Powerplay in Punjab

Plain Politics

Assembly elections have just concluded. Barring Delhi, the BJP has notched up significant victories. What would you expect the new chiefs ministers to do "" set the state and the party in order?

That would be a reasonable expectation. Reorganise governing institutions and pack the council of minister with men favourably disposed to them? Only natural, especially when tempestuous leaders like Uma Bharati have the tendency of allowing paranoia to overtake them.

But no chief minister "" not one "" is likely to pack off rivals to jail with the help of an obliging state vigilance board. It can't happen anywhere in India "" only in Punjab, and possibly in Tamil Nadu.

If Prakash Singh Badal, with family and friends, is now safely in judicial custody on grounds of having assets disproportionate to the family income, and a large number of former Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) ministers are in jail, this is completely consistent with the culture of political intolerance that runs through the history of Punjab.

Three years after Prakash Singh Badal became chief minister in 1997 with a convincing majority of 74 seats in a 117-member assembly, arch rival for years, Gurcharan Singh Tohra, and the "suspended" Akal Takht Jathedar, Bhai Ranjit Singh were outlawed and SAD members told to hobnob with them at their own peril. It was as if Badal wanted to hear no criticism of himself or his party. Four MLAs who criticised him were thrown out and two were served with show-cause notices.

For Badal at the time, handling the challenge represented by arch rival, Tohra-run Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) was paramount. In the religion-politics cocktail in Punjab, a power tug of war in the SGPC was absolutely the last thing he could have afforded. Any changes in the balance of power in this equation would have meant an erosion of his political standing.

But where Badal's response was political "" even if it was unreasonable "" Punjab Chief Minister Amrinder Singh's riposte of meeting a political threat with state terror seems to be a little excessive.

Especially when you consider that Amrinder Singh has a reasonably secure political future with 61 MLAs in the Congress kitty. Which leads you to ask yourself what it is about Prakash Singh Badal and the Akali Dal that worries Amrinder Singh so much.

Badal is a gentleman-farmer who began his politics during Pratap Singh Kairon's regime. So he has deep roots in Punjab politics, a family network reinforced by marital alliances and a Jat Sikh outlook on politics "" which spelt out roughly means: "we're the best of the best".

Ownership of landed property, income from agriculture, and a deliberate tailoring of policies to suit the ruling elite has been a fact of Punjab's political life for the last 50 years. The Badal family has never been poor. If anything, they have enriched themselves over the years during the three terms that Badal was chief minister.

There is no difference of opinion that the last Badal chiefministership took the cake. The saga of the appointment of the chairman of the state Public Services Commission who took bribes to switch exam sheets and give jobs, is part of legal history.

Amrinder Singh would like us to know that that's just a tip of the iceberg. The state vigilance commission has issued detailed accounts of the Badal family's assets which run into hundreds of thousands of acres of land, unbelievable wealth in Indian and foreign currency, jewellery, airconditioners swimming pools, and the stuff that envy is made of in the middle classes.

The way Amrinder Singh tells it, the Badal family has been looting Punjab for decades, has denuded the treasury, has broken every law in the land and has treated public money as his own, the cardinal sin in politics.

So by this logic, the people of Punjab should rise up in revulsion at the avarice shown by the Badal family, should storm its palaces and homes like they did Marcos's apartments in the Philippines, Ceausescu's palaces in Romania and Saddam Hussein's home in Baghdad, overthrow the corrupt regime and run to garland Amrinder Singh and throw roses at him.

But this is not happening. On the day Badal was arrested in Ropar, a crowd of lakhs surrounded him. The crowd was lathicharged and one person died. 40 were badly injured.

On December 8, Prakash Singh Badal's birthday, the SAD is starting a court arrest programme from Patiala, the jail where he is lodged. The SAD has said that every day, 101 persons will court arrest. This programme will continue even if bail is granted to Badal. The SAD cadre is particularly angry that Badal's son Sukhbir was lodged in a cell normally kept for a person who is condemned to death (he was later shifted).

This is just a cameo of the minor earthquake that is happening in Punjab. At the other end of the spectrum, at the last cabinet meeting, prominent cabinet minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal asked Amrinder Singh irritably why Punjab was unable even after nearly two years, to find its way out of its financial mess. She sought a White Paper on the finances of Punjab.

The cabinet meeting was adjourned abruptly. Patiala and Chandigarh are full of rumours about how 42 MLAs are going to revolt against Amrinder Singh's leadership and Punjab is going to have mid term assembly elections.

None of this is happening because of Prakash Singh Badal's amazing personality or his popularity. But with little or no development (the free power that the Badal Government was giving farmers was discontinued when Amrinder came to power because the state government was unable to pay the bills), decay and stagnation in the economy has haunted Punjab since 1984-85.

An ever increasing salaries and wage bill of the employees (particularly since the Fifth Pay Commission), mounting debt, heavily subsidised social sector (education and health) and economic services (irrigation and electricity), slow growth of revenue, and loss-making public sector undertakings have contributed to the crisis. Prakash Singh Badal has played his role in deepening it.

But because of the deep roots of the SAD in the politics of Punjab, Badal's arrest has given a handle to the Congress dissidents to unite. A leader responsible for many of Punjab's current problems has suddenly become the symbol of Sikh pride.

Amrinder Singh should learn image-management from Prakash Singh Badal, who is in jail laughing his head off. Two cheers for democracy in Punjab.