A comprehensive follow up by those who witnessed it. How this single event altered the psyche of Punjab and marked the beginning of the end of terror
MODERN TIME
The brave new world
Satish Jacob revisits Amritsar 25 years after militancy ended and finds the city booming
These were the men responsible for a reign of terror, primarily in the countryside, that blighted the lives of hundreds of thousands of people when the movement was at its strongest. As I drove by car on the Grand Trunk Road to the holy city of Amritsar, I embered how tense I and Mark Tully used to be on the stretch between Ambala and Amritsar. It was in this region that Sikh extremists were most active and their violence had reduced economic activity to a minimum. Barring a few bullock carts, trucks and a handful of cars, the traffic on the road was sparse. People avoided traveling on this stretch. The militants used to stop cars and buses, drag out the passengers, particularly non-Sikhs, and shoot them.
In the countryside around Amritsar – an extremist stronghold - the fear was even more pervasive. Even in daytime, few people ventured out to tea shops.
But the villages and towns around Amritsar are now teeming with activity, the roads are congested and noisy and the tea shops, playing Punjabi bhangra music at full blast, are all houseful. The Grand Trunk Road between Ludhiana and Amritsar boasts scores of glitzy buildings – roadside restaurants with names such as ‘Balle Balle Farms’, amusement parks called ‘Las Vegas’ , theme parks modelled on Disney, waterparks, restaurants, highway hotels and mammoth wedding halls where the middle class gets its children married.
The road itself is vastly improved. The Grand Trunk Road, which used to connect Delhi with Peshawar during the British Raj, is now a four lane expressway.
A journey on the Shatabdi Express, the express service which connects Delhi with Amritsar, provides visual symbols galore of how life in Punjab has been transformed over two decades. Cell phones ring constantly in the ‘executive class’ compartments as suave, well-groomed executives work on their laptops while trolleys roll down the aisle offering snacks and meals. There is an air of prosperity and optimism based on the conviction that this prosperity is here to stay.
The passengers on the Shatabdi are mainly young businessmen. Many are in the construction business because construction is booming all over Punjab. The state looks like a building site. In Ludhiana alone, parts of the city are unrecognisable as shopping malls and gleaming office blocks come up.
Agricultural land is being developed by builders who are putting up shopping complexes, offices and residential flats.
One executive I met on the Shatabdi to Chandigarh, Saurabh Wig, works for one of the leading real estate firms in Delhi.
It is constructing new townships in Chandigarh and Ludhiana and in some of the satellite towns around these two cities. “There is a desperate need for residential and commercial accommodation to cope with the rising number of people who are being employed by the new industries coming up in Punjab. Just look at the call centres alone – they need space for their workers and somewhere for them to live,” said Wig.
Property prices have tripled in the past three years after decades of stagnation. Such is the boom in prices that people from all over India are buying land in Punjab almost with their eyes closed, knowing that whatever strip of land they throw their cash at, will appreciate handsomely in a few years. This includes Indians settled abroad who are ploughing their money into land and property not, as they used to earlier, to use as farms or homes, but as an investment.
Punjab is, in fact, emerging as a favoured business and investment destination. The state government, anxious to attract investment, has permitted one hundred per cent foreign equity as a way of promoting Information Technology. The Chandigarh region alone boasts of more than dozen call centres. Students, retired people and housewives find in them an opportunity to earn some money during shifts that still leave them with enough time for their other preoccupations.
Even smaller towns such as Mohali are attracting investors eager to build modern hospitals, hotels, shopping malls and call centres. Old movie halls are being razed to give way to multiplexes. The bureaucracy has been ordered to remove the stumbling blocks that could put off investors. A World Bank survey singles out Punjab as a place where ‘it takes the minimum time to start a new business amongst all the states in India’.
In Amritsar, which had seen an inexorable flight of rich businessmen from the city during the separatist violence, the old buzz has returned. The old businessmen have returned to re-establish their enterprises, accompanied by newcomers. Land here, which had plummeted in 1985 to about 100,000 rupees an acre is now fetching 15 million rupees per acre. On Mall Road, the smartest residential and commercial area , a plot of four acres was recently auctioned for Rs 21 crores. At Jullundur, I used to stop for sweets at a restaurant and sweet shop called Lovely Sweets when I was reporting on the militancy.
The middle-aged, jovial owner, Naresh Mittal, would always be around, ready for a gossip and a few jokes. Today he is one of the most influential businessmen in the city. Apart from Lovely Sweets, Mittal and his two younger brothers Ashok and Sunil, now own, inter alia, a motor car showroom, a motorbike showroom and half a dozen educational institutes, all of which have ‘Lovely’ in their names, including the Lovely Institute of Science and Technology which is affiliated to the University of Punjab and is the first private university in the state.
The Mittals have no doubt that this newfound prosperity is here to stay. A recent survey showed that Chandigarh has the highest per capita income of any Indian city (though Punjab as a state slipped from the top position in terms of per capital income a few years ago and presently occupies the fifth slot). Ludhiana apparently has more Mercedes than any other city, including Bombay, the commercial capital.
