Bhavdeep Kang
Political instability in Punjab has historically been linked to religious polarisation, but fears that recent incidents of sacrilege may pose a threat to communal harmony are unfounded. Although the central issue is religious in nature, it involves political differences rather than revivalist tendencies.
Hindu and Sikh political leaders and organisations are very much on the same page on the desecration issue. Both have unreservedly expressed horror at the ‘beadbi’ or disrespect to the sacred text and symbols of the Sikh faith. The blame game, in this instance, is between the various Sikh groups / leaders. Hindus as a community do not figure in the debate, so the question of polarisation doesn’t arise.
The one-upmandship on the sacrilege issue began in 2015, with what is now known as the Bargari incident. It refers to a rash of desecrations in October of that year, which triggered public protests across the state. A crackdown on protesters at Behbal Kalan led to a police firing, in which two people died. The ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) reacted quickly. An investigation was launched and several people arrested. Subsequently, the Punjab government handed over the Bargari case to the CBI, and for good measure, appointed a team to investigate various instances of sacrilege. To drive home the message that it took the matter with utmost seriousness, the SAD brought a Bill to amend the Indian Penal Code, so as to allow life imprisonment in desecration cases (later revised).
Despite the incumbent SAD’s strenuous efforts, the Opposition Congress successfully leveraged the Bargari case in the 2017 state assembly elections and came to power under Captain Amarinder Singh. He appointed a judicial commission to probe the various sacrilege incidents. But in a matter of a year, the emotive issue threatened to rebound on the Congress.
The judicial commission’s report indicated that followers of the Dera Sacha Sauda head, for whom the SAD had a soft corner, may have been involved. The CBI, meanwhile, had failed to find anything substantive in the FIRs filed by the Punjab police, leading to accusations that the probe was biased. The state government accordingly withdrew the cases from the CBI, and constituted yet another investigative team.
Meanwhile, dissenters within the Congress, notably Navjot Singh Sidhu, began using the Bargari case in their campaign against the CM. The implication was that Captain had a tacit pact with Badal & Co, so their involvement in the case was soft-peddled. Matters came to a head when the High Court dismissed the Special Investigative Team’s probe into the police firing. It also indicted the SIT for ‘malice’, ‘theatrics’ and ‘absurdity’, and proposed a fresh team to investigate.
Captain Amarinder Singh, accused of colluding with the SAD, was ousted at Sidhu’s behest. Now, with another raft of desecration incidents, it is Sidhu’s turn to feel the heat. The state is witnessing a Bargari redux, the difference being that two of the sacrilege incidents have led to the lynching of the alleged perpetrators. The timing, as political observers have pointed out, is suspicious. The assembly polls are barely a month away, and experience has shown that sacrilege can quickly snowball into an election issue.
The blame game 2.0 is in full swing. For SAD leader and former CM Sukhbir Singh Badal, who was cleared by the HC of any wrongdoing, the shoe is now on the other foot. In what must be a satisfying turnabout, he is accusing the ruling Congress of “playing brazen politics over the sensitive issue of sacrilege of sacred Sikh scriptures”.
CM Charanjit Singh Channi and PCC chief Navjot Sidhu are trying to hit back at the Akalis, by reminding voters of the 2015 incident and reiterating that the SAD was “hand-in-glove with the perpetrators of this heinous crime”. However, it’s hard to ignore the fact that the recent round of sacrilege and lynchings has occurred on the Congress’ watch. So, Sidhu has been attacking his own government for ‘delayed justice’.
The Congress has also come under fire from several Sikh groups, like the Dal Khalsa, the SAD(A) and the Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Parbhandak Committee (HSGPC) who are backing an on-going protest by the families of the Bargari victims. The spate of sacrilege incidents,they claim, are a direct consequence of successive governments to deliver justice.
Deputy CM Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa is one of those accused by the protestors of shilly-shallying. His response was to urge Home minister Amit Shah to get the President’s assent on the state Bills for stringent punishment in sacrilege cases.
Captain Amarinder Singh continues to be a target for the SAD and the Congress. The ex-CM is the only leader of stature to have roundly condemned the lynchings as well as the attempted desecrations. As for the Aam Aadmi Party, the only significant political player in Punjab not involved in the imbroglio and therefore immune to finger pointing, it is a political win-win.
The BJP is treading very carefully and with good reason. The insurgency in Punjab during the early 1980s to the 1990s carried valuable lessons. For one, it fed on the irrational conviction that the central government was hostile to Punjab, and had no interest in the state’s material progress. The absence of government-sponsored industrial and infrastructure projects (the Kapurthala Coach Factory apart) lent colour to the sense of victimhood.
Hence the need to bend over backwards, to avoid any hint of an unsympathetic centre. Not only were the contentious Farm Laws withdrawn, but concessions galore offered to the farmers’ lobby after their year-long agitation. As of now, the anger of the Sikhs is directed against their own leaders. No radical agendas are at play. The centre would like to keep it that way.
