After dumping the Panthic issues, the Shiromani Akali Dal, the party with glorious history of pro-people struggles, has finally moved away from its last traditional space in the farmers domain. This second oldest political party in the country that for decades used to be identified with the Panth and the farmers has landed in a role that is perceived to be dictated by the lust for a cabinet berth in the Narendra Modi government.
The issue is the farm and food grains policy adopted by the Modi government as reflected in the three ordinances issued recently that threaten the existing system of procurement and marketing. The issue here is not the assertion that the MSP would be retained but that of its turning irrelevant. The farmers would now be at the mercy of the corporates who would dictate the terms of trade in the farm sector under this open market system in which the state would have a limited role.
Every farmers and farm workers body worth the name in Punjab has opposed the new legislation. The Punjabi Tribune has carried a series of articles by the farm economists dissecting these ordinances. There is unanimity among the farm economists in the region that the new system would be brazenly exploitative.
The only party that is defending these ordinances is the Shiromani Akali Dal. Even before the party had taken any formal position on this sensitive issue, Akali Dal’s representative in the Modi cabinet Harsimrat Kaur Badal in three separate interviews to the TV channels on the same day had made the assertion of these ordinances being revolutionary. After all, she is part of the cabinet that approved the new policy.
Ironically, the party’s core committee by that time had arrived at the understanding that the leaders should first assess its impact and mood of the farmers rather than going public in any manner. It was given out that the party was likely to take a position against it. It only meant that the Akali Dal would ultimately come out of its alliance with the BJP that Parkash Singh Badal has been hailing as ‘nail and flesh relationship’.
However, the Akali leaders were in for a shock when party chief Sukhbir Singh Badal called an emergency press meet at a short notice the very next day on the single issue of announcing support to the changes in farm policy without holding another meeting. What was the hurry? Only he can tell. He ratified the position taken by his wife.
The Congress on Friday went to the people on this issue by launching awareness campaign.
What is being witnessed in Punjab is the complete role reversal.
There is yet another dimension in the context of changing roles. It is Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh who perceives these ordinances as threat to whatever is left of state autonomy, an issue that has been dear to the Akali Dal for decades since it adopted the autonomy resolution at its Batala conference in 1968.
The phraseology used by Capt Amarinder Singh in his statement condemning the new policy as encroachment on autonomy was the same as used to be that of the Akali Dal over the years. The Akali Dal now sees no threat to the autonomy.
The Akali Dal under the leadership of Badals started drifting away from its position in the Sikh religio-political domain in 2007 although the party first talked of Punjabiat at its February 1996 Moga conference. The party got totally cornered in the Sikh matrix following the issues relating to sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib beginning in Bargari in 2015 and the way the situation was mishandled by the Badal government. That situation marked complete departure of the party from the Panthic issues.
The only traditional issue now with the party was that of the farmers.
The lust for power, it seems, has dictated the present position of the party. The situation is likely to trigger new permutations and combinations in the coming days as resentment builds up.
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