Professor Paramjit Singh Judge delivers annual Shahid Bhagat Singh Memorial Lecture

Chandigarh, March 5, 2019: Professor Paramjit Singh Judge, renowned sociologist from Guru Nanak Dev University, delivered the annual Shahid Bhagat Singh Memorial Lecture organised by the Department of Political Science, Panjab University, Chandigarh here today. Professor Judge spoke on 'The Making of the Indian Constitution and the Sikh Question’. He mapped the way the question of the Sikh community was addressed in the Constituent Assembly Debates in four phases from the founding of the Assembly in 1946 to the adoption of the Constitution in 1950, the role played by the different actors and the shifts in their positions over the period. He showed the importance of the key events of partition and Gandhi’s assassination in the way the actors articulated the demands of the Sikhs as well as the responses to these demands. He also linked the nature of the demands with the nature of Sikh identity formation during the colonial period, especially the discourse of valour and martial race which shaped Sikh identity. Within the Constituent Assembly debates, his lecture drew out the perspective of the Sikh members, in particular Sardar Hukum Singh, on the question of minority rights and the form in which it was advocated especially regarding reservation. The last part of this illuminating lecture dwelt on the repercussions of these debates in post-independence Punjab and India. Professor Ronki Ram chaired the session while Prof. Shankarji Jha, the Dean of University Instructions, was the Chief Guest of the event.