Comic Relief: Why Punjab Stood Behind Bhagwant Mann

An excited cheer of a new beginning in Punjab reminds me of an ending, mulling over a tragic episode but brimming with hope. Legendary Punjabi novelist Jaswant Singh Kanwal concludes his classic treatise, Lahoo Di Lau (The Blood Incandescent), a profound reflection on the Punjabi radical tradition while contemplating the tragic end of Naxalite movement in Punjab—“Punjab is indomitably spirited, my dear! Its thunder is in the wind. Sodden in soil this spilled blood has fermented into gunpowder. Sometimes all that’s missing is the charge to light the fuse.” Published abroad during the Emergency and smuggled to India, this novel has become a rage since. Movements, political parties and episodic resistance since the mid-1970s spawned a score of false dawns in Punjab, but a constant has been the spirit of Punjabis. Shaped by the lyricism of Baba Farid, Kabir and Guru Nanak, an ethic of struggle, solidarity and will informs the Punjabi self.

Results in UP, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur show a further deepening and expansion of the Hindutva vision succeeding in finding new adherents to beat anti-incumbency whereas in Punjab, trends amply reveal that the AAP got votes of all the castes and communities; rural and urban dwellers; men and women; the poor-middle class-upper class continuum. It is easy to lose head in this heady storm of popular goodwill and robust support. But we need to pause here and remind ourselves that the urge and will to send packing the conventional parties matured in the late ’80s–early ’90s. Punjab’s society had been incessantly striving to break the pincer formation since the 1980s, with an equally resounding mandate in the 1989 general elections to people related to victims of State oppression winning 11 out of 13 parliamentary seats. The decision to take a ceremonial sword into the Parliament for the oath-taking ceremony snowballed into a boycott of Parliament proceedings altogether. The next such occasion was the 1991 assembly elections when, allegedly alarmed over the possibility of militants sweeping the polls, the Election Commission postponed the elections and let ali­enation strike deep roots in Punjabi society. The rescheduled elections in 1992 witnessed a befuddling call for a poll boycott by militants against the popular sentiment at that point in time.

ALSO READ: Tears Of The Hills: Uttarakhand's Disastrous Date With Modernisation

This momentous upheaval was thwarted not by the established political class (it had all but given up) but by the leadership of the mass upsurge against Congress as the perpetrator of Operation Blue Star and Delhi pogrom, both in 1984, popularly as the chaurasee. Beant Singh formed the government, with the Congress entering office with only 20 per cent of the electorate going to polls. This government broke the spine of an increasingly alienated militant movement along with overseeing the structural collapse of the administrative machinery. Corruption as a systemic corollary of governance had emerged during Surjit Singh Barnala’s short-lived ministry in 1985-1987. A thorough politicisation of the civil and police administration continued unabated in the 1997 Akali Dal government of Parkash Singh Badal. He also did not keep his poll promise of ensuring justice to victims of human rights violations during the preceding Congress rule. It was the first instance when a CM went back on his fundamental poll promise. The people had, however, backed the SAD’s decision to ally with the BJP as an attempt to unite the Sikhs and Hindus in Punjab and rehabilitate the Sikhs into the national mainstream.

ALSO READ: Paradox And Dilemma Of UP's Hindi Literati

The Manmohanomics unleashed on a national scale translated as the great sale of governmental assets to cronies at throwaway prices, leading to further dismantling of the institutional structures, be it schools, hospitals or water supply. Those were also the times when Bhagwant Mann’s political satire video features articulated the popular disgust at this vulgarised idea of ‘development’. For sure, the SAD was gradually transforming itself from a robust political platform with a formidable rural base into a corporate entity run by a chain of command with a CEO-styled top leadership. Rampant corruption pushed aside the antagonism against the Congress, resulting in Captain Amarinder Singh taking over the reins of the state in 2002. His government partially delivered on its promise by terminating the river water-sharing accords. Here was an oddity. A Congress CM who took on his central leadership to safeguard the economic interests of Punjab on one hand, while simultaneously divesting the Akalis from the federalist space in Punjab politics on the other.

ALSO READ: How Hindi Literature Stopped Being A Chronicler Of The Times

The people were, however, entertained by the increasingly crude political discourse which refrained from offering any understanding of the structural malaise devouring the innards of Punjabi society, economy and state revenues. The sand mafia, land mafia, cable mafia, liquor mafia, transport mafia sprung up all over Punjab, feeding both the big parties. The slow withering away of the State, coupled with the erosion of any ethic of governance was put in sharp focus by the death of youth all over the state. The AAP’s 2014 parliamentary breakthrough was premised on this discontent. With the agrarian structure already in its death throes, the anguished countryside was resulting in suicides. Hopelessness was the primary condition of existence in which various socio-political formations—ranging from farm unions, Dalit organisations and citizens forums—briefly flickered with uncertain outcomes. The cyclical nature of Akali-Congress power politics remained intact in the 2012 and 2017 assembly elections even though the challenge posed by the People’s Party of Punjab and the AAP had all the makings of a popular revolt expressing itself in the electoral arena.

