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The House of Badals
Sach Kanwal Singh
 Regional
party satraps in India are becoming some kind of feudal political
landlords who first succeed in playing up regional aspirations and
then gradually get a vice like grip on the party, preferring to run
it like a family owned business.
Prakash Singh
Badal-Sukhbir Singh Badal in Punjab, Mulayam Singh Yadav-Akhilesh
Yadav-Dimple Yadav in Uttar Pradesh, Karunanidhi-Stalin in Tamil
Nadu, Bal Thackeray-Udhaav Thackeray in Maharashtra, Chautalas in
Haryana or the Abdullahs in Kashmir. Democratic norms are mostly
seen being violated rather than observed, and a passing over of the
baton to the son or daughter is taken for granted.
Trigger a
private conversation with any of the Akali Dal leaders and you are
likely to listen to the same complaint. But not one leader has the
guts to come out in the open and question the Badal family's grip on
the party. Top party forums like the Political Affairs Committee
have been rendered useless, decisions are taken behind closed doors,
meetings are mostly used to express and reiterate continued loyalty
to senior or junior Badal and then end after giving all rights to
Sukhbir Singh Badal.
Any out of the
way remark or even expression of a wish to put up something for
debate is taken as a measure of some kind of aspiration and is dealt
with sternly. The Dhindsas, the Brahampuras have all been taken care
of. Those who think of fighting the system also gradually fall pray
to similar weaknesses.
 And
no one had any hope that the Barnalas will be any different, and
they haven't turned out to be. Surprisingly, most people in
Punjab
have started taking it for granted now that a son or daughter of an
Akali leader will be some how "accommodated".
In a recent
interview of Harsimrat Kaur Badal aired on Lok Sabha television, she
was happily prattling about how when her father-in-law sent her to
Parliament, she did not even know how the legislative house
functioned and was a "babe in the woods" in her own words. Well, all
marks to Harsimrat for being candid but what does it say about the
senior Badal who employs such wonderful ways for finding the right
candidate to be sent to Parliament to take care of Punjab's
interests.
The Indian
Express recently interviewed Shahid Siddiqui, general secretary of
the Bahujan Samaj Party, who, the newspaper claimed, spoke about
"the unspeakable" and questioned his leader Mayawati. All that
Shahid Siddiqui wanted to say was that there’s neither debate nor
discussion in regional parties "because each is now run by
individuals and their families rather than institutions."
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There is no
transparency in the way decisions are taken and the party shuns
any serious discussion in the media. Interviews of the Badals
are mostly answers scribbled by their hired scribes to emailed
questionnaires while TV appearances are either on a safe
channel, preferably one called PTC, or with a safe interviewer.
On most national issues, Akali Dal leaders normally do not have
a view or ask the BJP if it has a view that the Akalis can
adopt. |
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Next day,
Mayawati threw her out of the party. The fate of anyone trying to
talk about lack of democratic tradition in the Akali Dal will be no
different. No wonder, the party has not once discussed the case in
which it has been caught red handed with two Constitutions instead
of one. One version of the Constitution that proves it a "secular"
party was meant for the Election Commission of India while the
second version was meant for Chief Election Commissioner for
Gurdwara elections.
Shahid Siddiqui
minced no words in saying that “decisions are taken somewhere else."
He said people like Bal Thackeray, Prakash Karat who have not been
to Parliament, and those like Mayawati and Chandrababu Naidu who are
not MPs themselves, control party MPs. Well, so does Sukhbir Singh
Badal. They tell MPs what to say and what not to.
You receive
orders from the top. No discussions take place. In these meetings,
Mayawati comes, speaks, and goes away. Senior leaders stand up and
shout slogans. This was Shahid Siddiqui about Mayawati. Does anyone
seriously think it is any different in Akali Dal core group
meetings?
When was the
last time the Akali Dal actually discussed why it has moved so far
away from the panthic agenda? Was it the party's decision to ask the
government to allow the conclave of Ashutosh Maharaj in
Ludhiana?
Did the aprty advise the government not to allow the conclave?
When was the
issue of raising a memorial to the martyrs of Operation Bluestar
discussed at the level of the Akali Dal? When did circle jathedars
meet to take a view on it? When was the PAC apprised of the view of
the circle jathedars after such a meeting?
Who took the
decision not to raise the matter of 25th anniversary of 1984
massacre of Sikhs in Parliament? If Tarlochan Singh had moved a
resolution in Parliament, what had stopped Akali Dal from moving a
Resolution? Why has the Akali Dal not moved a Resolution so far in
Parliament condemning the murder of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002? Why
are we not aware of the Akali Dal's stance on the Armed Forces
Special Powers Act in Meghalaya and elsewhere?
 Siddiqui
was not hesitant to name Akali Dal also among the parties that have
been reduced into family parties. It is time these family
enterprises understood that the viability of the party will remain
only as long as it stays with the agenda.
There is no
transparency in the way decisions are taken and the parties shun any
serious discussion in the media. Interviews of Prakash Singh Badal
or Sukhbir Singh Badal are mostly answers scribbled by their hired
scribes to emailed questionnaires. Their TV appearances are either
on a safe channel, preferably one called the PTC, or with a safe
interviewer. On most national issues, Akali Dal leaders normally do
not have a view or ask the BJP if it has a view that the Akalis can
adopt.
Party bosses
take decisions on national issues based on their personal interests,
that of their family or of their financiers. Even in parties like
the Congress, BJP and the Left, though members seldom speak their
mind to the leader, there is still a system, some lingering remnants
of the old frameworks of debate but in regional parties, there is
little hope of any corrective.
Sikh groups
across the world had suavely articulated a position against the
Indo-US nuclear treaty but when the Akali Dal was to oppose the
treaty, it simply borrowed the BJP line, hook and sinker. No wonder,
it cut a sorry figure in Punjab. When it came to Gujarat riots, the
Sikh voice was not heard all over the country because the Akalis
were too hesitant to criticize Narendra Modi.
If the Akali Dal
does not push for 1984 massacre justice, it is also because one of
the names involved, that of Indian Minister Kamal Nath, is very evry
close family chum of the Badals. Who is not aware of the family ties
of Kamal Nath’s wife with a leading woman family member of the
Badals?
That’s the
problem with being a party of a family. Rest of the Akalis are
trying to become some sort of extended family members, but they must
understand that unlike core committees, the Badal family core can
only include a Prakash and a Sukhbir. At least till Sukhbir’s son
grows up. Till then, they have a lot of time to either decide to
call a spade a spade or suffer insults heaped by a bloody shovel
from the House of Badals.
16
December 2009
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