Assassin’s widow woos voters

Press, 20 November 1989, Page 8

Assassin’s widow woos voters

NZPA-AFP Khedi Nodh Singh, India The widow of Indira Gandhi’s chief assassin is treading a confident election campaign trail, portraying herself as a symbol of Sikh dignity in an emotional appeal backed by the lurking menace of Sikh militancy. Bimal Kaur Khalsa, aged 35, is sure she will win the November 26 ballot in Punjab’s Ropar constituency and sit in Parliament with .the son and successor of the Prime Minister her husband murdered five years ago. “Sure, 100 per cent I will win, there is no doubt,” she said during a brief campaign stop in this fertile Ropar village, where she arrived to a rousing welcome from its few thousand residents.

Mrs Khalsa’s platform plank is restoring Sikh dignity and self-respect, which she alleges has been trampled on by a callous New Delhi.

The appeal has clearly struck an emotional chord in Ropar, a rich agricultural constituency with a Sikh-majority electorate of 1.06 million, where she is hailed as “beebeeji” (sister) and “panth di teeh” (daughter of the religion). Enthusiastic Sikhs crowd her campaign meetings, greeting her with cries of “Long Live Bimal Khalsa” as the slightly-built woman arrives standing in a packed, open jeep, her daughter, aged 10, by her side. They listen in rapt attention as she invokes

the memories of her dead husband, spouts fire against the Government and promises to make the Sikh voice heard in the highest seat of Indian democracy: Parliament. At several villages, residents wait patiently for hours for her cavalcade to roll in after several unscheduled stops by “public demand,” give her purses full of coins equal to her body weight and garland her with banknotes. Her eight rivals, including ruling Congress (I) candidate, Raja Singh, a septuagenarian who changed parties four , times, appear to have accepted defeat even before polling day. Mrs Khalsa’s sole claim to fame — notoriety outside Punjab — is her marriage to Beant Singh, a police officer who shot dead Mr Gandhi’s mother Indira on the morning of Oct 31, 1984. Beant Singh, who today is revered by many Sikhs as a “great martyr”, was immediately shot and killed by commandos, who also seriously wounded a co-assassin, Satwant Singh, who was convicted and hanged in January, 1989. “My husband did no wrong,” said Mrs Khalsa, who dresses in a white “salwar-

kameez”, a traditional Punjabi outfit, with a saffron-coloured “dupatta”, head dress, her simple outfit offset by an expensive wristwatch.

“He only performed his religious duty by taking revenge for the desecration of the Akai Takht (throne beyond time) during Operation Bluestar,” she said in halting English, referring to the Indian Army assault in June, 1984, on the highest seat of Sikhism. Mrs Gandhi ordered troops to storm the Golden Temple in Amritsar to flush out Sikh militants using the shrine as a safe haven. Her murder was followed by the killings of hundreds of Sikhs by Hindus bent on revenge. Mrs Khalsa, whose education finished with high school and was working at a New Delhi hospital in 1984, accuses the Government of having instigated the riots and of persecuting Sikhs on religious grounds. Mrs Khalsa is a candidate for a faction of the Akali Dal party headed by a former police officer, Simranjeet Singh Mann, who is now in prison on charges of conspiring in the Indira Gandhi murder. Sikh militants have extended their full support to the Mann group and warned candidates of rival factions to retire. The warning has succeeded in ensuring an undivided Sikh vote for Mrs Khalsa in Ropar.

And, although Mrs Khalsa has assured Hindus they can vote without fear of retribution, the militants have held out subtle threats.