It is not surprising that Punjab overwhelmingly responded to a distant India Against Corruption agitation and welcomed a Hindi-speaking bania, an outsider, as its own. In this acceptance of Arvind Kejriwal as someone who could liberate Punjab from the vicious political culture was an equally vehement disgust at every ‘insider’ Sikh Punjabi leader. Punjabis were now repelled by the pusillanimous behaviour of some new-age political ‘rebels’ and their platforms which shut shop at the first setback, blamed the Punjabis for not supporting them and returned post-haste to parent parties. Kejriwal appeared on the horizon as the new tiger who refused to relent in the face of huge odds and the Punjabis never completely abandoned him, even when they kept a distance from his stances at the national level.

ALSO READ: And Unquiet Flows The Yamuna

Even with the rise of AAP in 2014, interestingly, structural conversations were absent, obscured by corruption and drug menace constituting the main issues in popular parlance. This approach aligned with the AAP’s primary accomplishment in Delhi, relying upon service delivery, efficient governance and tackling petty corruption. The popular refrain of badlaav by the electorate was whittled down to ik mauka by AAP’s campaign. The badlaav no more connoted the vyavastha parivartan or Swaraj but rather a satta parivartan to usher into a new situation. This process is the crux of a provincialised AAP and AAPisation of Punjab. The grand narratives of Punjab politics of panth, federalism, minority safeguarding, river waters, etc., have now given way to a politics of alleviating the everyday experience of indignities heaped upon people by a criminally callous political class, a veritable uprising of the plebeians against the entitled patricians.

The contribution of Bhagwant Mann in the 2022 verdict, however, is a no-brainer. There seem to be multiple threads in the making of the Bhagwant Mann phenomenon, beyond the individual that he is. March 10 has a profound meaning in marking the almost total eclipse of the Punjabi intellectual. The Punjabi vernacular public sphere is suffused with a constant stream of outstanding public figures and organic intellectuals like the legendary author Jaswant Singh Kanwal, Kaveeshar Karnail Singh ‘Paras’, theatre person Gursharan Singh and poet Sant Ram Udasi among others. The political class respected these revered figures due to their sway over the people. With their passing, the assorted intelligentsia of academics, commentators and journalists started to cosy up to the establishment for petty nominations, ranks or projects.

ALSO READ: The Decline Of Urdu In UP's Literary World

This defanged intelligentsia emboldened the political class and ceded turf to popular Punjabi singers, film actors, kabaddi players and media celebrities as worthy claimants to Punjab’s mindscape.  It resulted in a depoliticised youth searching for adventure in roadshows, rallies and social media trolling. One example is the running feud regarding decision-making between such icons and the veteran leaders of the farmers’ movement. The rise of Bhagwant Mann puts into sharp relief a coalescing of the organic intellectual via his political satire, carrying forward the legacy of popular radicalism. His star status in the entertainment industry was a factor in reaching out to Punjabi masses distinct from the earlier generation of intellectuals.

If Bhagwant Mann symbolises ‘political satire’ then Navjot Singh Sidhu symbolises a ‘depoliticised humour’ which appeals more to the urban segment. His reach was much greater on a national scale (one big reason he was made a star campaigner for Congress in other states), but in Punjab, he is no match for Mann’s spontaneous and fluent wit. The rise of these two performers as exemplars of organic Punjabi intellectuals may appear to be a cause of deep despair but it signifies the near-total absence of credible intelligentsia. One should also note on a sober note that the militant rhetoric of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was also a study in the rustic mode of popular theology, where two conventional parties were his constant target. He was instrumental in seizing the space of righteous indignation from the left in the early 80s.

ALSO READ: Interpreter Of Hindustani Maladies

The AAP’s victory in this sense is an achievement of Punjabis in solidarity; a continuation of the non-violent protest movements built around demanding justice over the sacrilege of the Guru Granth Sahib and the farmers’ movement. The real opposition are the people who, having tasted success after decimating the Akalis, breaking the back of Akali-Congress duopoly, silencing the intelligentsia and having successfully repealed the agricultural laws, are now suffused with an awareness of their collective might. The AAP government has to put in motion its governance model based on service delivery while evolving as a political formation from a default choice electoral machine.  The assertive public of Punjab is in command, until now. A look at Mann’s satirical features from the mid-90s should be instructive to grasp the significance of the mandate.

(This appeared in the print edition as "Comic Relief")

(Views expressed are personal)

ALSO READ

Konkani Sunrise: In Search Of The Soul Of Goa

The Talking Vulture

Of Lament And Longing

Life, Kingsize: Punjab Has Lost Much But Not Its Spirit

Bookseller's Diary | Rise Of Modi And The Change In India's Reading Choices

Sumail Singh Sidhu historian and director of Adara 23 March