India After Independence: 1947-2000 (54 page)

Since 1982 the state has either been ruled mostly by Farooq Abdullah or been under President’s Rule. Farooq won a comfortable majority in the mid-term elections in June 1983; but acrimony soon developed between him and the central government. In July 1984, in a coup against Farooq, his brother-in-law, G.M. Shah, split the National Conference. Acting at the behest of the central government, the Governor, Jagmohan, dismissed Farooq as chief minister and installed G.M. Shah in his place.

G.M. Shah was both corrupt and inept and, as he failed to control communal attacks on Kashmiri pundits, his government was dismissed in March 1986 and President’s Rule imposed in the state. Subsequently, Rajiv Gandhi entered into an alliance with Farooq Abdullah for the assembly elections in early 1987. But Farooq, who won the election, was unable to manage the state politically or administratively. Thereafter, the movement for secession stepped up in the Valley. Both Hizbul Mujahideen and other fundamentalist, pro-Pakistan groups and those for independence led by Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) took to violent agitations and armed insurgency. All these groups were actively financed, trained and armed by Pakistan, and carried on a campaign of murders, kidnappings and torture of political opponents and of attacks on police stations, government offices and other public buildings. They also attacked Kashmiri pundits, most of whom were forced to leave their homes and move to refugee camps in Jammu and Delhi. To contain terrorism and insurgency, V. P. Singh at the Centre dismissed Farooq Abdullah’s government, which had lost control over the Valley to the terrorist groups, and imposed President’s Rule in the state. Farooq, however, made another political comeback by winning the long-delayed elections in 1996.

The all-party Hurriyat (Liberation) Conference and JKLF which stands for Kashmir’s independence and the pro-Pakistan Mujahideen have lost steam in recent years, mainly because of the Mujahideen and JKLF’s terrorist depredations against the people of the state, but Pakistani-supported and organized terrorism continues to be a menace affecting normal politics in Jammu and Kashmir.

From the early fifties till date, Kashmir has been bedevilled by several major ills, leading to the alienation of the people of Jammu and Kashmir from the state’s rulers as also India as a whole. There has been absence of good and sound administration; the government and its various departments have been mired in corruption and nepotism. Most elections,
starting with the very first one in 1951, have been rigged and marred by electoral fraud, leading to loss of faith in the legitimacy of the electoral process and the political system as a whole among the people, who have therefore not hesitated to take recourse to extra-constitutional means. Even otherwise, democracy has functioned quite imperfectly from the beginning and politics and administration in the state have assumed an authoritarian character. With the passage of time and as Pakistan-sponsored insurgency and terrorism have grown, human rights have taken a beating in Kashmir. A large role for the army in Kashmir has been a necessity in view of Pakistani military threat and subversion; but this has also meant a high cost in terms of the functioning of a civil libertarian polity.

Kashmir has also suffered from near-perpetual instability which has often led to, and has often been caused by, repeated central intervention and political manipulation, dismissal of governments and replacement of one set of incompetent and corrupt ministers by another similar set, and imposition of President’s Rule. As a result the people of the state have tended to regard centrally-supported rulers as puppets and governors as mere agents of the central government.

Jammu and Kashmir’s accession to India is irreversible, though India is not likely to regain control over Pak-occupied Kashmir. It is clear that while it is necessary to take stern action against terrorism and insurgency, such action should not adversely affect the civil liberties and human rights of the people. The estranged Indo-Pak relations will continue to cast a deep and dark shadow over Jammu and Kashmir; but that makes it even more necessary that Kashmir is given a clean, sound and democratic government, free of excesses by the police and paramilitary forces.

The extent of local autonomy is a contentious issue that will have to be resolved keeping in view the sentiments of the people of the state and the federal constitutional structure of India. We believe, however, that more significant is the issue of how the democratic process in the state develops with the fuller participation of the people. It would not be difficult to resolve the Kashmir problem if two important parameters are kept in view. No democracy would easily permit secession of any of its parts, and no democracy can afford to ignore for long the wishes of any part of its people.

During the eighties, Punjab was engulfed by a separatist movement which was transformed into a campaign of terror and which has been aptly described by some as a low intensity war and a dangerous crisis for the Indian nation.

The genesis of the problem lay in the growth of communalism in Punjab in the course of the twentieth century and, in particular, since 1947, and which erupted into extremism, separatism and terrorism after 1980. Before 1947, communalism in Punjab was a triad with Muslim, Hindu and Sikh communalism, opposing one another, and the latter two often joining forces against the first. After August 1947, Muslim communalism having disappeared from the Punjab, Hindu and Sikh communalism were pitted against each other.

From the beginning the Akali leadership adopted certain communal themes which became the constitutive elements of Sikh communalism in all its phases. We may discuss them briefly, as they were developed before 1966 when the present Punjabi-speaking state of Punjab was created.

Denying the ideal of a secular polity, the Akalis asserted that religion and politics could not be separated as the two were essentially combined in Sikhism. They also claimed that the Akali Dal was the sole representative of the Sikh
Panth
which was defined as a combination of the Sikh religion and the political and other secular interests of all Sikhs.

A second theme put forth by the Akalis was that Sikhs were being continuously subjected to discrimination, oppression, persecution, humiliation and victimization, and that there were all sorts of conspiracies against them. There was also constant anti-Hindu rhetoric. Hindus were accused of designs to dominate Sikhs, of imposing Brahmanical tyranny over them, and of threatening their ‘Sikh identity’. The Congress and the ‘Hindu’ Nehru, ‘who ruled from Delhi’, were made special targets of Akali anger for representing the Hindu and Brahmanical conspiracy against Sikhs. Above all, echoing the Muslim League credo of the forties, the Akalis raised the cry of Sikh religion in danger.

While the relatively extreme Akali leaders were more virulent, even
the more moderate leaders were not far behind in articulating these communal complaints. Moreover, with the passage of time, the extremists’ influence kept on growing, and was in any case, met with little criticism or disavowal from the more moderate Akalis. For example, addressing the All India Akali Conference in 1953, Master Tara Singh who dominated Akali Dal as well as the Sikh Gurudwara Prabhandhak Committee (SGPC) at the time, said : ‘Englishman has gone (sic), but our liberty has not come. For us the so-called liberty is simply a change of masters, black for white. Under the garb of democracy and secularism our
Panth
, our liberty and our religion are being crushed.’
¹

Interestingly, no evidence other than that of the denial of Punjabi Suba was offered for this long list of grievances. The only concrete allegation regarding discrimination against Sikhs in government service was found to be baseless by a commission appointed by Nehru in 1961. The political scientist Baldev Raj Nayar was to point out in 1966 that though Sikhs ‘are less than 2 per cent of the Indian population, they constitute about 20 per cent of the Indian army, have double their proportionate share in the Indian administrative services, and that in the Punjab their share in the services, as also in the legislature, the cabinet, and the Congress Party organization, is higher than their proportion in the population (of the state).’
²

Another significant feature of Akali politics during this period was the use and manipulation of the institutions and symbols of Sikh religion in order to harness religious sentiments and fervour to communal appeal. Significant in this respect was the Akali use of the SGPC, which controlled over 700 Sikh gurudwaras to promote Akali politics and to organize Akali political movements. In particular, consistent use was made of the Golden Temple at Amritsar.

Akali politics also witnessed factionalism resulting in intense rivalry and competition between different Akali groups with regard to communal extremism, and also the control of the gurudwaras and the Golden Temple. This rivalry also led to constant multiplication and escalation of demands and the more moderate among the Akalis consistently yielding to the extremist and emerging groups.

Hindu communalism was also very active in Punjab during the Nehru years. Though not as strident or wedded to religion as Sikh communalism, it continuously acted as a counter-point to the latter.

Before we discuss the two major issues around which communal politics in Punjab revolved till 1966, let us briefly consider how the secular parties dealt with Punjab’s communal problem. As we have brought out earlier, Nehru adopted three basic rules for dealing with militant agitations and their demands: no negotiations or political transactions with the leaders of a movement or acceptance of their demands if they had secessionist
tendencies, if they took recourse to violence, or based their movement or demands on religion or communalism. Nehru was more than aware of the fascist character of extreme communalism, including its Akali variety under Master Tara Singh’s leadership.

