In the last forty years, the Bhartiya Janata Party has grown brick by brick and pursued its pro-Hindutva agenda. In these four decades, the Indian National Congress has killed and tortured the Sikhs. In the last two decades, the Shiromani Akali Dal has eaten the Sikh polity from within, decimating the ethos and sanctity of the Panth. 

The results of 2019 general elections in Punjab are symptomatic of a malaise which is killing the heart, soul and body politic of Punjab. There are more people and organisations responsible for the political debacle in Punjab which has thrown the Panth to the fringes.

The ‘enlightened’ social and religious bodies of the Sikhs, who should be more alert and aware, have either remained totally aloof from Sikh politics or have been incorporated by the Shiromani Akali Dal through institutions like the Akal Takht and the SGPC which are ostensibly independent.

Last week a score of Sikh bodies from across Punjab and the world attended a meeting with the Jathedar Akal Takht -Giani Harpreet Singh, blind to the mess that his appointment as ‘acting Jathedar’ has created in Sikh minds.  They were the ones who were expected to provide an alternative to the Sikh masses.

The leaders of the Bargari Morcha, who were supposed to lead the campaign for justice against sacrilege and make it an electoral issue, were clearly bought over by the Congress Party and there is no doubt that they submitted to the diktat of the Punjab Chief Minister. During the elections, they ‘staged’ a protest dharna, which obviously had no impact.

The Sikh Diaspora did not find any miracles happening this time around, as it expected through AAP in 2014, so it kept aloof during the 2019 polls. Some sections of it were concerned a little about Simranjit Singh Mann and another about Paramjit Kaur Khalra. Both candidates and their supporters must realise that elections are not a part-time business.

The half-baked 2020 Referendum movers are likely to let all hell loose on Sikhs in the Punjab and elsewhere. The Panth or whatever is left of it is still thinking how to tackle this.

The proponents of a Sikh state were happy boycotting the polls. On social media, some of them are saying ‘the election defeat in Punjab shows that we have no choice but to fight for a Sikh state’. How simplistic!! Rome was not built in a day!

Paramjit Kaur Khalra, while speaking to the media, after her defeat acknowledged that ‘the Panthic circles do not know how to work during elections.’

That is the whole point. With no training in elections, with no foresight to build an alternative political structure and campaign, with only slogan-mongering and hate campaign against BJP and Badal Dal on social media, you cannot think of changing the course of the Panth, can you?

In forty years, the Bhartiya Janata Party has grown from two seats to a brute majority to charter the course of India and pursue its agenda of Hindu India. The RSS has grown manifold.

In three decades, the Congress which attacked Darbar Sahib killed Sikhs extrajudicially, made thousands disappear involuntarily, is now the ruler of Punjab. Clearly, June 1984 and November 1984 are not electoral issues anymore. What does that speak for the Sikhs or the Panth?

What the Panth needs to acknowledge is that both parties have worked very hard to achieve their present position. They have used all tactics to make inroads into Sikhs and Sikhism. We have allowed them to do so. Their machinery was and is working overtime. There is a perfect wedding of ideology and skilful management in their work ethics.

Is there any Panthic group anywhere in the world, which has an Election Training and Management Plan for Sikhs and Punjabis in Punjab? Has anyone critically studied the functioning of the Congress, the Bhartiya Janata Party and the Shiromani Akali Dal?

The Panth only builds castles in the air. The Sikh polity has gone downhill, step by step. The strength of our character has been compromised.  There is no investment from Punjab or from the Diaspora before or during the polls to create a systematic counter-attack to forces inimical to Sikhs and Punjab. No youth are being trained except by the Badals and the Congress in statecraft and administration.

With a few well-attended meetings with a few hundred thousand people at Melas and functions, we start weaving a glorious future. With the only tool of wishful thinking, we dream of either defeating the Badals or the Congress Party.

There is no visible or covert plan or thinking. How further down will we go, before we cry aloud, enough is enough!