Damdami Taksal acting head Baba Thakur Singh last week announced in the Golden Temple complex the merger of Akali factions headed by Simranjit Singh Mann and Baba Joginder Singh Rode. The new Shiromani Akali Dal will be headed by Mann and will be patronized by the Taksal, Baba Thakur Singh said that the Taksal would have nothing to do with Bhai Manjit Singh who spurned Baba’s persuasion to accept Mann’s leadership of the new party. The Taksal chief said that the Shiromani Akali Dal would stand by the ideology of Sant Jamail Singh Bhindranwale. It was also stated by Baba Thakur Singh that Mann would soon constitute working committee of the party in consultation with Baba Joginder Singh.

It is necessary to recall the recent political developments in Punjab to properly appreciate the unity plan of the two groups. Ii has to be admitted that the Sikh armed struggle for Khalistan has suffered a serious setback. Despite sporadic armed attacks on Indian positions, it will take long for militants to revive the movement in its traditional form. Armed movements all over the world are known to have undergone ups and downs. There is nothing unusual about the current phase. What should worry the militant leadership is the noticeable decline in the prestige of the militancy in the wake of the concerted Indian pressure on them. The result of the Jalandhar Lok Sabha by election a few weeks ago provided a glimpse of the ranking of the militancy in the estimation of the public. It is futile to claim that militants were not involved in the election, true, they put up no official candidate of their own, But in the popular perception Justice Bains was seen by the Sikhs as the pro militants candidate. Instead of voting him to victory or at least a position of leadership among the Sikhs, they simply ignored him and preferred the Badal Akali function’s candidate. Mann went out of his way to make it known that Bains had the stamp of approval of the group led by the former, Justice Bains’s defeat should thus be adjudged as the Mann group’s resounding defeat. Informed people coming from Punjab have no doubt in their minds that even a proper militant candidate would also have suffered no different fate in the election. The popular rating of the group headed by Baba Joginder Singh is also far from flattering to it. The Taksal initiative has come in the wake of this scenario.

One may be tempted to ask as to why the two groups had fallen apart, in the first instance. It was Baba Joginder Singh who had named Mann (who was then in jail) as President of the unified Akali Dal in 1985, Tensions started as soon as Mann came out of jail. The Baba was not 100 willing to give way to Mann as chief of the new party. The latter was projected politically by the then central Indian government headed by Rajiv Gandhi in the mistaken belief that government’s secret and not so secret support to Mann would undermine Badal faction’s electoral base to pave the way for the victory of Congress(I)’s candidates in Punjab. That strategy failed to Congress (I)’s total Surprise and Mann in the process became a popularly acknowledged Sikh leader, thus, in reality, Mann’s accession to Sikh political power ‘was the consequence of an accident of history rather than the rise of a leader through the mill of mass power. But Mann had a golden chance to capitalize on the opportunity provided to him by history. He failed. Mann could be seen all over in the Indian and world media. But there was no political organization worth the name. Mann was answerable to none except perhaps to a small coterie surrounding him which anyway was his own creation. The party had no constitution. It had no program to follow. There were no short term goals to work for either. Mann’s word in the party was law. In short, Mann ran the party as his personal fiefdom. So long as the Sikh militancy was in the pink of health, it reflected on Mann and strengthened him politically. But as soon as the armed struggle weakened, the glory ceased to reflect on Mann, What has been stated about Mann is even truer in the case of Baba Jopinder Singh.

Most Sikhs in Punjab appear to feel that the parting of ways had nothing to do with any differences on ideology between Mann and Joginder Singh. Certain nonpolitical considerations had a lot to do with the breakup of the unified Akali Dal in the past. It is equally true that the renewed unity is also not based on any ideological considerations. Allegiance to Sant Jamail Singh Bhindranwale’s ideology has become a mere formality for political groups eager to cash in on the residue pro militant sentiment. What does it mean to Sikhs if the two groups comic together? They will perhaps have to keep their fingers crossed, Will there be a genuine organization representative of the sentiments of the Sikhs and capable of providing them a meaningful leadership? Will Mann be guided by a team of political activists or will be the master of the show as in the past? Will this group have any rules and regulations as well as a political program long term, medium term and short term? The people, in short, want to know as to in what way this group will be different from other traditional Akali factions even eager to exploit the Sikhs significance to crawl into power for the sake of power. The least one should expect from the new combine is.to imbibe certain glaring qualities of Sant Jamail Singh Bhindranwale: simplicity, transparency, honesty of purpose and a willingness to learn from the common man, These qualities are ii far cry from the high living and low thinking that characterize most traditional Akali leaders. Let us hope the Guru will guide the new combination to at least refrain from following in the footsteps of the discredited Akali leaders.

Article extracted from this publication >>  October 1, 1993