SIKH FUNDAMENTALISM
A distorted Socio-Political Response to Neo-colonial Transformation
T.G. Jacob
Emergence of Sikh fundamentalism as the most powerful challenge by the people of Punjab to the Indian State is not an accident. It is decided by historically conditioned circumstances. During the 1980s, when Sikh fundamentalism started taking deep roots among the Sikhs within and outside Punjab, bourgeois political analysts started churning out theories as to why and how Sikh fundamentalism sprang up. The most mundane among these is the simple logic that Sikhs by nature are secessionists and fanatics. A slightly more polished version of the same is that the British imperialists are responsible for nurturing and artificially maintaining a separate Sikh identity for their own convenience. According to this logic, Sikhism is essentially a part of Hinduism (or rather a sect formed to protect the Brahmins from the Muslim conquerors). It is the British who, for perpetuating their ‘divide and rule’ strategy, insisted on maintaining the Sikhs as a separate community. This is the general logic that is upheld by ideologues of organisations like the RSS. It is on this basis that they criticized the outrightly repressive policy of the central government against the Sikhs, like Operation Bluestar, saying that such measures would only consolidate the false separate identity.
A good number of bourgeois academicians view the present Punjab situation as the result of the last few decades of electoral arithmetic. Detailed analyses of voting patterns and electoral results in Punjab have come out. This sort of empiricism is a purely segmented view of a peripheral process. An underlying factor behind these analyses is of interest. These electoral analyses start from the basic premise of communal politics, which means that their empiricism is based on a communal understanding of history. A general consensus among such analysts seems to be that the Sikh political grouping, which has always tried to operate as a pressure group in Punjab politics, took up extremist postures when narrow party interests of the ruling party at the centre threatened its operational validity. Thus, it is the rivalry between the Akali Dal and Congress (I), which has finally resulted in the emergence of die-hard Sikh fundamentalist politics in a big way.
Another point of view on the origin and development of fundamentalism is that the leftist forces did not take up the challenge of understanding the objective situation correctly and take up the question of resolving the contradictions in a proper manner. The failure of the left to take up and lead the national struggle in Punjab is considered an important reason why the Sikh fundamentalist forces emerged supreme. This is essentially a self-critical appraisal about the role of the left. However, this is a very wide generalisation. The emergence of a militant trade unionist movement outside the leftist fold (e.g. Datta Samant’s trade union movement in Bombay in the early ‘80s) is also understood in the same vein. Any militant movement against the status quo led by forces outside the left can be understood by the same logic. In this scheme many important things are left out. First, why did the left fail? The failure itself, even if it is on the level of lack of comprehensive capacity, is a socially and politically determined affair. It is not a cause and effect relationship. There might be serious factors why a phenomenon like Sikh fundamentalism could articulate the grievances of the people in a powerful manner. But it does not mean that the failure of the left is the cause for the emergence of a phenomenon like Sikh fundamentalism. An element of self-glorification through self-criticism is there behind such an approach. The emergence of Sikh fundamentalism and the failure of the left, though they might have happened concurrently, cannot be taken as a cause and effect relationship. To take such a viewpoint is to mechanically understand a historically developed conjuncture.
The sympathisers and ideologues of Sikh fundamentalism do not recognise any contradiction between a national struggle and the theocratic ideology backing it. They hold that Sikhism, unlike any other theocratic ideology, is egalitarian and democratic. Religious tolerance and secularism preached by the Gurus are cited as the basis of these democratic values. The rejection of the caste system and religious bigotry, the upholding of equality of men and women and dignity of labour, are often raised to substantiate this contention. Historically, these are valid facts, but to stick to this original religious idealism to justify a movement of national liberation in the present context is ahistorical. The Punjab society has evolved tremendously from the days of the idealistic preachings of the Gurus. The materialism preached by the Gurus has also undergone massive changes in social practice. From being a primitive society in terms of the development of productive forces, it has de veloped into a fullfledged class society. Passing through periods of military feudalism, monarchy and colonialism, it is currently in the phase of neocolonialism. New classes have developed, the relations and mode of production have changed in a dynamic fashion.
What is Religious Fundamentalism?
Religious fundamentalism is popularly associated with Islam, particularly Muslim fundamentalism in Iran. Islamic fundamentalists came to power there in January 1979 riding on the crest of a massive popular upheaval. Though Iran came to epitomise the Islamic fundamentalist challenge to the existing system, powerful fundamentalist movements are operating in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and even in countries of Southeast Asia, like Malaysia. But it was only in Iran that the fundamentalist forces could effectively capture power and keep it too. The background of Iranian Islamic fundamentalists capturing power is of great relevance to any student of religious fundamentalism.
Before 1979, Iran was the outpost of US imperialists in West Asia. One of the richest countries of West Asia, Iran under the rule of the Pahlavis, was known as the policeman of West Asia. A country with more than 50 percent urban population and a well developed industrial proletariat, it was one of the strongest neo-colonial bastions of the western bloc. A series of “green”, “white” revolutions had been implemented in Iran under the direct supervision of the imperialists. Another important characteristic of pre’79 Iran was the existence of a powerful left movement fighting in the forefront against the dictatorial regime of the Shah. But when the mass upheavals and general strikes spread throughout Iran in the second half of 1978, ultimately forcing the Shah and his coteries to flee to imperialist hideouts, the leftist forces were swept off their feet. After Ayatollah Khomeini came to power a bloody extermination campaign was more or less successfully unleashed against the bourgeois liberal and leftist forces. This particular phase of political developments in Iran is often cited by leftists in India to denounce any form of religious fundamentalism as going back to the age of inquisitions.
It is easy to denounce religious fundamentalism, particularly in an emotionally charged atmosphere. But a sensible critic of such a serious political and ideological phenomenon should look into why such an ideology can dig deep into the minds of the people. In Iran’s case it is not just a bunch of clergy that has become fundamentalist. The clergy could make fundamentalism into an effective mass mobiliser. Fundamentalism in Iran came up as a response to the rampant neo-colonial cultural degradation and economic exploitation, which had reached the lowest depths possible during the sixties and seventies. It came up as a response to unshackle Iran from the stranglehold of the neo-colonial control mechanism. Whether the 1979 Islamic revolution succeeded in this mission or not is a different matter. If it failed, this failure will have to be understood in terms of the built-in limitations of any fundamentalist alternative.
Marxism does not deny the social relevance of religions. The most often repeated quotation of Marx – “Religion is the opium of the masses,” when quoted in such a partial manner amounts to a gross distortion of what Marx actually said. In fact, hi analysis of religion is one of the most complete and incisive ones to date:
“The basis of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion
is the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet found himself or has
already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being encamped outside the world. Man is
the world of man, the state, society. This state, this society, produce religion, an inverted world-
consciousness, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of that world,
its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in a popular form, its spiritualistic point d’honneur, its
enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, its universal source of consolation and
justification. It is the fantastic realisation of the human essence because the human essence has
no true reality. The struggle against religion is therefore indirectly a fight against the world of
which religion is the spiritual aroma. (Contribution to the Critique if Hegel’s Philosophy of Law,
Introduction”).
See how Karl Marx arrives at the conclusion that religion is the opium of the people:
“Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and also the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
In fact, this was no conclusion for Karl Marx, unlike for the mechanical materialist. It was only the beginning of his analysis:
“To abolish religion as the illusory happiness of the people is to demand their real happiness. The demand to give up illusions about the existing state of affairs is the demand to give up a state of affairs which needs illusions. The criticism is therefore in embryo the criticism of the vale of tears, the halo of which is religion.”
What is an effective criticism of religion? This is what Marx says:
“The criticism of religion ends with the teaching that man is the highest being for man, hence with the categorical imperative to overthrow all relations in which man is a debased, enslaved forsaken, despicable being, relations which cannot be better described than by the exclamation of a Frenchman when it was planned to introduce a tax on dogs: Poor dogs! They want to treat you like human beings!”
Religious fundamentalism in the form it is emerging now is a reaction to the debasement of man. Nobody who criticizes the Sikh fundamentalists dares to criticize the various Hindu revivalist movements, or the Sikh Gurdwara Reform movement, or the Khilafat movement as reactionary and obscurantist. The obvious reason for such a paradox is that under colonial rule, in whatever form protest arose, it has to be considered progressive because it was anti-colonial. But why is that if a protest takes a religious fundamentalist shape under neo-colonial conditions it is deemed reactionary and bigotrous?.... If the people take up thousands of years of old religio-moral values and rally around them to fight the utmost degradations is it reactionary? Such a situation can result in religious fundamentalism only if there is no concrete scientific approach.
Religious fundamentalism is not the same as religious revivalism. In India there is both Hindu religious revivalism as well as Sikh fundamentalism. The latter is in effect pitted against majority Hindu communalism because it is the Hindu communalists who want to trample the Sikhs underfoot. Both these ideologies are backward-looking and anti-democratic. But one is in defence of the status quo, while the other has come up as rebellion against the status quo. The main question is whether the status quo is to be defended or not. The people of Punjab have developed tremendous self-respect and consciousness over centuries of fight against invaders and oppressors. In the course of it a good section of them created their own religious faith also. And if they resort back to their religious faith, which in an earlier epoch enable them to fight against the marauders in a successful manner, they can do it. There are no Mughal plunderers now in Punjab. No Zakharia Khans, no Ahmed Shah Abdalis and no Nadir Shahs, but there is a permanent Delhi. The point is whether Sikhism as an ideological motive force which could be effectively used against Abdali and the Mughals, can be effectively used against Delhi of the modern days also.
Sikh fundamentalism has come up as a response to the fast degenerating neo-colonial cultural values and economic relations... the neo-colonial economic basis resulted in the demand for Khalisthan. The degeneration of social values is manifested in numerous ways: reestablishment of Brahminical rites in the Gurudwaras, sections of rural and urban middle and upper middle class Sikhs taking up predominantly Hindu customs like ostentatious marriages with the evil of dowry. Social evils are also percolating downwards creating social tensions and affecting the material position of families. The practices of the urban new rich Hindus are being increasingly taken up. The simplicity and hardiness that the Sikhs had acquired over a period of few centuries of struggle were getting undermined in a slow but firm process. Polytheist pluralism, a convenient weapon of the Brahminical hierarchy in aid of the policy of containment through accommodation of other religions, was seeping in.
