Chapter 29

PUNJAB: THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM

From 2002 onwards, a distinct change could be discerned in Punjab’s political scene. My proximity to the main players in the power games helped me gain insights into the strategies they followed to climb the political ladder; also. I got to study the working of their minds.

This period marked the beginning of a no-holds-barred power struggle between the Congress and the Akali Dal—BJP combine. It was during this period that, after alternately coming to power, Captain Amarinder Singh (Congress) and Parkash Singh Badal (Akali Dal) unleashed the politics of vendetta by ordering registration of cases against each other on charges of accumulating disproportionate assets. This was a dangerous dimension given to Punjab politics by the top leadership of its two mainstream parties.

Soon after assuming office in late February 2002, Amarinder Singh activated the Punjab Vigilance Bureau to register corruption cases against the members of the Badal family on charges of amassing huge assets during the 1997–2002 Akali—BJP rule. Consequently, Parkash Singh Badal and his son, Sukhbir Singh Badal, were arrested.

The lacklustre performance of the Congress Government and the none-too-edifying activities of the coterie surrounding Captain Amarinder Singh generated resentment among the people. As the 2007 Assembly elections neared, the ruling leadership started mustering support from whichever quarter it could.

Amarinder Singh failed to learn any lesson from the actions of some of his predecessor Congress chief ministers who had tried to use the Akalis’ panthic (religious) agenda to win over the deeply religious Sikh community, the Akalis’ main support base. Their efforts had failed. But, in the process, extremist religious sentiments got a boost.

Amarinder Singh too adopted the Akalis’ panthic agenda, hoping it would help him win over the Akalis’ Sikh vote bank to ensure that his party returned to power in the 2007 Assembly elections. But he failed to make inroads into the Akalis’ popular base. Instead, his adoption of the panthic agenda boomeranged; it alienated the Hindus, the Congress’ traditional vote bank in Punjab. The Hindus voted for the Akali Dal’s urban-based ally, the BJP, helping the right-wing Hindu party to bag a record number of 19 seats in the 117-member Assembly, thereby enabling the combine to win the elections. What, however, helped the Congress save its face by securing a respectable number of seats was the support extended to it by the Dera Sacha Sauda, which has a large following among the deprived and socially backward classes, particularly in the Akali Dal’s stronghold: the Malwa region. The Dera Sacha Sauda, a religio-social body has its headquarters in Sirsa (Haryana). In early 2007, the Akalis had launched a tirade against the dera chief, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, for wearing a dress similar to the one worn by Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth and last Sikh Guru. The support of the dera followers to the Congress almost wiped out the Akalis from their traditional bastion of Malwa.

It is the influence the dera commands in the southern districts of Punjab (falling in the Malwa region) that has accorded it and its chief immense political clout. Politicians often sought meetings with Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh at the time of elections, requesting him to direct his followers to vote for them and their party candidates.

The issue of the dera chief ‘imitating’ the tenth Sikh Guru was later taken up by the Sikhs’ highest temporal seat, the Akal Takht, which issued a hukamnama (edict) calling upon the Sikhs to socially boycott the dera and its chief.

Ironically, despite the Akal Takht’s boycott call, there were reports that even some senior Akali leaders had held clandestine meetings with the dera chief before the elections, seeking his support.

Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, who was born on 15 August 1967 and has studied up to the matriculation level, flaunts a lavish lifestyle at his dera campus. Apart from his discourses, which some TV channels transmit live, he wields great influence, especially in areas around Sirsa, adjoining parts of Rajasthan and the southern districts of Punjab, mainly because of the social reforms agenda of the dera. His followers have even undertaken cleanliness drives in a number of cities and towns in Punjab and Haryana.

The controversy over the activities of Dera Sacha Sauda has brought into focus the functioning of the deras that abound in Punjab. Many of these deras own huge immovable assets including land and buildings. Their declared objectives are religious preaching and social reforms. Most of these deras are headed by individuals known as sants while some are managed by trusts.

The functioning of some of these deras often generates disputes, on the one hand, between their rival factions over owning or managing the dera, and, on the other, between the deras and the Sikhs over the former’s preaching from their own granths (holy books) while the Sikhs hold the Guru Granth Sahib as the sole and supreme granth.

Factional rivalries among those managing some deras or between them and their opponents have often led to violent clashes and even murders. One such case involved an attack on the chief and his deputy of Jalandhar’s Dera Sachkhand Ballan (where large numbers of Dalits usually gather), at a Vienna temple in May 2009, in which the latter lost his life. This event caused large-scale rioting in Punjab, especially in the state’s Doaba region which has a sizeable population of Dalits.

The chiefs of some of the deras have also been charged with committing criminal offences. For instance, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh faced trial in the CBI special court for the murder of one Ranjit Singh and a journalist, Ram Chander Chhatrapati, in 2002.

The most glaring example is the conviction of Bibi Jagir Kaur, the president of the Sikhs’ apex religious body, SGPC (from March 1999 to November 2000), for abetting the confinement and forcible abortion of her daughter Harpreet. Jagir Kaur was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in March 2012. She was then dropped from the Badal-led Akali—BJP ministry. She was granted bail in November 2012, but on the condition that she would not leave India.

The clout she wielded even after her conviction is illustrated by the VVIP treatment she got in jail. There was a controversy over the jail officials touching Bibi’s feet. In July 2012, the inspector general (jails), the superintendent and the deputy superintendent of the Kapurthala Modern Jail (where Bibi was lodged before getting bail) received siropas (saffron-coloured scarves) from Bibi at a religious function held within the premises of the prison.

***

Let us now get back to the main narrative. Apart from the support of BJP’s 19 MLAs, the factor that mainly helped Badal form the Akali Dal—BJP Government in March 2007 was the micro-level management of polling and the organizational skills of Parkash Singh Badal’s foreign-educated son, Sukhbir Singh Badal, who infused a new life into the party’s demoralized ranks during the run-up to the February 2007 Assembly elections.

On returning to power in March 2007, the revengeful Badals, as a tit for tat, instituted corruption cases against Captain Amarinder Singh and his family members. During the years they were alternately in power, the normally dignified Amarinder Singh and the otherwise amiable and suave Parkash Singh Badal publicly indulged in mudslinging against each other.

Due to the time-consuming justice delivery process in India, the corruption cases against the Badals were still pending in court when the Akali—BJP combine returned to power in March 2007. The Badals were, however, acquitted by the court mainly because most of the prosecution witnesses, who were mainly government officials, turned hostile.

***

After the coalition government took over, some of Sukhbir Singh’s actions reflected worrisome traits of his personality, which were reminiscent of the Emergency period’s mindset. (The Emergency lasted from 25 June 1975 to 21 March 1977; see Chapter 7.)

The leaders of the non-Congress parties, especially the regional ones, had been targeting the Jawaharlal Nehru family for promoting dynastic rule. But over the past few years, they themselves have started imposing such rule by grooming their sons, daughters, sons-in-law and wives to be their successors.

On assuming power in March 2007, the four-time chief minister, Parkash Singh Badal, changed the definition of dynastic rule by converting it into family rule. He inducted four other members of his family into his government. Besides himself as chief minister, he appointed his son (Sukhbir Singh Badal) as deputy chief minister and as cabinet ministers his nephew (Manpreet Singh Badal), son-in-law (Adesh Partap Singh Kairon) as well as Sukhbir Singh’s brother-in-law (Bikram Singh Majithia; the brother of Sukhbir’s wife Harsimrat Kaur Badal). All were given key portfolios. Harsimrat Kaur Badal was nominated as the Akali Dal candidate for the Lok Sabha seat from Bathinda in the 2009 polls, which she won.

Acting on his thesis that a chief minister must also have a strong grip on the party, Badal managed to get his son Sukhbir appointed as Akali Dal president in early 2008; he himself became its patron. Badal had enunciated his thesis in a talk with me (in 1985) after the then party president, Harchand Singh Longowal, ignoring his (Badal’s) claim, chose Surjit Singh Barnala as chief minister after the Akali Dal won the 1985 Assembly elections in the wake of the July 1985 Rajiv—Longowal Accord. Badal’s thesis further stipulated that a chief minister must have total control over all levers of power to ensure that his or her tenure in office is unchallengeable.

By 2008, with the posts of chief minister, deputy chief minister and president of the Akali Dal already with the family, Badal also used his clout to consolidate his control over the Sikhs’ cash-rich apex religious body, the SGPC, which controls the historical gurdwaras in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh.

***

As the 2012 Assembly elections came nearer, Punjab’s political scenario underwent significant changes. There was a rift in the Badal family. His nephew, Manpreet Singh Badal, whose acknowledged reputation as a visionary Akali politician had earned him laurels both inside and outside the Assembly, was divested of his ministerial berth and was expelled from the party. Manpreet had held the crucial finance portfolio. Ostensibly, it was Manpreet’s insistence to put an end to the senior Badal’s populist measures of granting huge subsidies and freebies that had earned him the wrath of the chief minister and his son. Manpreet’s ouster from the ministry and the ruling party was, however, also because father and son feared that he might emerge as a formidable rival to Sukhbir in the race for chief ministership as the successor to the senior Badal.

After undertaking extensive tours of Punjab to feel the pulse of the people, Manpreet formed his own outfit called the People’s Party of Punjab. A number of renowned academicians and economists, besides some littérateurs, joined his party. He drew large crowds at his public meetings.

Five months before the next Assembly elections (scheduled for January 2012), the PPP and the two Left parties – the CPI and the CPI (M) – and the Surjit Singh Barnala-led Longowal Akali Dal formed a United Front to take on their opponents. But the UF failed to secure even a single seat in the 117-member Assembly in the 2012 polls.

Manpreet soon started losing ground. Apparently, he lacked the politicking skills and expertise of a professional organizer. Some of the prominent activists of his PPP as well as the academicians and others quit the party. One of the main reasons attributed by them for doing so was that Manpreet did not take them into confidence while taking important decisions.

Manpreet’s Leftist allies had already lost their popular bases, which they once had in Punjab. He may not have any alternative but to join hands with the Congress for political survival and for fighting future elections. The Congress also needed (and needs) new allies to confront the Akalis in their Malwa bastion. The Left, which in the past had often joined hands with the Congress to fight elections with advantages accruing to both, may also have been in a mood to have some sort of understanding with the Congress, notwithstanding reservations by some of their leaders. There is, therefore, a possibility of a Congress—PPP—Left front emerging for taking on the Akalis in future political and electoral battles.

Parkash Singh Badal was not wrong when he said that Manpreet had committed a ‘Himalayan blunder’ by parting company with his mother party.

***

Badal had obviously planned Sukhbir’s elevation as chief minister before the ruling alliance’s term ended in early 2012. Taking a backseat himself, the elder Badal had allowed Sukhbir to function as de facto chief minister. But, in 2009-10, after Manpreet’s revolt, which was soon followed by the appointment of Captain Amarinder Singh as Punjab Congress president, Badal realized that it was beyond his son’s capability to face the twin challenges posed by Manpreet and Amarinder Singh. The conclusion forced him to take over the command of the government and also of the party’s election campaign.

At that stage, Badal faced the formidable task of checking the growing anti-incumbency sentiment against the alliance government, which was being partly fuelled by Sukhbir Singh’s authoritarian attitude and high-handed methods such as the use of police and the Youth Akali Dal goons, particularly in the Malwa region, to rig the 2007 local bodies’ elections, reminding one of the situation that used to once prevail in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Sukhbir’s methods to win such elections caused resentment not only among the people but also among the workers of the Akali Dal’s ally BJP, who held protest demonstrations in various parts of the state. This development added another irritant to the BJP—Akali Dal relations.

***

Punjab’s image, which had been losing its sheen during the successive Congress and the Akali—BJP governments, recorded a further dip during 2007–12 when the latter was in power. The unabated deterioration in the state’s political governance and financial health raised the question whether Punjab, which was once known to be one of India’s most prosperous and ably administered states, would be able to reclaim its lost glory in the foreseeable future.

The most disturbing aspect was the momentum that the criminalization of politics and the politicization of the bureaucracy and police gained during 2007–12. There was a steep rise in criminal cases involving Akali Dal and Congress leaders.

For example, there was the case of Bibi Jagir Kaur (discussed earlier in this chapter). In another case, Punjab’s agriculture minister, Tota Singh, had to resign (in May 2012) after being handed a year’s imprisonment by a court for misuse of official machinery. Some other Akali ministers too faced charges of bungling of government funds. One of them had to resign.

The worst possible example of criminalization of politics was brought to light by the activities of some prominent functionaries of the Youth Akali Dal headed by Bikram Singh Majithia, Sukhbir Singh Badal’s brother-in-law. Critics likened the Youth Akali Dal to Sanjay Gandhi’s Youth Congress brigade of the Emergency days. Some of the Youth Akali Dal’s district leaders were involved in criminal cases, including the murder of a police officer. But in most cases, the police of their respective areas paid little heed to the complaints about their criminal activities.

***

In this era of a politicized bureaucracy, there are not many bureaucrats who would refuse to act on the whims of politicians and would decline to serve the latter’s vested political interests. This was not the case in the early post-independence years. Then, many bureaucrats had the courage to resist the pressures exerted by their political bosses who wanted to promote their own personal or partisan interests at the cost of public interest. They would rather devise ways to see that the state’s interests were not sacrificed at the altar of the politicians’ interests.

The situation, over the years, has witnessed deterioration. Now, most bureaucrats and police personnel, especially in the states, particularly in Punjab, dance to the tune of ruling politicians without caring about public interest. It is not surprising that in return for their ‘services’, some of them get undue promotions and some are even given party tickets to contest the elections. For instance, for the January 2012 Punjab Assembly elections, D. S. Guru, the principal secretary to the chief minister, and P. S. Gill, the state DGP, were given Akali Dal tickets, but both lost.

During my frequent interactions with some of Punjab’s senior bureaucrats I found them helpless when it came to setting right the situation in their departments because of political interference by the Akali jathedars and the Akali Dal and BJP ministers.

Similar to what had happened during the Indira Gandhi-led Government during the Emergency, institutions serving the public interest were being destroyed in Punjab in order to serve the ruling party’s partisan interests. Sukhbir, who was also president of the Akali Dal, placed district Akali MLAs and party candidates defeated in the polls in control of the halqas (constituencies). The police was subjugated to such persons. The police officers in many areas functioned according to their wishes. Even the government grants for local areas development were usually distributed through those in charge of the Akali Dal’s halqas or through local Akali leaders and not through the MLAs, if they belonged to the opposition.

***

Political parties have the freedom to set up and operate their own TV channels. But the problem arises when they deprive the common people of the freedom of choosing what to view or what not to view.

During the Akali Dal—BJP regime, the TV cable network through which the television channels were mainly viewed by the people in Punjab and Chandigarh, came to be controlled by a powerful cartel. Various cable operators in the region were ‘co-opted’ either through persuasion or coercion. Some of the cable operators, who did not buckle, even held protests. The cable cartel placed curbs on the channels critical of the Akali Dal—BJP to be telecast in Punjab and Chandigarh. It was an open secret that this was happening ‘at the behest of a powerful political entity’. The channels that were controlled by this ‘powerful political entity’ mainly eulogized the Badals and propagated their ‘achievements’. The irony was that the Akali Dal had been in the forefront of the agitation for the freedom of the press during the Emergency days (June 1975 to March 1977).

***

In July 2012 the Competition Commission of India imposed a penalty of Rs 8 crore on the Fast Way cable group, which was backed by the aforementioned ‘powerful political entity’. In its order, the CCI said that the cable group was violating the Competition Act, 2002, as due to its holding of more than 85 per cent of the total subscribers in Punjab and the Chandigarh union territory, it had denied the opportunity for transmission of the complainant channel (Kansan News) on its network. Because of its monopoly on the cable TV network, the viewers having cable connections in the region had become dependent on the Fast Way group.

The CCI acted after conducting an investigation on information provided by Kansan News, which broadcasts news and current affairs programmes on its TV channel in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh. Kanwar Sandhu, former resident editor of the Hindustan Times’ Chandigarh edition, was Kansan News’ director and also managing editor of the Day and Night channel (which is part of Kansan News).

On finding its functioning crippled, the Day and Night channel later scaled down its operations in Punjab. In August 2013, Sandhu resigned abruptly, ending his four-year stint at the fledgling media outlet. In his message posted on YouTube, Sandhu blamed the channels’ financial woes on its continued blockage in the cable network in Punjab ‘at the behest of a powerful political entity’. He declared: ‘Since the operations of the channel are being considerably scaled down, I wouldn’t be part of the project.’ In October 2013, Sandhu joined the Tribune as its executive editor.

The monopolization of cable operations reflected the mindset of the perpetrators of the Emergency, who had tried to gag the media. The only difference was that while, in the bygone era, the government could control or muffle the print media through draconian diktats and laws, it was impossible in the twenty-first century to do so in the age of cut-throat competition, stringent laws and the activist judiciary’s opposition to curbing of freedom of expression and speech. But in the case of the instantly effective electronic media, it is possible for the ruling regional satraps to curb the sources of information and freedom of expression by controlling the television channel distribution. This is what happened in Punjab. But with the onset of the dish TV revolution, the people, particularly, the urban middle class, are going in for direct-to-home (DTH) services.

The experienced and affable Parkash Singh Badal often felt uneasy over some of his son’s actions. But he failed to restrain Sukhbir and his brother-in-law, Bikram Singh Majithia, who also held the public relations portfolio. Anguished by their actions, the chief minister made some stinging comments against Majithia – who was also the non-resident Indians’ (NRIs’) affairs in charge – at the Pravasi Punjabi Sammelan held in the first week of January 2013 at Chandigarh. On 3 January, Badal first queried: ‘Have you [Majithia] ever been to jail?’ He then observed: ‘You have got the minister’s post on a platter. Now you are looking to grab my chair too.’ He next warned Majithia ‘not to be so glad that the NRI function has gone off well. Work hard. NRIs alone won’t elect the next government; we’ll have to look after common people as well’.

The elder Badal did not spare his son Sukhbir either; he had left the venue before his father had concluded his speech. While correcting one of his son’s statements, Badal pointed out that ‘development isn’t the only factor [as Sukhbir had earlier claimed]; the confidence of all castes and religions also matters. They have to trust our secular credentials.’

The next day, however, Parkash Singh Badal was on the back foot; he clarified that whatever he had said the previous day was just in a lighter vein.

***

One of the other major factors that tarnished the Akali Dal—BJP Government’s image was the state’s worsening economic and financial health. The Economic Freedom of the States of India 2012 report highlighted the damaging outcome of the government’s poor and faulty governance. The report noted: ‘Punjab’s economy has slipped from sixth spot to twelfth in six years with its fiscal deficit of 3.8 per cent of GDP for 2011-12 and revenue deficit having increased from 1.8 per cent in 2010-11 to 2.75 per cent in 2011-12.’

The report debunked the reasons given by politicians to explain the sorry state of affairs. It maintained that factors such as the huge power subsidy bill, fiscal crunch, tapering off of the Green Revolution, failures in agricultural marketing and inability to catch the services revolution had led to the decline in the state’s economy. The report also came down heavily on the powers that be: ‘The state sharing its border with a hostile neighbour or terrorism causing a decline in the state’s economy were mere myths created by policy-makers to absolve themselves of responsibility of the state’s steady decline. Not much effort is being put in to improve its condition.’

During 2007–12, the state’s treasury had almost gone bankrupt. Payment of salaries or other dues to some sections of the government employees used to be delayed. Contractors had also started threatening to suspend their operations on some of the social welfare projects meant for the poor and backward sections of the population due to non-payment of their bills. The state was also caught in a debt trap, with its loan burden crossing Rs 1 lakh crore, a huge figure by any yardstick.

Faced with such a dismal state of affairs, the Akali leadership, which, before assuming power in February 1997, used to charge the Centre with discriminating against the Sikhs switched over to ‘the Centre’s discriminating against Punjab in granting funds’ tirade. The state government had no answer to the Centre’s repeated assertions that the former was diverting the Central grants or misutilizing the funds given to the state for specific welfare and development schemes.

Six months into his second term as deputy chief minister, Sukhbir Singh said in September 2012: ‘Gone are the days when you could relax after being voted to power. I believe in running the state like a corporation, where results have to be shown to the shareholder, in this case, the public.’ But in most cases, he failed to show results even six years after becoming virtually the de facto chief minister. For instance, he had promised that an acutely power-deficit Punjab would become a power-surplus state within three years when the Akali—BJP Government assumed power in early 2007. But he failed to show any result to the ‘shareholder’ (public), declaring that his promise of ‘turning Punjab into a power-surplus state will be fulfilled before the dawn of 2014’.

***

At this point, it will not be out of place to reproduce my 14 September 2013 Currents and Undercurrents syndicated column on the situation:

Punjab seldom skips making headlines. The state’s well-wishers were, however, surprised to see last week’s two headlines. One quoted the Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh [Badal] describing the reports about Punjab being cash-starved ‘as unfounded impression’. He said that ‘the state has never defaulted on payment of wages to its employees and [has never] held back pensions’. He blamed the media for creating a fear psychosis among potential investors by ‘propagating’ that the ‘debt-ridden Punjab is facing financial crisis’. The second headline quoted Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal describing Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the country’s ‘greatest leader’ and a ‘Sardar’. He made the flattering remarks during his [Modi’s] last week’s visit to the state.

Sukhbir is not the first politician in India to target the media for ‘publishing baseless reports’ exposing rulers self-patting claims or faulty functioning. Whenever ruling leaders feel embarrassed by media criticism, they describe their reports as ‘baseless’ or ‘biased’. If one goes by Sukhbir’s claims, the English dictionary will have to give a new meaning to the word ‘default’. Is a government’s failure to pay salaries to its employees or pensions on time not a default? A day after Sukhbir claimed the state was ‘not defaulting in payment of salaries and pensions’, the media reported that a large number of employees and pensioners had not received their dues for several days and lakhs of old-age pensioners, widows, disabled and dependent children had not received since June their monthly token amounts totalling nearly Rs 150 crore. Serving of mid-day meals to school children was disrupted as expenditure was stopped for payment of salaries to teachers. ‘Dal’ [pulses] under the coalition government’s vote-catching atta-dal scheme was not supplied for seven months. [Atta usually refers to wheat flour.]

Responding to the criticism that Punjab’s debt burden has touched rupees one lakh crore, Sukhbir said that ‘without debt no country, government or business house can survive’. He is not wrong. But if the debt money is spent on paying salaries, pensions or meeting the government’s day-to-day expenditure and not for productive purposes, it will lead to bankruptcy. Punjab is facing such a situation.

The ruling leadership lured voters by offering huge freebies and subsidies which added to the financial crunch. It did not want to mobilize additional resources through taxes for fear of annoying the respective rural and urban vote banks of the ruling Akali Dal and BJP allies. It adopted the strategy of blaming the Centre for not helping the state to overcome financial problems that the coalition had itself created. It will not be irrelevant to quote the state finance minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa who said ‘the coalition dharma in the ruling Akali Dal—BJP combine was coming in the way of enlarging the ambit of tax structure and plugging large-scale tax evasion in the state’. Without naming the BJP, he said ‘to generate more revenue lots of things were decided but withdrawn because of the coalition dharma’.

The prevailing situation reminds one of what the chief minister’s estranged nephew Manpreet Singh Badal had said when he was finance minister. He had pressed for rationalizing the huge subsidies (which in the case of free power to the farm sector alone is Rs 5800 crore per year) and mobilizing additional resources to help overcome Punjab’s acute financial problems. He did not want Punjab to go to the Centre with a begging bowl. His stand, besides the threat of his possible emergence as a challenger to Sukhbir Singh Badal’s anticipated elevation as chief minister after Parkash Singh Badal, led to his expulsion from the ministry and the party [as mentioned earlier in this chapter].

What Manpreet had predicted is proving correct. The ruling leadership is going to the Centre with a begging bowl though under the cover of ‘the Centre is discriminating against Punjab’ slogan.

The biggest surprise of the week was the remark of the otherwise sober and balanced chief minister Parkash Singh Badal that Narendra Modi was the ‘country’s greatest leader’. What could be the reasons for Badal, who is considered one of the tallest and most respected leaders of the country, for making such flattering remarks about Modi whose stature and status are much lower than those of Badal?

No doubt, Modi has earned praise for providing good governance and making Gujarat one of the most developed states of India. Corporate India, which has received lucrative concessions for setting up industrial units in the state, has largely contributed to create the hype about Gujarat’s development. However, Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s claim that Haryana is far ahead of the Modi-ruled Gujarat as an investment destination having the highest per capita income cannot be ignored. He has [provided] data to support his claim.

