Faridkot: At Bargari village in Faridkot, an uneasy calm prevails even though there are no protests and tents. It was here that the desecration of Guru Granth Sahib in 2015 shook up Punjab. Adding fire to the fuel was the police firing at protesters in Behbal Kalan village which killed two of them.
Almost a decade since, that nerve is still raw. “Justice has not been served in the case”, says Gurcharan Singh, who runs a shop in the village. Bargari lies close to the Faridkot district headquarters, where the Lok Sabha election is due on 1 June.
Karamjeet Singh, manager of the gurdwara at Bargari, stated that the desecration still wrangles the community, since the culprits were never caught, but quickly added that peace prevails. A picture of slain Sikh militant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale is placed on the shelf at his cabin.
Budh Singh, the granthi (priest) at the gurdwara back then, remains in-charge. In the initial days, he was picked up for interrogation, but let off soon after.
According to Budh Singh, most people know the people behind the desecration. He makes a reference to the Dera Sacha Sauda sect headquartered in Haryana’s Sirsa. “It’s not enough to nab the culprits; the mastermind behind it has to be prosecuted, too,” he says.
The Sikh activists who sat on protest in tents at the village had given up their fight “some six months ago”, according to him.
The Faridkot parliamentary constituency consists of Moga district and an assembly segment each of Bathinda and Sri Muktsar Sahib districts, apart from Faridkot district itself. The SC-reserved constituency is in the news after Sarabjit Singh Khalsa, son of Beant Singh, one of the two assassins of Indira Gandhi, entered the fray as an Independent.
Sarabjit had previously contested unsuccessfully on the ticket of the Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) or SAD(A) in 2004 general and 2007 state polls, and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in the 2014 parliamentary elections.
The Independent candidate has made the Bargari desecration case his primary campaign plank and has been invoking the issue at all his speeches. “I have come here at your invitation and I am humbled by the love I have received,” he repeated.
On 27 May, he undertook a 12-km roadshow from Bagga Purana to Rampura Pul. Two days later, his roadshow covered over 60 km from Gurdwara Dina Sahib to Faridkot.
Jura Singh, who runs a shop at Kotkapura division, feels the Independent candidate may taste success this time. “When Sarabjit came here nobody knew him, but he had the goodwill as the son of Beant Singh. But two weeks into the campaign, he looks like a winner. His previous roadshows were also well-attended events,” he tells ThePrint.
Sarabjit is being backed by a section of people from Sikh religious bodies who are exhorting people to “repay the debt the community owes to Beant Singh” by voting for him. Slogans such as ‘Akal Takht mahaan hai, Sikh panth di shaan hai (Akal Takhat is supreme, it is the pride of Sikh panth)’ were a common theme at his roadshow.
But, his acceptance has to be seen in the light of the larger developments within Punjab in the last decade. There is a brewing discontentment towards the established political parties like the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress, and now the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab.
If the 2015 sacrilege was a watershed, there have been many developments since then which have come to dominate the Panthic (Sikh) discourse lately on account of a leadership crisis. Coupled with issues such as drugs, farm crisis and unemployment, this disenchantment is seemingly manifesting in support for radical Sikh figures.
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) was in power when the sacrilege was reported. In 2017, people voted for the Congress led by Amarinder Singh, but he had to later make way for Charanjit Singh Channi. The AAP then captured power in 2022, riding the wave of resentment against the major political formations, but the honeymoon was short-lived.
In the Sangrur Lok Sabha bypoll, Simranjit Singh Mann, a pro-Khalistani veteran, emerged victorious. “That should have rung warning bells to the AAP but it did not make amends,” a veteran Akali Dal figure told ThePrint
Simranjit Singh Mann is contesting again from Sangrur. But it is the candidature of radical self-styled preacher Amritpal Singh from Khadoor Sahibthat has been the talking point across Punjab. His contest is seemingly having a ripple effect on the candidatures of Sarabjit in Faridkot and Mann in Sangrur.
Mann, a former IPS officer who won a landslide in 1989 from Tarn Taran (now Khadoor Sahib) – after being lodged in jail from 1984, when he quit service in protest against Operation Bluestar – is one strand that connects the present-day Punjab polity to the restive 1980s.
Amritpal has also nurtured a connection with Faridkot, as he had his Dastarbandi (ceremonial turban-tying) ceremony in Moga’s Rode village to take over as the Waris Punjab De in 2022. Rode is the ancestral village of Bhindranwale, who is referred to as ‘Sant’ Bhindranwale in these parts of the world.
Currently lodged in a jail in Dibrugarh, Amritpal’s choice of Rode is interpreted as his attempt to appropriate the legacy of Bhindranwale. A common refrain among people in Moga is the “high-handedness of the state in banishing Amritpal to Assam.”
Hoardings marking the 40th anniversary of Operation Bluestar can be seen at many places in Faridkot and Moga, and the relatives of Bhindranwale still live in Rode.
Bhindranwale’s nephew Jasbir Singh Rode, a former Jathedar of the Akal Takht, spoke at length about the chances of the Panthic votes consolidating for Sarabjit in Faridkot.
“As of date, I reckon Sarabjit and Amritpal will win. As for Sangrur, both Simranjeet Singh Mann and Sukhpal Singh Khaira have an equal chance but the latter’s association with the Congress could go against him even if Khaira is also seen as a Panthic face within the party,” Jasbir told ThePrint.
“Amritpal has garnered sympathy among people, and it is possible that there will be a ripple effect even in constituencies such as Firozpur, Ludhiana and Bathinda to the advantage of Panthic faces. Even if all Sikhs may not identify with Amritpal, most of them supported his campaign against drugs. The SAD votes will see an erosion, although it would equally impact the chances of the Congress and the AAP.”