The lack of channels for healthy capital investment has over a period of time resulted in the strengthening of ostentatious consumption trends. The decline of the industrial towns and the growth of towns like Jullundher (which is a miniature replica of Delhi in many respects) are indices of the growth of vulgar consumerism. Jullundher sows the demonstration effect of middle and upper middle class Delhiites to a ridiculous level. Many of its posh colonies have Delhi names. Those who are generating sufficient surplus have got concretised into a very profitable market for sophisticated durable consumer goods like motor cycles, cars, colour TV and video sets etc. turned out by the all-India bourgeoisie in collaboration with the imperialist bourgeoisie. In this respect the situation became very similar to that existing in areas like Kerala. This reckless growth of consumerism without a production back-up was creating its own social repercussions.
One of the significant pillars of the teachings of Sikhism, the anti-caste tenets, was being thrown to the winds. Not only the upper caste Hinduised urban Sikhs were practising casteism, but also the rural Jat Sikhs. The process of democratisation, which alone can mitigate and finally abolish the caste system, was not occurring. The caste equation was such that the urban upper caste Hindus and Sikhs looked down on the other castes, and the rural Jat Sikhs looked down on the Mazhabis and other so-called lower castes among the people. This is acting as a serious divisive force among the people.
The growth of casteism in the rural areas got a shot in the arm with the periodic influx of the migrant workers starting from the second half of the ‘green revolution’ period. With lakhs of migrant workers from Bihar and eastern UP descending on Punjab during the peak agricultural periods, the practice of casteism is materially and morally reinforced among the farmers. The casteism practised against the migrants is quite acute. In many places they are not even able to sit inside a public transport bus with an easy mind. The life-giving force of Sikhism as a theocratic ideology was being trampled underfoot. All these are manifestations of a neo-colonial pattern of development which also synchronise with the Hinduisation process.
Alcoholism has become rampant in rural as well as urban areas of Punjab. The per capita excise revenue of the State from sale of liquor is one of the highest in India. In this respect also there is a close similarity to the situation in Kerala. Such an inordinately high level of consumption of alcohol is a fairly heavy drain on the economy as a whole. Apart from this massive suction of surplus liquid cash into the coffers of the big bourgeoisie producing liquor this also contributes to the creation of an unhealthy anarchy, particularly at the household level. An interesting thing to note is that the consumption of alcohol in this manner ceases to have any real value for the consumers, not even a cathartic one. That is why women, who are the worst victims of the alcoholism of others, give enthusiastic support to the campaign of Sikh militants against the liquor lobby. Alcohol has become a fad, it has become something with very little use value for the people. Once again the lack of avenue for productive investment of surplus cash is a very important contributory factor to the diversion of resources to the consumption of alcohol, jewellery, etc.
All these and many more distortions of the social fabric have come to be institutionalised in Punjab since the introduction of the so-called ‘green revolution.’ Sikh fundamentalists vehemently oppose practices like vulgar display of wealth at marriages, alcoholism and dowry. Sant Bhindranwale’s exhortation to the Sikh youth to stop buying TVs and refrigerators, and instead acquire motor cycles and guns, points at precisely this attitude of the militants. Incidents like attacks on lavish marriage parties and liquor shops are steadily on the increase. These reformist activities of the militants enjoy the sincere support of large sections of the people. Another fall-out of this reformist position is that the Sikh youth, who had earlier rejected the outward forms of the Khalsa like uncut hair and beard are reverting back to orthodoxy.
The dominance of Hindi films in the Punjab market is very striking. A people with their own culture and language are fed with Bombay produced muck with a surfeit of neo-colonial vulgarities. The young Punjabi film industry is basically a replica of the dominant Hindi films. Like there is a Green Park in both Delhi and Jullundhur. This is a very striking case of national oppression. Supplemented with the state policy encouraging Hindi at the cost of the people’s language, the Hindi film and Hindiised Punjabi film operate as a forceful vice-grip on the dynamism of Punjabi language and culture.
There is a deep undercurrent in the minds of the people against this growing threat to Punjabiat. The lack of development of the novel in the modern sense of the term is a serious reflection of the stunted growth of Punjabi culture. The role of the Hindi press, the favoured position given to Hindi, and an all-round pincer-like grip by the neo-colonial values can all be cited as the real reasons behind such a stunted growth.
We cannot say the same about poetry and drama. A very rich tradition of folklore exists in Punjabi. But, however much poetry or theatre may be developed, they have a limitation, namely, they don’t possess to the same degree as the novel the capacity to analyse the society in its holistic and complex forms. That is why the emergence of modern novels also marks the emergence of well-defined nations and national cultures. The classic forms of examples of the novel as a medium to express national consciousness can be found in the case of French realism and neorealism. Writers like Victor Hugo, Emile Zola and G. Flaubert analysed French society in its myriad complexities and stated the case of a national culture. To a greater or lesser degree many other languages also showed the same growth pattern. The period of neo-colonialism is reflected very strongly in the modern Latin American and, to an extent, African novels. Latin American writers like Jorge Amado, G.G. Marquez and Graciliano Ramos and African writers, like Ngugi, have given powerful expressions to national consciousness in opposition to neo-colonial domination. Though to a less dynamic level, some of the languages in India (like Bengali and Malayalam) have also registered achievements in this direction. In the case of Punjabi, though the other expressions of national consciousness have reached a higher level than, say, Bengal or Kerala, the novel as a medium of communication still remains an immature one.
Why is there such a gross distortion in the development of Punjabi literature and culture? Modern mediums, like films and novels, are conspicuously backward, while the directly political expressions of Punjabi nationalism are in a relatively advanced stage. After the partition of Punjab the policy adopted by state-controlled educational and cultural ideologues was one of cultivating contempt for the Punjabi language. And the genuine Punjabi intellectuals could not break out of it. The Hindu-Hindi press consciously propagated this irrational contempt. Hindi was accorded a false prestige as the medium for the educated peasantry. There is no historical basis for such a conclusion. Punjabi is the language of all the Punjabis. We are compelled to draw the conclusion that the state policy of discrimination against Punjabi language (particularly written in the Gurmukhi script) is an important reason why modern literature, like socially analytical novels, is underdeveloped in Punjabi.
When the Sikh intelligentsia raises the question of government policy as acting detrimental to the interest of Punjabi language and culture it is quite justified in doing so. We have dealt with this truncated Punjabi language controversy, inspired by the predominantly urban Hindu-Hindi chauvinists in the section dealing with the language controversy in Chapter III. They could be successful to a large extent in blocking the progress of Punjabi language through their dominance in the media, education and in combination with state-sponsorship.
Sikh fundamentalism has come as a response to the times. It has come in the gap provided by neo-colonial development of productive forces and the socio-cultural ethos of the masses. It has come in the background of the bankruptcy of so-called leftist ideology and general discrediting of the same in both the all-India and international context. It has come up as a fortress of defence of the values that guide the normal life of a social animal. The problem of juxtaposing Sikh fundamentalism with modern values is a problem of juxtaposing idealistic human values with the values of neo-colonial pimps.
Religious fundamentalism is not the same thing as religious revivalism. Religious fundamentalism is an ideology that tries to find a solution; religious revivalism is obscurantist in the concrete sense of the term. Let us take Punjab. The fact that the Hindu revivalist organisations have sprung up in the towns and cities of Punjab in the background of the emergence of Sikh fundamentalism as a potent alternative to the present structure clearly points out the gap between revivalism and fundamentalism. Fundamentalism puts into action a policy of overthrowing the state structure. Revivalism comes up as a reaction to fundamentalism or sometimes to radical ideologies. It is a preservationist ideology, while fundamentalism is resorting preservation of faith as a means to change the existing state structure. There is a basic difference between a revivalist (always in defence of the status quo and under extremely compelling situations, becoming reformist) and a fundamentalist. A fundamentalist reacts with virulence not simply to save his faith, but to advance his socio-political status. A fundamentalist is an open book, because he is a subject of fluctuating social realities. A revivalist is someone who is stuck in the mud and tries to raise his little toe when it becomes too uncomfortable.
The persecution of Punjabi language is not an isolated incidence. The most conspicuous example of an imposed national integrity is the imposition of Hindi as the so-called national language. In fact, among the developed national languages in India, Hindi was the least developed at the time of its enthronement as the ‘national’ language. In Tamil Nadu in 1965 there was a bitter struggle against the imposition of an alien language, Hindi. Hundreds of youth were butchered by the Tamil Nadu Congress government to save Hindi. Language was always a sensitive question in India precisely because it is the basic national consciousness of the people. Unlike in the case of Tamil Nadu the language question in Punjab could be distorted; it was communalised and is still being communalised.
The language question in India is a very serious one; it is a point of honour for the various peoples in India. The multinational character of this subcontinent in its most lucid form is expressed by the different national languages. When Hindi was imposed as an overlord of the other national languages it could have been only the result of short-sighted and misguided pan-nationalism, which in the concept of the people who did it meant only pan-Hinduism. If any national language in India, in this context Hindi, is raised to the level of the national language, it has to be at the cost of the other national languages. The argument that Hindi is spoken by a larger number of people is irrelevant. It is not a question of a larger or smaller number of people speaking a particular language, but a question of the evolution of national languages organically linked to defined territories, specific cultures and ways of life which have evolved through centuries. Hence the election of a supranational language cannot be put to vote.
Punjabi is undoubtedly one of the worst sufferers of this Hindi policy. The national languages across the Vindhyas, or say in Bengal, did not suffer as much as Punjabi did. One reason for this is possibly, by the time the systematic imposition of Hindi started, these languages had already developed to a significant level. In the case of Punjab, the central rulers directly and indirectly tried their best to exlipse Punjabi. We have to keep in mind that this is being done to a language and culture which had received a tremendous blow through Partition. When the Sikh fundamentalists allege national oppression, the oppression of the Punjabi language by the Hindi chauvinists in power is an important component.
Democratisation Process and Fundamentalism
In the classical pattern of bourgeois democratic revolutions, as in countries of Western Europe and England, the bourgeoisie took a secular approach. This secularism did not deny religion but undermined its power base. The dissociation between state and religion became the cornerstone of this revolutionary transformation. The dominance of the clergy in affairs of state was no longer suited to the accumulation drive of the bourgeoisie. In fact, it had become a hindrance to it. The bourgeoisie understood perfectly well that political power would have to be captured to further and consolidate its economic interests; and for this, anti-feudal and anti-church struggles were a must. The bourgeoisie’s breakthrough in accumulation through various sorts of international trade (including slave trade) enabled it to capitalistically transform agriculture itself, an important aspect of undermining the power of feudals and clergy.
The national bourgeoisies of Europe, through the bourgeois democratic revolutions, enabled the process of democratisation in their own nations. Bourgeois democratic revolutions were not anti-religious, they were for “putting religion in its proper place” as a moral binding factor for complete bifurcation between the church and state. This they achieved to a fairly large extent in their own countries. In their own internal dynamics this was no doubt removing an important fetter on the productive forces.
But the bourgeoisies who unleashed the process of democratisation in their own societies did not resort to any such niceties when they started their outward thrust and divided the world among themselves. As we mentioned elsewhere, Punjab was the last area to be annexed to the British Indian Empire. During the First War of Independence led by the dispossessed feudal chiefs and Rajas, the Sikh princes enabled the British to reconquer Delhi and this was a clear success of the ‘divide and rule’ policy. Utilizing the services of the feudal chiefs—Hindu, Muslim and Sikh—to their own convenience, the British managed to keep Punjab territorially and culturally divided. All through the British period this was probably the most powerful force blocking any process of genuine democratisation. This does not mean there was no democratization process at all in Punjabi society. The waves of anti-feudal, anti-imperialist struggles did initiate a process of genuine democratisation. The culture and language of the people took inspiration from the struggles and a sense of unity came to be established at the mass level, at least during certain high points. But even this process could not yield deep enough results due to the lack of a thoroughgoing anti-imperialist, anti-feudal programme. Whatever limited unity the people had achieved through their democratic participation in struggles was blown to pieces spatially, temporally and psychologically when Punjab was partitioned.
In the absence of genuine freedom and independence, the democratisation process had a very tardy start in the post-1947 period. The development of capitalist relations of production in Punjab (like elsewhere in India) did not automatically result in the strengthening of the democratisation process in society. The imposed nature of the capitalist relations prevented the organic development of the democratisation process. Nowhere else is this abnormality more visible than in Punjab. Religious fundamentalism in Punjab, like in Iran, had come up as a political manifestation of this abnormality. In essence, religious fundamentalism is a going backwards. A theocratic ideology backing up a modern political state is an anachronism; it curtails the vision of the masses and imposes strictures which prevent the free development of man. By making adherence to any specific religion as the pillar of society it denies freedom and democracy. The relative levels of egalitarianism and democracy existing within any religion are out of place because the question here is not which religion is better or worse, but the denial of freedom to those within and outside the specific religion. It goes against the elementary sense of justice in a democratic set-up because preferential treatment is bound to be accorded to the members of the majority community when the state is controlled by the theocracy belonging to that religion. We have no reason to expect anything different from a potential Khalistan. “Broadminded” Khalistanis may differ, but it is irrational to expect anything qualitatively different.
Religious fundamentalism as a response to the degeneration of social values under the aegis of neo-colonialism can be characterised as only a negative response. More so, because on very important questions like what should be the nature of society in terms of its organisation and ideology we have to take a relatively long-term vision. What happened to the post-’79 Iranian society? Effective power was very fast consolidated into the hands of the conservative sections of the clergy, whose mission of genuine national liberation lacked scientific commitment. They could not successfully withstand imperialist (predominantly of the US variety) pressures for any serious length of time. Through conspiratorially unleashing a genocidal war between Iraq and Iran the imperialists wrecked the economies of both and gain advantages for themselves. This war brought untold misery to the masses of people in Iran. Lakhs of youth were killed and the inflation rate crossed the 2000 mark. The western powers could undercut the price of oil through manipulations and Iran, due to the dire need to procure spare parts and modern weaponry, buckled under. This fiasco caused Iran billions and billions of dollars. Thus was a fundamentalist revolution achieved.
Politically, the Islamic revolution in the beginning took a staunch anti-imperialist posture. The high water-mark of this posture came when the Islamic fundamentalist youth occupied the American embassy, held the US diplomats as hostages and threatened to put them on trial on charges substantiated by their own documents seized from the embassy. At that point the progressive forces all over the world were eagerly watching Iran. But this brave posture could not be sustained and developed. The imperialists were slowly but surely trapping Iran once again in their vice grip. The fundamentalist ideology and the theocratic state very soon betrayed their helplessness in achieving genuine independence for Iran.
The inability to radicalize society and the erosion of support from the masses compelled the Khomeini clique to deny even a modicum of democratic rights to the people. This was their only way to maintain themselves in power. The attacks on democratic minded women, liberal bourgeois and leftist political forces assumed horrifying levels of witch-hunting within no time. The attacks on the Kurdish Democratic Party, fighting a war of national liberation for the last thirty years, were also stepped up. And the war with Iraq, which the Iranian clergy proclaimed as a jihad (holy war) to exterminate infidels and enemies of Islam, gave them the much needed all round emergency conditions which were necessary for their survival.
When the Islamic revolution and the hardline Islamic theocratic state buckled under imperialism it was not a repetition of the Shah period. The revolution could not break out of the imperialist stranglehold because it did not have a scientific programme to do so. There are degrees of difference between the Shah and post-Shah periods, but there is no basic difference in the relations between the new state and imperialist powers and capital. Political freedom, which was guaranteed to the people and which ensured their massive participation in the revolution, was thrown to the winds by the new rulers. The domestic economic conditions further deteriorated and political dissent was driven underground. Anyone not agreeing with the government was dubbed shaitan (satan or devil) and sought to be exterminated. A large number of people were compelled to flee the country because to remain within Iran without having the same political conviction of the clergy became a sure passport to hell. Internal repression reached unprecedented brutality. The SAVAK (political police) was dismantled but the Hizbollah (Party of Allah) Islamic guards replaced SAVAK in an even more efficient manner. These fascists are more dangerous because they also have a commitment to religious bigotry. The people of Iran are living under the shadow of death ever since the Islamic fundamentalists came to power.
Post-’79 Iran cannot be repeated ditto in a possible Khalistan. Though both Punjab and Iran are neo-colonial in character, there are differences also. One of the main differences is that the working class in Punjab is not as developed a force as in Iran. Oil production, and the concomitant international political and economic relationships, is not the same as wheat and rice production. The quality of the working class itself is different. On the social level, narrow minded casteism and communal cleavage do not exist in Iran. These are only some of the differences, but they are serious ones. A Sikh theocratic state in a possible Khalistan cannot be a mirror image of the Islamic fundamentalist state in Iran. For one thing, Sikhism is not as bigoted as Islam, at least in the way it is practised in Iran. Even with all these differences, because of the built-in limitations of fundamentalism and its irreconcilable contradiction with any democratic functioning of the state, a possible Khalistan cannot and will not be qualitatively different from any other fundamentalist set-up. There will be degrees of differences determined by differences in the local conditions and the theocratic ideologies. Because fundamentalism is a retrogressive step against genuine democratisation of society, there cannot be any qualitative difference between a Sikh Khalistan and Islamic fundamentalist Iran.
Concrete Dangers of Fundamentalism in Punjab
The Sikhs are a majority (60 percent) in Punjab, an overwhelming majority in the rural areas and a minority in most urban areas. But 40 percent of the population is no small number. Not all Hindus are enemies, just as all Sikhs are not friends, of the people. The upper caste, upper class Hindus and Sikhs are the friends of the central government and very often indulge in opportunistic compromises betraying the people’s cause. Moreover, the Sikhs themselves are not a homogenous community. Caste and class divisions are rampant among them as in any other community in India. Up to very recent times (Operation Bluestar can safely be cited as a departure point), the Dalit Sikhs, who are mainly agricultural and industrial proletariat, constituted a vote bank for the Congress (I) because of their acute contradiction with their employers, who are mainly middle and upper caste and class. They identify the Akalis as the party of the employers, the rich Jat peasantry, which practices casteism apart from surplus extraction. This shows that the contradictions on the social and economic levels have increased. A traumatic episode like the attack on Gurdwaras may achieve a level of emotional unity, but when it comes to the brass tacks this unity is not strong enough to withstand structural pressures.
The influx of a large number of migrant workers has further accentuated this contradiction. The capitalist farmer employers prefer migrant workers because they are unorganised and are satisfied with their relatively lower wage rates. The laws of demand and supply of labour power in Punjab operate such that the Punjabi labourers are denied their rightful share because the migrant workers depress their wage rate, that is, the wages do not increase proportionate to the increase in output. The one-point slogan of Khalistan does not give any answer to this kind of contradictions. It is interesting to note that the Anandpur Sahib Resolution, while raising the demands of the all the other classes in Punjabi society, is extremely evasive in the case of agricultural workers.
The absence of a realistic class approach among the Khalistanis is fraught with serious dangers. Nationalism cannot be equated with emotionalism, however high a role emotion can play in a national struggle. It is true that Khalistanis verbally reject casteism, but the class backing of the Khalistani movement does not concur with this rejection. Practice is different, and practice is a concrete reality. Any national liberation struggle to be successful will have to be based on an alliance of the different classes having their own contradictions with the main enemies. An alliance of different classes is radically different from sinking class differences on an emotional basis. The first is a scientific approach while the latter is a metaphysical one. The simplistic slogan of Khalistan unfortunately belongs to the latter category.
The question of communal cleavage in Punjab is a very important one. Both the Khalistanis and the Hindu communal elements, the latter enjoying the support of the central government, are responsible for this situation. The government is making out that the Sikh militants want to transform Punjab into a Sikh nation, which implies the oppression of the minority communities. The slogan of Khalsa Raj is cited as proof. The media have been constantly playing up this distortion. They have awarded Bhindranwale with having developed the strategy of converting Punjab into a Sikh nation. Bhindranwale’s policy was described as one of terrorising the Hindus in Punjab so that they would flee the State unleashing a vicious cycle of anti-Sikh terror outside Punjab so that Sikhs from outside would flock into Punjab. We do not know how far it is justified to credit Bhindranwale with such an obnoxious strategy. But the fact is that migration (both ways) is an ongoing process. Advertisements for property transfer have become a routine item in Punjab newspapers. The development of industrial towns like Panch Kula and Mohali (Hindu and Sikh towns respectively) also shows the same trend. Chandigarh, being an important bone of contention, this sort of urbanisation on its outskirts is dangerous because the respective communal forces are very active in these towns. Potentially such urbanisation on communal lines can very easily lead to fratricidal bloodletting. The communal division in Punjab gives an effective weapon to the central government to distort, vulgarise and defeat the national struggle. However much the Khalistanis deny it their slogan itself gives enough scope for this irrational division. And the government has often been able to effectively utilise this division to beat back the onward progress of the national struggle. Massive propaganda on these lines was to a large extent responsible for the indifference shown by the rest of India to the 1984 pogrom outside Punjab. Sikh militants are yet to draw correct conclusions from this setback.
