The furious controversy over the army’s action in the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar will continue to rage for quite some time. In view of the passions that have been aroused, it cannot possibly end soon.
In political terms, this is by far the most dangerous development in the country since partition in 1947. On its outcome will depend India’s future. So it is not easy for any one of us to place himself above the controversy. Everyone is inclined to be a partisan, whether he knows it or not. This applies as much to those who talk of applying the healing touch to the wounded susceptibilities of the Sikhs as to the protagonists of rival viewpoints.
Serious Limitations
But amidst this passionate debate, it would be useful to take note of certain facts, one of them being that no controversy is ever settled on the strength of arguments and counter-arguments alone. While debates are necessary and useful in a democracy, other factors come into play. It was, for example, not on the strength of superior arguments that the forces of national unity prevailed over the merchants of communal hate after partition in 1947 and subsequently, or over the advocates of the class struggle in Telengana in 1948-49 and in West Bengal and elsewhere in the seventies, or over Naga and Mizo “nationalisms” in the fifties, sixties and seventies. It is not because the DMK in its various incarnations found itself defeated in a debate that it decided to function within the parameters of the Constitution. It did so because, in the existing correlation of forces, its leaders found discretion the better part of valour.
This is not an argument for the continued application of force by the state. Only the naive can believe in the efficacy of this remedy. The others recognise that all use of force is invariably subject to serious limitations. Indeed, it can be self-defeating unless appropriate political measures are taken at the appropriate time. For instance, the then Indian leaders could have placed the Indian state in grave difficulty if after the Telengana operation they had barred the parliamentary path for the communists and thereby driven them to extremism and continued reliance on violence.
But there is the other side of the coin, which is that in the absence of a successful operation in Telengana, the government could not have “persuaded” the CPI to adhere to constitutional means in its search for power. Imagine the result if, instead of sending the army to clear up the communist-terrorist hideouts in Telengana, Sardar Patel had invited Mr BT Ranadive for “negotiations” to settle the grievances of the people in that region. Mr Ranadive would in all probability have spurned the invitation and pressed ahead with his violent campaign for the liquidation of the “pro- imperialist feudal-bourgeois state.”
Argument by analogy is often risky. For no parallel is even exact. The differences between the communists and the Akalis are obvious. The former, for example, could not draw on the kind of primordial loyalties the latter can. The social base of the communists was also much smaller than that of the Akalis. The difference between the Indian state then and now is equally striking. The state machinery was then in excellent shape; it inspired both respect and awe. Now it is a shambles, especially in Punjab where the Akali challenge needs to be met.
It is, therefore, difficult to say whether the elimination of Bhindranwale and his gang will do to the Akalis what the liquidation of communist terrorism in Telengana did to the CPI, that is induce them to accept in course of time the compulsion to respect the spirit of the Constitution. It is equally difficult to say whether the present Indian leadership possesses the kind of staying power its predecessor did. As an individual, Mrs Gandhi might well be tougher than her father. But she is a harassed and maligned person; time is not on her side; and she presides over a Congress party which is a ghost of its former self. But one should not be wholly pessimistic. It is not impossible that once the lesson of the liquidation of the apostle of violence and his band of criminals sinks in, the Akalis will see the wisdom of functioning as members of the larger Indian community.
Implicit in this assessment is the proposition that they have not so behaved in the last two years. This will be questioned on the strength of the familiar argument that the official Akali leaders were opposed to violence, that they conducted a peaceful agitation and that their demands were legitimate. This argument is not incontrovertible, as its proponents would like to believe. For no honest person can dispute that the Akali opposition to violence was lukewarm. Sant Longowal was not even prepared to admit that Bhindranwale and his men were responsible for it. He pretended that the government was getting innocent people killed in order to discredit the movement. So, as it happened, the Akalis created an atmosphere in which extremism, violence and crime could prosper without let or hindrance till the beginning of June when Mrs Gandhi finally decided to act in the only effective manner open to her.
