Jalandhar: The fate of Akali politics, and the prestige of Akal Takht and related Sikh institutions, are at the crossroads as Sikh high priests converge on Akal Takht on Monday to pronounce “tankhah” (religious punishment) on Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal. However, the nine-year old issue goes beyond “tankhah” for Sukhbir, as it reached the Akal Takht when it became clear after the parliamentary elections that SAD is facing an unprecedented crisis.
Prior to the Lok Sabha polls this year, the 2022 assembly election results had also made it clear the Sikh community was staring at a political-structural challenge due to SAD’s routing and losing space to a Delhi based player — Aam Aadmi Party.
As the Sikh political space remains fluid, the handling of the issue has equal potential to turn into an opportunity — to put the SAD on the path of rejuvenation by paving the way for bringing fragmented Sikh polity together with some imaginative solution — or to add to the adversity by leaving everything open to more sparring and bitterness within Sikh political space.
In case Sikh institutions and leaders fail to push in reforms from inside, for which this crisis provides an opportunity, they can end up opening the scope for outside intervention, as happened a decade ago.
Primarily, it was dissatisfaction in a significant section of Sikhs, coupled with issues of governance, which provided an opportunity to AAP to make a foothold in Punjab in 2014 parliamentary elections. It also played the Sikh card through a few faces identifying with the issues of justice for 1984 pogrom.
Even as the then SAD-BJP govt had returned to power for a consecutive term in 2012, given the follies of an overconfident Congress in Punjab and Sukhbir’s micro-management at the constituency level, the element of dissatisfaction within the community was evident within a few days —lakhs from the community hit the streets to protest Balwant Singh Rajoana’s impending hanging and then there was groundswell of support for Gurbax Singh Khalsa on the issue of release of Sikh prisoners. Sumedh Saini’s appointment as Punjab DGP, just after returning to power, had already sent a negative signal in the community. This appointment later proved to be a blunder.
What precipitates the Akali crisis is unlike earlier instances of one Akali faction replacing another — Sant Fateh Singh replacing Master Tara Singh in 1960s; Simranjit Singh Mann and United Akali Dal replacing old players like Parkash Singh Badal and Surjit Singh Barnala-led factions in 1989; Badal replacing Mann in mid-1990s. On the other hand, in the last decade, SAD has lost space to parties like AAP and even to Congress to some extent. Results of Khadoor Sahib and Faridkot seats in the parliamentary elections reflect the potential for revival of Panthic politics, but it has not translated into a structure yet.
Sukhbir has not lost organisational control over SAD despite erosion of the support base, and Amritpal has not lost the support base, even as there is no organisational structure, but then they are not the only the two players in the Sikh political space, which remains fluid and hazy, at a time when the community also finds itself at the centre of a diplomatic crisis involving India and Canada, and also facing a lot of other issues.