At the same time, Nehru, being very sensitive to the feelings of the minorities, tried to conciliate the Akalis by accommodating, as far as possible, their secular demands. This approach led him to sign pacts with the Akali Dal twice in 1948 and 1956 when it agreed to shed its communal character. The accommodative strategy failed, however, to stem the growth of communalism in Punjab. New leaders soon emerged and resurrected the Akali Dal on a more extreme ideological and political basis, formulating and putting forward new lists of demands and grievances. Simultaneously, the Congress accommodation of the Akalis strengthened Hindu communal forces.

Nehru gave full support to Pratap Singh Kairon, Punjab’s chief minister, as he was dealing firmly with both Hindu and Sikh communalisms. Neither Nehru or Kairon, however, took steps to check the communalization of Punjabi society through a mass ideological campaign or to confront communalism frontally at a time when it was not difficult to do so.

The CPI was quite strong in Punjab and a very strong force for secularism. It also opposed the Hindu and Sikh communalisms, politically and ideologically throughout the fifties. However, after 1964, its two off-shoots, the CPI and the CPM, formed alliances with the Akali Dal for making electoral gains, thus giving Akali politics a certain legitimacy.

Two major issues, which were in themselves secular but were communalized by the Sikh and Hindu communalists, dominated Punjab politics till 1966. The first issue was that of state language: what was to be the language of administration and schooling in bilingual Punjab. The Hindu communalists wanted this status for Hindi and the Sikh communalists for Punjabi in the Gurmukhi script. The government tried to resolve the problem by dividing Punjab into two—Punjabi and Hindi—linguistic zones. But the Hindu communalists opposed the decisions to make the study of Punjabi, alongwith Hindi, compulsory in all schools and Punjabi being made the only official language for district administration in the Punjabi linguistic zone. Even more contentious was the problem of the script for Punjabi. Traditionally, for centuries, Punjabi had been written in Urdu, Gurmukhi and Devnagari (Hindi) scripts. However, dissociating Punjabi from its common cultural background, the Akalis demanded that Gurmukhi alone should be used as the script for Punjabi. The Hindu communal organizations insisted on Devnagari also being used along with Gurmukhi. The issue was given a strong communal complexion by both the Sikh and Hindu communalists.

The second issue—that of Punjabi Suba—proved to be more emotive
and divisive. After the State Reorganization Commission (SRC) was set up in 1955, the Akali Dal, the CPI, many Congressmen and Punjabi intellectuals put before it a demand for the reorganization of the state on linguistic lines, which would lead to the creation of Punjabi-speaking Punjab and a Hindi-speaking Haryana. The SRC rejected the demand on the grounds that there was not much difference between Hindi and Punjabi and that the minimum measure of agreement necessary for making a change did not exist among the people of Punjab. After a great deal of haggling, an agreement was arrived at in 1956 between the Akali Dal and the Government of India leading to the merger of Punjab and PEPSU.

However, the Akali Dal under the leadership of Master Tara Singh soon organized a powerful agitation around the demand for the formation of a Punjabi Suba. Giving the demand a blatantly communal character, the Akali Dal alleged that the non-acceptance of the demand was an act of discrimination against Sikhs. It argued that the Sikhs needed a state of their own in which they could dominate as a religious and political community because of their population preponderance. The Jan Sangh and other Hindu communal organizations and individuals strenuously opposed this demand on the ground that it represented an effort to impose Sikh domination and Sikh theocracy on Punjab. They denied that Punjabi was the mother tongue of Hindus in the Punjabi-speaking part of the state and asked the latter to register themselves as Hindi-speaking in the Census of 1961.

Interestingly, the Harijan Sikhs, known as Mazhabi Sikhs, who were mostly landless agricultural labourers, also opposed the demand for Punjabi Suba because they were afraid that the new state would be dominated by their class opponents, the rich peasants, who as Jat Sikhs were the main supporters of the Akali Dal.

Nehru refused to concede the demand for Punjabi Suba mainly because of its communal underpinnings. He felt that the acceptance of a communal demand would threaten the secular fabric of the state and society. Nor was there a broad consensus in the state on the demand. Apart from a large section of Hindus, two stalwart Sikh leaders of the Congress, Pratap Singh Kairon and Darbara Singh, were bitterly opposed to the demand, as it was communal. Nehru should perhaps have accepted the demand as it was inherently just, especially as it was also being supported on a secular basis by the CPI, the PSP and a number of intellectuals and as, by 1960, the rest of India had been reorganized on a linguistic basis.

However, the way for the creation of Punjabi Suba in consonance with Nehru’s criteria was cleared by two later developments. Fist, Sant Fateh Singh, who ousted Master Tara Singh from the leadership of the SGPC and the Akali Dal, declared that the demand for Punjabi Suba was entirely language-based. Second, major political and social organizations in Haryana demanded a separate Hindi-speaking state and those in Kangra asked for its merger with Himachal Pradesh. Consequently, in March 1966, Indira Gandhi, the prime minister, announced that Punjab would be
split into two states: Punjabi-speaking Punjab and Hindi-speaking Haryana, with Kangra being merged with Himachal Pradesh.

But one question still remained: Where would Chandigarh go? To settle the matter, Indira Gandhi appointed the Punjab Boundary Commission, whose terms of reference were accepted by both sides. The Commission by a majority of two to one awarded Chandigarh along with the surrounding areas to Haryana. The Akali Dal, however, refused to accept the award. Indira Gandhi, not willing to displease the Akalis, announced that Chandigarh would be made a Union Territory and would serve as a capital both to Punjab and Haryana. Dissatisfied, the Akali Dal launched, immediately after the creation of the new state in November 1966, a vigorous agitation for the inclusion of Chandigarh in Punjab. However, after some time, its leadership agreed to submit the question to arbitration by the prime minister and to abide by her decision. Once again Indira Gandhi yielded to Akali pressure and, in 1970, awarded Chandigarh to Punjab with two Punjab
tehsils
(sub-divisions) Fazilka and Abohar, having Hindu majority being transferred to Haryana. This decision, too, was not implemented because of the Akali Dal’s refusal to agree to the transfer of the two tehsils.

The acceptance of the Punjabi Suba demand was, we believe, a correct step, but it should not have been seen as a solution of the Punjab problem. The heart of that problem was communalism and unless that was eradicated the problem would remain, though it might take ever newer forms.

With the creation of the Punjabi Suba, all the concrete major demands that the Akali Dal had raised and agitated for over the years had been accepted and implemented; no real, meaningful demands were left which could enthuse its followers for long and therefore be sustained for long. It was, therefore, faced with the problem of where to go politically. The option of giving up communal politics and becoming either a purely religious and social organization or a secular party appealing to all Punjabis was seen by the Akali leaders as committing political harakiri. Akali communalism therefore inexorably moved towards separatism as was the case with the Muslim League after 1937. The fact is that the logic of minority communalism, especially when it is repeatedly ‘satisfied’ is separatism, just as the logic of majority communalism is fascism.

Another problem was that of acquiring power through democratic means and the electoral process. Even in the newly-created Punjabi Suba the Akali Dal failed to secure a majority in the 1967 and later elections. For one, the population arithmetic did not favour it as the Sikhs constituted less than 60 per cent of Punjab’s population. Secondly, the Scheduled Caste Sikhs, constituting 25 to 30 per cent of Sikh population, had, as agricultural labourers, a basic class contradiction with the rich and middle
peasants, who were the main social base of the Akali Dal. They, therefore, voted for the Congress and the Communists till 1980. Thirdly, and most important of all, Sikhs did not vote exclusively along communal lines. Most often, a good majority of Sikhs voted for the Congress and the Communists.

In fact, from 1952 to 1980, the Akali votes hovered between 35 to 45 per cent of the Sikh votes. The only time the Akali Dal was able to form the government in Punjab was in 1967 in alliance with the Jan Sangh, the Hindu communal party which had bitterly opposed the demand for Punjabi Suba, and in 1977 in alliance with the Janata Party whose major constituent in Punjab was the Jan Sangh. In the 1980 elections to the Punjab assembly, just before launching its most militant and communal movement, the Akali Dal secured only 26.9 per cent of the total vote. This meant that less than 50 per cent of Sikhs voted for it and that the majority of Sikhs rejected the Akali politics and ideology.