nach and gond nach. The staple food is “bhat” (rice), daal, roti, “tarkari” and “achar” (pickle). “Kadhi bari” is a popular favourite and consists of fried soft dumplings made of besan (gram flour) that are cooked in a spicy gravy of yogurt and gram flour. This dish goes very well with plain rice. There is a distinctive Bihari flavour to the non-vegetarian cooking as well, although some of the names of the dishes may be the same as those found in other parts of north India. “Roll” is a typical Bihari non-vegetarian dish. These are popular and go by the generic name “Roll Bihari” in and around Lexington Avenue (South) in New York City. Now an interesting snippet that has some political overtones. Mr Ram Vilas Paswan, Union Minister from Bihar who is married into a Sikh family, has close relatives in Chhehrta town of Amritsar. He had enough guts to save the lives of Sikhs during Delhi carnage following the assassination of Ms Indira Gandhi – the then Prime Minister in November 1984. In his affidavit to the Commission constituted to probe the role of those who had engineered the anti-Sikh riots, Mr Paswan clearly disclosed the involvement of those involved in the massacre of innocent persons and their children. He deposed that the policemen posted at some places watched the violent incidents as mute spectators, and did not perform their duty of preventing the mobs from indulging in violence.
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City professor to attend international
Dr P. K. Sehajpal, a professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at the Guru Nanak Dev University, who along with his team had developed a new diagnostic tool to determine the quantity of Hepatitis B Virus
(HBV) in human serum, has been invited to present the findings at the International Conference on Hepatitis B viruses at Vancouver from September 17-20.
Using this technique, the team has tried to redefine the various stages of Hepatitis infection in the context of viral load. The findings were submitted to the organisers of the international conference who invited Dr Sehajpal to be part of the conference. The research work was co-authored by the professor’s students Harish Changotra (presently in Louisiana), Alka Dwivedi (working at
UIC, Chicago) and collaborator Dr Anil Nayyar, a gastroenterologist from the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, New Delhi. Talking to this correspondent, Dr Sehjpal said this competitive-PCR
(cPCR) method would prove to be an eventual tool for the control of deadly diseases. He said routine tests could only show the presence or absence of the virus. Their technique had also find a place in the international journal ‘Archives of Virology’, an official publication of the virology section of the International Union of Microbiological Societies. Giving details of the technique, Dr Sehajpal said the PCR or Polymerase Chain Reaction was a specific and sensitive molecular tool by which a small fragment of DNA was amplified, or duplicated, to produce multiple DNA copies. The technique was used to identify target organisms even when their numbers were so small that they could not be detected by other methods, he added. He claimed that the technique has revolutionised the field of biomedical sciences and had been successfully used in the detection of various infectious pathogens. Its expansive version was prevalent in developed nations as Real Time PCR, he added. The professor said Hepatitis B virus
(HBV) was one of the most prevalent pathogens in the world and approximately 300 million people were chronically infected with this virus, resulting in about a million deaths annually in all over the world. He said India had the dubious distinction of having the second largest pool of around 45 million people chronically infected with this virus. One reason for this high incidence of infection was the lack of sensitive tests for detecting low levels of viruses, he added. In simple words, these people have a time bomb ticking inside their bodies in the form of the dormant virus, waiting for the trigger, he said. This trigger might not get pulled throughout the lives of the carriers; they might also infect other people or develop other fatal conditions like liver cancer, he said. Dr Sehajpal has several innovations and discoveries to his credit in the field of biomedical sciences. Important among these are the discovery of an endogenous inhibitor of HIV-1 AIDS virus protein and study of the immune responses in cases of organ transplants. He has won a number of international and national awards, including Ranbaxy’s ‘Research Award’ in 1994 in the field of applied Medical Sciences. |
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‘Only people of India, Pak can prevent nuclear war’
The possibility of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan could only be prevented by the citizens of both the countries, Lt-Gen (retd) M.L. Chawla said this in a keynote address at 1218th meeting of the Rotary Club, Amritsar Midtown, on Sunday.