Deep Bearing
Akali sympathisers have argued that Sant Longowal and his supporters were too terrorised by Bhindranwale and his men to be able to speak and act as free men. That might well have been the case. But when did this situation arise? When the campaign of assassination and terrorisation began against the poor Nirankaris in the late seventies? This issue of the campaign against the Nirankaris has now been pushed into the background as if it has had nothing to do with what has happened in the past two years. In fact, it has had a deep bearing on subsequent developments. Those who will not let the Nirankaris practise their version of the Sikh faith in peace will not agree to live as peaceful and law-abiding citizens of secular India.
The Akalis do not recognise a separation between religion and politics in their own case. It has perhaps never even occurred to them that they would be in an unenviable position if other larger sections of Indian society also behaved in the same way and that their kind of politics is a standing repudiation of the spirit of the Constitution. So it was perhaps natural for them to have mixed religious, economic and political demands. But they produced a witches’ brew, the consequences of which are there for anyone to see. The brew would have spawned a Bhindranwale if one did not exist.
It has been all too widely assumed that there was a leadership struggle between the “moderates” headed by Sant Longowal and the extremist Bhindranwale. Perhaps there was. But the evidence is pretty thin. Bhindranwale asked for the acceptance of the same Anandpur Sahib resolution as did the Akalis. While he doubtless had a band of his own, he laid no claim to the leadership of the Dal. Instead he acted as if he was a presiding deity. Perhaps he would have outbid the official Akali leaders and come out openly in favour of Khalistan if they had reached an accord with the government. But that is speculation. He did not need to outbid Sant Longowal.
It is also a matter of conjecture that, but for Bhindranwale’s opposition, the Longowal group would have secured a Hukumnama (order) from the five priests of the Akal Takht against the killing of innocent Hindus. The fact is that no such Hukumnama was issued and the killing went on. Incidentally, no Sikh intellectual has seen fit to note this fact. There was, of course, a difference between the two groups. Sant Longowal and Mr Tohra were not prepared to die, Bhindranwale was. But that cannot be cited as proof of the proposition that their objectives were different.
It would be regarded as impolitic and indiscreet to draw attention to the similarities between the Akali Dal and the Muslim League before partition and to the fact that, just as the League could take advantage of the Muslim majority in the north-west and Bengal, so the Dal can press the advantage the Sikh majority in Punjab gives it. But it might be pertinent to do so, if only because it is more than possible that the similarity worried Mrs Gandhi and led her to conclude that just as Mr Jinnah followed his 14-point programme with the demand for Pakistan, the Akalis would follow the Anandpur Sahib resolution with the demand for Khalistan. If the policy of appeasement in the thirties can haunt western governments, there is no reason why the history of partition should not haunt Mrs Gandhi who does not suffer from loss of memory, as many Indians do. Akali partisans certainly rewrote history, as did League partisans, to make out not only that the Hindus had always conspired against the Panth but even that the conflict with the Moghuls in the 17th and 18th centuries was the result of Hindu machinations.
It can well be argued that anyone who takes such a dim view of Akali politics cannot be justified in expecting its evolution towards genuine constitutionalism and concern for national unity, and security. But that would be a superficial view of history. Even powerful forces can feel obliged to change course and seek accommodation, provided, of course, the opponents are strong and determined enough.
Search For Miracles
As a people, we have little appetite for the step-by-step and painstaking approach. We look for miracles. The search has already begun in this case. But those who are in charge of the country’s affairs and destiny at this critical stage cannot afford the luxury of joining the miracle-seekers. They have to do their duty as they have themselves defined it even if in the process they have to go against the national grains. They have to eliminate the terrorists and their criminal friends, whatever it takes and however long it takes to do so, and they have to reorganise drastically the Punjab administration, large sections of which, on the Union home secretary’s own admission, have collaborated with the Akalis, the terrorists and the insurgents.
The Times of India, 20 June 1984