Akali Dal tries to influence section of alienated Sikh vote bank by reverting to long forgotten Anandpur Sahib Resolution on autonomy

 

 

While mobilizing Hindu vote bank, Akali Dal revives Anandpur Sahib Resolution too

 

Ground Zero

Jagtar Singh

Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal has been focusing mainly on Hindu vote bank and visiting temples for the last several days in the run up to the February 2022 Assembly election. He sprang a surprise on Sunday as he revived his commitment to the long forgotten Anandpur Sahib Resolution that had been part of the Akali narrative from 1980 to Operation Bluestar in June 1984. This resolution phased out after it was referred to a commission by the government at the centre as part of the Punjab Accord signed in July 1985 between Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Akali Dal chief Sant Harchand Singh Longowal. This Resolution has rarely found mention in the party narrative since then.

The implementation of this Resolution was one of the demands on which the Akali Dal launched the Dharamyudh Morcha on August 4, 1982 and this was the resolution to which Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale had confined his struggle maintaining he would not allow this party to backtrack from it in talks with the centre. He never raised the demand for Khalistan.

Sukhbir Singh Badal uploaded a video on the social media platforms reiterating his party’s commitment to it and took pride in the fact that Akali Dal patriarch Parkash Singh Badal had led the first group of Akali volunteers to court arrest at Amritsar on August 4, 1982 as part of the Dharamyudh Morcha.

The Akali Dal later entered into alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party in 1996 whose political agenda is homogenization at every level, diametrically opposite to the demand for autonomy as stressed under the Anandpur Sahib Resolution of 1973.

The political goal as defined in the 1973 Resolution states:

“The political goal of the Panth, without doubt, is enshrined in the commandments of the Tenth Lord, on the pages of the Sikh history and in the very heart of the Khalsa Panth, the ultimate objective of which is the pre-eminence of the Khalsa. The fundamental policy of the Shiromani Akali Dal is to seek  realization of this birth right of the Khalsa through creation of a geo-political environment and a political set up.”

The Akali Dal is characterised by a strange tendency of backtracking from the issues and concerns dear to it after coming into power. This happened with the Anandpur Sahib Resolution too as it was diluted at the Ludhiana conference of the party in 1978 when Parkash Singh Badal headed the Akali Dal-Janata coalition in the state.

The 1978 version states:

“Shiromani Akali Dal realizes that India is a federal and geographical entity of different languages, religions and cultures. To safeguard fundamental rights of the religious and linguistic minorities, to fulfil the demands of the democratic traditions  and to pave the way for economic progress, it has become imperative that that the constitutional infrastructure should be given  federal shape by redefining central and state relations and rights on the lines of the aforesaid principle and objectives…..As such, the Shiromani Akali Dal emphatically urges upon the Janata government to take cognizance of the different linguistic and cultural entities, religious minorities as also the voice of millions of people and recast the constitutional structure of the country on real and meaningful federal principles to obviate the possibility of any danger to national unity and integrity of the country and further, to enable the state to play effective role for the progress and prosperity of the Indian people in their respective areas by meaningful exercise of their powers.”

Again when out of power, the party at its working committee meeting in August, 1980 reverted to the 1973 version  and it was this version that was released by Sant Longowal during the Dharamyudh Morcha.

Has the Akali Dal now reiterated its commitment to this Resolution casually or as part of the design to influence the Sikh vote bank?

It is pertinent to mention that a large section of the Sikh vote bank had distanced from the Akali Dal after the Bargari sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib narrative in 2015 under the Badal government. The Akali Dal was reduced to the worst ever 15 seats in 2017 Assembly polls and failed to revive even in 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The party was forced to break its alliance with the BJP under pressure from the farmers struggle as the kisans started indefinite dharna at the gate of the Badal House. Sizeable section of the Sikh voters had shifted towards the Congress in 2017.

The Akali Dal has been facing resistance from the farmers after it launched its poll campaign some weels. The farmers too are mainly  Sikhs in Punjab.

The party needs to come out with new ideas rather than reviving its old agenda and displaying its politics of rank opportunism again and again.