Amritpal narrative rooted in absence of closure of militant political discourse, vacant moderate space in Sikh domain

 

Amritpal narrative rooted in absence of closure of militant political discourse, vacant moderate space in Sikh domain

Ground Zero

Jagtar Singh

 

Punjab is again hitting the headlines at the national level in India.

Under focus of these headlines is one Amritpal Singh, a transporter who recently returned from Dubai a la mythical Deliverer to get Khalistan for Sikhs in Indian part of Punjab. A clean-shaven Sikh, he started maintaining Sikh symbols only before returning to his native village Jallupur Khaira near Baba Bakala in Amritsar district.

He seems to have deeply studied mannerism of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale who symbolises armed struggle for what he used to call restoring dignified life for the Sikhs in the framework of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution adopted by the Shiromani Akali Dal way back in 1973 that called for “geo-political environment” for Sikhs and not Khalistan per se. He never unequivocally demanded Sikh state of Khalistan.

Not that Amritpal Singh has now revived the Khalistan narrative that has been the slogan underlying the militant struggle when it was formally raised by the 5-member Panthic Committee on 29 April 1986 from the Golden Temple (Darbar Sahib). Constituted at the Sarbat Khalsa (Sikh conclave) organised by the radicals at Akal Takht (the institution opposite Golden Temple that symbolises the Sikh sovereignty and synergy of temporal and spiritual). This was the last time this committee was seen together and never met after that as the members went underground to escape action by the security agencies. This committee subsequently got split and reconstituted several times. No political strategy was adopted  in the absence of single command structure to implement that slogan. Khalistan continues to be rhetoric, both locally in Punjab and globally.

Of course, the Khalistan demand was raised by the Akali leaders too subsequently, including the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee  that is a statutory body constituted under the Sikh Gurdwara Act 1925. This demand was in the form of a memorandum submitted on April 24, 1992 to the UN Secretary General and the signatories included SGPC chief Gurcharan Singh Tohra, former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and Simranjit Singh Mann. This memorandum was important in the context that this was the only time a statutory body had become a co-signatory to this demand.

Dal Khalsa has been raising this demand publicly ever since this radical organisation that had executed the first hijacking associated with the Sikh armed struggle underwent metamorphosis and shifted to Parliamentary methods. Simranjit Singh Mann too continues to raise this narrative off and on. This body had adopted this demand at the very time it was constituted in 1978 in Chandigarh.

One has to understand the nature of Sikh religion for better understanding of various struggles witnessed in this strategic region.

Sikhism is a religio-political body corporate and Akal Takht created by the Sixth Guru, Guru Hargobind, symbolises the state power.

Pre-1947 Punjab was connected to Central Asia via the Khyber Pass.

All the invaders beginning with Alexander who attacked the Indian sub-continent came via Khyber Pass. Punjabis has been confronting and battling the invaders since centuries. This fight for survival shaped the dynamic DNA of these people and honed their life style.

The ideological drive to this DNA was injected with the founding of Sikh religion by Guru Nanak Dev born in 1469. Since the invasion by Afghan emperor Muhammad Ghor in 1191, Guru Nanak was also the first rebel against the rulers. He was jailed by Babur, the founder of the Mughal dynasty.

This confrontation with the rulers from the very time of its creation intensified when Guru Arjun, the Fifth Guru, was martyred by the rulers in Lahore, the capital of Punjab. It may be mentioned here that Lahore was among the most important cities in the central and south Asia, more developed than Delhi. Guru Hargobind created Akal Takht following this martyrdom. Ninth Guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur was martyred by Emperor Aurangzeb in Delhi. Four sons of Guru Gobind Singh and his mother Mata Gujri also attained martyrdom in this fight. The most shocking tragedy was the martyrdom of two youngest sons of the 10 Guru, Baba Zorawar Singh (8) and Baba Fateh Singh (5) who were bricked alive by Subedar of Sirhind.

The Ardas (prayer) that is recited every day mentions names of all the martyrs. One has to listen to the Kirtan at Golden Temple in the morning on such anniversaries, including that of Operation Bluestar. The Gurbani provides both inspiration and confidence to fight against injustice and for the rights.