For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM ArticleThe brave new world
Satish Jacob revisits Amritsar 25 years after militancy ended and finds the city booming
These were the men responsible for a reign of terror, primarily in the countryside, that blighted the lives of hundreds of thousands of people when the movement was at its strongest. As I drove by car on the Grand Trunk Road to the holy city of Amritsar, I embered how tense I and Mark Tully used to be on the stretch between Ambala and Amritsar. It was in this region that Sikh extremists were most active and their violence had reduced economic activity to a minimum. Barring a few bullock carts, trucks and a handful of cars, the traffic on the road was sparse. People avoided traveling on this stretch. The militants used to stop cars and buses, drag out the passengers, particularly non-Sikhs, and shoot them.
In the countryside around Amritsar – an extremist stronghold - the fear was even more pervasive. Even in daytime, few people ventured out to tea shops.
But the villages and towns around Amritsar are now teeming with activity, the roads are congested and noisy and the tea shops, playing Punjabi bhangra music at full blast, are all houseful. The Grand Trunk Road between Ludhiana and Amritsar boasts scores of glitzy buildings – roadside restaurants with names such as ‘Balle Balle Farms’, amusement parks called ‘Las Vegas’ , theme parks modelled on Disney, waterparks, restaurants, highway hotels and mammoth wedding halls where the middle class gets its children married.
The road itself is vastly improved. The Grand Trunk Road, which used to connect Delhi with Peshawar during the British Raj, is now a four lane expressway.
A journey on the Shatabdi Express, the express service which connects Delhi with Amritsar, provides visual symbols galore of how life in Punjab has been transformed over two decades. Cell phones ring constantly in the ‘executive class’ compartments as suave, well-groomed executives work on their laptops while trolleys roll down the aisle offering snacks and meals. There is an air of prosperity and optimism based on the conviction that this prosperity is here to stay.
The passengers on the Shatabdi are mainly young businessmen. Many are in the construction business because construction is booming all over Punjab. The state looks like a building site. In Ludhiana alone, parts of the city are unrecognisable as shopping malls and gleaming office blocks come up.
Agricultural land is being developed by builders who are putting up shopping complexes, offices and residential flats.
One executive I met on the Shatabdi to Chandigarh, Saurabh Wig, works for one of the leading real estate firms in Delhi.
It is constructing new townships in Chandigarh and Ludhiana and in some of the satellite towns around these two cities. “There is a desperate need for residential and commercial accommodation to cope with the rising number of people who are being employed by the new industries coming up in Punjab. Just look at the call centres alone – they need space for their workers and somewhere for them to live,” said Wig.
Property prices have tripled in the past three years after decades of stagnation. Such is the boom in prices that people from all over India are buying land in Punjab almost with their eyes closed, knowing that whatever strip of land they throw their cash at, will appreciate handsomely in a few years. This includes Indians settled abroad who are ploughing their money into land and property not, as they used to earlier, to use as farms or homes, but as an investment.
Punjab is, in fact, emerging as a favoured business and investment destination. The state government, anxious to attract investment, has permitted one hundred per cent foreign equity as a way of promoting Information Technology. The Chandigarh region alone boasts of more than dozen call centres. Students, retired people and housewives find in them an opportunity to earn some money during shifts that still leave them with enough time for their other preoccupations.
Even smaller towns such as Mohali are attracting investors eager to build modern hospitals, hotels, shopping malls and call centres. Old movie halls are being razed to give way to multiplexes. The bureaucracy has been ordered to remove the stumbling blocks that could put off investors. A World Bank survey singles out Punjab as a place where ‘it takes the minimum time to start a new business amongst all the states in India’.
In Amritsar, which had seen an inexorable flight of rich businessmen from the city during the separatist violence, the old buzz has returned. The old businessmen have returned to re-establish their enterprises, accompanied by newcomers. Land here, which had plummeted in 1985 to about 100,000 rupees an acre is now fetching 15 million rupees per acre. On Mall Road, the smartest residential and commercial area , a plot of four acres was recently auctioned for Rs 21 crores. At Jullundur, I used to stop for sweets at a restaurant and sweet shop called Lovely Sweets when I was reporting on the militancy.
The middle-aged, jovial owner, Naresh Mittal, would always be around, ready for a gossip and a few jokes. Today he is one of the most influential businessmen in the city. Apart from Lovely Sweets, Mittal and his two younger brothers Ashok and Sunil, now own, inter alia, a motor car showroom, a motorbike showroom and half a dozen educational institutes, all of which have ‘Lovely’ in their names, including the Lovely Institute of Science and Technology which is affiliated to the University of Punjab and is the first private university in the state.
The Mittals have no doubt that this newfound prosperity is here to stay. A recent survey showed that Chandigarh has the highest per capita income of any Indian city (though Punjab as a state slipped from the top position in terms of per capital income a few years ago and presently occupies the fifth slot). Ludhiana apparently has more Mercedes than any other city, including Bombay, the commercial capital.
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative
