Punjab not fit to be ruled by dynast Akalis, high commanders Congress or cult AAP
Earlier this month, Douglas Alexander offered some riveting tips drawn from what was an almost total wipeout of his Labour Party in Scotland in the 2015 general elections.
That seismic verdict in favour of the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) was shaped by a defeated Scottish referendum barely eight months back in 2014.
Folks in Scotland had rejected parting ways from the Union but voted overwhelmingly for the SNP because it gave expression to their concerns and anguish.
I reckon Alexander's tips, which he shared publicly in the context of the upcoming British vote over its membership of the European Union (EU), hold a wider resonance for complex democracies all over.
More so for Punjab, where a mosaic of regional identity, ethnicity, caste and economy play a role in elections.
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| Sukhbir Singh Badal (left) and Parkash Singh Badal. |
“Psychology matters more than psephology," The New York Times quoted the Labour heavyweight as having said.
Spot on.
Eight months are an eternity in politics.
I am not sure voters in Punjab will hit buttons with great enthusiasm when they walk into polling booths in January/February next year.
The popularity of Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has dramatically grown in the state, as evidenced from the crowds it pulls in public meetings.
A large part of the Punjabi diaspora has also thrown its weight behind the AAP.
The party is expanding its base, wooing NGOs, Dalits, idealists, moderates, hardliners and disgruntled supporters of the Shiromani Akali Dal and Congress alike.
It's fair enough to say the AAP has emerged as an alternative in Punjab's largely bipolar politics.
But the question is whether it's an answer to the state's woes.
“It needs to be a conversation within the country about the country,” Alexander says. “Not a conversation on the Eurostar. You need to give people emotional permission to accept the evidence,” he argues.
What he means is that sincerity matters more than words.
Geographically, Punjab is a four-hour drive from Delhi.
But politically, it has remained a bit too remote from the national capital. At least that's the net-sum of general Punjabi sentiments, sentiments on which the Shiromani Akali Dal was founded in 1920 in order to give the region a clear political voice of its own.
The land-locked state has long rejected separatism.
But over the last few decades, it has lost its voice to dynasts.
In the last nine years, the ruling Badals have flourished more than anyone else in Punjab. That's the common perception.
At the drop of a hat, they would label critics as ISI agents. They would not let go of their control over religious power despite hundreds of thousands of people flooding the streets and congregations to reject commandments of top clerics appointed by the SAD-run SGPC.
A state that was once hailed as the food basket of the country was ranked 15th in the national GDP data released last year.
On March 1, minister of state for agriculture Mohanbhai Kunariya told Parliament that Punjab, primarily agrarian, had reported the highest number of farmer suicides after Maharashtra in 2015.
Just now, Udta Punjab, which I personally would love to call "Udta Sikh" because of the cultural crisis it depicts, made the scourge of drug abuse the rallying point of national debate.
Clearly, the state faces desperate problems, from economic to social to cultural.
When in power, politicians often tend to downplay them. Or worse, there's a disturbing denial.
Alexander says it is very possible “to win the argument but lose the audience”.
And that's what the Badals seem to have been doing. That mindset showed up in the way some of their staunch loyalists tried to block Udta Punjab.
Stung by the SNP, Alexander realises a localised but wide-ranging political movement is what it requires to strike a chord.
“...You also need a movement, not just an argument,” Alexander observes. He adds: “...emotion matters as much as facts".
But I suspect the AAP, with its roots and remote-controls in Delhi, qualifies to be fit for an alienated Punjab.
The party centres around the cult personality of its leader, Kejriwal.
It's entire structure has striking similarities to the high-command culture of the Congress. And that also explains why the Congress isn't a great choice for the state either.
Underneath the din of the three-party contest is, therefore, Punjab's search for its own spokesperson.
The people of Punjab, in fact, are in quest for a leader, a party which would evince their standpoint, their aspirations, their concerns in the national mainstream, very much like the SNP of Scotland.
But I use the term "national mainstream" to highlight a crucial distinction - a separate homeland is no longer a demand.
Perhaps, it never was, except for vested interests that shrewdly buried state-centric issues under the well-orchestrated cacophony of Khalistan.
Most of those issues were economic and cultural and most of them still remain unresolved.
So, I think the AAP has arrived as an interlude on Punjab's political landscape. This interlude is also going to Goa or wherever the Congress is weak and is in a direct fight with the BJP.
The AAP is not a long-term solution.
Eventually, the people of Punjab will create their own representative. As the proverb runs, necessity is the mother of invention.
That solution will comprise a grounded and dexterous leadership from the state's own soil, loyal to it and committed to progressive politics.
In their race for Chandigarh, the present breed of politicians may not sustain popular support for long.