Abstract
The volume attempts a detailed analysis of the ups and downs in Akali politics from its inception to the present day in the context of the strife-ridden political mosaic of Punjab politics. Narang has tried to contextualise his findings in the background of the continuing relevance of religion in the modern age of globalisation.
The Akali Dal was born in 1920 to defend the economic and political interests of the Sikhs and rose to prominence in the trail of the Gurdwara movement to purge Sikhism of Hindu forms of worship.
Independence came with a bifurcated Punjab and a large influx of refugees from Pakistan. This started a new political era when the Sikhs found themselves in a position to carve out a new suba for themselves as the small princely states of Patiala and East Punjab States (PEPSU) were united with eastern Punjab. The Akalis now took up the cause of a Punjabi suba. But the central government was scared of such an entity, as Punjab was a border state juxtaposed between Pakistan and terror-ridden Kashmir. However, Sikh sacrifices in the 1965 war against Pakistan made it imperative that some concessions were made. At last when the Punjabi suba was conceded it was done with many riders. A new state of Haryana was carved out of areas of Hindu–Punjabi concentration, and Punjab had to share its capital Chandigarh as well as a common governor, a common high court and important public utilities like electricity Board, Housing Corporation and Financial Corporation.
This was the beginning of an era of dirty Congress politics. Taking advantage of the divisions in Punjabi society among Jats and Mazhabis, rurals and urbanites, the Congress tried to drive a wedge between them. The Akalis had initially allied with them for their pro-peasant stand. But the provision of equal rights for women in the Hindu Code Bill threatened agricultural holdings with sub-infeudation and alienated them. The Congress alliance with the CPI further scared the Jat zamindars, who formed the backbone of the Akali Dal.
Akali tied up with the Jan Sangh, and the CPI strengthened their secular credentials and made them acceptable to Hindus. However, it antagonised the rural interests, and the Akali government fell.
Kapur Singh’s definition of the Akali goal as an autonomous state in a well-demarcated territory within free India once again revived their popularity, and they could form government as the single largest party in Punjab in 1969.
The Akalis now pursued their demand for the sole control of Chandigarh with renewed zeal, and Darshan Singh Pherumon died fasting after 74 days in October 1969. But the central government still dragged its feet. Chandigarh was conceded in exchange for the cotton-rich districts of Abohar and Fazilka in Haryana. The latter was to have a 7-km-long corridor through Punjab and Rajasthan to gain access to these places. The whole thing was deliberately kept complicated, as I.K. Gujral saw it, to avoid settlement.
Indira Gandhi’s success in the Bangladesh War of 1971 brought an Indira wave, and the Congress made a clean sweep in the 1972 elections in Punjab, as well as elsewhere. This made the Akalis retreat to their Panthic role, and Kapur Singh and Surjit Singh Barnala now tried to rally the Sikhs behind the Anandpur Resolution in 1973, defining the Sikhs as a nation. However, its impact was only peripheral at that time.
The Akalis joined Jay Prakash Narayan in his opposition to the Emergency of 1975. They took the lead in the formation of the Janata Party, with 409 jail detenu members of opposition parties. This secured a sweeping victory in the 1977 elections.
The Congress now hit on a plan to tarnish the moderate image of Badal. They sought and found a religious character in the Damdama Taksal, a religious seminary for the dissemination of Sikhism. This was Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who was groomed by Sanjay Gandhi and Giani Zail Singh to make extremist and pro-Panthic statements, and the Dal Khalsa was created with a few former Naxalites, who started raising demand for Khalistan. This left no option for other leaders like Longowal or Tohra, keen to capture the presidency of the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), but to raise their voice even higher. The Congress now dug out the Anandpur Sahib Resolution of 1973 and started accusing the Akalis.
Bhindranwale now took shelter in the Akal Takht of the Golden Temple, knowing it to be inviolable and kept on making provocative declarations. There were several incidents of the murder of Hindus by pulling them out of Punjab buses. The government of Punjab also stopped the food consignments to the rest of India, plunging the country into a food crisis. Indira Gandhi tried negotiating with the Akali leaders Tohra and Longowal, but the situation had gone out of their hands. Indira Gandhi then permitted the Indian Army to conduct the infamous Operation Blue Star in the Golden Temple from 3 to 6 June 1984 to dig out Bhindranwale. Retribution came quick, and the PM had to pay with her life for the injury she had caused to Sikh pride and religious sensibilities.
More outrageous was the Operation Wood Rose to hunt down young Sikh militants. This was followed by a decade-long period of militancy to avenge the desecration of the Golden Temple and the deprivation of the faithful of their right to restore it by voluntary service.
Peace returned to the province only in 1996, followed by the restoration of the ShiromaniAkali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party (SAD-BJP) alliance in 1997. But the post-Green Revolution drug addiction and agrarian crisis had gone too far to be tackled. The Akali leaders were found to be engaging in self-empowerment and favouritism. The Congress could thus make a comeback in 2002 in the Assembly elections, but they too were ridden with factionalism. The SAD returned to power in 2007, and the SAD–BJP alliance lasted till 2019, when the unpopular Kissan Bills compelled them to leave the alliance.
Meanwhile, the Aam Aadmi Party was taking rapid strides to capture more and more vote share in the province. In 2022, they finally routed the Akalis and captured power in the province.
Narang’s pen has captured the ups and downs in Akali politics over the past 100 years with a remarkable objectivity and clarity. It is commendable how he could feel the apprehension of Hindus, recently uprooted from Pakistan, about a Sikh dominated state. We can feel his despair at the wicked communal conflict in which Congress had involved the province through its diabolical policy and his relief at the restoration of normalcy in the province. The hangovers of the Green Revolution and the corruption haunting the pristine purity of the Akalis disappoint him. But he never hesitated to tell the truth. It is not an easy job to trace the vicissitudes of a party over 100 years, and we cannot but credit Narang for doing his job honestly.