Only a clear cut programme insisting on Punjabi nationality, as against Khalistan, can yield fruitful results in resolving this gross distortion. Here the question is whether an independent Punjab will be a nation of all Punjabi-speaking people, or only the Sikhs. A similar distortion can be observed in another important respect also. In the early 1980s, when Bhindranwale was still alive, the Sikh militants released the map of future Khalistan. It is understandable that Chandigarh is included in it. But it foxes one when extensive areas belonging to other peoples also find a place in the map. Sri Ganganagar district of Rajasthan, Terai region of UP, Kangra belt of Himachal Pradesh, the bordering belt with Haryana, and Delhi itself are included as part of Khalistan. This is nothing but bossism, and is very harmful to the cause of the genuine liberation of Punjab. Such an approach will only pit the people of other national formations like Haryana, Himachal and Rajasthan against the Sikh militants. A sensible approach would be to unite the oppressed peoples of all the national formations on a broad platform of the struggle for national emancipation. The situation is very similar to the one existing between Bengal and Assam.
In Assam, when the popular movement on the foreigners’ issue caught on like wildfire in the early eighties, which was in essence anti-Centre, it was sought to be converted into an anti-Bengal movement. The central government and the dominant political party in Bengal, CPI(M), raised the bogey of persecution of Bengalis in Assam and tried to precipitate the situation in that direction. This became a significant weakness of the Assam movement. Finally, the movement got caught up in the web of fratricidal massacres, like at Nelli. West Bengal’s big brother chauvinism was a significant factor in this. What happened towards the end of the agitation was that basic issues like the backwardness of the economy were side-tracked and it became anti-Bengali (Muslim migrants from Bangladesh). The influx of lakhs of migrants from Bangladesh looking for agricultural land and employment is itself a result of the earlier misadventure by the central government. Parties like CPI(M) were keen to keep these people as captive vote banks, and this is the reason why they opposed the agitation on the issue of disenfranchisement of these Bangladeshi Muslims.
In the case of Punjab, Punjabi businessmen and traders (both Hindus and Sikhs) exercise dominance in many of the neighbouring areas. Himachal Pradesh is a clear example. One of the most backward areas in India, it is also a very rich area. Punjabi timber contractors and fruit traders have got a strong grip over the outflow of fruit and timber. Along with J&K, Himachal Pradesh contributes heavily to the all-India fruit market for fruits such as apples, cherries, plums, peaches and almonds. These are very high cost agricultural products when they come to the markets. The margin between the contractor’s price paid to the growers and the price which the consumer pays outside the State is incredibly huge. The dominance of these traders and contractors (who are in league with food processing industry tycoons) is very obvious even to a casual traveller in Himachal Pradesh. In addition, there is an increasing trend of penetration by the Punjabis into the State’s tourism industry. The slow but steady propagation of Punjabi culture of the new rich variety is corrupting the Hill people. These and other factors subverting the culture and economy of the Himachalis are getting sharply defined with each passing day.
The Khalistanis, advocating the incorporation of parts of other peoples’ homelands into their own, resort to the argument that during Ranjit Singh’s kingship all these areas were a part of Punjab. This is a ridiculous argument. Ranjit Singh subjugated the Hill chieftains, for example, through a policy of force and threats, and it was a very short-lived incorporation. The actual reason why some sections of the Khalistani militants uphold the right of Khalistan to these areas is that they believe that their relatively superior position will enable them to successfully consolidate these areas. Even in a situation where Khalistan still remains a vague concept and is nowhere near achievement, these sort of arrogant postures can only distort the movement for genuine independence of Punjab. On the one hand, the ideology of Khalistan alienates vast sections of people within Punjab, including a large section of the modern proletariat in the urban areas. On the other, it generates hostility from the peoples of the neighbouring areas.
The main question to be addressed is whether Khalistan has got an objective basis or not. Here we are making a sharp distinction between an independent Punjab and an independent Khalistan. An independent Punjab will be a Punjab of all the Punjabi-speaking people of this region, while an independent Khalistan by definition will be a theocratic state on the basis of the religious faith of the dominant community. The constitutionalist argument that Punjab ought to have been given back into the hands of the Sikhs after 1947, because it had been taken over from them by the British, is a lame one. It is true that the British took over Punjab from the remnants of Ranjit Singh’s royalty. But during the period of Ranjit Singh himself the Sikhs constituted only a small minority (12-15% of his kingdom). It is because of the formation of a centralised army, constituted by erstwhile military feudal elements, that he was able to exercise control, though only for a short while, over such a vast area. This is a far cry from saying that the British took over a Sikh nation. In fact, the Punjab that the British took over was no homogeneous nation at all. It was composed of different peoples, religions, languages and territories. Thus, to argue that only the Sikhs are the legitimate heirs to the whole of Punjab is outdated and misleading.
The objective basis for an independent Punjab does exist, as we have tried to show through earlier chapters. But the objective basis for a Khalistan does not exist. Even if Khalistan comes into being it will not be able to sustain because of this very same reason. This at least partly explains why the Khalistanis are not able to evolve a concrete programme to achieve their objective. And this at least partly explains why the central government, with its collaborators inside Punjab (who belong to both the religious denominations), is successful in communalising the issue and projecting the anti-democratic nature of the slogan. Of course, we do not think that the Sikh militants will eternally continue on the same track. Circumstances are developing in such a way and at such a fast pace that ever newer polarisations are bound to occur. Such new polarisations are historically warranted and are a must for any genuine breakthrough. But such polarisations do not occur automatically. Conscious attempts based on scientific understanding and organic social processes only can trigger off such changes.
