Most of the commentators have interpreted the electoral verdict in Punjab and Uttarakhand as rejection of Congress and resurrection of the BJP. While this cliché may do justice to the Uttarakhand poll outcome, it fails to convey the import of the latent message from Punjab. It's just not voting out of one political party for another in the border state. In fact, this election has put paid to the divisive politics of Congress-Communist combine and marks the closing of the decades old Hindu-Sikh gulf in Punjab. The origin of Hindu-Sikh divide goes back to the days of Punjabi Sabha agitation prior to the carving of Haryana out of Punjab. Indira Gandhi sought to enlarge the gulf between the two communities for political reasons and her protégée, Giani Zail Singh, pandered to the extremist sections of Akalis. The ploy was simple, but dangerous. It was to engage the Akali (SAD) in competitive communal politics with the extremist elements. If the Akalis refused to bite the bait, they will be considered weaklings by the community and the Sikh masses will desert the SAD. In case Akalis tried to compete with the extremists in shrillness about the issues related to the Panth, either the BJP will be forced to part company with them or the Hindus will disown BJP. It was against this background that the Frankenstein monster Bhindranwale and late Gurcharan Singh Tohra, a hawk in Punjab politics, were propped by the Congress.

After her 1980 return to power, Indira Gandhi picked on Bhindranwale and gave him enormous leeway, sending her Home Minister to do obeisance to the extremist leader. Murders of perceived political opponents became commonplace that were traced to the 'Sant' or his followers. But he was not arrested. She did not move the security agencies nor even intelligence agencies into the Golden Temple when the extremist leader finally entrenched himself inside the most sacred place of the Sikhs and began to preach secession. Bhindaranwale was described as a 'saint' by Rajiv Gandhi, the then young general secretary of the party, when the former had gone around Delhi with his followers armed to the teeth.

Rest is history. But in the process Indira Gandhi and Congress in the state sowed the seeds of extremism in Sikh politics and competitive extremism became the curse of Punjab for almost ten years. Supported by Sonia Gandhi, the Congress Chief Minister Amrinder Singh followed in the foot steps of Indira Gandhi, hob-nobbed with the Khalistanis during his visit to Canada about three years ago, encouraged their sympathisers in the state and supported the separatist leaders like Simaran Jeet Singh Mann.

Despite the direct and indirect support the Congress provided to them, in the hope of dividing the Akali vote, the voters, however, gave them the short shrift. Not one of them won despite seeking to uphold extremist line of Tohra and Mann. Finally the Sikh masses have awakened to the danger inherent in the Congress-Communist brand of politics and this election marks the total rejection of extremist and communal politics. The success of the SAD that kept off any extremist or communal line compared to the total eclipse of the extremists, is Punjab's endorsement of nationalist politics.

An analysis of how the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) - BJP campaign was conducted and the type of candidates they sponsored is revealing. SAD had a history of using the Gurudwaras and "panth in danger" as the central point of their politics. During this assembly election, campaign was generally not conducted from or in the Gurudwaras. Nor was the usual slogan of "panth" being in danger was heard in the SAD sponsored meetings.

Besides, SAD set up Hindu candidates. Out of the five Hindus under the SAD banner, two won. Similarly the BJP set up three Sikh candidates. Two of them won. The ultimate example of Hindu-Sikh kinship and the quality of glue that holds the Akali-BJP alliance is provided by a father-son duo. While the father, a Dalit Hindu, Swarna Ram has won from Phagwara on BJP ticket, his son Chowdhry Mohan Lal Singh (a Khalsa Sikh) has made to Punjabi Assembly as an Akali candidate!

The BJP's campaign slogans centered around the national danger from growing terrorism and how the Congress has been taking a lenient attitude towards those who allow terrorism to flourish. As against the clean politics of development pursued by the winning coalition, the Congress pursued a path of promoting and using communal politics. One such support the so called "secular" Congress sought and obtained was that of a religious sect, Sacha Sauda. After the inner working of this sect was exposed in a newspaper report, the Congress government was compelled to institute an enquiry against it only after the journalist who exposed this was murdered, allegedly by the sect. Journalists' organisations had to hold several demonstrations to get the Congress government to act. "Communal" and "right wing" are labels invented by the Marxists and their fellow-travellers. The one political leader of integrity and respect who said that these labelling could not be applied to the Indian situation was none other than Ram Manohar Lohia. Now Punjab voters have gone one step further. This stereotyping is not only irrelevant but could be positively dangerous as it could under certain circumstances mislead the people. Lohia was an independent thinker; but the Marxists and their fellow-travellers are adept in plagiarism-the division was entirely borrowed from the West. The absurdity of the stereotyping of BJP as "communal" was shown up in other political theatres also. Karnataka where the JD (Secular) teamed up with BJP to secure power is yet another instance. When the united Janata Dal joined the BJP in a pre-election coalition called NDA, Deve Gowda and his followers claimed they would have nothing to do with the "communal" BJP. The same Deve Gowda has dropped that objection to seize power from the Congress.

Some politicians like the politically marginalised former Prime Minister V.P. Singh are using the "communal" label to stage a comeback as is clear in the emerging election scene in UP. Singh has dropped even the Bofors plank that once brought him to power. The hole in his so-called "secular" image is that only a decade and a half back he came to power because of support that the BJP gave him. Punjab is a good case study in this respect. That the Marxists inspired media stereotyping of political parties as "communal" and "secular" is irrelevant, has been underlined by the recent Punjab experience.

Courtesy: www.newindpress.com, March 14, 2007