Jasbir stated that Sarabjit wasn’t seen as a winnable candidate initially but as the days passed, his chances improved dramatically. He added that the Lok Sabha election would be an eye-opener for the national media, and reckoned that the boiling over of the simmering discontent will become evident when the results are out on 4 June.
Also read: Crusade against drugs, not ‘Khalistan’, draws crowds to Amritpal’s proxy campaign in Khadoor Sahib
Political lightweights
In Faridkot, the candidates from the four major parties are seen as political lightweights, and it is seen as playing to the advantage of Sarabjit. Incumbent Congress MP Mohd. Sadique, a singer, was replaced with a non-celebrity in Amarjit Kaur Sahoke. The BJP has fielded Hans Raj Hans, also a singer, while Karamjit Anmol, actor-comedian-singer, is the AAP candidate. As for the SAD, Rajwinder Singh is in the fray.
Baldev Singh Gagra of the SAD(A) is contesting but his chances are scuttled with the arrival of Sarabjit, as both of them essentially cater to the same Panthic segment.
The SAD could be the worst-hit going by the chatter in Faridkot. As for the Congress, Sahoke is considered a novice in the political arena and her case is not helped by the fact that she has just returned from the US.
Former Faridkot MLA Kushaldeep Singh Dhillon defended the party’s choice: “Amarjit Kaur Sahoke is the only candidate who actually hails from the constituency. She was in the US for a while to spend time with her son who is settled there,” he said.
At the Congress central election committee office in Faridkot, Sukhmandar Singh Gajnawala, the president of the All-India Mazhabi Sikh Welfare Association, fishes out a propaganda flyer in Punjabi against AAP’s Anmol.
Gajnawala claimed that the AAP candidate is not a bona fide Dalit, and that the Congress is planning to approach the court. “Karamjit Anmol secured a certificate through duplicitous means. He couldn’t produce the original.”
The AAP carried out a high-profile campaign, with Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann himself leading the charge. Punjab Assembly Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan is based in Faridkot and has been in the thick of things.
“If Karamjit Anmol wasn’t a Dalit, would the Election Commission allow him to contest? This is a propaganda campaign. We firmly believe that the work the AAP government has done in the past couple of years will hold us in good stead. We have edged ahead of the others and even Sarabjit’s entry won’t change that,” he told ThePrint.
The bungalow of former SAD minister Mantar Singh Brar is located just a few metres away from Sandhwan’s in Kotkapura. He also downplayed the impact of Sarabjit’s candidature and blamed the Congress and the AAP for not concluding the probe into the sacrilege case.
Brar vehemently denied the charge that the SAD candidate is a relative lightweight. “Rajwinder’s maternal grandfather Gurdev Singh Badal won five times from Faridkot and also served as a minister. His father Sheetal Singh is a three-time MLA from Dharamkot. He carries the legacy and lineage of his ancestors. For the AAP, it is a case of sour grapes as Rajwinder had joined them in 2015 only to return to the SAD,” he told ThePrint.
Brar, too, said that his party would approach the court in the event of an AAP victory given the ‘disputed’ SC status of Karamjit Anmol.
The SAD has been trying hard to retain the Panthic votes after its divorce with the BJP. However, the recent statement of SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal dubbing Amritpal Singh a ‘BJP plant’ is believed to go against his candidate’s chances.
Before it became a SC reserved constituency in 2009, Faridkot used to be the stronghold of the Badals. Both Parkash and Sukhbir Singh Badal have represented this constituency in Parliament.
And then came the drubbing in 2022, when the SAD was reduced to 3 assembly seats. A committee set up by the party recommended that Sukhbir step down as president, but it never took place.
As for the BJP, it is contesting for the first time to the Lok Sabha without an alliance with the SAD since 1996. The party is betting on the popularity of singer Hans Raj Hans, but he has been facing protests from farmers.
According to a veteran Amritsar journalist, Hans Raj Hans would be a better bet at his native Jalandhar. He seconded the theory that the assertion of Sikh politics would become a factor in this election. A realignment of the Akali Dal factions could be a possibility but, he said, it was unlikely that Simranjit Singh Mann would carry everyone along going by his past record.
However, Jasbir Singh Rode claimed that a couple of meetings exploring such a possibility had already taken place. “People mistake Sikh identity politics with sympathy for the cause of Khalistan. Have the Sikhs ever gone out against the Hindus in Punjab? If Amritpal were to be elected MP, it will have a sobering impact on him. And it will also help clear people’s misconception against Sikh identity politics,” Jasbir told ThePrint.
Growing disenchantment towards established political parties is palpable in Punjab, which has bucked even the Modi wave unlike the rest of the country. This has been brewing since 2014, when a fledgling AAP managed to win four Lok Sabha seats of Faridkot, Fatehgarh Sahib, Patiala and Sangrur. But, the party’s tally came down to one in 2019.
“The AAP, devoid of ideology, was seen as a party which could serve Sikh interests following the fall from grace of SAD. The Congress is seen as the ‘Hindu party’ in Punjab in any case. But the AAP failed to live up to their expectations. There is a deep sense of alienation among the Sikh community,” a veteran Jalandhar journalist told ThePrint.
Given the Panthic ferment of the past one decade, the border state may possibly throw a few surprises as the Sikh votes can push the likes of Amritpal, Sarabjit and Mann all the way to the winning post. Punjab will vote on 1 June, the day Operation Bluestar began 40 years ago.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
Also read: 1984 no excuse for beadbi killings. Uphold Guru Granth Sahib values, not just physical form