|
India's National Magazine
From the publishers of THE HINDU
Vol. 14 :: No. 23 :: Nov. 15 - 28, 1997
PUNJAB
A Jathedar is free
The commuting of the life sentence on Ranjit Singh and the arguments held
out in support of the step have grave implications.
PRAVEEN SWAMI
in Amritsar
AT 4-02 p.m. on November 9, the phone rang at the Amritsar home of Akal Takht
Jathedar Ranjit Singh. New Delhi's Industries Minister, the Bharatiya Janata
Party's Harcharan Singh Balli, was on the line to inform him that President
K.R. Narayanan had signed the order commuting the remainder of his life sentence
for the 1980 murder of Nirankari sect leader Gurbachan Singh. The Jathedar,
head of the Sikh faith's highest seat of spiritual and temporal authority,
had spent 13 years and five months in Delhi's Tihar Jail before being released
on bail last year pending his appeal against conviction. Apart from breaking
into a wry smile when Balli asked him for celebratory sweets, he gave little
indication of his sentiments.
N. SRINIVASAN
The Akal
Takht. The commuting of the sentence on the Jathedar has brought into focus
the character of religious politics in Punjab and the disturbing processes
of communalisation in the State.
Calls of congratulations followed from former Delhi Chief Minister Madan
Lal Khurana, who had lobbied hard on the Jathedar's behalf, and from Shiromani
Akali Dal (SAD) politicians. "This is a great triumph for the Panth," Ranjit
Singh said, "a victory for Sikhs over injustice."
The commuting of the sentence brought into focus the character of religious
politics in Punjab and the disturbing processes of communalisation in the
State. Ranjit Singh's killing of Gurbachan Singh is widely acknowledged as
a critical moment in the rise of quasi-fascist Khalistan groups in Punjab.
The murder was in reprisal for a violent clash on Baisakhi day, 1978, when
individuals at a Nirankari gathering in Amritsar opened fired on protesters
belonging to the fundamentalist Damdami Taksal led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale,
and the Akhand Kirtani Jatha led by Fauja Singh. Thirteen demonstrators were
killed. The demonstration was held to articulate long-standing anger among
orthodox Sikhs that sections of the Nirankari scripture denigrated the Gurbani,
and that the sect's belief in a living Guru was blasphemous. In time, Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi was to begin her fateful association with Bhindranwale.
The preacher's Taksal gave rise to a large body of terrorist groups, while
the Akhand Kirtani Jatha gave birth to the feared Babbar Khalsa.
Ranjit Singh was appointed Jathedar in 1990 at the behest of Shiromani Gurdwara
Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) chairman Gurcharan Singh Tohra. If the choice
of the one-time carpenter, then in Tihar Jail, may have seemed surprising,
it in fact made perfect political sense. Ranjit Singh's disillusionment with
the armed groups and the preacher himself was long evident. Shortly after
visiting Bhindranwale following a visit by Gurbachan Singh, Ranjit Singh
affiliated himself with the centrist Harcharan Singh Longowal. The reasons
for this decision have never been made public. Shortly afterwards, Longowal
and former Punjab Chief Minister Surjit Singh Barnala arranged his surrender
before a New Delhi court. In an interview to
Frontline
(featured
separately), the Jathedar made the startling disclosure that as early as
1984, he had disassociated himself from the Damdami Taksal-affiliated groups
because he was unwilling to go along with the
bandook-dharis
(gun-wielding
men). It is possible that he was disillusioned by Bhindranwale's inability
to offer protection in the wake of the murder.
But the murder of Gurbachan Singh also gave Ranjit Singh far-right credentials,
a factor that may have been decisive for the Akali grouping around Tohra.
The Akal Takht had, in the political ambience generated by the rise of Khalistan
groups, become a religious arbiter of mainstream politics. Ironically, the
process had been initiated by Tohra himself. In 1979, Tohra and Jagdev Singh
Talwandi took their political dispute with Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal
to the Takht, seeking religious punishment of alleged personal failings and
misdemeanours. In the end, Badal managed to get a favourable verdict from
the then Jathedar, Sadhu Singh Bhaura. Again in 1980, the Jathedar was called
upon to mediate differences between the Akali factions, and eventually released
the list of party candidates for that year's Assembly elections. In a signal
decision, the Supreme Court disqualified Akali candidate H.S. Fattenwala
from seeking election for six years because of this interference of religion
in political discourse.
By 1986, the office of the Jathedar was being used to marginalise the mainstream
Akali political leadership. The pro-Khalistan Jathedar of the Takht, Darshan
Singh Ragi, was deployed by far- right organisations in an effort to summon
Chief Minister Barnala to the Golden Temple. His offence was to have attempted
to make peace in the State, and the initiative against him centred on the
attempted formation of a new Akali Dal. Shortly afterwards, Khalistan Tiger
Force leader Gurbachan Singh Manochahal (he was later killed in a 1993
encounter), summarily declared himself Jathedar. He cited as his basis of
legitimacy the Sarbat Khalsa of that year organised by terrorist groups,
a revived archaic practice of general assemblies of Sikhs to decide matters
concerning the community.
