It is difficult to say whether the current Akali agitation represents the last flicker of resistance to the process of national integration, or a new phase in the rise of Sikh sub-nationalism or even nationalism. The answer is likely to depend as much on how the Akalis behave in coming months and years as on the presence or absence of an effective central government in New Delhi.
On the face of it, the Akalis are an aggressive lot. There are, of course, some moderates among them, the former Punjab chief Minister, Mr. Prakash Singh Badal, for instance. But the moderates are generally helpless against the extremists. Today even Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale may be finding it necessary to see to it that he is not outflanked by murder squads on the one hand and secessionists on the other. Violence and the language of extremism and secession apparently have a strong appeal for a section of the Sikh community. Behind this self-confident and aggressive face of the Akalis, however, lies a deeper reality which is that they have been as much victims as makers of modern Indian history.
The story goes back to the early part of the century when an awareness of a separate and distinct identity began to grow among the Sikhs as a result of the Western impact on them, and they decided to place a distance between themselves and the Hindus. The spread of the Arya Samaj movement among the Hindus strengthened this trend as did the rise of “reformers” among the Sikhs and the introduction of separate electorate by the British who favoured the Sikhs in Punjab at the expense of the Muslims, giving them 19 per cent seats in the state legislature though they constituted about 13 per cent of the population. By the late thirties the Akali Dal, like the Muslim League had come to think in terms of and speak the language of separation.
But unlike in the case of the Muslims who were a significant majority in the areas which now constitute Pakistan and Bangladesh, the incipient Sikh nationalism could not lay a sustainable claim to a specific territory. So it was doomed to be frustrated and it was frustrated. Partition split the Sikh community into almost two equal halves. But for the fact of their exodus from West Punjab en masse, this development would have greatly weakened the influence of the Sikhs in India.
Partition Aftermath
History moves in strange ways. The catastrophe of partition gave the Sikhs a majority in the western part of Indian Punjab, a majority they had not possessed in any group of districts in united Punjab. If a third party was still in a position to act as the arbiter of India’s fate as the British were before 1947, the Akalis would almost certainly have asked for a separate sovereign state of their own. But there was no such third party in India. Indeed, the Congress leadership was soon able to demonstrate its capacity to manage the country’s affairs and to resist any sort of external interference.
It was against this background that the Akalis under Master Tara Singh’s leadership raised the demand for a Punjabi suba. It represented a fall-back position for them. They opted for it because they had failed to realize their original demand for a separate Sikh state. Inevitably, the Union government headed by Mr. Nehru was distrustful of and unsympathetic to this demand and the Punjabi Hindus positively hostile to it. This hostility on the part of the Hindus in the state found expression in their decision at the time of the 1951 census to declare Hindi and not Punjabi as their mother tongue.
Finally, in 1966, the Akalis were able to force their demand on the Union government. Faced with Sant Fateh Singh’s threat to immolate himself in the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Mrs. Gandhi acceded to it. But this was a pyrrhic victory for the Akalis. While under the one-man one-vote constitutional arrangement, they could not fully dominate the newly created Punjabi-speaking state, they lost influence in those parts of Punjab which came to constitute Haryana. Since then the Akalis have been drifting, not quite knowing what to do. The present agitation is at once a result and an expression of this confusion.
This is not to suggest that the Akalis are not earnest about their specific demands in respect of Chandigarh, river waters and certain territories now belonging to Haryana. They obviously are and an agreement on these demands between them and the Centre will lead to the withdrawal of the agitation. But that can provide only a temporary respite. For, the Akalis are not willing to accept the logic of Indian nationalism and of the constitutional processes which recognise the individual (and not groups) as the primary unit of the Indian state.
Desire For Identity
I have long held and expressed the view that the Hindus are not a community, however we may define the term community, and that, therefore, it is absurd to think and talk in majority-minority terms in our country. But in the present context the more pertinent point is that no group or community, however self-conscious, can function as a monolith in the political sphere under the existing constitutional arrangements whereby the country is divided into so many parliamentary and vidhan sabha constituencies and the individual is recognised as the foundation of the Indian state.
The system of proportional representation would, of course, have worked very differently. That could have consolidated religious and caste groups into a political force and led either to chaos and disintegration or to chaos and dictatorship. In such an eventuality, the Hindus too, might have achieved the impossible and begun to function as a political force. This too would have been disastrous. For such a development would have denied the minorities the assurance which the confederal nature of the Hindu society gives them. That, however, is a separate issue.
The Sikhs (the Akalis among them) have taken full advantage of the existing constitutional arrangements. They have spread to all parts of the country and everywhere they have prospered. But economic well-being has not satisfied them because it has not catered to their desire for a distinct political identity and power based on it. That is precisely why from time to time they imagine grievances. They need to cultivate this sense of grievance in order to continue to resist the process of homogenization which is what national integration means in the final analysis.
Two issues are involved in this debate. First the Akalis are reluctant to come to terms with the fact that in a secular democracy of the Indian variety, it is not possible to combine religion and politics, that is, while it is legitimate for them to define their identity in religious terms, they cannot function in the political arena on the basis of that identity. They have to function as individuals and voters in specific constituencies and they need to secure the cooperation of the Hindus in Punjab if they are to enjoy power in the state.
Secondly, the Akalis, like their counterparts among other minorities, have been refusing to face the reality that the process of modernization gradually erodes religious-cultural identities and promotes homogenization. That is what the Americans mean when they describe their country as a melting pot. The United States has been a melting pot partly because the forces of traditionalism are weak in a society of immigrants and partly because the forces of modernization such education, transport, communication, industry and commerce have been very strong.
Modernization Process
We have taken pride in the fact that every group has preserved its identity and every form of civilisation has survived in our country. But this has been so not because we are a special kind of people but because the forces which make for modernization have been weak. It is, for example, only now that we have come some way towards building to national communication and transportation systems, or spreading mass education, or establishing a national market. Diversity is another name for social fragmentation which disappears as modernization and with it the integration of a society proceeds.
In this regard, another point may be made. The minorities in India, first a section of the Muslims and now a section of the Sikhs, have behaved as if the “threat” to their identity has come only from the so-called majority community. The reality in fact has been quite different. The “threat” has come from the modernization process which transforms the human personality by weakening the hold of institutionalized religion on it and by strengthening the pull of secular goals for it.
Ironically but not surprisingly, the strongest advocates of separate identity are precisely those elites who have moved away from tradition under the western impact. This was true of the Muslim intelligentsia before independence and it is true of the Sikh intelligentsia now. One can sympathize with them but one cannot pander to them, not only in the interest of the country as a whole, but also in the interest of the two communities themselves.
There were Muslim leaders before partition who realized that the philosophy of a separate identity and nationhood would be a disaster for the Muslims. Similarly, there are Sikh leaders who recognise that extremism will put into jeopardy the impressive gains that the community has made since independence. But just as the sensible Muslims were in a minority in their community before independence, so are sensible Sikh leaders in theirs. That makes it difficult for Mrs. Gandhi to be tough with the extremists. Even otherwise, it is advisable for her to be patient provided, of course, the impression is not created that the central authority is on the run and can be frightened into abdicating its responsibility to maintain law and order. National integration is a painful and prolonged process. It cannot be avoided but it need not be pushed beyond a point. It is bound to take time; meanwhile, some periods of stress and strain are inevitable.
The Times of India, 11 May 1983