Badal’s remarks about Modi are surprising for many reasons. A strong defender of minorities’ rights, his remarks about Modi will be considered as an anti-minorities statement by the Muslims, several hundreds of whom were killed during the 2002 riots in the Modi-ruled Gujarat. There could be two possible purposes behind Badal making flattering remarks about Modi: Hoping that if Modi becomes prime minister, he would bail Punjab out of its financial mess; the second and more important factor is that Badal may perhaps be preparing the ground for moving to the Centre as deputy prime minister. This is what his friend Devi Lal did in late 1989. He had moved to the Centre to become deputy prime minister vacating Haryana chief minister’s chair for his favourite son Om Prakash Chautala. Badal will also vacate the Punjab chief minister’s chair for formally elevating his deputy chief minister and son Sukhbir Singh Badal [to that post]. No doubt, a poor governance record and mega scams have tainted the UPA Government’s image, raising the BJP-led NDA’s hopes of coming to power in 2014 with Modi as its prime minister. But one should not forget what happened in 2004. Then, the NDA’s late Pramod Mahajan-coined ‘India Shining’ slogan had made it look certain that it would come to power. [Mahajan was a Union minister in the Atal Behari Vajpayee cabinet.] But the electorate denied its wish and voted the UPA to power.

In Punjab also the Akali Dal—BJP alliance returned to power in 2012 despite the strong anti-incumbency sentiment that had made the Congress’s coming to power a foregone conclusion. One will have to watch the impact the UPA government’s social welfare measures like food security and direct cash transfer measures will have on the electorate. Besides, which of the two combines – UPA or NDA – is able to attract a larger number of regional allies will also influence the 2014 Lok Sabha polls outcome.

Will the wishes of Parkash Singh Badal be fulfilled in the backdrop of the above scenario?

***

All the aforementioned negative factors whipped up the anti-incumbency sentiment, creating a favourable atmosphere for the Congress before the 2012 Assembly elections. The popular perception was that the Congress would emerge victorious in the elections and Captain Amarinder Singh would again take over as chief minister. Even some senior Punjab Government officers started meeting Amarinder Singh to ‘complain’ how shabbily they had been treated by the Akali Dal—BJP Government!

Akali leaders were also in a diffident mood. The ruling leadership drew up a contingency plan under which it started announcing huge subsidies and concessions. It obviously followed the strategy that if the Akali—BJP combine failed to return to power in 2012, the huge burden of freebies (estimated to be nearly Rs 10,000 crore) announced during the run-up to the elections would fall on the new (Congress) government, which would then have to face the people’s wrath if it withdrew the freebies and tried to mobilize additional resources.

Electoral predictions often go awry. This happened in the January 2012 Assembly elections too. Contrary to the popular perception that the Congress would win, it was defeated. Three factors were mainly responsible for the unexpected outcome in the polls. One was the wrong distribution of Congress tickets. The second was the large number of Congress rebels who contested the elections as independents. The third factor was the inaccessibility of the party’s top leaders, particularly Amarinder Singh, even to the Congress workers.

The Akali Dal owed its victory, which led to the 85-year-old Parkash Singh Badal becoming chief minister for the fifth time, to four factors.

The first factor was Badal’s mass base, which he had built up over the decades on qualities such as being an untiring campaigner, his mild-mannered approach to issues and practising what James M. Barrie1 had said: ‘Life is a long lesson in humility.’

The second factor comprised Sukhbir Singh’s use of corporate tactics, his organizational abilities and his political management schemes like providing ‘incentives’ to Congress rebels for contesting as independents, which split the votes to that party.

The third factor was the strategy to give Akali Dal tickets to a number of Hindu candidates, some of whom won the elections. This factor enabled the Akali Dal, primarily a rural-based party, to gain a foothold in its ally BJP’s urban bastions. To avoid a conflict with the BJP, the Akali Dal’s father—son duo seemingly opted for a ‘division of tasks’. Their strategy stipulated that Parkash Singh Badal would keep in good humour the senior Central BJP leaders with whom he had excellent personal equations, while his son would make efforts to reduce the Akali Dal’s dependence on the BJP for riding to power in Punjab on its own strength. The chief minister’s hope for the BJP’s continued support to his party arose from the senior Badal’s obvious conviction that his ally needed the support of a strong regional party like the Akali Dal for capturing power in New Delhi.

