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Sleeping With The Enemy
Gian Inder Singh
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The Congress is an enemy of the Sikhs. It is a line well pushed
by the Badals. But is the BJP not? The Left’s role has also been
very poor. Did Sharad Pawar speak out when the genocide of the
Sikhs happened? Then why should Mumbai Sikhs not think of the
NCP as the enemy of the Sikhs? Can Sikhs remain silent witnesses
to Gujarat riots? Then how can Akali Dal defend its silence on
Modi? Or is it time to play India’s elite bargain democracy
sport as a good player who knows the difference between tactics
and goals. When you have enemies all around, the best strategy
is not to have a fixed single enemy for all times to come. Keep
changing your friends and enemies, but know clearly that enemies
they all are.
This piece is an intervention in the ongoing form of electoral
game being played in India and the Akali Dal’s role in it. By no
means does it suggest giving up on the panthic agenda, and by no
means does it suggest to deny those who assassinated our
heritage of memories. But it does propose new rules for the
game. |
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 Anyone trying to
preach to the ruling Akalis, or better still, to Akalis who intend
to enjoy political power, should be well advised to hold his words
and save his thoughts if he proposes a different route to politics
than indulging in chest-beating about Congress being the enemy of
the Sikhs, Dilli being the enemy of Punjab and the Panth being in
danger.
Granted that
those who follow this line of thought do so with good reason. First
of all, it has proven successful in fooling all of the people for at
least some of the time. And some people have been fooled by it all
the time. Together, the two categories have ensured that the Parkash
Singh Badal brand of politics succeeds time and again.
So effective is
this strategy, that it is no wonder that radically different Akali
groups like that of Simranjit Singh Mann, or chip-of-the-same-block
like the now defunct All India Shiromani Akali Dal (AISAD), also
played the same tune. The Badals have been successful in bashing the
Congress, yet they have an alliance with the completely Hindutva
oriented and brahmanical BJP. The Manns of this world have found it
difficult to even ensure electoral survival.
As for the Sikh
community, it is none the better for all these shenanigans. Today,
most parties contesting the Lok Sabha elections have turbaned
candidates. Be it a stage of the ruling Akali Dal dominated by the
House of Badals, or Congress party -- repeatedly painted in the
panthic domain as an enemy of the Sikhs -- or radical Akali factions
or the Bahujan Samaj Party, you will see a preponderance of Sikh
leaders.
 Every Badal is
matched by a Bhattal or an Amarinder. And with the Congress pushing
Manmohan Singh as a serious and credible second-time candidate for
the office of Prime Minister of India, the line about Congress being
an enemy of the Sikhs simply does not wash.
But again,
before you let your ire loose on me, please hold your anger for a
moment. This is not to say that the Congress is not an enemy of the
Sikhs, or is not an enemy of the Sikhs anymore. The fact remains
that the Congress, BJP, the Left are all enemies of Sikhism. And
have always been, whatever their avtaar and whoever their leader.
The fact also remains that increasingly even the ruling Akali Dal
has been and is increasingly becoming an enemy of the Sikhs, and
often of Sikhism.
The party that
was formed to take care of panthic interests shunned its key agenda
and dubbed it as broadening of its base. This was a post Moga
conference move towards Punjabiyat. Later, the pact with the BJP was
termed a fraternal bond between brothers even as the RSS stuck to
its theory that Sikhs are actually Hindus. Even earth shaking events
like the demolition of the Babri Masjid did not deter the Badals
from striking an alliance with the saffron brigade.
So expecting the
Akali Dal to sour its relations with the BJP merely because L K
Advani takes credit for Operation Bluestar in his book or because
the party’s Varun Gandhi publicly expresses a secret wish to cut the
hands of Muslims would be foolhardiness.
The Badals want
to rule and the senior Badal wants to pass on the mantle to junior
Badal. If Harsimrat could get into the Lok Sabha and be positioned
for a larger role a few years down the line, Bibi Surinder Kaur
Badal’s experience with langar takes her to the SGPC top office and
Kaka ji sits in the room next door to his current office – it would
be heaven on earth for the entire Badal clan.
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Every Badal is matched by a Bhattal or an Amarinder. As Congress
pushes a Sikh as a serious and credible second-time candidate
for the office of Prime Minister of India, the line about
Congress being an enemy of the Sikhs simply does not wash. At
least with the larger world outside. This is not to say that the
Congress is not an enemy of the Sikhs, or is not anymore. The
fact remains that the Congress, BJP, the Left are all enemies of
Sikhism. And have always been, whatever their avtaar and whoever
their leader. The fact also remains that increasingly even the
ruling Akali Dal has been and is increasingly becoming an enemy
of the Sikhs, and often of Sikhism |
Some of it has
already happened, and the rest is being ensured through short
changing the community and selling its soul to the devil. Any
mopping up operations would be carried out by the Students
Organization of India!
But what if you
come up with a formula that enables the Badals, or anyone who wants
such a heaven on earth for himself, to achieve it without flogging
the Congress as an enemy of the Sikhs?
India is a
quasi-authoritarian state because it is engaged in the construction
of a monolith to nationalism. The state is both an overarching
entity and a subject of bargain. Since there is little progress on
democratizing institutions and procedures, laws and the justice
dispensing machinery and finances and neo-liberal capital, the
entire notion of democracy in India has been reduced to an elite
bargain system.
The real story
of democratization is told by the poverty, the political instability
and underdevelopment that wracks this country. No one denies the
perversions of politics and democracy in India but who can fight
with the fact that it is functional, and is increasingly accepted by
the world as progressive?
Obviously, there
is a need to contextualize democratic development. I am not getting
into whether one should go with structural democracy gurus or with
those who talk of the elite bargain theory, but the fact remains
that the higher ideals of Sikhism put such demands on
India’s
political parties that it becomes almost necessary for them to be an
enemy of the Sikhs.
The ruling Akali
Dal is no different and poor Sukhbir Singh Badal has finally deduced
that ruling the state based on the ideals of the Gurus and core
values of Sikhism would be an impossible task for him.
Hence, the easy
way out: “Congress is the enemy of the Sikhs. Those who want to talk
about Varun Gandhi may please be shown a picture of the damaged Akal
Takht and reminded of the 1984 genocide.” Period!
 But there is a
way out. The Badals need to learn from Ramadosses of India. The SAD
of Punjab needs to learn from PMK of Tamil Nadu. And no one would
love it more than Sukhbir for whom we have two temptations lined up:
1. The Ramadosses have ruled uninterrupted for ten years now. 2. The
baton passing is easy.
The PMK has
perfected the elite bargain way of operating in a democratic space.
Dr S Ramadoss has been hopping coalitions with so much
predictability that even the Congress was not surprised when the
Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) quit the United Progressive Alliance
(UPA).
The regional
party’s strategy has, of course, ensured that the PMK remained in
power at the Centre from 1998 onwards, even as the National
Democratic Alliance (NDA) gave way to the UPA. While critics call it
opportunism at its worst, Ramadoss insists it is a strategy designed
to serve the best interests of his party.
The Akalis, in
contrast, have tied themselves up with the BJP under the false and
patently baseless notion that Congress is the only enemy of the
Sikhs. The Akali Dal is India’s second oldest political party while
the PMK is a relatively recent political entity. Ramadoss launched
the party in July 1989 and had the influential Vanniyar caste with
him as his bargaining chip. Though they make up the single-largest
community in Tamil Nadu, Vanniyars had their allegiance split across
party lines, which Ramadoss streamlined into one entity with the
formation of the Vanniyar Sangam in 1980, followed by the political
party nine years later.
Over the years,
the PMK transformed itself into a mainstream political party, toning
down its demands for bifurcation of the state. It also intervened in
the Vanniyar-Dalit clashes and made efforts to turn the two
communities into partners to leverage their combined voting power.
The party strongly promoted Tamil pride, and played around with
causes such as the Sri Lankan Tamil issue and Cauvery water dispute.
Off and on it plays the moral ground by leading protests over
alcohol and tobacco.
It makes smart
calculations and like all successful regional parties, has a
transferable vote bank, allowing it to switch allegiances seamlessly
from the DMK to AIADMK and from the BJP to the Congress.
It is this last
bit that the Akalis have made impossible for themselves. So while
the BJP humiliates them, and a fraudster Dera head pushes them to
publicly seek votes from him, the Akalis have left themselves with
no alternative bridges to help them cross towards power.
Will the Akalis
display ideological bankruptcy by trying to mend fences? Well, even
if you momentarily forget that they have no more claims to any
ideological convictions, the fact remains that coalition is a game
of power politics, not ideological sparring.
Ramadoss sees no
contradiction in aligning with ideological opposites to stay in
power. He is trying to play the elite bargain chips. The Badals have
rendered themselves incapable of doing so.
If Advani does
not help the Badals and takes credit for Operation Bluestar, it is
because the Badals have preferred to remain in a time warp where the
Congress is the only enemy of the Sikhs. It is time the Badals
learnt, and the Sikh electorate too, that Sikhs have other enemies
too, and from time to time, would do well to keep up the threat of
deciding who should be anointed enemy number one during a given
phase.
In Babri times,
BJP should be the enemy number one, as it should be in Godhra times
or in Varun times. Just as the Congress has to be the enemy number
one in 1984, early 1990s, and now when it has given tickets to
Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler.
Sikhs are a
small community, and the political party which represents them will
have to get the best bargains for the community while working
throughout on consolidation so that the community is wooed by
national parties and the Badals are not forced to save their
family’s izzat by finding dalals to help trudge the road that leads
to Sirsa. Notions of alternative enemies have often been very
democratizing. But are the Sikhs ready? Or is Badal doing the right
thing?
1 April 2009
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