Punjab is experiencing a tragedy unfolding in very slow motion, and, as in the end-1970s and early 1980s, this time around as well, this occurs against a backdrop of acute Centre-State rivalry. Given the history of the orchestrated rise of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, speculation is rife that a similar drama is being played out today, with the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Centre seeking to destabilize the fledgling Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab.
There is, equally – and equally difficult to prove – speculation that Amritpal Singh, who was just a year ago, anything but an orthodox Sikh in Dubai, a notorious recruitment ground for Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence, is, in fact, acting on instructions from across the border. Allegations that he is funded and controlled by elements in the radical Sikh Diaspora abroad are, again, unverifiable, and state agencies are yet to make these claims directly, though several media reports ostensibly quote ‘informed official sources’.
Even if all such speculation is dismissed, if on no other grounds, then because credible evidence is unavailable, it can still safely and strongly be asserted that the Centre has done a great deal over the past years to mainstream the Khalistani discourse. This has been done, first, by attributing any disruption in Punjab as a manifestation of ‘Khalistani terrorism’. The most prominent case in point was the farmers’ agitation against the Government’s ordinances on agricultural reforms, which were repeatedly projected as a Khalistani plot, contrary to evidence. Another stream has been the constant exaggeration of the role and impact of specific incidents or individuals, to create a narrative of far greater threat than what actually exists. Here, the most obvious example could be the activities of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun and his Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), at worst an irritant on social media. Streams of planted reports in the media have given Pannun and the SFJ a larger-than-life image, far out of proportion of the actual harm he has engineered, or could inflict.
Significantly, the BJP’s and Sangh Parivaar’s efforts to simultaneously polarize communities in Punjab, and to coopt the Sikhs have given further purchase to this narrative. Before the Sudhir Suri killing (November 4, 2022), radical Hindutva groups were engaged in a vicious cycle of exchanges with radical Sikh groups, and prominent individuals involved in this campaign, including Suri, instead of being booked for hate speech, were provided police protection. At the same time, the BJP Government at the Centre has announced a number of measures to win the Sikh community over, including, among others, welfare measures for victims of the 1984 riots, the announcement of the Veer Bal Divas, the slashing of the Blacklist of Khalistanis abroad, the Kartarpur Corridor. There is, conversely, an effort to project the Sikhs as a sect within the Hindu faith – something deeply offensive not only to the Khalistanis, but to many orthodox Sikhs as well.
In effect, identity politics remains the principal framework of political mobilization. Crucially, the BJP’s broad Hindutva project creates a reflexive justification for Khalistani separatism. If the demand for a ‘Hindu India’ is legitimate, so must be the demand for a Sikh ‘Khalistan’.
Such reflexivity also extends to some of Amritpal Singh’s transgressions. He and his cohorts are by no means the only group in India that flaunts firearms in public places, or that engages in hate speech, and Governments elsewhere have failed to act against such offences elsewhere. Any action targeting one set of offenders, while others receive the indulgence of the state, can only augment the existing pool of grievances.
It is, moreover, incomprehensible why central agencies have failed to act against Amritpal Singh. The Centre may, of course, pretend that ‘law and order’ is a state subject, and consequently, it is the AAP Government that needs to act – but this is, at best, a half-truth. Amritpal Singh has threatened both the Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister and, in an environment where central agencies have ranged across the country to arrest and incarcerate individuals for far lesser transgressions, the affectation that the central agencies’ mandate does not extend to action in this case is somewhat unconvincing. It is difficult, consequently, to entirely avoid the suspicion that the Centre is reveling in AAP’s discomfiture.
It is not just the state that has mainstreamed the Khalistani narrative. The media – often fed by state agencies – has substantially done the same. Every incident or evidence of Sikh mobilization for any cause is quickly labeled a resurgence of the Khalistan movement, or a return to the ‘dark days’ of the 1980s.
There is also the easy acceptance by the media of the extremist narrative, quickly embracing the idea of Amritpal Singh as ‘Bhindranwale 2.0’ – an identity the former fervently aspires to. Reports uncritically accept the claim that he has been ‘anointed’ the head of Waris Punjab De, a contention strongly challenged by the family of the organisation’s founder Deep Sidhu, who accuse Amritpal Singh of “misusing our name to propagate anti-social activities.” The original Waris Punjab De, formed by Sidhu, is currently headed by Harnek Singh Uppal, and repudiates any linkage with Amritpal Singh and his Khalistani campaign. Earlier, we had the eager acceptance by many media channels of the alleged Khalistani linkages of the farmers’ agitation, notwithstanding overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
On the other hand, there are allegations of AAP’s complicity with, or at least, appeasement of, the Khalistanis. Indeed, as far back as in 2017, the former Director General of Punjab Police, and the architect of the comprehensive victory against Khalistani terrorism in the early 1990s, K.P.S. Gill, had declared that AAP was providing a platform to ‘radical Sikh elements’, though he conceded that this may have been ‘inadvertent’. While this was hotly denied by AAP, the party’s actions, or lack thereof, periodically refresh such allegations.
The unfortunate reality is that, with the influence of the traditional power centres and parties in Punjab dramatically eroded, the model of political consolidation, both for the marginalized groupings – the Akali Dal and the Congress Party – as well as the principal contestants – AAP and BJP – appears to be controlled chaos. Identity politics and communal polarization are the main instrumentalities of this model. From time to time, these escalate into a significant confrontations – the repeated mobilization and violence over beadbi (sacrilege) since the Bargari incident of 2015; the Sikh Bandi Chor protests currently ongoing; periodic eruptions of violence, including conflicts in and over Gurudwaras, or between Sikh and Hindu extremist formations – and all of these then become grist for the electoral mill.
This model is working across the country, and has brought significant benefits to its practitioners. It is, however, fraught with risks. Across the world today, and in many theatres within India in the past, the conjurers of this form of mass manipulation have lost control of the illusions they seek to construct, or have been overtaken by others who choose an even more dramatic, and potentially destructive, deception. This is a divisive and unpredictable process that has produced catastrophe in the past, and can do so again.
(Edited version published in The Tribune, March 1, 2023)