It is only proper that the army has been withdrawal from the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar immediately on the completion of repairs to the Akal Takht and other buildings. Since it had to be pulled out one day, it is as well that this has been done without loss of time. A case can be made to show that the Union government has acted under duress. The five head priests, clearly acting on behalf of, and as mouthpieces of, the SGPC and the Akali Dal, had served notice that they would launch a morcha on October 1 in case the government did not withdraw the army from the temple by then. It will be less than honest to say that the authorities have not been influenced by this threat; they have clearly done their best to meet the deadline. But on the basic issue of pulling out the army, they did not have a choice. They had to withdraw it one day. If that is so, there was nothing to be gained by delaying it in order to test the strength of the Akalis and their supporters. And, as we and others have argued in the past in this and other cases, a democratic government does not stand on prestige in dealing with its own people. It is to Mrs. Gandhi’s credit that she has not allowed considerations of face to determine her decisions in this case. She has been as good as her word. The army was sent into the Golden Temple on June 2to deal with a specific problem; it had to be kept there to dispose of the consequences of its actions; and it has been withdrawn at the earliest opportunity. In the process, she has disposed of the ridiculous theory that, in dealing with the situation in Punjab for the last two years, she has been guided primarily by the consideration of winning the Hindu vote.
But it will be wrong to try and skirt certain connected issues. Baba Santa Singh, who agreed to undertake ‘kar-seva’ at an extremely difficult and critical stage when no other prominent Sikh sant was prepared to take it up, has been placed in an invidious position as a result of the government’s decision to come to terms with the five head priests. And so have been other nationalist Sikhs who risked a great deal in organizing the ‘sarbat khalsa’ in Amritsar. Seldom has their position been as vulnerable as today. While it is not possible to assess at this stage the relative strength of the moderates and the extremists in the Akali ranks, it is a safe bet that the hold of the communalist elements on the Sikh community has never been greater. In the circumstances, it is pointless to expect them to see reason. On the contrary, the Akalis can be depended upon to press the advantage they have gained as a result of the government’s handling of the Punjab situation. Just as all that one could say in defence of New Delhi’s action on June 2 was that it had no choice. All one can say now is that it had no option if it wanted, as it should have, to avoid a headlong confrontation with the Akalis backed by the SGPC and the head priests.
The government has tried to cover up this harsh reality by stipulating conditions for the army’s withdrawal. This has been a vain effort in that it has not succeeded. In a sense, it has also been an unnecessary exercise. One of the government’s main conditions has been irrelevant; it was a peculiar combination of circumstances which had led to the conversion of the Golden Temple into an armed fortress earlier this year; and it is just inconceivable that those conditions can recur in the foreseeable future, unless it is assumed that the Indian state machinery has reached the point where it cannot learn even from bitter experience. And the other main condition could not possibly be met. For to ask the Akalis not to mix religion with politics is to ask them to cease to be Akalis. For them, politics and religion have been two faces of the same coin, and so they will remain for them. In concrete terms, the question has been whether the SGPC’s funds resulting from offerings by devotees at the gurdwaras under its control could be denied to the Akalis for their political work. Perhaps partly with this objective in mind, the authorities talked of amending the gurdwara act. But from the very start it has been obvious that the top leadership would not wish to run the risk the move would involve – the risk of further offending the susceptibilities of the Sikh community. This, too, is an old story now. The gurdwara act will not be amended; the SGPC’s funds will continue to be available to the Akalis to the great disadvantage of the nationalist elements; the Akalis of whatever variety will continue to dominate the scene in Punjab and communalize it. We are trapped in a tunnel and we are not able to see light and the end of it. It is futile and improper to blame the Prime Minister for it all. If she has no long-term strategy to cope with Akali communalism, no one else has one to recommend either. Her critics have contended and will perhaps continue to contend that she should not have allowed things to come to such a pass in Punjab. But such recriminations cannot help us. We are landed with a problem which no one quite knows how to dispose of in a manner that does not hurt the larger national interests.