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About Editor/Owners
We fools are engaged in a cause.
(Haun moorakh kare laya....)
S. Manohar Singh of
VPO Aur, Nawanshahar, who laboured in UK for many years returned to India 1996.
Manohar was sorry for at the state of preaching in Sikhism and had a strong
desire that some thing should be done to improve the lot
 of
these carefree Punjabis who have been betrayed by non else than its own selfish
leaders. Accordingly the present editor B.S.Goraya suggested him that the best
course was preaching by our own humble selves. But we had our own limitations.
The money we possessed in 1996 was not to last long, besides our own shallow
knowledge of Sikhism and Punjabiat. Incidentally when we were discussing all
this S. Sohan Singh happen to join our deliberations. His suggestion was
forthright, "Rs. 6 lakh was more than sufficient to do this as subsequently the
preaching will sustain itself i.e it will be self footing." On our humble
economic state Singh said "See Guru has commanded that poverty is rather a
strength, you poor people will be able to do those things which rich houses
can't." 'Garibi gadha hamari'. As regards our second problem Sohan Singh did not
think for a long and advised, "You fools don't you even know that there is a
Shrine of Intellect right here in Amritsar called, Bibek Sar, go and pray there
you will get the adequate insight to delve into the complex affair you are
talking about."
And there was no looking back. We accordingly launched magazine
Punjab Monitor on June 6, 1997. Mrs. Kulwinder Kaur was made editor. Since we are not at all aligned
with any political party, business house, or some prominent person, naturally we
had to undergo obvious hindrances from obvious quarters and now we have slowly
learnt to live with them though the frequency of magazine had to be curtailed
from monthly to three/six monthly/yearly.
Garibi gadha hamari:
(Poverty our strong tool.)
Incidentally when we jumped into
this field, Punjab was a in peculiar political situation. Limited mutiny or the
Khalistani moment stood suppressed. Now the opponent had launched a
disinformation campaign and unfortunately made the Sikhism its target. Most of
the Punjab writers we felt had succumbed to the age old Hindutava technique of 'saam,
daam, dand bhed' i.e winning the opponent by pressure or purse. We felt no
justification on the attack on Sikh values and accordingly we are defending the
tradition in our humble way. We now feel perhaps it is our poverty which has
made us strong or else we could also have been bought and made part of the
dubious machinery which is indulging into the nefarious game of confusing Sikhs.
Unfortunately the Punjabis are yet to realise what game is being played with
them.
In the year 2000 we
were among the people to demand free Corridor to Kartarpur sahib which gave us
tremendous strength and public support. In the meanwhile S. Manohar Singh died
of heart attack on August 29, 2002.
 Thus
now it is B.S.Goraya who is managing the whole affair of this small publication.
Goraya before his resignation from a Govt job, was contributing articles, in his
humble way to the Indian dailies on non-political issues.
We are not surprised that no body
has ever commented on Punjab Monitor
whether it is good or bad publication. Interestingly it is 12 years and no
journal of the region has shown courage to comment on this publication.
This further encourages us. But Sohan Singh is right, it is now self sustaining.
It is growing with the support of advertisers. May be they get some response.
The story of Punjab
Monitor is thus a story of simple people attempting a great job. 'Haun moorakh
kare laya.." We fools are engaged............... |