The Sarbat Khalsa did not settle the issue, but Manochahal's guns did. Ragi
left the Golden Temple in fear. In the years to come, figures such as
Bhindranwale's nephew Jasbir Singh Rode were to occupy the Takht. At some
points, several claimants were at once insisting that they were the authentic
Jathedar. Tohra's elevation of Ranjit Singh was an effort to end this chaos.
But the ghosts of history rarely fade away. The practice of using the Jathedar's
office to shape political discourse was again deployed by Tohra. The Acting
Jathedar of the Akal Takht, Manjit Singh, had for example ordered Badal to
face hearings at the Golden Temple in 1996 for his supposed crimes against
the Panth (Sikh community). Although he faced a day of abusive allegations,
the real purpose of which were to force him to concede ground to rival Akali
factions on the eve of the 1997 Assembly elections, the clever politician
again won the day, shipping in over a lakh of supporters into Amritsar to
display his power.
Manjit Singh represented the return of control to the political leadership
represented by the SGPC, but the means by which religious authority was used
to shape political processes had remained untouched by the experience of
the previous decade of carnage. Badal's efforts to transform the Akali Dal
from being a party of Punjab's landed Jat elite into a regional formation,
through an alliance with the urban Hindu class represented by the BJP, failed
at least in part because of these dynamics.
Jathedar Ranjit Singh was released on bail last Deepavali, after the High
Court failed to decide his appeal against conviction within a Supreme
Court-mandated time-frame. Back in the Golden Temple, Ranjit Singh was deployed
to continue the same game. In April 1997, for example, Tohra sent a warning
shot across the Badal Government's bows, arranging the honouring of key symbols
of the Khalistan insurgency, including Bhindranwale's wife and family members
of General A.S. Vaidya's killers at the inauguration of the rebuilt Akal
Takht.
Earlier, pro-Badal figures in the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee
(DSGMC) were forced to undertake ritual penance at the Temple on the Takht's
orders. This time, the offences attributed to Delhi leaders like Avtar Singh
Hit were that they had abused their religious influence to amass wealth.
Hit was also charged with a role in the assault of 1984 riots victim Satnami
Bai. The use of a religious seat to arbitrate secular and political offences,
however, was in fact a warning by Tohra and the SGPC to Badal of their abiding
authority. Tragically, the centrist Akalis proved unable, even unwilling,
to resist this process.
In early October 1997, the Delhi High Court upheld the conviction of Ranjit
Singh, and ordered him to surrender to serve the few months remaining of
his sentence. The two-judge bench consisting of Justices Arun Sahariya and
M.S. Siddiqui, however, noted that "in this case, it may well be possible
to achieve the reformative object of punishment... if the appellant would
renounce fanatic sectoral militancy." The judges indicated that "the authorities
concerned may take into consideration the need for closer monitoring of his
conduct" and consider the suspension of his sentence.
The fact remained, however, that the Jathedar had to go back to jail. The
Right in Punjab went into overdrive. Some groups argued that the status of
the Jathedar was similar to that of the Pope, and that Sikh tradition since
the time of Aurangzeb prohibited the surrender of the Akal Takht before the
Delhi Takht. This line of argument was, surprisingly, affirmed by a group
of over 70 people who described themselves as Sikh intellectuals. They included
well-known human rights advocate Inderjit Singh Jaijee.
The first and foremost fact is that Ranjit Singh neither had, nor has, ever
expressed any regret for his actions, nor condemned religious chauvinism.
Despite his condemnation of armed groups, his position on public issues firmly
upholds the primacy of religion over secular political discourse. Although
a remission on the grounds of his having served over 13 years in jail would
have been well-founded, and is a privilege extended to many long-term prisoners,
the doctrine that compared it to the papacy was disquieting. Speaking to
Frontline
, Ranjit Singh affirmed this doctrine, claiming that "for
Sikhs, the tradition that the Akal Takht must never bow down to the authority
of Delhi is a sacred tradition." In the event, he moved no petition for remission
of his sentence, saying that he and the Panth would respond to his arrest
if ever it took place.
The task of preparing the petition was, in an unusual departure from legal
custom, left to Tohra. Drafted by a retired Supreme Court Judge in Chandigarh
and then rewritten by lawyer Ram Jethmalani, the petition went to the President.
With the backing of both the BJP and Prime Minister I.K. Gujral, its successful
outcome was perhaps predictable.
THE consequences of the decision might leave little ground for comfort. In
a prescient 1987 article, the late scholar Attar Singh pointed to developments
in the Akal Takht. "In the revival and transformation of the institution
of the Jathedar of the Akal Takht," he wrote, "as invested with the 'supreme
authority' in matters both sacred and secular, can be located the search
of the SGPC for a visible symbol of the body corporate of the faith. The
present Gurdwaras Acts make no reference to the authority of the office of
the Jathedar or to its functioning. But in actual practice, the 'exalted
office' has been increasingly functioning as the sovereign or the 'president'
of the religious republic with the SGPC chief as his primary adviser."
Communist Party of India leader Satyapal Dang said: "I have no objection
to any prisoner being given remission, but I reject the claim that religious
status gives immunity from law." With the tercentennial of the Khalsa scheduled
to be celebrated in 1999, not by religious groups but by the SAD-BJP Government,
that claim is likely to be developed, and may gather momentum.
Table of Contents
Home
|
The Hindu
|
Business Line
|
Sportstar
This page is best viewed
with
|