The Great Basanti Hype: Manpreet Badal and the Punjab People’s Party

Call me a hater, but I am just not that excited.  Despite the exuberance of some of my fellow langa(w)riters, I am not convinced.

Don’t get me wrong, one of the worst leeches that have siphoned the blood, resources, and morale of the Panth for far too long is the Family Badal.

While state coffers are in ruins and the once mighty land of five rivers finds itself facing ecological (decreasing water table and poisoned through pesticides) and social disasters (drugs and sex-selective abortion, immediately come to mind), the upcoming 2012 elections will be the most expensive show-down in the state’s history.  With the anti-incumbency trend so powerful (nobody ever explores this phenomenon, but it is the travesty of Punjab, where you kick the ruling party out, not too support the opposition, but merely hoping for a ‘slight’ improvement), most are predicting a Congress victory.

In no small part this will be due to in-fighting within the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal.  As Parkash Badal has turned the once Panthic Shiromani Akali Dal into a “Punjabi party” that is really nothing more than his own fiefdom for his patronage networks, public disapproval is on the rise.  The people in Punjab are asking if their situation has improved over the past 5 years.  Increasingly, they are saying no.

The greatest hope (or hype) about the upcoming elections is seen in Manpreet Badal’s Punjab People’s Party.  Manpreet (Parkash Badal’s nephew) was thrown out of the party due to taking openly critical positions.  Many youth are energized, as they see the PPP as a step towards a new future.  Even in the diaspora, people (including my own father!) are excited, as I haven’t seen in years.

Still I am not convinced.  If support of Manpreet is understood to be a vote against Parkash Badal, I am all for it.  I am no fan of the Congress Party, but such is the political realities of Punjab.  If Manpreet’s PPP is able to garner enough votes to be a viable third party in Punjab, I will be excited, not so much for their victory, but the possibility of opening Punjab politics beyond the current 2 party show (the BJP is a sort of sideshow) and will hopefully make alternative grassroots groups possible.

The actual website for the PPP shows no agenda yet, but Manpreet’s personal blog (seems a rather odd place, for a person pushing for a non-individual focused agenda) does have a constitution.  Some of his comments are worthy – not so much or the future of the state – but just to create outrage and show the people how they have been robbed.

Let us share the details about our properties, our security expenditure, our health expenditure borne by state, our foreign trip expenditure borne by state, the expenditure of our personal homes borne by state to name only a few. Let, they who dare to blame me, come and share these details. I wait for them. [website]

The biggest focus on the current PPP website is on the name.  It is one that Manpreet seems particularly proud of, claiming:

In its functioning, People’s Party of Punjab, will live up to its name.  The functioning of this political party would solely be governed by meritocracy. All decisions would be based on consensus. No individual, whatever his position in party hierarchy may be, can ride roughshod over the views of other party members. Party workers, its cadre and its faithful supporters all would have an opportunity to express their views, with an assurance that their advise/suggestions/grievances would be carefully listened to. To quote an ancient Athenian statesman, “instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling-block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all.” [website]

In my opinion, this paragraph says it all.  The fact that the website is in English AND even the name of the party is in English demonstrates that there is very little connection to the actual people of Punjab. One wonders who is intended audience really is?  Does he even know his constituency?  Anytime I have seen him on television, I always note that his Punjabi has almost as English as mine!!

His reference to an “Athenian statesman” and mentions of Plato also indicate his inspirations and how they are very different than that of his constituency.  In the very land of Five Rivers given life by the blood and Bani of our Gurus and even created in its current form by the backs of the Sikhs, there is no mention of the Gurus.  There is no inspiration from Sikh figures; there is no mention of our own forms of democracy – the Sarbat Khalsa.  All we get are Athenian statesman and a few trite odes to Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and Sukhdev.  When did Bhagat Singh’s image come to shine brighter than the Panth’s true heroes?

While the agenda of the party seems to some positive policies, it is reformist, not revolutionary.  This is not a Kesri revolution, but rather a ‘basanti’ (this is the color he has picked for his party) reform.  So again, in today’s situation in Punjab, while I would consider voting for Manpreet as a protest against both the Congress and the fiefdom of Parkash Badal, it would not be because I am excited about true changes and reforms.

As I stated in a previous post following the Congress Party’s victory in the Center in 2009:

There is still much time between 2009 and the 2012 election for the Punjab Legislative Assembly. If the Lok Sabha election is an indication of the political winds, then the cyclical process will continue and hand the SAD a striking loss. Such would be good as it is only in defeat and in disarray that calls against Badal’s hegemony will be sounded. In fact the SAD mimics a “panthic” Party only as the opposition, never when in power.[link]

True change for the political state of the Panth has to be gained through victories in the SGPC.  This is where it is possible and this is where the grassroots change can occur.  Victories will be silent and not happen overnight.

So while I will applaud Parkash Badal’s loss, I can’t help but think – In a pool of poor choices, this may be the least poor. Still, it is NOTHING to get excited about (in fact, that is the tragedy)!