Postscript: November 1985
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Postscript: November 1985 In the time since the typescript of this book went to the publishers, events have highlighted a number of its themes. Perhaps the most important - the agreement between Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Harchand Singh Longowal, announced on 24 July 1985 1 - emphasised a basic argument of the book: that political decisions, rather than inexorable social forces, determine the form and intensity of ethnIc conflict. On the face of it, Punjab's problems should have been more intractable by July 1985 than ever before. The mood of Sikhs, for example, should have been more intransigent. The army had been deployed in Punjab for more than a year, the Sikhs there complained of violations of civil rights. In addition, Sikhs everywhere shared the anger and humiliation, if not the loss and death, of those who suffered in the rioting following Mrs Gandhi's murder. 'National opinion', too, might have been expected to have hardened against Sikhs. The death of more than 80 people in terrorist bombings in New Delhi and other parts of north India on 11 and 12 May ought to have embittered feelings further, as should the mysterious crash of an Air India jumbo jet off the coast of Ireland on 23 June which killed more than 320 people. Furthermore, the 'Memorandum of Settlement' of July 1985 between the central government and Longowal's Akali Dal appeared to contain nothing new. Indeed, wrote The Tribune, it ran 'along lines known and agreed upon almost two years ago'.2 The 'Indian Talks' section of this book (pp. 153-9) makes that point clear. However, different people were doing the talking for the central government, and the perceptions of other participants (notably Longowal) about how to prosper (or, at least, survive) had also changed. Politicians do not simply speak for their followers. They speak to them as well; they can choose to incite or placate. To be sure, they must constantly take account of what they can 'sell' to their supporters - what their 206 Postscript: November 1985 207 social base expects of them. But the decisions they make at particular times result from complex calculations involving personal conviction, the mood of followers, the position of rivals and judgements about the likelihood of gain or success. Such calculations led to the July agreement. Within a month, Longowal paid for it with his life. Young Sikh assassins, outraged at his 'treachery' , shot and killed him in a gurdwara near Sangrur on 20 August. But Longowal became more powerful dead than alive. The creation of symbols and their use in politics has been a theme throughout this book (e.g. pp. 159-64), and Longowal became such a symbol. Journalists claimed that 'there were as many Hindus as Sikhs' in the crowd of tens of thousands at his funeral. 3 Even among the most militant overseas Sikhs, few acclaimed his assassination, while in India, it was universally condemned. The Akali Dal built its campaign for the elections, called for 25 September, around Longowal the martyr. 'Vote', an advertisement implored, 'so that he may live forever in thought and in deed ... A man of God. A man of peace. Sant Longowal died for the rebirth of Punjab. Vote for a Government that would keep alive his ideals.' Longowal provided a hero not merely for the Akali Dal. At last, the Indian state had a badly needed Sikh martyr to the cause of Indian unity. A newspaper editor caught this process of appropriation well: Longowal had become 'the second [Mahatma] Gandhi'.4 Though Punjab remained under central government rule during the campaign leading up to the elections of 25 September, the Punjab administration took the unusual step of buying newspaper advertisements to remind Punjabis that Longowal was 'a brave man who had the interest of the people and the country at heart. Punjab owes a lot to him.' With Longowal at the centre of the Akali Dal's campaign, it was as if the Congress (I) government in New Delhi were electioneering against its own members in Punjab.5 Indeed, it was widely claimed that Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi saw an Akali Dal victory as the best possible outcome and that his party had purposely chosen weak candidates in some constituencies.6 The desirability of an Akali Dal victory underlined a striking irony, which further emphasises the role of political decisions ~ rather than deeply etched social divisions - in the 'Punjab crisis' of the 1980s. In 1985, 'success' for the central government lay in 208 Postscript: November 1985 getting Punjab back to the political position of January 1980- with an Akali Dal government in power. Five years of deviousness and thousands of deaths emphasised the need for a more straightforward approach to federalism. Indeed, if the battle at the Golden Temple and the assassinations of Mrs Gandhi and Longowal achieved anything, it was to dramatise, even for the most old-fashioned, win-at-all-costs factional leader, the frailty of the very institutions that he struggled to control. An icy awareness grew that one's known enemies were no longer the only threat: mass hatreds could make stranger kill stranger for no reason of immediate gain or personal vengeance (see pp. 95-7). Politicians seemed sobered. The September election campaign was unusually muted and respectful. 7 The elections brought a clear victory for the Akali Dalled by Surjit Singh Barnala (b. 1925), who had emerged as Longowal's English-speaking lieutenant. For Indian central governments, Barnala made a reassuring Chief Minister. A widely travelled lawyer, born in a Hindi-speaking area (now deep in Haryana) of the old princely state of Nabha, educated in Lucknow, Barnala was Minister of Education in Punjab in the Akali government of 1969-71 and Minister of Agriculture in the central government during the Janata Party ministry in 1977-9.8 The correspondent of India Today noted that Barnala was a keen painter and that in his drawing room hung a portrait of his meeting with Pope Paul in Bombay in 1964.9 So clearly a part of the national elite, Barnala seemed to pose no threat to the Indian state. The question, however, was whether these very characteristics would make it impossible for him to deal with new challenges in Punjab. How many youthful imaginations was such a man likely to fire? In spite of an attempted boycott of the elections by Sikh opponents of the July agreement, who used Bhindranwale's elderly father as their titular leader, the turnout of nearly 68 per cent was higher than in 1977 or 1980. 10 The Akali Dal's 73 seats and 38.7 per cent of the vote were the best result in its history. (Compare the table below with Table 5.2 on p. 112). Among the successful Akali candidates were two Hindus and a Muslim, and two Hindus who won as independents had Akali backing.11 The Bharatiya J anata Party, which in its former incarnations drew the votes of urban Hindus, retained some support. The communists, however, were reduced from a combined tally of Postscript: November 1985 209 Punjab State Elections, September 1985 Seats Percentage of votes Akali Dal 73 38.7 Congress (I) 32 37.7 Communist Party of India 8.0 Communist Party of India (Marxist) ~} Bharatiya Janata Party J anata Party 15.6 Independents 1) NOTE Voting in two seats postponed. SOURCE HIE, 12 October 1985, p. 14; EPW, 5 October 1985, p. 1681. 13 seats and 14 per cent of the vote in 1980 to one seat and eight per cent in 1985. Class division, as I wrote earlier (p. 33), is everywhere in Punjab, yet rarely in people's minds. In the elections to the national parliament, the Congress (I) won six of the 13 seats; the Akali Dal, 7. Such a result again seemed promising for the central government. It could be interpreted as a readiness to separate local from national issues and to accept the legitimacy of the Indian state as embodied in Rajiv Gandhi's Congress (I) Party. Throughout India, the frightening events of 1984 and 1985 seemed to moderate the judgement of politicians. In Assam, the central government negotiated a settlement in August with the leaders of the anti-'foreigner' agitation that convulsed the state from 1979. The leaders formed a new political party to contest state elections in December - no doubt with the examples of N. T. Rama Rao's Telugu Desam and other successful regional parties in mind. This attempt to apply elastic bandages to the straining joints of bodies politic extended beyond India's borders. With 100000 Sri Lankan Tamils as refugees in India, the Indian government sought to engineer an agreement between the unitary Sri Lankan government and Sri Lankan Tamil separatists. Such an agreement would involve the devolution of some powers to the northern, Tamil-majority areas of Sri Lanka. Indian governments must walk warily between two chasms. By appearing to disregard the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka, they may enrage more than 50 million of their own citizens in Tamilnad. On the other hand, they cannot afford to be seen as 210 Postscript: November 1985 appealing for international cooperation against violent 'Khalistanis' while encouraging secession in Sri Lanka. What happened between April and November 1985 to some of the people who have figured in this book? Longowal was murdered. So, too, were Lalit Maken, MP (31 July) and Arjan Das (4 September), both New Delhi politicians named in one of the unofficial inquiries into the riots against Sikhs in November 1984. 12 The central government used the police to suppress a follow-up report in September 1985 which accused the security forces in Punjab of violent repression.13 Amarindar Singh, the Congress (I) MP from the Patiala princely family, who resigned from the party after the battle of the Golden Temple, joined the Akali Dal, was elected to the legislature and became Minister of Agriculture in Barnala's government.