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Unveiling the Neo-Akali agenda of
Sukhbir
Shame
galore: “Our two candidates will fight on BJP symbol”
Sach Kanwal Singh
 JALANDHAR/CHANDIGARH:
In a move that most definitively underlines the neo-Akali Dal agenda
of depoliticising politics, divorcing ideology from issues, and
giving a complete go-by to tenets of religion, the new Akali Dal
brass of Sukhbir Singh Badal, guided no doubt by his father, is
turning leaves that will leave poor imprints on the community’s
destiny.
As India races towards next Parliamentary elections, Punjab’s
ruling Akali Dal’s political and electoral tie-ups give a window
into the minds of those who are guiding the affairs of the Sikhs
since they control the SGPC, Sikh institutions, gurdwaras etc, and
have a say in appointments of vice-chancellors, academics, and
setting up of new colleges and universities. These are the people
who decide which path will
Punjab’s industry
and agriculture will take, how the health care and education skew
will lessen or increase and how public policy will make or mar the
state.
Here are the choices that Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh
Badal has made so far, and a glimpse of what the community may well
expect of him as he carries forward the Akali agenda in the days,
weeks and months to come:
Punjabi pop singer Hans Raj Hans is Akali Dal’s new mascot,
its new star. Hans has had a mixed repertoire, dancing and singing
with semi-clad girls on the stage, dabbling with sufi poetry,
courting an image of a pop-age darvesh with long hair and mannerisms
thrown in, close brushes with powers of the day, singing songs from
public stages in praise of Sonia Gandhi, picking up awards like Raj
Kavi and being “like a son” to both Amarinder Singh of Congress and
Parkash Singh Badal of Akali Dal. Now, he has joined the Akali Dal,
and about ten minutes after such a grand entry in the presence of
Sukhbir Singh Badal, he was also rewarded with the Lok Sabha ticket
from Jalandhar.
 Hans
these days has also another avatar: He is Sayeen (head) of the Lal
Badshah Da Darbar in Nakodar Khas near Jalandhar. It is sort of a
Sufi place, and is sociologically located on the intersection of
Islam, Dalit and Sufism.
So far Akali Dal has neither tried to problematise the
domain, nor has there been any serious discussion within the
community about the nature of such an interface between Punjab’s
dalits and sufism, tempered by many Islamic traditions, nor have we
studied the interaction between Sikhism and such dargah culture.
But the brave president of Akali Dal, Sukhbir Singh Badal,
coupled with the influence of a Jalandhar newspaper magnate who
dabbles in politics with every breath, news item and picture, and
the typical Sukhbir-generation agenda of di-Sikhization of Akali Dal,
secularization of polity, delinking from Punjab issues and disowning
the legacy of the Sikh aspirational struggle of the 1980s-90s, have
all combined to give us these results.
Hence, all those who have enjoyed Hans’ albums, and those who
know their place in development of cultural traditions, may have
Hans as a Parliamentarian.
Here are other choices already made clear by Sukhbir Singh
Badal: Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal will be Akali
Dal candidate for the newly carved Parliamentary seat of Fatehgarh
Sahib, no doubt for his sterling performance as Deputy Speaker which
may have escaped you. Not Atwal’s fault. The poor guy does only what
“Badal Sahib” says and cannot be faulted on his one repeatedly
self-confessed quality. Former Union minister Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa
will be SAD candidate from Sangrur, an achievement that comes from a
firm underlining of the fact that he cannot and will not be a threat
to the generational power-shift of Badals and shall go along as long
as his son also gets a slice of the power cake. Plea bargain system,
you see. Sitting MP Rattan Singh Ajnala will fight from the Khadoor
Sahib seat with his panthic credentials intact and hidden. In fact,
he has been able to hide all his abilities as a Parliamentarian all
these five years.
As for the churnings and discussions and debate within the
rest of the party, here is the one final stroke that shall convince
anyone of the fate of the traditions of discourse (Goshthhi) among
the party that claimed to represent the Panth for decades before
Sukhbir happened: The core committee of the Shiromani Akali Dal met
in Chandigarh on Tuesday, and decided that things were just too
complicated for everyone to sit, discuss and unravel, and the party
should take a more intellectual and imaginative route. Besides, it
is something time tested.
Hence, Sukhbir Singh Badal was authorized to select the
President of the SGPC, to select the office bearers of the SGPC, to
select the rest of the candidates for Lok Sabha, to select the Akali
Dal candidates for Delhi Assembly elections, to look into any
possibilities of tie ups with other political parties, to guide
preparation of a fresh manifesto for the party for upcoming
elections, to guide formation and work of a committee to deal with
any emerging issues in the run up to the elections and a few more
important issues.
Without of course waiting for even a minute of discussion on
any of this, Sukhbir was quick to tell waiting journalists: “There
is no rift between SAD and BJP, the coalition partners, on the issue
of seat sharing.” He said the ticket from Jalandhar has been
allotted to Hans under a strategy, but did not reveal the strategy.
No one even asked. “But that does not mean that every newcomer will
be allotted a ticket,” he said. Oh, thank you. Some hearts may have
been broken, Sukhbir, but surely no one takes such things seriously.
Poor Sharanjit Singh Dhillon was clinging to every word from
Sukhbir’s lips but he did not get to hear his own name for Ludhiana
Parliament seat.
And as for the secularization process, Sukhbir Singh Badal
did not twitch for a second when he informed the media that he has
already arrived at a seat-sharing formula for
Delhi polls. “The
Shiromani Akali Dal will contest two seats on its own party symbol
and the remaining two on the BJP’s,” he said.
So here you are:
Akali Dal as a wing of the BJP, clearly enunciated by the Akali Dal
president in a public press conference. So what do we wait for next?
The BJP and RSS leaders fighting SGPC elections on Akali Dal ticket?
Why not? In these divisive times, it will be Akali Dal’s ace to
prove it stands for communal harmony and universal distribution of
spoils.
12 November
2008
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