India needs to uphold Parkash Singh Badal’s unifying legacy

FOR me personally, as also for countless workers of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and other followers of Sardar Parkash Singh Badal, this is a very emotional moment as it is the first time that Punjab is celebrating his birth anniversary in his absence — with a heavy heart and moist eyes.

The occasion also provides us an opportunity to look closely at the legacy of the man who, in 1997, had inherited a Punjab bleeding under repression and fratricidal violence, and who left it as an oasis of peace and communal harmony.

He would rise above personal loss to see how best he could help the people of the state, which he loved more than his own life — as seen on the numerous occasions when he skipped major personal events, such as the wedding of his daughter, if it meant compromising on the vital interests of the state for which he was made to languish in prisons for close to a decade and a half.

A major part of Badal’s eventful and tough political life covers a period when there was not even a remote possibility of his party, the SAD, forming a government in the state because of the demographic character of the pre-1966 Punjab. It’s a tribute to him that once he entered public life in the early 1950s, no one in Punjab could ever reckon without him, in or out of power. All his life, he remained the best barometer of Punjab’s social and political temperature.

It is quite instructive to find that for 75 years of the SAD’s 103-year-old history, Badal was seen striding the political landscape not only of his own party or the state but even of the country. He was the only political leader from Punjab, and most definitely the only Sikh leader, whom everyone, right across the national political spectrum, trusted, respected and loved to seek advice from — a quintessential elder statesman.

Throughout Badal’s career in public life, he symbolised a narrative which the country desperately needs to uphold today — a narrative based on the composite culture of the state and the country, with emphasis on peace and communal harmony. At a time when religion was used as an explosive catalyst for social and religious disintegration, Badal was able to steer the state back to the core spiritual and social values of human brotherhood, equality, compassion and a commitment to the poorest and most deprived segments of society.

Before February 1997, when Badal started his third stint as the Chief Minister of Punjab, the state was literally bleeding due to a communal divide on one hand and state repression on the other. It won’t be an overstatement to say that between 1983 and 1985, and then between 1989 and 1997, Punjab had come to resemble an unending funeral procession. February 1997 was, indeed, like the Book of Genesis of the Bible: everything had to be built anew and respect for life and the living restored. Badal achieved this near-impossible task to such perfection that today, most people don’t even remember that dark age.

But once he had eased the state through its toughest challenge and ushered in an era of peace and inter-faith trust and brotherhood, he threw himself into healing the social, emotional, religious and economic wounds on the state’s body.

Thus started an era which saw Punjab bringing in the biggest single-project investment ever in its history — the Rs 22,000-crore Guru Gobind Singh Refinery at Bathinda. This was followed by a series of all-round developmental initiatives in education, healthcare and agriculture (three of his premier concerns all his life), besides infrastructure development, social welfare, business, trade and industry.

The setting up of institutions such as the Indian School of Business, IIT-Ropar, AIIMS (Bathinda), PGI (Sangrur) and Army training institutes for boys and girls, along with the emphasis on skill upgradation and state-sponsored quality education for meritorious students from economically disadvantaged families, was the spearhead of his drive to give Punjab’s youth a competitive edge in the global employment market and compete with the best in the world. And this was reflected in a wide range of educational reforms and initiatives he undertook, playing not just the patron saint but also a warm and affectionate grandfather to girls and boys.

Badal saw his revolutionary decision on free power for farmers, often misunderstood by some economists, as state investment to sustain and revive the faltering farm economy, without which the rest of the economy would come crashing down.

He tasked me with upgrading the social and material infrastructure of the state and reforming and modernising governance so as to remove bureaucratic bottlenecks and take the government to the people’s door.

That’s how we saw the country’s first Governance Reforms Commission, which cut the red tape and made services related to property matters (for instance, fard), police complaints, FIRs, birth and death certificates, driving licences and a 100 other facilities easily available to the people.

And that’s how the state’s ramshackle, bumpy-road infrastructure was replaced with four-lane and six-lane expressways and domestic and international airports.

These are just some of the highlights of the change that Badal presided over. And as a tribute to his unifying legacy for all Punjabis, I will stay away from politics in this piece.

But obviously, apart from the charm and the all-embracing warmth of his persona, nothing defined Badal better than his commitment to heritage. Never in the past 200 years or more had Punjab seen such strong emphasis on preserving and promoting our cultural and religious heritage. Monuments like the Khalsa Heritage Complex, memorials dedicated to Bhagwan Valmiki ji, Guru Ravidas ji, Banda Singh Bahadur, Chhota and Vadda Ghallughara and the complete transformation of the ambience of Sri Harmandar Sahib with the Heritage Walk — all these and the country’s iconic monument to the freedom struggle at Kartarpur Sahib will stand testimony to Badal’s vision and his party’s commitment to Punjabi and Sikh heritage as well as to the country’s composite culture.

I am sure that the coming generations of Punjabis will echo these words when they remember Badal:

“His life was gentle; and the elements
So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, this was a man…”