Just as he returned from Tianjin on 1 September, Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote a tweet expressing grief over the earthquake in Afghanistan.
Almost on cue, he got a response in a tweet from Giani Harpreet Singh, former head priest of the Akal Takht and Takht Sri Damdama Sahib Gurudwara. He sees himself as a leadership claimant in Sikh religious politics so dangerously broken by the divides in the Shiromani Akali Dal. In this perilous politico-religious vacuum, Giani Ji, as head of the breakaway Nawan (new) Akali Dal, is seeking space.
He objects to it being described as a breakaway faction. He’d rather insist that Sukhbir Singh Badal’s Akali Dal has broken away. Further, the third force in Sikh politics is Amritpal Singh’s Shiromani Akali Dal (Waris Punjab De). Dangerous forces, especially the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), are exploiting this. For now, please go to Giani ji’s timeline.
He tweets often, at length, and almost always in Punjabi (Gurmukhi). Now, it’s filled with visuals of the flood havoc. Opposition to “Dilli” (New Delhi) is central to Sikh religious politics, and Giani Ji was quick to latch on to the Prime Minister’s tweet on Afghanistan and wrote in English, for once. “Mr Prime Minister,” he wrote, “it is good that you expressed sympathy for Afghanistan, but Punjab is also a part of this country, where nearly 1,500 villages and 300,000 people have been badly affected since August 17. Your lack of attention towards Punjab is extremely painful.” He followed this up with a three-page letter to the Prime Minister and posted it on his X handle.
Now, we know that the Prime Minister spoke to Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann immediately on his return and promised all support. Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is in flood-affected areas, mostly on his feet, often in knee-deep water, checking out uprooted shoots, even trying to replant the odd one.
For the drowning Punjabis, however, this is no consolation.
In their toughest time in decades, they would’ve expected the Prime Minister in their state — even one from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which the Sikhs mostly do not vote for in Punjab. If the Prime Minister is like the father, elder brother, or the head of the family of all Indians, why is he not here? Are we Punjabis (especially the Sikhs) not members of the family? If he has the time to plan a visit to Bihar, why not a short visit to next-door Punjab?
In the big picture, this is already fuelling alienation, simmering since the movement against the three farm laws. For the Sikh community, this confirms its chronic suspicion of Dilli.
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It’s tragic that while we’ve used the “out of sight, out of mind” metaphor so far for how the Capital sees the Northeast, it also applies lately to a state so geographically close, so politically fragile and so strategically vital. Or, the Prime Minister would’ve been here first thing on his return.
From our understanding of a party as sharp as the BJP, there can be two explanations. One is simply that the party and the Prime Minister are sullen with the state and its Sikh community, because it was primarily they who laid siege to Delhi over the farm laws. The separatist campaigns run by overseas Sikhs add to the pain.
The fact, however, is that the first was also a political failure of communication and credibility on the part of the central and state government (Congress then). In that wide open political space, sundry “farm leaders” moved in from all three sides: Ideological left, religious right and no-stakes anarchists.
This left an angry, bitter taste with the Centre. We’d only hope that this formulation on our part is erroneous. We explore the second possibility.
This BJP has an all-conquering mindset. They want to win every state where they haven’t counted. Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Kerala, and West Bengal, as we know, have been their obsession. Assam, Tripura, and Manipur they won after decades of work by dedicated pracharaks of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Why not Punjab?
Punjab’s alienation foxes them. The only time they’ve come to share power is as junior partners with the Shiromani Akali Dal. It was a move that Atal Bihari Vajpayee made in the 1990s. This BJP leadership chose to break that compact and go it alone in Punjab. It brought it no seat but its vote percentage trebled from 2022 Assembly (6.6 per cent) to 18.56 per cent in the 2024 Lok Sabha — ahead of once-senior partner Akalis’ 13.2 per cent. The Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party were at 26 each.
The BJP is a relentless poll-fighting army and its commanders might think that if the Sikh vote is divided three ways — between the Shiromani Akali Dal, Congress and the radicals — and Hindus consolidate, it can win power by itself. Winning through Hindu-Muslim polarisation, especially where Muslims are in a minority, is very different from Punjab, where Sikhs are the majority. Even in the last Lok Sabha elections, the Akalis did so poorly because exactly half their vote, about 13 per cent, was taken by the radicals.
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Like it or not, Punjab now has a problem with the rising popularity of radicals as disenchantment with the Akalis increases and the BJP is seen to be polarising. The separatists are playing in this space, as are the Pakistanis.
There is a plethora of new YouTube channels and social-media handles running really subtle propaganda, broadly suggesting that the Muslims and Sikhs, as fellow monotheists and Punjabis, have no real problems between them. The trouble is caused by the Hindus and, therefore, the Sikhs need to think “differently”. This propaganda also uses the ploy of Punjabiat, of the common culture, language, music and cultural bonds across the borders.
I have watched many of these, including some quite popular podcasts run by Sikhs from Canada and the United Kingdom, talking politics, again in a super-subtle manner. I just watched a 66-minute show from Canada where the anchor speaks to a Pakistan Air Force veteran and hagiographer on Operation Sindoor. It’s very sophisticated, with much compliment to the Indian Air Force and its professionalism, but the message is “how much better” the smaller, niftier Pakistan Air Force did.
In Punjab, a lot of this stuff is being watched. In their own twisted view, ISI/ISPR see the Sikhs/Punjab as a low-hanging fruit.
A nation that doesn’t learn from its own history pays severely. Sixty years ago, Mizoram (then Lushai Hills district in Assam) was hit by bamboo-flowering, rat famine. The alkaloid in bamboo flowers made rats super-fertile and soon, they had eaten up all the grain stores and people were starving. As the state government floundered and the Centre was too far, Laldenga, just demobbed by the army after troubles in his battalion, arrived and set up the Mizoram National Famine Front (MNFF). This became the Mizo National Front by early 1966 and ran a withering China- and Pakistan-backed insurgency for two decades.
India can’t make the same mistake twice, and this time in Punjab. A calamity is, in fact, a great opportunity for the Centre, the Prime Minister and his party to be with Punjab. Politically for the BJP, it is an opportunity to build a compact with the state they never had. For India, it’s a responsibility to do all it can for a state and people without whose affection and contribution the republic can’t be imagined.
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