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Akali Dal Vs Congress
A Unilinear Notion of Development
Kalam Nishan
Singh
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With the great legacy of the teachings of the ten Sikh Gurus,
the philosophy of the Sri Guru Granth Sahib and the idea of
universal brotherhood as the under-girding of our world vision,
do the Sikhs have a choice of pushing a purely capitalist notion
of development as their idea of Mega Development? Do we have the
luxury of letting this notion win in the land of the Gurus?
Situated on the crossroads of Economics and Religion, this
Special Report is a call to think through our priorities. |
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 To
anyone even remotely engaged with the developments in
Punjab, one word will be hitting home with incessant frequency:
Development. In fact, so ubiquitous has the word “development”
become that political parties now add an adjective. So various
advertisements and self-trumpeting statements now talk of “Mega
Development”.
Erstwhile Congress regime of Captain Amarinder Singh led virtually a
frenzied pace of clearing major projects of several thousand crores
of rupees in meetings of the state cabinet, the Punjab
Infrastructure Development Board and a special committee for large
projects.
The opposition Akalis and BJP often used to ridicule the Congress’
claims saying, “Show us, where is the development?” Little changed
with the change in regime. The Akali Dal-BJP Government clears
projects with a similar speed, claims of multi-crore ventures and
investment are made regularly and top brass spends much time in
launching new ventures by cutting ribbons.
 The media reports all of this, but with a straight face. Because a
much corporatised media cannot afford to underline the disturbing
similarity between the economic agendas and vision of development of
both the key parties – the Akali Dal and the Congress. The BJP’s own
idea of development is no different.
As
for the debate about what is development, whom is this development
for, how many people such development covers, which class of people
is the direct and secondary beneficiary of this model of development
and how large sections of the populace remain outside such a linear
model of development is something that neither the politicians nor
the media are inclined to discuss.
Some projects cleared by Amarinder Singh government landed in
trouble after farmers protested land acquisition policies which
bordered on coercion. The big industry needed acres of land, so the
government stepped in and acquired land from farmers, and handed it
over to the industrialists at a price they could hardly find
anywhere. Perfectly fertile lands were sought to be handed over.
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Our notion of ‘development’ must be in sync with the view point
of the subaltern lest the quom that underlined the motto of
Sarbat Da Bhala is shamed to find that its best and
brilliant were weighing in on the side of the rich and powerful
when they were asked to define “Development” |
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But then came the resistance. Firings, lathi charges, dharnas,
political one upmanship and a tale of broken promises later, the
Badal regime has found a way out. Give farmers great prices for
land, give them over and above what they could have wished for, and
claim that you have finally got the development agenda right. This
is the way ahead, say the Badals now. In fact, ruling alliance
politicians make much of the fact that many farmers actually wish
that the government acquires their land.
First, the admissions. Yes, it is true that most farmers whose land
was acquired at great prices by the government are actually happy as
they reaped a windfall. Yes, it is also true that many farmers
actually want that the government similarly acquires their lands too
at such prices. Then, a reality check: Exorbitant prices are not
being paid everywhere, and in most cases the happiness has little
lasting value. When it gets tied with a sum of money, it lasts only
as long as the sum does. It is the economy, stupid!
Major sections of the media, almost all the mainstream media in
India, are accepting this kind of development – the SEZs, the
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), the big names putting their money
in backward states, a Trident in Punjab, a Tata car plant in West
Bengal, a Reliance SEZ in Gurgaon, similar ventures all over the
country – as “the” vision of development.
 There seems to be no need to look anymore at the methods of
historical materialism and class analysis. Economists seem to be
confused and disoriented about explaining this development to the
masses and prefer to hide behind the “benefits will percolate but in
good time” argument. What is really unfortunate is that this mindset
is prevailing at a time when across the globe, the question of an
alternative is back on the agenda and in whatever confused or
muddled way, the anti-capitalist struggles are being resumed. We are
at the crossroads of vicissitudes of world history and we must look
at the notion of development from a view point of the subaltern lest
the quom that underlined the motto of Sarbat Da Bhala is shamed to
find that its best and the brilliant were weighing in on the side of
the rich and the powerful when they were asked to define
“Development”.
The Sikh community must be careful as it will be judged by how well
it aligned the notion of development with the teachings of the
Gurus. As that giant of Indian academia and the great Marxist
scholar Prof Randhir Singh put it in his book “Crisis of Socialism”,
the inventiveness of masses in revolt has been and will continue to
be beyond the imagination of the most sensitive scholar or
philosopher. Revolution is not over.
We
must see development through a prism shaped by the majority of poor,
downtrodden, marginalised, dalit, women, minority, lower middle
class, middle class and sensitized upper class whose collective aim
is to aspire for an egalitarian society, not enrichment of the few.
Any notion of development has to answer the people's thirst for
justice. The poor and forsaken still hope for a better life. An
idea of development which carries an inbuilt notion of hostility
towards the have-nots will invite revolution on the agenda of
history. Revolution is the unfinished story of our times, and
notions of false Mega Development shall not diminish it.
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 “Garib
Ka Moonh Guru Ki Golak,” said the Guru. Which current notion of
development – the Akalis’ or the Congress’? – comes up to the
great ideal? |
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In
other parts of
India, and in nearby Nepal, the Maoists seeking self-reliant
development are making their moves, and the response to those should
be a pointer for us in
Punjab.
