Sikh institutions including Shiromani Akali Dal need leaders with spine from Panthic stream

 

Who killed Shiromani Akali Dal?

Ground Zero 

Jagtar Singh

 

Shiromani Akali Dal, the second oldest political party in the country that was created to voice concerns of the Sikhs as a community is now on the verge of extinction after having been reduced to just three Assembly seats, the lowest ever in its glorious history dating back precisely to December 14, 1920.

Both its patron Parkash Singh Badal and its president Sukhbir Singh Badal too have lost the election. It is the humiliating defeat of Badal Senior that is multi-dimensional as he is not only 5-time chief minister but also the most powerful leader in Sikh stream for the last about two decades.

Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh today rightly expressed concern over this grave crisis that has hit the party. He should have started by  confessing the role of the Akal Takht Jathedar in the situation before raising the red alert.

The tree that is cut from its roots is bound to dry up and then fall.

The basic character of the Shiromani Akali Dal was changed with one stroke. The issue is as to who struck at the roots of the Shiromani Akali Dal  and why. This would help in understanding the crisis and working out some way out.

It is not a matter of dispute that the Shiromani Akali Dal must continue to exist as it is needed to  perform the role for which it was created, especially when the Sikhs have now become a global community. The community needs a platform to articulate its issues that crop up from time to time, especially those relating to identity.

One has to go back to 1996 as to understand as to why the Akali Dal has fallen so deep and is dying.

That was the time Punjab was coming out of the long shadow of radical and militant politics that was sparked on the Baisakhi of 1978. The politics that got unleashed at that time was the identity-centric – the Sikhs as separate and exclusive entity. It was not Sant Bhindranwale who had come up with this thesis but the Akali Dal. This issue had been raised earlier too but not with this force.

It was the identity based political dynamics of the Akali Dal that provided the much-needed space to the radical ideology, particularly in the post Operation Bluestar period, to proliferate.

The Indian state had already realised the epicentre of that volcanic eruption in late eighties.

The counter worked out was the promotion of composite Punjabi culture. The agenda of Punjabiat was the outcome of this strategy.

The Shiromani Akali Dal shifted from the identity-centric politics to Punjab, Punjabi and Punjabiat discourse formally at its 75^th anniversary conference at Moga in February 1996. On the surface, this political discourse was welcomed by all.  However, this was the first strike at the very roots of the Akali Dal. This thesis was part of the speech of the party chief Parkash Singh Badal. Of course, the Akali Dal had talked of Punjabiat in its 1969 election manifesto too but not as its core ideology.

Punjabiat rather than the exclusive and separate Sikh identity became the theme song of the Akali Dal hence forward. In the process, Badal started shifting the Akali Dal away from the Panthic dynamics.

The first manifestation was the backtracking by him in August 1997 as the chief minister from the promise of ordering judicial probe into militancy and taking action against the police officials guilty of brazen human rights violations. In his later terms, he put these very officers in key positions.

The attack on the Sikh institutions followed when both Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee chief Gurcharan Singfh Tohra and Akal Takht Jathedar Bhai Ranjit Singh were ousted as the Panth was to celebrate tercentenary of the Khalsa in 1999. Corruption in the SGPC got institutionalised for the first time at that time as the members were provided discretionary grant of Rs. 50,000 each. The next step was the corporatisation of this Sikh institution that changed its character.

The steep downfall started when the Akali Dal came into power in 2007 and the controversy associated with the Dera Sacha Sauda hit the state. This was the case of blasphemy. The nadir was the Bargari sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib and police firing on Sikhs demanding justice for this crime in 2015 when the Badal government was in its record second consecutive term.

However, it is the situation in the run up to Bargari sacrilege that is equally important in the context of fall of the Akal Takht and the SGPC. Badal summoned Akal Takht Jathedar and chiefs of other takhts at his official residence violating all norms of the Panth to manage exoneration of Dera Sacha Sauda chief in blasphemy case in September 2015. And the SGPC spent about Rs 90 lakh to defend that exoneration that had to be revoked as it provoked anger in the Sikh stream. The Akali Dal came out with political conferences as mobilisation against the Sikhs seeking justice for sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib.

The Akali Dal was punished in February 2017 election as the party got confined to just 15 seats but no lessons were learnt. As the agitation started on June 1, 2018 at Bargari seeking action in these cases as had been promised by the Congress, Badal was brought out from his self-imposed hibernation to address a conference against the very people who had started protest dharna at Bargari.

His punchline was that these were the very people who during militant struggle had given the slogan: “Pehlan Vadhegan Mone, Phir Vadhange Jhone”. Later the party started organising political conferences.

Akali Dal leadership should have apologised at Akal Takht on the role of the Badal government in Bargari narrative in Panthic traditions.

Then came the agrarian struggle. Harsimrat Kaur Badal was the minister in the Narendra Modi cabinet when the three laws were imposed through ordinance and she was the first to defend the same. The next to come to her support was her husband Sukhbir Singh Badal. Lastly, Parkash Singh Badal too released a video supporting these laws. She resigned under pressure from the struggle and the party ended its alliance with the BJP but the damage had already been done.

Shiromani Akali Dal had started dying long time ago and the man to deal the first blow was its then supreme leader.

His ambition was to emerge supreme and unchallenged leader and in the process he damaged all the three main Sikh institutions- the Akal Takht, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee and the Shiromani Akali Dal.

Badal has now paid the cost of the politics that he had unleashed to drive the Sikh party away from its core domain and decimate his competitors.

Giani Harpreet Singh should not have overlooked this long process.

He should rather recall his own speech at 100^th anniversary function of the SGPC to understand the present crisis and the role of his own institution.

The Akali Dal can now be revived only by the people with spine heading all these three institutions.