In Punjab, a political vacuum and remote control bring back the K-word

An armed mob overran a big police station near the border, a suspect was freed, and then the State said 'sorry'. You have to be nuts to think there will be no consequences

If the visuals we have seen from Amritsar these past couple of days – a radical mob of followers of the new charismatic and radical preacher Amritpal Singh overrunning the Ajnala police station – do not jolt us, it shows how indifferent and lazy we've become on the critical issues of supreme national interest. 

They stormed a police station next to the border with Pakistan — as sensitive a zone as you can name. They forced the state to release one of theirs arrested for kidnapping. Watch those craven, grovelling videos of the Amritsar police saying that the protesters have proved that the charges were fake and that the police believed them and were withdrawing the FIR.

Thank you, sir ji. This is the new bleeding heart Punjab Police we've lived long enough to see.

Punjab Police made some such surrenders in the post-1978 epoch of militancy, but with a demonstration of embarrassment and helplessness.

In 2023, it has been done with a straight face, with much relief. And this is in a state where even an FIR for a fake bicycle theft charge is near-impossible to erase until a person's death.

Not for three decades, in fact, not since V P Singh's disastrous daily-wage government traded those arrested militants for then Home Minister Mufti Mohammad Saeed's daughter Rubaiya, have we seen the State capitulate like this.

Think. A big police station right on the border was overrun by a mob armed with swords and firearms, an arrested suspect was freed, and then the State said, "sorry, we were in the wrong". You have to be nuts to imagine this will have no consequences. Nothing will please me more than to be proven wrong on this in the times to come. The cruel fact, however, is that we are repeating the mistakes of a bad past in Punjab. 

No government, not that of Punjab or even the Centre, probably focused, sthitaprajna (one with steady intellect), as we know from the Mahabharat, on fighting Rahul Gandhi, has expressed alarm yet. Escapism is no plan or solution. But, for what's going on in Punjab, I find it impossible to avoid unleashing that awful cliche on you: we have seen this movie before.

The last time we saw it, say from 1979 to 1993, it was like a horror film that never ended. It consumed tens of thousands of innocent lives from all communities, though mostly Sikh and Hindu, saw countless assassinations, a controversial military operation at a scale never before (and hopefully never after), strained communal relations and a generation-long alienation. It took 15 years to begin the return to normalcy. 

The Ajnala episode is similar to how troubles began on Baisakhi day, April 13, 1978, except for two differences. One, there was bloodletting and death that day as a group of Bhindranwale's supporters protesting at a Nirankari sect congregation were fired at in Amritsar. By God's grace, we haven't seen violence even at a fraction of that scale now.

If you are relieved with a sense of "so far, so good", I underline the other difference for you. Bhindranwale never, ever used the word "Khalistan". Never.

Many journalists met and interviewed him; I did so nearly 20 times in 1983-84, and he never mentioned the word. In fact, even the last time I saw him in his huddle with key lieutenants at the Akal Takht, his last appearance when the Army had already begun encirclement of the temple complex in Operation Bluestar, he did not ask for a sovereign state.

In his last weeks, as tensions were rising and a military-style operation was looking inevitable, he changed his tone but was careful with his words.

We asked him often — on the record — if he wanted Khalistan or what he thought of the demand. He would now say, with a mischievous smile, "I never asked for Khalistan. But if the 'bibi' (the lady, as he referred to Indira Gandhi) gave it to me, I will not say no."

Amritpal Singh has been using that K-word from Day 1. 

Of course, he packages it as simply a demand for self-determination, which he asserted should be anybody's right in a democracy. Then he goes on to say that if Amit Shah says he will crush the "Khalistan movement", he'd rather first remember the fate Indira Gandhi met for making the same boast.

Part of the old movie/new movie story is the state's politics. Punjab's post-Independence history tells us that the state sees a crisis whenever it has weak leadership, a leader seemingly controlled by Delhi and incapable of keeping Sikh religiosity in his political tent. The definition of "weak" is particularly nuanced in Punjab and isn't determined by the size of an elected government's majority. Or there'd be no issue now.

The state needs a strong individual as chief minister. The party in power also doesn't matter so much. Partap Singh Kairon ran a Congress government from 1956 until he was assassinated on February 6, 1965, on the way to Chandigarh on GT Road near Sonepat. Punjabi Suba (a separate state for Punjabi speakers, a code for Sikh majority) remained mostly dormant and sprung right back to the forefront. The state was divided in 1966.

Things were calmer for a few years until a Congress government under Giani Zail Singh took over in 1972.

Two things need to be noted. He was no strong man like Kairon and wasn't a Jatt Sikh. He was a Ramgarhia, the carpenter caste that's an OBC today. This brings us to the second peculiarity of Punjab politics. It needs a strong leader, a Sikh, and then a Jatt. In fact, Giani ji would often say ruefully that he might be the last non-Jatt chief minister of Punjab.

He tried his best to win over the Sikhs by pivoting to religiosity. Among the more interesting, less remembered, but relatively harmless things he did was to bring to India from Britain "descendants of Guru Gobind Singh's horses." He then marched them in a ceremonial religious procession across the state, retracing the tenth Guru's great journey.

The second was ultimately disastrous. He sought a deeply religious Sikh who'd embarrass the Akali Dal in the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) elections. That's how he talent-hunted Bhindranwale. We know the rest.

The equally important point is that this phase of radicalism didn't just begin with the arrival of Bhindranwale. Within a year of Zail Singh being sworn in, the Akali Dal had passed the Anandpur Sahib Resolution, 1973, demanding autonomy that would take them beyond where Article 370 had left Jammu & Kashmir. Again, the combination of a weak, if wily non-Jatt leader controlled by Delhi had created the space for radicalism.

Akali Dal came to power post Emergency, and then Indira Gandhi blundered in dismissing Parkash Singh Badal's second government using Article 356 once she returned in 1980. Darbara Singh was now weak, not even wily, and totally run from Delhi, mostly by Zail Singh's home ministry. This new space became the playground for Bhindranwale, though the bugle was first sounded by the Akali Dal at Anandpur Sahib in 1973. Please note again, Punjab needs a strong Jatt Sikh leader, one whose politics can subsume Sikh religiosity, and one seen to be his own boss, not run by Delhi. Among all of India's states, Punjab, especially the Sikhs, have the strongest anti-Delhi (domination) sentiment.

From there, we have come to a stage of calm where nobody, not even an Akali Dal out of power, talks about even Anandpur Sahib resolution or autonomy. At this juncture, we see the rise of a man who begins his conversations with the demand of Khalistan.

How and why has this space been created? Does Punjab have a strong leader? What happens when Punjab is seen to be governed from Delhi? Does today's power politics in the state have the ability to keep Sikh leaders, elites, sentiments and religiosity under its tent? Can we balance this new wave of radicalism with free power, better schools and hospitals? Finally, can we do any of this when radicals can overrun our police stations, and our top officers go out with public apologies instead of taking action? I leave you with these questions.

By Special Arrangement with ThePrint