Opinion The ban on violent song in Punjab: A knee-jerk reaction by the AAP government

The order of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-led Punjab government, banning songs that glorify weapons and violence, is a knee-jerk reaction to simmering anxieties on law and order in the state. It is not for the first time that a government in Punjab has resorted to a superficial response to genuine concerns – in February 2020, then chief minister Amarinder Singh ordered a crackdown on makers of movies promoting the “gun culture”. Such blunt instruments have proved to be futile, and even counter-productive. The question also is: How will the government enforce its writ in the social media age?

While many factors contribute to the sense that all is not well on the law and order front, and several can be traced back to a time when the AAP was yet to firm up its foothold in the state, a spate of eye-catching incidents in its short tenure in power have stoked the worries. Not long after the AAP formed government, international kabaddi player Sandeep Singh Nangal Ambian was shot dead in broad daylight at a tournament in a village near Jalandhar on March 14. Another prominent kabbadi player, Dharminder Singh, was killed in Patiala on April 6. Subsequently, the murder of internationally acclaimed Punjabi singer and rapper Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu Moosewala, and the fleeing from police custody of gangster Deepak Tinu and drug smuggler Amrik Singh, underscored anxieties over the state’s loosening grip on law and order. Shiv Sena leader Sudhir Suri was shot dead more than a week ago, and only last week, a follower of Dera Sacha Sauda, who was accused of sacrilege, was killed in Kotkapura.

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Such incidents take a mounting toll in a state with a troubled history. Punjab saw terrible bloodshed from the mid-1980 to mid-1990s. During the days of militancy, about 35,000 persons were gunned down by the terrorists, including several political leaders. Punjab continues to pay the price for the decade it lost to militancy — industry flew to safer havens in neighbouring Himachal Pradesh and entrepreneurs shifted base to Haryana. Given a mounting cynicism about the capacity and credibility of the older political players in addressing the special needs and crises of the state that was once the host of the Green Revolution, great expectations have been vested in the AAP, which is seen as an outsider to politics-as-usual, and a possible harbinger of change. At the same time, the AAP also needs to live down some of its own controversial moves – it has been accused of warming up to secessionist elements in its bid for power. As the Bhagwant Mann government gets down to the challenge of governing a complex state, it must know that it will take more than the banishing of a few songs.