Strategic location, history and Sikh religion has conditioned the DNA of the people here to fight against repression and injustice. Yet another qualitative difference between Panj-Aab and the rest of the region in the Indian sub-continent is that archaic casteism that weakened the social  structure and the ability to fight did not take deep roots here. Sikhism aimed at creation of revolutionary casteless and classless society. It is a different matter that the Sikhs have now turned casteist with even class-based gurdwaras having come up that is contrary to the Sikh doctrine.

Interestingly, strategic factor continued to impact the religio-political discourse in this state even after the partition in 1947, more so in the context of decision making for this region by the Centre.

From being once the rulers of the land, the Sikhs were hit by the perception of being victimized and this feeling struck the community as re-organisation of Punjab on linguistic basis was denied by the States Reorganization Commission. The political discourse of victimhood that this perception triggered finally provided space to the radical discourse. The person who became symbol of this discourse was Sant Bhindranwale whose memorial now stands in the Darbar Sahib complex that is the highest honour for a Sikh. He had emerged on the scene with his nomination as chief of Damdami Taksal in August 1977 when Indira Gandhi was battling for her survival following her ouster. The two other memorials are associated with Baba Deep Singh and Baba Gurbax Singh. Sant Bhindranwale’s is the third one. There is nothing wrong in the pictures of these martyrs displayed in gurdwaras or on windshields of cars. The Indian security establishment should understand this dimension.

The Amritpal phenomenon is rooted in that very discourse of which Sant Bhindranwale is the symbol whose memorial stands in the most sacred place of the Sikhs.

The militancy that was triggered with the Sikh-Nirankari clash in Amritsar on 13 April 1978 in which 13 Sikhs were killed, phased out after 1993 with killing of chief minister Beant Singh on 31 August 1995 being the last major action. The state resorted to police methods to eliminate the ‘terrorists’. However, this strategy delivered results only in the short run as it could not kill militancy or what can be termed as the radical political discourse.

This discourse that went dormant for some time has now produced Amritpal Singh.

This discourse survived Ak-47s of the security agencies as no steps were taken by the Indian State to initiate closure of the armed struggle’s political discourse. This is the struggle in which more than 40,000 people died from 1980 to 1995, hundreds of  them having been killed in fake encounters. This has been proved at the level of Supreme Court as compensation was awarded to the families of those cremated as unidentified in three cremation grounds in Amritsar district. These cremations were probed by Punjab human rights organisation headed by Jaspal Singh Dhillon with Jaswant Singh Khalra as the general secretary. Khalra himself became a victim after he announced these findings. Although compensation was announced, no accountability was fixed. Accountability should have been fixed at every level.

The least that the Centre could have done was to reveal the exact number of civilians killed during the avoidable army attack code-named Operation Bluestar in the Golden Temple (Darbar Sahib) complex in June 1984. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi paid with her life for this blunder.

The scars of those wounds have kept that radical discourse alive.

The strategic location of Punjab is another dimension.

It is pertinent to mention here that the freedom of the country divided what used to be known as the Land of the Sikhs. The land of the birth of Sikhism is in now Pakistan and as such, the Sikhs have a special relationship with that country.

For closure of that period, Government of India needs to declassify the record, besides iniyiating other steps to end the perception of victimhood.

This is not just the failure of the Centre alone but the Shiromani Akali Dal should also own the responsibility for not initiating closure after coming into power. The party had promised action against the police officers whose names were associated with excesses. After all, innocent family members of the militants had become victim of police excesses. After coming into power in February 1997, the party backtracked. Not just backtracked, this party government rather patronised these very officers with plum postings and political accommodation.

In the process, the Shiromani Akali Dal that represented the moderate voice started getting  marginalised.

Now the moderate space in the Sikh religio-political matrix is vacant.

The Amritpal narrative is thus rooted in the absence of closure and  the vacant space in the Sikh religio-political domain.

This phenomenon would continue to be repeated so long as these conditions exist.

And there is now another dimension of the Sikh Diaspora that nurtures the radical discourse.