Professor Dipankar Gupta of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, while delivering the fifth Sardarni Kailash Kaur Memorial Lecture at the Punjabi University Campus in September 1999, dilated upon the twin issues of the rise of sectarian forces and the co-existence of regional loyalties with nation-state sentiments in the post-independence India. In his incisive and thought-provoking speech, Dr. Gupta argued that the cultural and linguistic diversities among Indian people have never threatened its unitary character during the 50 years of its independence. Even leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru "went on record (during the pre-partition days) to say that if any part of the country wanted to secede after independence it should have the right to do so; but all such talk was abandoned after the partition and there was not a significant voice of protest from anywhere in the country."

Dr. Dipankar Gupta declined to give Nehru and Gandhi any credit for holding the country together and attributed this to the post-Partition Indian mind-set in general. "Partition of the country secularized the territorial possessions of the Indian nation-state on a popular basis," declared the learned speaker.

Dr. Gupta averred that during the past 50 years only the secular forces have dominated the Indian political scene. The rise of RSS and such other communal forces is termed a temporary phenomenon caused by the "lack of a sustained secular alternative;" it certainly is not "because of some irrepressible atavistic force that toils in the heart of every Hindu," declared the speaker. Dr. Gupta also analyzed the events that took place in the Punjab in the 1980s. He attributed the militancy in Punjab to the sectarian politics of Indira Gandhi who "not just to ridicule the Akalis but also tried to shore up her ratings with Haryana and Rajasthan" remained "keen on portraying the Anandpur Sahib Resolution as a secessionist document" - rather than consider and accept the genuine secular demands (for autonomy and water rights) of the Punjab.

"The Congress at the Centre kept humiliating the moderate Akali leaders by refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of their demands," declared Dr. Gupta. "Operation Blue Star" and the pogrom of Sikhs in November 1984 put the Akalis - already hamstrung by their commitment to democratic politics - in a tight corner, while the extremists could go ahead and say that the Sikhs had been humiliated enough and that it was time for them to stand up. Unfortunately, Indians by and large also misread the situation. The Congress succeeded in convincing "the nation that it alone could keep Sikh militants in check and save the country from further dismemberment."

Consequently, the Congress won the December 1984 general elections thumpingly, the cost of whipping up such a fervour was, of course, at the expense of the Sikhs as the Congress at this time "demonised" the entire community, and not just the militants. The Sikhs vicarious sympathy with the militants who, they thought, were in a distant and romantic kind of way, upholding the dignity of the community hurt by the excesses of the Operation Blue-Star and the Congress- governments failure to protect them against the November 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom, was used by the Congress to convince the country that the militants had a vast popular base in the Punjab. This led to further the mistrust and misrecognitions between the Hindus and Sikhs, and to the ethnicising of Punjab.

Dr. Gupta concluded that the majority of the Sikhs favour the idea of nation-state along side their regional loyalties and aspirations. They want to be in India, but were hurt at the way they were treated, "opined the speaker. What India should be beware of is not the cultural differences among its people, not the regional aspirations of the people but the prevalent cynical political manipulation and plain corruption.

Before the start of the Lecture, Professor Prithipal Singh Kapur touched briefly upon the achievements of the Department of Encyclopedias of Sikhism which organized the lecture in memory of the wife of Prof. Harbans Singh. Dr. Jasbir Singh Ahluwalia, the Vice-Chancellor who chaired the session released the notable publication The Khalsa, co-authored by Prof. Prithipal Singh Kapur and Dr. Dharam Singh.