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Journalism of Courage
AMRITSAR, FEB 2: Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, who emerged supreme earlier last month at the Anandpur Sahib conclave getting unprecedented mandate from his party MLAs, MPs, members of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee and the Akali Dal working committee, now faces a tough challenge from Akal Takht Jathedar Bhai Ranjit Singh in his newly acquired religious domain.
Badal represents the moderate face of the Akali politics with emphasis on Punjabiat adopted at the Moga convention of the party. The challenge is not to his chief ministership as he enjoys unprecedented support going by the numbers at every level. The Moga convention was a watershed in Akali politics with the party emerging out of more than a decade of “Sikh struggle”, the violent agitation or terrorism. The challenge has come to this politics and that too, from the institution which is considered supreme by the Sikhs. The Akal Takht has been the venue of a number of meetings over the history which left their marks on thehistory of the community. The SGPC was also constituted at such a meeting at the Akal Takht in 1920 followed by the Akali Dal. What is all the more significant is that the gathering at the Akal Takht, for the first time, accorded recognition to the “Sikh struggle” which was launched by the Akalis but turned militant with violence overshadowing the political scene. Even the Akali leaders became victims of the gun. It is not that the gun culture may stage a comeback. It may not but the meeting at the Akal Takht attended mainly by the religious leaders marks a qualitative shift in Akali political spectrum with traditionalists trying to dictate agenda to Badal. Bhai Ranjit Singh referred to the violence at Baisakhi at Amritsar in 1978, the Sikh-Nirankari clash to which the terrorist movement is traced. The Chief Minister at that time was also Badal. The government fell in 1980. Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale emerged on the Punjab scene. The thrust today was on the agenda of the subsequent struggle in Punjab.The Sikhs are a separate nation was the slogan given at the start of the Akali agitation in early eighties. The same agenda has been taken up now, this time at a meeting at the Akal Takht which had not happened earlier. It is to be seen how the event influences the political course the Akalis are to adopt.
