Amritpal Akalis
Make Forceful Public Assertion in the Panthic Domain
Ground Zero
Jagtar Singh
One mobilisation alone may not be enough to establish a political trend,
but the first major public exhibition of strength by the Akali Dal Waris Punjab
De can certainly be seen as a forceful assertion to occupy the vacant Panthic
space. That space has remained largely unoccupied since the involuntary exit of
the Shiromani Akali Dal, under Sukhbir Singh Badal, from the centre of Panthic
politics. On July 29, the party staged a massive protest march in Chandigarh
demanding the release of its leader, Amritpal Singh, MP, who remains detained
in far-away Dibrugarh jail in Assam.
The faction is headed by Amritpal Singh, the MP from Khadoor Sahib, who
won the Lok Sabha election while incarcerated in Dibrugarh jail under the
National Security Act. He remains lodged there in connection with another case.
Another MP aligned with the party's ideological position is Sarabjit Singh
Khalsa, son of Shaheed Beant Singh, one of the assassins of Prime Minister
Indira Gandhi.
For several years, Akali mobilisations had increasingly come to be
characterised by gatherings dominated by people without turbans, largely from
the middle classes, arriving in high-end vehicles and appearing increasingly
distanced from the traditional Panthic idiom. The July 29 mobilisation offered
a striking contrast. The people who virtually occupied almost half of
Chandigarh despite the police barricades were reminiscent of the earlier
Panthic mobilisations that had long characterised Akali politics. The
composition of the gathering was particularly significant: it was dominated by
young people, many of them visibly passionate and emotionally invested in the
issues being raised.
The demands centred on the release of Amritpal Singh and other Sikh
political prisoners, as well as the commutation of the death sentence of Bhai
Balwant Singh Rajoana. The protesters had been called upon to gherao the Punjab
Chief Minister's official residence in Sector 2 of Chandigarh. The response was
massive.
The protesters assembled at Gurdwara Amb Sahib in the morning before
moving towards Chandigarh, where they confronted police barricades and water
cannons. In a striking display of defiance, young protesters even took control
of a police water-cannon vehicle. A second major barricade had been erected on
the road leading towards the Chief Minister's residence and the Punjab
Secretariat.
Despite some overenthusiastic protesters pushing towards confrontation,
the leadership wisely chose not to escalate the situation. An officer on
special duty (OSD) from the Chief Minister's Office came to receive the
memorandum, which was handed over by acting party chief Tarsem Singh, senior
leader Manpreet Singh Ayali and others.
The mobilisation may not, by itself, establish the emergence of a new
Panthic force. But it unmistakably demonstrated that the political space
vacated by the Shiromani Akali Dal is no longer empty. The imagery, composition
and intensity of the Chandigarh protest suggested that the Akali Dal Waris
Punjab De is seeking to reclaim that space through a distinctly Panthic
idiom—and that it has begun to command a constituency willing to mobilise
around it.
Some of those participating in Wednesday’s protest were pressing
for the last barricade to be broken and the Chief Minister’s residence to be
gheraoed. The leadership, however, prevailed and wisely avoided an unnecessary
confrontation. There are lessons to be learnt from past experience. The
objective was to forcefully raise the demand for the release of
There is also a misconception that these Sikh prisoners are being
kept in jail despite having completed their sentences. In several cases, they
are serving life sentences. The release of political prisoners in such
circumstances has historically been linked to political settlements. Most of
those currently associated with this demand belong to the radical stream of
Panthic
The significance of the present moment is that, since 1989, this
strand of Panthic politics has made its political assertion through electoral
democracy, and has now succeeded in sending Amritpal Singh and Sarabjit Singh
to the Lok Sabha. A stream that was once primarily identified with agitation
and resistance is now seeking representation and legitimacy within the
democratic domain.
Punjab’s political dynamics are different from those of most other
parts of the country. It is a Sikh-majority state and, simultaneously, a
strategically sensitive border state. Given these peculiarities, the presence
of a strong Panthic political formation is arguably an important condition for
political stability in Punjab. Sikh politics also has a global dimension, with
developments in the diaspora increasingly influencing the political discourse
within India
Punjab currently has four significant Akali formations: the
Shiromani Akali Dal headed by Sukhbir Singh Badal; the Akali Dal Waris Punjab
De; the Akali Dal (Punjabi Surjit), led by former acting Jathedar of the Akal
Takht Giani Harpreet Singh; and the Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar), headed by
Simranjit Singh Mann.
The Shiromani Akali Dal has survived its near-complete electoral
marginalisation in the 2022 Assembly and 2024 Lok Sabha elections largely
because of its continuing influence over the all-important Sikh religious
institution, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee. The SGPC occupies a
unique institutional position in Sikh affairs. Its general-house elections,
however, have not been held since 2011 and are now long overdue. The delay in
holding these elections by the Centre has remained unexplained, even as the
existing general house continues to have a majority of members associated with
the Shiromani Akali Dal.
This makes
the SGPC the crucial remaining institutional base of the Shiromani Akali
Dal—and potentially the next major arena in the struggle for control over the
Panthic space.
The Sikh political domain has become increasingly active as Punjab
moves closer to the Assembly elections due in February next year. Sikh
political dynamics have invariably played a significant role in shaping
electoral contests in Punjab, even when their influence has operated
indirectly. The state is presently ruled by the Aam Aadmi Party, which had
virtually no connection with Sikh politics when it came to power but has since
found itself deeply entangled in Punjab’s Sikh religio-political matrix. The
Shiromani Akali Dal, meanwhile, distanced itself from the Panthic discourse,
only to find that the Panthic stream itself pushed the party to the margins.
The broader political scene needs to be assessed against the
backdrop of the activation of the Panthic domain. The Congress, the principal
opposition party and the one previously perceived as posing the strongest
challenge to the ruling AAP, is grappling with factionalism and a leadership
crisis. The electoral strength it acquired in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections
appears to have dissipated considerably. The BJP, meanwhile, has been
attempting to create an impression that it is poised to form the next
government, but it still lacks a pan-Punjab support base. The party remained
the junior alliance partner of the Shiromani Akali Dal from 1996 until their
separation in 2020 and has since been seeking to expand its presence
independently, including by inducting Sikh leaders, particularly from the
Congress.
The immediate political significance, however, lies in the renewed
activity within the Panthic stream. There have been earlier attempts to bring
together the various non-Shiromani Akali Dal factions, but defections from one
faction to another have stalled that process for the moment. Yet the
possibility of some broad-based arrangement cannot be ruled out, particularly
if the competing factions recognise the danger of dividing the Panthic vote and
weakening their collective political influence.
The Akali Dal Waris Punjab De leadership will now have to move
cautiously after this impressive show of strength. A large mobilisation can
demonstrate organisational capacity, but converting that energy into sustained
political influence will require discipline, strategic restraint and an ability
to broaden its appeal beyond a single issue or personality.
The larger
question is whether this mobilisation marks the beginning of a genuine
realignment in Punjab’s Panthic politics—or merely another momentary assertion
in a fragmented political space. With the Assembly election approaching, the
answer could have consequences far beyond the Akali factions themselves.
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