Opinion Punjab again
Faced with a hydra-headed challenge, the Akali leadership should introspect on the wisdom of its own political tactics
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.
The back-to-back crises that have left Punjab paralysed through most of this month presage difficult times for the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal-led government in the state. On the face of it, the reasons for the farmers’ rail roko agitation and the current road blockades across the state by Sikh activists could not be more different. Their harvest ravaged by a severe white fly attack, cotton farmers want government compensation for their losses, even as paddy cultivators have witnessed a crash in basmati prices. For agriculturists, it has been a bad year on the whole, with unseasonal rains destroying a significant part of their earlier rabi wheat crop as well. The protesters on the roads, on the other hand, are Sikhs outraged at the government’s inaction against those who desecrated the Guru Granth Sahib in a wave of incidents.
Unlike the farmers, who were represented by organised unions, the latter have no leaders except for relatively unknown religious preachers. Yet, there is a common anti-SAD thread running through both sets of protests. They betray a deeper dissatisfaction and fatigue with a two-term government in a state where the main economic activity, agriculture, is in shambles, the manufacturing industry is in crisis and jobs are difficult to come by. This, even as drugs are available everywhere, is devouring an entire generation after militancy destroyed a previous one.
The Akali leadership’s first and last response to this hydra-headed challenge has been to drum up its panthic credentials to keep up the party’s appeal. On the way, it has tried to please the pro-Khalistani fringe, while keeping tight control on the Sikh clergy through the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee. At the same time, it has negotiated with the BJP, its tough-talking “Hindu” ally and even explored a constituency perceived as an enemy of the Khalsa, such as the Dera Sacha Sauda.
The balancing act has begun to unravel rather rapidly though. Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has appeared helpless in the face of the anger at the government’s inability to prevent the alleged desecration incidents, which came just after the Akal Takht’s pardon to Gurmeet Singh Ram Rahim, the flashy Dera Sacha Sauda chief, whom it had accused of blasphemy in 2007. A volte face on the pardon by the clergy only exposed them as government proxies, and heightened a sense of religious crises in the Sikh community. The arrests of seven people for the desecration incidents has not cooled temperatures entirely. The unrest has undeniably given pro-Khalistani elements an opportunity to rear their heads, and Badal is right to express concerns for the hard-won peace and communal harmony in Punjab. While it is easy to blame external forces, the ruling Akali leadership would do well to introspect on the wisdom of their own political tactics, apart from dealing with a renewed agrarian crisis.
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