He was commenting upon the report of the Parliamentary Committee that had asked the Defence Ministry to be prepared for unconventional warfare. General Chawla narrated the devastating effects of a nuclear war on humanity at large and the generations to come. Citing the example of the atom bomb attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, he cautioned against the disastrous effects of nuclear weapons that might have instantaneous or long term ramifications amongst the survivors. He said, “It’s a fact that war does not love man, yet tragically man loves war”. He expressed his concern over media reports on climate of heightened security threat and tension between the two south Asian nuclear states. He said people of the two neighbouring countries, which share a long history of bitterness, must shun hatred against each other and try to overpower evils like drug trafficking, poverty and illiteracy. He opined that a mature democracy like India was the only answer to prevent a nuclear confrontation. An unstable democracy caricatured by ambitious leadership could remain a potential threat to peace. Dr H.S. Gill, a former Civil Surgeon, presided over the meeting. members and office-bearers of the club also participated. |
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SEZ dream turns sour
The property dealers and land sharks are minting money by purchasing land adjoining the area earmarked for the proposed Special Economic Zone (SEZ) on Amritsar-Jalandhar road since most of the gullible land owners are still unaware about the proposed project due to lack of publicity.
Those who know about the project have already started construction. So that they could pre-empt the move of the state government to acquire their land for SEZ. The market price of these lands have skyrocketed, touching Rs 2.5 to 4 lakh per acre, depending on the area after the District Town Planner earmarked the area for the dream project announced by the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, way back in 2000. A visit to these villages revealed this fact, as most of the residents are unaware about the pros and cons of the SEZ. They feigned ignorance about the project and said they only knew about the 1,250 acres of land being acquired by the Punjab government to set up a project. It is pertinent to mention here that the state government, in various newspapers on August 17, had notified the acquisition of land for setting up the SEZ in villages of Manawala, Rakhjeeta, Mehma, Pandore, Jheeta Kalan, Jheeta Khurd and Bhaghapurana. The setting up of the SEZ would help in creating thousands of jobs and generation of income, attracting FDIs, technology transfers and strengthening of marketing linkages of the hand tools, auto parts, textiles and agriculture-based industries. It would give immense fillip to the already increasing exports of Punjab because import/export from SEZ’s do not attract custom duty and there would be exemption of income tax for five years. The announcement of the SEZ had brought cheers for the residents of Amritsar which had remained neglected for about two-and-a-half decades due to the disturbed conditions in the state. However, there were others who were not satisfied with the area marked for the prestigious project. Commenting on the MoU signed for the SEZ, Mr Malkit Singh, a resident of Manawala and general secretary, Amritsar unit of the Shiromani Akali Dal Badal (Rural) said the 2,500 acre multi-product SEZ announced by the PM had now been diluted and a truncated project of only 1,250 acres had been dished out, much to the embarrassment of the people. He further alleged that even the state government had changed the site of the focal point. He added that the very purpose of setting up the SEZ was being defeated, as it was not connected to the railway line as planned earlier. Mr Kuljit Kitty, spokesman of marble dealers on the GT Road alleged that the government was uprooting them for obliging the DLF Universal Limited by providing them 2,000 feet opening to the SEZ while the entry road to New Amritsar was barely 100 feet. He said various marble dealers and industrialists were contemplating to move the court. It may hamper the dream project announced by Dr Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister. Meanwhile, Col (retd) J.S. Col Bal, president, Rashtriya Raksha Dal, has urged the state government to set up a SEZ in Ajnala, as it was located near the Rajasansi International Airport, Wagah border, railway container unit and the Amritsar bypass. He reasoned out that this would facilitate movement of raw material and finished goods, availability of land at cheaper rates, manpower and independent power supply lines. |
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International craft contest begins
The International Creative Craft Contest 2006 (ICCC), an initiative by Pidilite Industries Ltd, conceptualised with the aim of recognising and rewarding excellence in arts and crafts, kicked-off in the DAV Public School, Amritsar, with fanfare.
The contest would be held at four levels beginning from schools. It will be followed by a city-level contest on August 31, zonal-level from September 15 to October 8 and the mega final from December 16 to Dec 26 in Mumbai. Mr Avinash Sharma of Pidilite said the contest was being organised in 42 cities across India and at four international locations in UAE, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. He said the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India had endorsed the contest. The contest, conducted in over 5,000 schools all over India, would provide a platform to the students to explore their creativity and showcase their talent at the national level in a competitive arena. Ms Neera Sharma, principal, said the contest was an effective tool of developing self-confidence. |
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Improvement Trust to set up shopping complex
MLA and Chairman, Improvement Trust, Mr Jugal Kishore Sharma, recently laid the foundation stone of a shopping-cum-parking complex near the old building of the Improvement Trust.
