Punjab's political leadership -- and most particularly, that on the religious right --appears to be entirely uneducable. 15 long years of terrorism in the State have failed to root out theperverse politics of communal manipulation that resurfaces every time the Akali Dal -- the party that claimsto represent the Sikhs in Punjab, and that ruled the State through five deeply corrupt and inefficient yearsin power before it suffered a humiliating defeat in the February 2002 State Assembly Elections -- fails tosecure a democratic mandate.
Thus, on June 6, 2003, on the occasion of the annually commemorated 'Ghallughara Divas' (Martyrs Day) whichmarks the anniversary of the ham handed Operation Blue Star, the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC)declared Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale a 'martyr of Sikh history'. Bhindranwale was the man who initiated and ledthe bloody terrorist movement in the State between 1978 and June 1984, when he was killed in the Golden Templeduring Operation Blue Star.