The fourth factor was the Akali leadership’s use of emotive issues to rouse Sikhs’ religious passions. On the eve of the January 2012 elections, the Badals inaugurated a number of religious memorials. They also sought and got the support of radical Sikh bodies such as Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale’s parent organization, the Damdami Taksal, and also of the Sant Samaj. In return, they acceded to the radicals’ demands for raising a memorial in the Golden Temple Complex at Amritsar (for those killed during Operation Bluestar) and bestowing the title of ‘Zinda Shaheed’ (living martyr) on Balwant Singh Rajoana, the main assassin of the former chief minister, Beant Singh, who had restored peace in the terrorist-hit Punjab (see Chapter 26). (Balwant Singh Rajoana was awarded the death penalty by a special CBI court and he was to be executed on 31 March 2012. However, just three days before that date, the Union Home Ministry stayed the execution in the wake of clemency petitions filed by the SGPC.)

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Sukhbir Singh, also president of the Akali Dal, defended the decision to build the memorial by asserting that ‘hundreds of innocent devotees who were trapped in the Golden Temple lost their lives during the Army attack in 1984. What is wrong if a memorial is built for them?’ He carefully omitted to mention the fact that the Indian Army had raided the Golden Temple ‘not to kill innocent devotees’ but to flush out the militants who had converted the Sikhs’ holiest shrine into their fortified bastion for killing Hindus as well as Sikhs and for establishing an independent Sikh state of Khalistan.

Facing all-round criticism against the memorial, the chief minister had to clarify to the Assembly that such a memorial would be in the form of a ‘small gurdwara’ in the Golden Temple Complex and would be bereft of any pictures or photographs. He, however, did not explain the necessity for building a ‘small gurdwara’ and that too in the Golden Temple Complex where the Sikhs’ holiest shrine and the highest temporal seat, the Akal Takht, are located.

Contrary to Badal’s clarification, the memorial built under the charge of the Damdami Taksal was opened on 27 April 2013. It was dedicated to Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale with his name inscribed atop its entrance.

In sharp contrast to the Akali Dal’s support for building the Bluestar memorial, the chief minister did not favour the demand raised by all non-Akali parties and large sections of the people that a memorial should also be built for the thousands of Hindus and Sikhs killed by the terrorists during the terrorism years. He said in June 2013 that ‘building a memorial for terrorism victims could disturb the state’s hard-earned communal peace’. He, however, did not explain how the memorial for the innocent victims of terrorism could ‘disturb the communal peace’ when a memorial dedicated to Bhindranwale could not, according to the Akali leaders’ belief, threaten Punjab’s communal peace.

The Akali leadership’s raising of emotive religious issues, primarily for the purpose of seeking the deeply religious Sikhs’ support in the elections, has the potential of creating conditions conducive for reigniting extremist religious sentiments. It was the encouragement of emotive religious issues by the Akali and the Congress leaders in the late 1970s and 1980s that had contributed to the strengthening of the extremist elements and also to the eruption of terrorism in Punjab.

Ironically, the renewed attempts by the Akali leaders to encourage the emotive religious issues and seek radical elements’ support to suit their political and electoral objectives were being made amidst the warning by the Central intelligence agencies and also by the state police top brass that ‘the terrorist elements were trying to stage a comeback in Punjab’.

The Akali Dal’s junior ruling partner was not happy with the Badals’ decisions to rake up emotive issues, to raise the aforementioned memorial and to declare Balwant Singh Rajoana a ‘living martyr’. But the state BJP leadership preferred to lie low apparently at the instance of its Central leadership, which needed the support of the Akali Dal for the Lok Sabha elections, as and when they would be held.

The Akali leadership’s efforts to widen its support base among the BJP’s Hindu-dominated urban areas, though a positive development, could, in course of time, cast a dark shadow over the party’s relations with its ally. However, despite the periodical irritants created by the clashing interests of the ruling partners, Punjab politics may experience a period of relative calm at least in the near future as the Central BJP leaders would not like to annoy an important regional ally in their endeavour to win the next Lok Sabha elections.

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1 Sir James Matthew Barrie (9 May 1860 to 19 June 1937) was a Scottish writer and playwright. His most famous work is Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up.