The building would be constructed at a cost of Rs 3.45 crore. Owing to traffic problems and congestion, the Trust’s office was shifted to Ranjit Avenue some years back. Mr Sharma dedicated the building to late Gian Chand Kharbanda, a Punjab former minister. Meanwhile, in order to optimally use the vacant space and its proximity to the Golden Temple, the Trust has decided to construct a shopping plaza. He informed the complex would have 14 shops, five showrooms, 18 rooms and parking space for roughly 75 cars and 50 two-wheelers. |
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Partition still haunts Channo Devi
Channo Devi, talking to the TNS, said she did not know the meaning of independence then, as she was only 14 years old. She said her family was already in a state of shock as her elder sister who was married in Chhamb Jorhian in Akhnoor Sector of Jammu and Kashmir had expired a few days back. She added that they had returned from the bhog of her sister on that fateful day when in the evening, an announcement was made by the drummers that Pakistan had been created. For a moment, she gets lost in the past memories and suddenly tears start rolling down. But soon she recomposes herself to further narrate her story saying that the family had got confused about what to do. She said after a few hours, her parents decided to leave Sialkot and after walking for the whole night entered India through Chhamb Jorhian the next day. Channo Devi said that after a few days, they moved further, onto Jammu, where they were later allotted a custodian house in Peer Mitha in Lakhdata Bazar. She said on reaching Jammu, the main concern for her parents was her young age and they wanted to get her married. She said her maternal uncle who also belonged to Chhamb Jorhian asked her parents to marry her with the husband of her deceased sister. And she became a bride. Reminiscing an interesting incident, Channo Devi said one of their labourers had brought along a Muslim girl who also wanted to get married to him. She said the next midnight, announcements were made by people from across the border to return the girl or be prepared to face the consequences. She said in the morning, the elders held a meeting and talked to the girl and requested her to return to her parents to save their lives. She said initially she hesitated but later agreed. She said the persons who accompanied her to the narrow bridge, which was the only passage on the Indo-Pak border, on their return to the village narrated the harrowing experiences. According to them, as soon as the girl reached the middle of the bridge, people across the bridge shot her dead. She said they started their life from scratch as everything was left behind. They had four shops of kitchenware and a huge house and some land, but all was lost due to the Partition. She said her family, which was staying in Chhamb Jorhian, later shifted to Chheharta due to continued conflict on the border. On the question of revisiting her ancestral village in Sialkot, she said nearly 60 years had elapsed and moreover, it was not easy for her to recognise the people there. |
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Pak scholar attempts to trace
A professor from the Lahore University of Management Services, Dr Furrukh A. Khan, visited a number of places in the border region to trace the two-century old origin of the Lohani Pathans in Gurdaspur district.
Dr Khan, who had already prepared a documentary– ‘Stories of Broken Self’— about Partition, said that certain Lohani Pathans who had set their footholds in Bengal about two-and-a-half centuries back had moved to some hamlets of Punjab, in Gurdaspur district including Kalupur and Bahupur, near the Pakistan border. He said his mother Shamshad Begham and her ancestors belonged to Kalupur and hence it was his earnest desire to trace the history of Lohanis. He met one Dalip Singh who took Dr Khan to old mosques of Kalupur village, now in dilapidated conditions. He did videography of the area and documented the facts based on verbal facts collected from the area. Dr Khan said his maternal grandfather Nazir Khan Lohani who hailed from Kalupur village had fought in World War I. He said his grandfather had also recorded the history of two generations (father Farid Khan Lohani and grandfather Munim Khan Lohani) and all of them belonged to this village. However, after Partition, the Lohani Pathans moved to the newly-created country of Pakistan and with this, their places of worship remained disused since then. Talking about his 39-minute long video film – ‘Stories of the Broken Self: Holocaust of Partition’, a documentary he produced, Dr Khan said it was based on the interviews of at least 50 women who were witness to the Partition. Giving details of the documentary, Dr Khan said that Partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 served as the foundation of the modern history of Pakistan. This event divided the hitherto united and colonised India into two independent countries, India and Pakistan. In the ensuing bloodshed and forcible dislocation, by some estimates, over 14 million people moved from one part of the country to the other, the largest single human migration in history, with the causalities of those killed and wounded to be well over a million. This 39-minute documentary provides the audience with an opportunity to hear a perspective, which has been systematically erased from the state’s version of history. Women talk about their experiences of living in a multi-religious society, and how the events of Partition unraveled the bonds of love and prejudice that had existed in their societies. The documentary attempts to build up a narrative of Partition by using stories of women, who, as a collective, were most adversely affected by the events that took place in 1947. He said Pakistan had not provided any public forum for these women to either to talk about their experiences or to take their opinions into any serious consideration. He further said that this was an attempt to hear how women create a private and public identity for themselves after crossing borders from their place of birth to a new country. |
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Contract farming the bane of
Devinder Sharma, a journalist and environmentalist has said that Punjab’s agriculture had reached a “devastating” point and the government was further compounding the problem by introducing contract farming, corporate agriculture and Genetically Modified (GM) crops.
Mr Sharma is touring Punjab on the invitation of the Kheti Virasat Mission, Jaiton, to spearhead the campaign against Genetically Modified crops. The campaign was launched by the ‘Coalition for GM-free India’, a group formed by the more than 60 NGOs working in the field of environment. Mr Sharma has also authored several books including ‘GATT and India: The Politics of Agriculture’ and ‘GATT to WTO: Seeds of Despair and Trade Liberalisation in Agriculture- Lessons from the First 10 Years of WTO’. He said that with the depletion of natural resources like water and organic quality of soil in the region, agriculture had been at the receiving end. He said the ‘Food Bowl’ tag for Punjab, which produced more than 50 per cent surplus crops in country, would fade in next five years. “The situation is so grave that there will be no production without using chemical fertilisers and pesticides,” he said. He added that contract farming and corporate agriculture farming being introduced by the state government and it would further compound the problems for the marginal farmers rather than rectifying it. He said these systems of farming would speedily erode the land quality, as these requires 20 times more fertilisers and 10 times more water. He claimed that the damage done to land in 10 years would be equal to damage done by the Green Revolution in the last 40 years. Talking about the remedies to restore the state’s agriculture, the expert said the government should immediately declare itself an ‘Organic State’ and ban GM crops, chemical fertilisers and pesticides besides including the farmers in the 5th Pay Commission. He said until proper remuneration to the farmers for their produce was not assured, they would not come out of the debt trap. He added that Punjab’s agriculture should be de-linked from international agriculture. Mr Sharma, speaking on a seminar on ‘Globalisation, Farmer’s Suicides and Hunger: Is there a link?’ said that whereas farming in developed countries was declining day by day, the number of marginal farmers had tremendously increased in India. He also came down heavily on OECD countries (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development). |
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Van Mahotsav at Khalsa College
Post Graduate Department of Zoology, Khalsa College, observed ‘Van Mahotsav’ in association with the Punjab State Council for Science and Technology, Chandigarh, under the ‘National Environment Awareness Campaign’.
A lecture on ‘Solid Waste Management’ was organised on this occasion. Dr J. S. Kalra, Assistant General Manager, NABARD, delivered a lecture on Solid Waste Management using vermi-composting. He expressed concern over an increase in the usage of pesticides and chemical fertilisers. He said there was a need to return to organic farming, where vermi-composting could be an important tool. Speaking on the occasion, Dr Daljit Singh, principal of the college, urged the students to take up some activity regarding environment conservation in addition to their curriculum. A tree plantation programme was also organised.
— OC |
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By the sheer dint of their hard work, migrants from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have carved a niche for themselves in the Holy City, reports
Varinder Walia
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By the sheer dint of their hard work, migrants from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have carved a niche for themselves in the Holy City, reports Varinder Walia.jpg)
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The traumatic memories of Partition continues to haunt 73-year-old Channo Devi who had to leave Salepur Chaprar village in Sialkot, Pakistan, along with her parents on August 14, 1947.