Sikh Fundamentalism and Imperialism
The ideological backwardness of Sikh fundamentalism as an ideology of national liberation is nowhere more apparent as in its approach to imperialism. A recurring theme of the central government is that the Sikh fundamentalists are trained in Pakistan and supplied with modern weapons by the same source so that India can be dismembered in the interests of Pakistan and her imperialist patrons. In fact, the explanation of ‘encounter’ killings very often harps on the logic that those who are killed are ‘intrudeers’ from Pakistan. It may be quite possible that Pakistan is interested in fishing in the troubled waters of Punjab. Historically, there have been a series of wars between India and Pakistan and Kashmir remains more than ever a disputed territory. With the support of Russia India dismembered Pakistan in 1971, creating deep hostility between the two neocolonies. This suits the interests of the imperialists immensely. Perpetuation of regional tensions and the resultant thriving market for their armaments industry is a well developed strategy of imperialists of all hues. The arms race between neo-colonies plays no small role in strengthening the overall imperialist stranglehold. This is very explicit in the case of India and Pakistan, Iran and Iraq, or Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The Sikh fundamentalists in India are ably aided and supported by Sikhs abroad. On the face of it there is nothing unnatural in such a development. Sikhs abroad have every right to consider themselves as part of the struggle against the national oppression of their brothers and sisters back home. Being relatively more prosperous they are definitely in a good position to help the militants in Punjab. The central government sees in this “a foreign hand” insinuating that the Sikhs are outrightly unpatriotic and are only too ready to sell their country to vested interests abroad. Even if we reject the insinuations of the government and monopoly media as heavily motivated, we cannot be so complacent about the manner in which the militants are treating such arguments. They are silent about the whole affair, an admission of at least indirect guilt.
Sikh lobbies for Khalistan are active in many countries, particularly in the USA, Britain and Canada. There are fairly large settlements of Sikhs in these countries; many among them are prosperous businessmen, while the majority belong to the urban and agrarian working class and peasantry. Their economic status is definitely better than that of their brothers and sisters in India, but this is no reason not to understand the truth that they are basically exploited as a source of cheap labour, skilled and unskilled, agricultural and industrial. In fact, this is a global phenomenon. Cheap labour from neo-colonies is an important source of surplus for the imperialist bourgeoisie, whether it is in West Germany, France, Britain, Australia, Canada, USA or by the western multinational companies operating in the oil rich Gulf countries. They are discriminated against and are the victims of constant racial attacks, particularly in the western European countries. It is neo-colonial relations of production that has driven them there to slave for the while man, who is confident that these workers have no alternative but to emigrate and be at the mercy of the metropolitan countries. If they become a political threat they can be easily dealt with. And by propagating that it is the migrants who are responsible for the growing unemployment in the imperialist countries hostility is maintained between the migrants and the local people, which effectively prevents any real fraternisation between the two, though both of them may belong to the same class.
A realistic understanding of the actual position of the majority of Sikh migrants outside India has to be based on the fact that it is the lopsided development pattern imposed on Punjab that is forcing the youth to run after passports and visas. The scene has come to such a pass that a visa to one or the other of the imperialist citadels is a most prized dowry. The Sikh militants fighting for liberation in Punjab do not take into account the neo-colonial penetration and control of the Punjab economy as being responsible for the large-scale migration of their best quality labour power. Such an understanding would have enabled them to work out a genuine programme for national liberation which has to be necessarily anti-imperialist. For, it is the imperialist stranglehold which has imposed a geographical division of labour making Punjab into a granary without an even relationship between industry and agriculture, market and production. It is the neo-colonial system that has imposed severe restrictions on the surplus accumulation and profitable investment of the rising class of capitalist agriculturists who are victims of an unjust pricing policy.
An average Sikh militant is blissfully ignorant of the vicious mechanism operating in Punjab. When they are fighting alcoholism and dowry they are actually hitting at manifestations of a neo-colonial culture. When they are hitting at the middlemen and big traders they are targeting the neo-colonial economic basis. But they are not able to integrate these popularly supported moves with an overall scheme of the structural dynamics of the Punjabi society. In fact, they are looking forward to the day when an ‘independent’ Khalistan formed with the aid of imperialists and their agents comes into being. The truth is that no country oppressing its own people can help the struggles of other peoples. If this happens, like in the case of Afghanistan, it is only the result of efforts to strengthen the own stranglehold. Far from becoming liberated, it will result only in changing masters, very often worse masters may take the place of the former ones.
The complacent attitude of the fundamentalists about the nature of imperialism is probably the most serious handicap of the Khalistanis. If it continues like this disastrous consequences might result. Unless the militants take an uncompromisingly anti-imperialist position they will only be exchanging slavery for slavery, not democracy and freedom. Nothing worse can result from a misguided national struggle. Their clinging on to a theocratic ideology and the lack of an economic programme to back up the struggle are all the reflections of this basic lack of awareness about the real issues in one way or other. The situation is drifting without any radical breakthrough mainly due to this all important lacuna.
[Chapter 7 from: CHAOS IN NATION FORMATION: CASE OF PUNJAB by T.G. Jacob, Odyssey, 1990. The book was dedicated to the memory of thousands of Sikh men, women and children tortured and killed in the anti-Sikh pogroms in November, 1984.]