Just because those with big bucks who have ideas of “Development as
Super Malls and Super Highways” seem like winning, and who spout the
ideology of the rulers of the day, it does not lead to a zero-sum
game where the pure Khalsa ideal of an egalitarian society has
completely lost and the capitalist idea have won. The resistance is
on. The media may not report it, but the fights are being put up
heroically.
Major opinion leaders in the world made the same mistake of seeing a
zero-sum game after the collapse of the
Soviet Union in a different context earlier: “Because socialism has
lost, then its antagonist, capitalism, must have won,” they argued.
Now, the best of them are applying the correctives. It is time that
we too learnt to avoid such reductionist logic.
Just check out the sections vulnerable to impoverishment. Check out
the official statistics on rates of unemployment, poverty,
homelessness, and hunger, the proliferating urban ghettos, the
warrens of teeming tumble down shanties in
Punjab’s
dalit colonies, the gross inequalities in our lifestyle, the
wretchedness of the impoverished and the excluded, and the huge mass
of misery. And re-assess the notion of development. Temper it with
the great Sikh core values and see the result. “Garib Ka Moonh Guru
Ki Golak,” said the Guru. Which current notion of development – the
Akalis’ or the Congress’? – comes up to the great ideal?
Let’s not be fooled by hoardings of the monumental-sounding Punjab
Infrastructural Development Board or the huge advertisements placed
in newspapers by the ruling party and government about great leaps
that
Punjab is making. The state is in the throes of illiteracy, squalid
slums and homelessness.
Let’s not refuse to see the inherent conflict between two claims
just because the media does not underline it:
1.
Punjab
is making huge development and thousands of crores of investment is
creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs.
2.
Every old man and woman in Punjab has been granted Rs 200 ($4) per
month pension and every dalit girl Rs 5,000 ($100) shagun at her
marriage, and hordes of old men and women travel for hundreds of
kilometers in rickety buses to the power center Secretariat in
Chandigarh to complain that they haven’t been getting the precious
$4 for months now!
Shame does not always have a sign of exclamation to denote it; a
politician’s face often suffices.
Considering the fact that Punjab has percentage-wise highest
population of Scheduled Castes (around 30 per cent), the notion of
SEZ-Malls-Multiplexes-Luxury Villas as development only seems to be
hurling insults at the large majority and equals barbarization of
our minds.
 With the great heritage and legacy of the teachings of the ten Sikh
Gurus, the philosophy of the Sri Guru Granth Sahib and the idea of
universal brotherhood as the under-girding of our world vision, do
the Sikhs have a choice of pushing a purely capitalist notion of
development as their idea of Mega Development? Do we have the luxury
of letting this notion win in the land of the Gurus? Our failure to
redeem and significantly transform a society when in a position to
do so will be a testimony to our analytic inadequacy and the grave,
persistent weakness of our leadership and organisations.
We
have a situation where the old has exhausted its positive
possibilities and the new is having problems being born. Remember
Gramsci? “The old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this
interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear”. Of course
that was a different historical juncture, but how true are the words
today for anyone trying to define what development means?
Those who see Mega Development in SEZs and acquiring lands of the
farmers for industrial parks, need only to recall Chomsky’s
devastatingly simple words: “At this stage of history, either one of
two things is possible. Either the general population will take
control of its own destiny and will concern itself with community
interests, guided by values of solidarity, sympathy, and concern for
others, or, alternatively, there will be no destiny for anyone to
control.”
Can we afford the luxury of a destiny we can’t control? Do we have
the luxury of a narrow definition of development merely because the
rulers in
Punjab are in sync with the rulers in
Delhi,
saffron or tricolored?
How come we have come to adopt the ideas of development that so
synergetically are in sync with the idea of development chiseled in
Delhi, the idea of the saffron band, the idea also of the Congress
ideologues, the Chidambaram-Manmohan Singh line? And how come we end
up diametrically opposite the rational voices and the notions of
development of someone like Mani Shanker Aiyar, of scholars like
Achin Vinayak, of academic giants like Prof Randhir Singh, of
people’s movements like those of Medha Patekar, of Human Rights
activists all over the world? Which brand of idea of development is
closer to the ideals of Gurbani?
Clearly, either our leaders – the Akalis or the Congressmen – have
made friends with the enemy or we have taken a position anti-thetical
to the ideals of universal brotherhood.
Also, the Gurbani’s idea of development is at the same time about
becoming more human. Sakhi after sakhi in Sikh history tells us of
the need for a heightened subjective
human
sensitivity. About the need to become
more human.,
living a genuinely rich human life. The new Akali-Congress-BJP
notion of development is necessarily alienating, depersonalising and
dehumanizing. Recall Marx. “The more you
have,
the less you are.” Any dreams of propagation of religion cannot
be delinked from assessing, reassessing and evaluating our notions
of what is development, since finally it is about human beings,
human beings covered under the motto of Sarbat Da Bhala. Brahmanical
notions of development cannot be acceptable to a religion which
envisages construction of an egalitarian society not as one of its
main highlights but as the raison d'être of the religion of Guru
Nanak-Guru Gobind Singh.
1 October 2008
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