As I read the news of his dying unnoticed in a lonely room in the hinterland of Punjab, I wondered whether he was a modern day Don Quixote or simply an ambitious and publicity-hungry political trickster.

Whatever the case, now that he is dead, one thing stands out even more sharply. He was utterly irrelevant in his homeland. His political space, if any, was among those who choose to dream about homeland far away from their homeland. These are the people who will never return home to fight for justice but would be satisfied embracing someone like Chohan. May be, this ironic twist to his life tells us something about the nature of politics in the age of globalisation in which media spotlight could replace popular mandate, and shadows could appear much longer than reality. For a while.

The writer is professor, department of political science, Panjab University, Chandigarh