Battle for a separate state: Will Khalistan be an important issue in the Punjab Assembly polls?

Will Khalistan be an issue in the 2017 Assembly elections in Punjab?

On a cold December morning in Chandigarh, I put this question to Harpal Singh Cheema, who has spent half his life fighting for a separate Sikh state and his entire youth in jails across India and California on charges of supporting Khalistan.

Cheema was a strapping young man when the Indian army entered the Golden Temple in Amritsar in 1984 to flush out separatist leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his armed supporters. In protest, like many others of his age, Cheema too turned into an activist for a separate state.

According to charges presented at his trial, Cheema attended rallies, raised money and helped youth accused of being militants. First he was incarcerated in India and then in the US, where he sought asylum in 1993 with his wife.

In 1997, he was put in a California jail on the basis of “classified information.” Eight years later, he was deported to India to face more cases and spend a few more years in jail.

Cheema is now in his 70s. Since being released, he has been fighting cases of people in jails on charges of supporting Khalistan.

His belief in a separate state for Sikhs hasn’t wavered. “We will pass it on like a baton to the next generation. Some day it could be a reality,” he says. But, he says, militancy will never return to Punjab. “It is over, there is no chance. Ours will be a peaceful, political movement.”

Fears of return of the separatist movement have been rising since mainstream parties and fringe players started pursuing the Panthic agenda in the state. Since Assembly elections — scheduled in early 2017 — are on the horizon, there are legitimate concerns about politicians fanning the Khalistan fire to divert attentions from other important issues: corruption, lack of development, a state-wide agrarian crisis and rampant drug abuse and addiction .

The issue has been on slow boil since March 2012, when separatists shut down Punjab to demand the release of Balwant Singh Rajoana, a Babbar Khalsa International terrorist facing death sentence for the assassination of then chief minister Beant Singh. During the bandh, Bhindranwale’s posters and Khalistani flags had surfaced in several parts of Punjab.

This October, several incidents of desecration of Guru Granth Sahib raised the communal fever both inside and outside Punjab, leading to protests and police firing that eventually led to the removal of Punjab DGP Sumedh Singh Saini.

The temperature was raised further by the decision of hardliners to convene the Sarbat Khalsa — the 18th century tradition of gathering sarbat (all) khalsa (Sikhs) for important political discussions. At the gathering, held on 10 November, participants demanded Khalistan and anointed Beant Singh’s assassin Jagtar Singh Hawara jathedar of Akal Takht, signalling a return to the dark decade of the 80s.

President of Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) Simranjit Singh Mann, one of the organisers of the Sarbat Khalsa, says the hardliners are ready to bring Khalistan back to the centrestage. “We will intensify our stir. We will organise bandhs,” he says.

The appointment of Captain Amarinder Singh as president of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee is being seen as an attempt by the Congress to stop the Akalis from playing the panthic card. Since Singh had quit the Congress after Operation Blue Star, he is believed to have the sympathy of hardliners.

In 2012, the demand for clemency to Rajoana had led to a piquant situation. While the Shiromani Akal Dal was demanding his release, its partner in the Punjab government, the BJP, was insisting that the terrorist be hanged.

In many ways, the alliance between a nationalist party that supports Akhand Bharat and a regional party that is seen soft towards separatists represents a conflict of ideologies. But the SAD-BJP partnership survived because Khalistan was not an issue in the previous election.

This election could be different. Congress chief Singh is predicting that the partners will be torn apart because the Akalis will go back to the panthic agenda.

But, others see the Akali insistence on pursuing religious agenda as a clever ploy. “The plan is simple: Hardliners remain with Akalis; Hindus get pulled by the BJP. And the moderate votes get divided between the Congress and the AAP,” says Cheema.

Will the plan work? “People know who the real enemies of the quam are. They will be wiped out in the elections,” he predicts.

This is an ongoing series on Punjab.

Part 1: Awash in drugs: Punjab voters may reject Badals in 2017 to save young from ruin