×
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

Rising tide of anger in Punjab

Turning point: Growing disenchantment found an outlet through incidents of sacrilege, cotton crop loss
Last Updated 21 November 2015, 18:32 IST
There is simmering discontent among various sections of people in Punjab, a culmination of events which took place over the last about six months. The incidents related to religious issues, farmers’ unrest, to name a few. Which way these incidents will play on the people and impact on the political roadmap of the state in the Assembly elections slated for 2017 may not be difficult to say as the ruling combine is facing an anti-incumbency factor.

Thirty-three years after a Jalandhar-born Punjabi passed a blasphemy law in Pakistan that mandated life term for desecrating holy scriptures, the Parkash Singh Badal government in Punjab approved a move to amend Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code to award life imprisonment for “committing heinous acts of sacrilege of the Guru Granth Sahib.”

Clearly, desperation is dictating political strategies. Anti-incumbency is staring at the government in the face, elections are about a year away and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is fast emerging as a new player, claiming significant, perhaps massive, resonance. The beleaguered Akalis seem to be desperate to quell widespread anger.

Of late, anger is part of the political script in Punjab. A number of incidents involving the sacrilege of the Sikh holy scripture—Guru Granth Sahib—saw massive crowds spilling onto the streets demanding that culprits be brought to book and highlighted the government’s failure to address a plethora of grievances.

The ham-handed approach led to the death of two innocents in police firing on October 14 in a Faridkot village, and the wrongful arrests of two baptised Sikh brothers further stoked the anger. The all-powerful Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, who is also the home minister, claimed that Pakistan’s ISI and a foreign conspiracy was behind the incidents. His top police officers gleefully released to the media taped conversations of the brothers with their “handlers” in Dubai and Australia.

But then, the script went wrong. The “handlers” came forward, walked into diaspora-run radio and TV channels’ offices, and were found to be philanthropists merely helping those injured in the protests by sending meagre amounts.

Sukhbir, however, continues to talk about foreign conspiracy, and the CBI has taken over the inquiry into the incident, but public anger has not yet abated. Preachers, with massive followings, have emerged as the new leadership, and the Badals know the seething-with-rage devouts are also voters. People, fired with religious zeal and a sense of hurt, have not appreciated being painted as conspirators or rent-seeking opportunist pawns in the hands of terrorists sitting in foreign countries.

Cornered, the Badals shunted out Sumedh Saini, the head of the state police, and posted Suresh Arora, an officer known for his uprightness. The move somewhat got the police off the hook, but not the Akalis. Senior ministers soon found it difficult to move about freely.

The community’s top cleric – already the subject of much ire for having pardoned Gurmit Ram Rahim Singh, a Sirsa(Haryana)-based Sacha Sauda sect head, without much of an explanation – has been avoiding public events, fearing he’ll be booed and jeered. The clergy withdrew the pardon but proved the charge – that clerics and SGPC (Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee which manages religious aspects of the gurudwaras) – were Badals’ puppets.

With the situation rife, hotheads crawled out of the woodwork to speak the language of the militant days of the 1980s. Maverick Simranjit Singh Mann, who earned dubious fame when he refused to enter Parliament without his 3-feet sword, joined hands with factions of Damdami Taksal, the seminary once headed by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the militant leader of the 1980s who is reviled and deified in equal measure, and gave a call for Sarbat Khalsa, a collective congregation of the Sikh community.

On November 10, unprecedented crowds converged at the venue, but the organisers used the occasion to announce the appointment of Jagtar Singh Hawara, convicted for former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh’s assassination, as the Akal Takht jathedar (Sikhs fondly compare the post with that of the Pope). While the community has not responded warmly to these decisions, the regime knows the next wave of anger is just a trigger away.

Triggers matter. The Arab Spring did not happen because fruit-vendor Mohammed Bouazizi set himself ablaze, angry with rampant corruption in Tunisia; World War I did not happen because Franz Ferdinand, the nephew of the Austro-Hungarian emperor, was killed. But these were potent triggers.

Anger against Badals

With their vice-like grip on power, too many close kin as power centres, blatant monopolistic business practices, and megalomania-infused statements, the Badals have failed to check this incrementally rising tide of anger. Signs of the storm were visible much earlier. At one point, buses of Badal-owned transport companies became a visible target. Just last month, farmers’ protests had blocked trains for a week.

Now that the Opposition Congress seems set to put its house in order and the AAP is shoring up its party structure, the ruling Akali Dal is at its wit’s end about churning out a response to hordes of people gushing with anger every time the farmers’ come out, the clergy opens its mouth or an incident of sacrilege happens.

Ever the statesman, Badal has now said if there has been a mistake, he is ready to apologise. Before it could even make headlines, Sukhbir rushed to say “enough is enough” and he would no longer tolerate protesters mobbing his ministers. Signs of desperation are clear.

Thursday’s decision to introduce life sentence in sacrilege cases amounts to pandering to the radicals in order to stay ahead of them, a strategy that went horribly wrong in the early 1980s. Besides, a natural corollary in Punjab’s Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance politics will be a demand for similar punishment for those committing sacrilege against other religions’ scriptures.

Once it comes into force, no political party will be able to repeal such a law. Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, introduced in early 1980s, are well entrenched till date. It’s a no-brainer to underscore what such laws can do to a secular polity.

For years, Sukhbir had painstakingly cultivated an image of a young politician focussed on good governance, in sync with the investors. All he needed was to temper that image by also focussing on agriculture and shoring up the state’s education and health sectors—Punjab’s government-run schools and hospitals are either an apology or often just a rumour. It is sad to see that at best the younger Badal could only replicate what a fellow Punjabi did in neighbouring Pakistan in 1982.

His name was Zia-ul-Haq, the late president of Pakistan. And history does not remember him too fondly.

(The writer is a senior journalist based in Chandigarh)


ADVERTISEMENT
(Published 21 November 2015, 17:30 IST)

Follow us on

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT