Forget for a moment the January 5 fiasco over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s aborted rally at Ferozepur in Punjab, when he was forced to turn back without addressing the crowd.
It was to be his grand attempt to placate ‘resistant’ Punjabis who have so far been immune to his political charm. But none of that has deterred the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) from going ahead with its plans to expand its footprint in Punjab.
It did so by announcing the first list of 35 candidates, out of a total of 65 seats that it is contesting this time. This is a huge leg up from the 23 seats that it contested in previous years as the junior partner with the Shiromani Akali Dal.
For a party that is already with its back to the wall after the farmer’s agitation – and subsequent withdrawal of farm laws that didn’t help it much – it is confounding as to how exactly the BJP hopes to make a mark and improve its voting percentage that hovers between 5.4 to 9.6% in the state. All that has changed in the last two months after Modi apologised and repealed the farm laws is that now BJP leaders are not being stopped from entering villages. The hostility towards them remains.
Even in the urban pockets, the traders and businessmen who have in better times stood by the party, there is visible anger at the disruption of business due to the long farmer’s agitation. “If the farmers have money, there is cheer in the markets and we also prosper. In the last few years our businesses have suffered due to Modi’s faulty policies so we will vote for whichever party can ensure peace and harmony in the state,” said Swadesh Sharma, a small scale cloth merchant in Rajpura.
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The party’s best bet therefore, is to try and polarise the Hindus of Punjab and try and include them in its larger Hindutva project.
Sample this WhatsApp message that is being sent out to a few Hindu voters to test if it will work. A picture of the Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi with the following lines beneath it.
“Shiv ji de prasid mandir Kanshi Vishwanath Mandir de corridor nirman laye, Punjabi kis tarah Modi ji da Dhanvaad karange? Translated, it means, ‘How will Punjabis thank Modi ji for building the Kashi Vishwanath temple corridor?’
The other strategy is to try and convert Modi’s disastrous Ferozepur visit into a narrative of slight towards the ‘Hindu Samrat’. Already influencers have begun to fan out in the small towns to peddle this narrative.
Interestingly, an equally strong counter push is also discernible in the bazaars which says, “If the all powerful Modi was sent packing, then what chance do we, the ordinary shopkeepers or traders stand? Better to support either the AAP or the Akalis.”
BJP supporters hold posters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as they wait at the venue of PMs rally after it was canceled, amid rain in Ferozepur, Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2022. Photo: PTI
Oddly, the people – some from the RSS – who are crafting these strategies haven’t understood that the Hindus of Punjab are not enamoured with the Ram temple of Ayodhya or Kashi Vishwanath, but have more faith in temples nearer home such as Vaishno Devi near Jammu or Naina Devi and Jwalamukhi in Himachal Pradesh. There is also perhaps more devotion towards the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
It will not be incorrect to say that most Hindus in Punjab are half Sikh in thought and practice and the lines between the two often blur. Hindu families will hold a ‘path’ of the Sikh scripture ‘Sukhmani Sahib’ and then head off to the neighbourhood temple. Similarly, Sikhs visit ‘Shivalayas’ (Shiv temples) and Hindu temples dotted in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. It is a tightly knit fabric, but already there are fears that attempts are afoot to create a rift, citing the aggressive Sikh sentiment displayed during the farmers’ agitation, posters of Sikh terrorist Bhindranwale at the protest sites and deployment of funds by NRI Sikhs to support the agitation.
This is also a time when the Hindu vote of Punjab is up for grabs and is being wooed by all parties. Hindus comprise approximately 39% of the population but are not a consolidated vote bank as they usually are divided between the Congress, the BJP and now the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). In the 2017 election, Hindus moved away from the AAP amidst fears that the AAP is close to Sikh extremists and 48% of them voted for the Congress. But that’s not happening this time, because the ‘upper’ caste Hindus comprising Brahmins, Banias and Khatris are as irked with the Congress as the Jat Sikhs, for foisting a Dalit chief minister on them.
Also read: Dalit Issues Take Centre Stage in Punjab, But Jat Sikhs Continue to Dominate Political Dialogue
The BJP’s other outreach is towards the Sikhs – a community that has always eluded its charms. Its alliance with Captain Amarinder Singh’s Punjab Lok Congress (PLC) and the breakaway Shiromani Akali Dal (Sanyukt) is aimed at bringing in some Sikh votes from the peasantry. It is another thing that Amarinder Singh is facing the same hostility as the BJP in rural Punjab, for allying with the latter. His party will contest only on about 40 seats in the 117 member assembly.
In the last couple of months the BJP has managed to get several Sikh leaders – big and small – from other parties to join it in Punjab. The party has in its kitty Kanwarveer Tohra, grandson of the late Gurcharan Singh Tohra – a formidable Akali leader, former Congress minister Rana Gurmit Sodhi and Manjinder Singh Sirsa former head of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Committee to name a few. Some of them have been given tickets in the first list released yesterday.
But most interesting is it reach-out to conservative Sikh ‘Panthic elements’ like the hardline Sikh seminary Damdami Taksal. The Taksal which was once headed by Sikh extremist Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale is now firmly in the saffron camp. Its chief Harnam Singh Dhumma has praised Modi in recent days and its spokesperson Sarchand Singh another hardline Sikh associated with the Sikh Student’s Federation joined the BJP.
But even in its message to the Sikhs, the BJP will harp on the issue of large scale conversions of Dalit Sikhs to Christianity. On the birth anniversary of Guru Gobind Singh, on January 9, the message that the RSS circulated is: “Dharam Rakshak Dasven Guru Gobind Singh ji ke prakash divas par…. Punjab mein badh rahe dharamantran ko rokne ka sankalp karein.” (On the occasion of the birth anniversary of ‘Protector of religions’, the tenth Sikh Guru Gobind Singh let us resolve to stop conversions in Punjab).
The pitch is that as Guru Teg Bahadur gave his life to protect Hindus from being forcibly converted to Islam by Aurangzeb, and similarly his son Guru Gobind Singh sacrificed his sons for the same cause, Sikhs in Punjab should be conscious of their history and prevent conversions in Punjab.
Modi also declared that December 26 will be observed as ‘Veer Baal Diwas’ in memory of the martyred sons of Guru Gobind Singh every year, and earlier in November the Kartarpur corridor was re-opened to enable Sikh pilgrims to visit the historic gurdwara in Pakistan.
The Bal Diwas announcement was not received well by Sikh religious leaders in Punjab, most of whom view the BJP with suspicion. SGPC president Harjinder Singh Dhami has said that it “doesn’t represent the emotions, ideology and sentiments behind the martyrdom as well as Sikh traditions.” The BJP’s attempt to move into the Sikh religious arena is fraught with consequences because conservative Sikhs resent the Sangh Parivar’s view that Sikhs are part of the Hindu fold.
The messages asking Sikhs and Hindus to be cautious against conversions should be seen against this backdrop.
Chander Suta Dogra is a journalist and author.