How Congress sabotaged Captain Amarinder Singh's chances in Punjab

Khalistan is no longer an issue in Punjab. But 1984 is.

By 1984, I mean events that unfolded at Amritsar in June and in the rest of India in November of that year. 

The army's Operation Blue Star and the massacre that followed the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi wounded the Sikh psyche. 

Fast-forward to 2004: Faced with mounting opposition over her foreign descent, Congress president Sonia Gandhi anointed Manmohan Singh as the country's prime minister. Her party colleagues were quick to portray their chief's announcement as a sign of her sacrificing spirit. 

In the meantime, outside Dr Singh's residence, jubilant Sikhs celebrated in what was a historic moment in the Sikh-Gandhi and the Sikh-Congress relations. With one announcement, Mrs Gandhi ended - or at least eased - almost three decades of hostility with the community. 

The bellicosity had begun in 1978, when deadly clashes broke out between the Sikhs and members of the Nirankari mission in Amritsar.

It peaked after Operation Blue Star six years later. 

The Sikh dance at Dr Singh's home in May 2004 marked a turnaround in the ties. A year later, the then prime minister, India's first non-Hindu head of government, encountered a tough test in Parliament over the Nanavati report on the 1984 anti-Sikh massacre. 

I was a journalist on a wire service back then. 

I remember how Singh's statements before his famous apology drew stinging reactions from the Akalis.

Mr Sukhdev Singh Bhaur, a senior leader of the Akali-controlled Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), told me the prime minister "spoke more like a Congress man than like a committed Sikh." That comment was widely published, especially in Punjab. Dr Singh and Congress went into quick damage control.

The second day, the country's prime minister joined his hands in Parliament to issue an apology over the 1984 anti-Sikh violence. 

"I have no hesitation in apologising to the Sikh community. I apologise not only to the Sikh community, but to the whole Indian nation because what took place in 1984 is the negation of the concept of nationhood enshrined in our constitution," Dr Singh said.

His call for forgiveness, however, fell short of accepting Justice Nanavati's indictments of Congress. 

As years passed, the Sikh euphoria over a Sikh prime minister of the world's largest democracy waned. 

Every anniversary of 1984 passed in silence despite a Sikh heading the national government. None of the top Congress leaders accused of authoring the carnage of 1984 was held accountable. 

In 2007, Congress lost Punjab to the Akali-BJP alliance - despite its Sikh prime minister. 

Punjab delivered a bigger surprise when it re-elected Mr Parkash Singh Badal as chief minister in 2012 in a state where no incumbent group had ever retained power for a second term in a row before. That unprecedented verdict also happened while Dr Singh was the prime minister. 

Clearly, the Sikh voters in the heartland of the faith were no longer enthused over a community representative at India's most powerful address, the 7 RCR. 

Incidents of the desecration of Guru Granth Sahib in the state last year consolidated the Sikhs against Badals' stranglehold over Sikh religious institutions. Anti-incumbency sentiments against the ruling Badals turned into harsh disaffection with the state's governing family. 

A string of farmer suicides also contributed to anti-Badal passions. Had there been no Aam Aadmi Party, Congress would have ridden back to power on the back of what appears to be a larger public aversion towards one family. 

AAP's entry in Punjab has punched a hole in the state's traditional bipolar politics.    

Perhaps, Congress needs Capt Amarinder Singh more than he needs Congress, given the stalling fortunes of the country's oldest party across the country and the rise of AAP. The heir to the former princely state of Patiala is seen as a gutsy fighter.

When no one in her party could challenge then prime minister, Indira Gandhi, Amarinder Singh resigned from Congress to protest Operation Blue Star.

It was his audacious move when his government passed the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act in the 2004. 

Congress and the Gandhis are, therefore, no stranger to Punjab and Sikhs. 

It would be naive to assume they don't realise the electoral cost they would pay by attaching Mr Kamal Nath, indicted by the Nanavati commission, to Punjab ahead of the state elections. 

Still, they signed off on Mr Nath's appointment in what could be a political suicide for Congress in the Sikh state. They would best know why they did what they did. 

For now though, the Maharaja appears to have been sabotaged, knowingly or unknowingly.