Ajaz Ashraf: AAP derides the BJP for playing identity politics – but is doing the same in Punjab
The party invokes
Sikh valour against the Mughals and touts its focus on Punjabi language.
Regardless of the
inevitable spin and compulsions of electoral politics, the Aam Aadmi Party
seems to have taken the first few baby steps on the path that leads to the
politics of identity.
It is the path AAP had
mostly shunned. AAP’s dominant
political style had been to treat people as citizens without unduly emphasising
their identity – whether rooted in religion or language or caste. Or it
subsumed the politics of identity within its larger agenda of delivering
services to people in a manner that was both efficient and corruption-free.
But AAP’s style of
politics seems to be losing its original flavour as it prepares to fight the
electoral battle in Punjab. An example of it is the AAP government’s recent
decision to rename the Barapullah flyover – the lengthy corridor which reduces
dramatically the time taken to travel from East Delhi to South Delhi – after
Banda Singh Bahadur, the legendary 18th century Sikh warrior.
In addition, the AAP
dispensation in Delhi has announced its intent to ensure that every government
school in the city will have at least one teacher of the Punjabi language, as
also to increase the salaries of such instructors. To publicise these two
decisions – the renaming of the Barapullah flyover and its Punjabi language
policy – the Delhi government has taken out full-page advertisements in some
newspapers published in Delhi. This is not unusual – just about every
government seeks to advertise what it believes are its achievements.
But what is unusual is
that these advertisements have also been featured in newspapers published from
Punjab, whose population AAP seeks to woo before the Assembly election there.
Under the existing norms, a state government can’t publish advertisements in
another state unless these have been also released to newspapers printed in the
territory under its jurisdiction.
This suggests that AAP
believes its advertisements could resonate with the people in Punjab.
Underlying this belief is the AAP’s acute awareness that its policy to promote
the Punjabi language and decision to rename the Barapullah flyover reflect the
ideas that define the Sikh identity.
A secular veneer: This awareness is
perhaps the reason why AAP has tried to provide a secular perspective to its
baby steps on the path to identity politics. It doesn’t want to displease
voters in Delhi or its supporters outside Punjab, yet woo the Sikhs. For instance, some of
its leaders have claimed that the decision to rename Barapullah after Banda
Bahadur is to highlight the conflict between a powerful Centre and its weaker
peripheries, which is also the theme of the tussle between Prime Minister
Narendra Modi and some chief ministers, including Arvind Kejriwal.
As is well known,
Banda Bahadur, who was brought into the Sikh fold by Guru Gobind Singh, defied
the Mughals to establish his own independent principality. However, in 1716,
the Mughal army vanquished, imprisoned and brought him and his followers to
Delhi, where they were brutally tortured and put to death.
This year,
coincidentally marks the third centenary of Baba Banda Bahadur’s martyrdom – a
fact AAP has cited to rechristen Barapullah as Baba Banda Singh Bahadur Bridge. As such, the Sikh
religious identity draws considerably from their bloody conflict with the
Mughals, who did not hesitate to put to death two of their Gurus. The latter
were accused of defying the Mughal emperor or assisting rebellious princes.
However, in treating the Sikh Gurus brutally, the Mughals did not make an
exception. They rarely spared their own either – for instance, Aurangzeb killed
his own brothers and imprisoned his own father to acquire the throne.
Ostensibly, it may
seem commendable to superimpose modern ideas such as nation-state or federalism
on a historical past largely framed as an era of religious conflicts, not least
because of the motivated narratives of colonial historians who had tremendous
influence on Hindutva ideologues. Since such attempts have little historical
validity, these only stoke community pride and reinforce symbols which have
contributed immensely in the formation of religious identity.
Extremely
self-conscious religious identities in a political context invariably become
obstacles to the evolution of common citizenship. It happened during the
decades before Partition, and it certainly seems to be happening under the
increasing dominance of the Hindutva ideology now.
Imitating the BJP: Indeed, the AAP’s
decision to commemorate Banda Bahadur’s martyrdom echoes, in some ways, the
Bharatiya Janata Party’s strategy of invoking icons from the distant past to
endear itself to caste or religious groups. For instance, before
Bihar went to polls last year, the BJP claimed that Emperor Ashok belonged to
the Kushwaha caste. It has extolled Rana Pratap for opposing the Mughals and
the party’s minister of state for external affairs, General VK Singh, wants
Akbar Road to be renamed after Rana Pratap. The BJP President Amit Shah has
also lavished praise on Suheldev, who belonged to the Passi subcaste of Dalits
and purportedly vanquished a Ghaznavid general centuries ago.
It is ironical for AAP
to deride the BJP and yet imitate it in turning history into a morality play,
an unfolding battle between good versus bad. There is ample historical evidence
to claim that Aurangzeb built far more temples than he destroyed, and provided
land grants to support Hindu places of worship. It can also be said with
certainty that Hindu
kings whisked away, even destroyed, the idols of deities their vanquished
rivals patronised. Such was the ethos of those times.
No one expects the BJP
to view Aurangzeb’s reign from a prism other than religious. This is why it
didn’t come as a surprise when it renamed Aurangzeb Road in Delhi after former
President APJ Abdul Kalam. Aurangzeb and APJ Abdul Kalam have come to personify
the BJP’s ideas of who is a good Muslim and who is a bad one. But what did surprise
many was the AAP’s decision to support the BJP’s proposal to rename Aurangzeb
Road. In the short period it has been around, AAP rarely displayed interest in
history other than making references to ancient times in which sabhas or
gatherings were organised to validate or invalidate the king’s decision. Arvind
Kejriwal invoked this tradition in his book, Swaraj, to promote the
idea of participatory democracy.
AAP leaders had then
argued that renaming of roads in Lutyens Delhi is the preserve of New Delhi
Municipal Council, to which Kejriwal, as Delhi chief minister, happens to be a
special invitee. His opposition could neither have dissuaded nor prevented the
BJP-dominated NDMC from renaming Aurangzeb Road. In a tactical move, therefore,
Kejriwal wished to deny the BJP the chance of portraying him and his party as
anti-Hindu and pro-Muslim.
The same argument will
now be voiced to justify the renaming of Barapullah Road. It is linked to the
AAP’s fear based on an assumption – that the Akali Dal will not only portray
AAP as an outsider but also as a party primarily representing the Hindus,
largely because it is dependent on Kejriwal to pull votes in Punjab.
On this count, AAP’s
fear is not unfounded. After its astonishingly successful rally in Punjab in
January, both the Akali Dal and the Congress leaders took to warning people
about the consequences of voting a party dominated by “topiwallas”, a polite
codeword for Hindus.
It is to preempt the
possible strategy of their rivals that AAP has taken to demonstrate to the
people of Punjab that its leader may be a Hindu from Haryana but is mindful of
the religious identity of Sikhs, their language, and respectful of their icons. However, what the AAP
forgets is that its deep inroads into Punjab didn’t come about because it
resorted to the politics of identity. Punjab courted the AAP because its 2013
Assembly election campaign promised corruption-free, sensitive governance. In a
state reeling under the menace of drug abuse, alcoholism, and agriculture distress,
AAP became a beacon of hope for its hapless citizens.
Just as Congress
playing soft Hindutva card can never trump the BJP, so too AAP can’t best the
Akali Dal in the tricky game revolving around the Sikh identity politics. The
AAP needs to turn to the uniqueness of its own message to counter the possible
Sikh-isation of Punjab politics in the months before the state goes to the
polls.
