Death keeps politics alive

The rejection of mercy petition of Khalistan militant Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar by President Pratibha Patil has resulted in interesting political developments in Punjab with the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) demanding revocation of Bhullar's death sentence and the rival Congress' state chief and former chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh joining the chorus.

Although formed to articulate the aspirations and ambitions of the Sikh masses, the SAD after coming to power in the state in 2007 in an alliance with the BJP, had been distancing itself from the minority politics while proclaiming to focus on development. However, as the President rejected the mercy plea filed by Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, the party reverted to the Sikh agenda to plead his case, overlooking the fact that the Akali Dal government headed by Parkash Singh Badal had submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court describing Bhullar as a “hardcore and experienced criminal”.

Interestingly, Pradesh Congress Committee president and former chief minister Capt. Amarinder Singh is also supporting clemency for Bhullar who has been living in solitary confinement for about eight years now. The Khalistan militant was awarded death sentence in a case of bomb blast in Delhi and his death sentence was confirmed by the SC in December 2002. On his mercy plea, pending with the President since January 14, 2003, the Ministry of Home Affairs had given the final recommendation on August 9, 2005.

Punjab had entered a long dark tunnel after the Sikh-Nirankari clash in April 1978. The Akali Dal ruled in Punjab then and the party was a partner in the Janata Party led coalition at the centre. While the Congress encouraged radical tendencies by way of supporting the anti-Akalis in the March 1979 general elections to the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) in which Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale had also fielded his candidates (though he lost badly), the Akali Dal provided legitimacy to the use of violence as instrument of conflict resolution by hailing the killing of Nirankari chief Gurbachan Singh. This competitive politics was one of the factors which provided fertile ground to the radical politics. The same phenomenon is being witnessed in Bhullar's case.

The Akal Takht, the supreme temporal seat of the Sikhs for prayer and politics, and the SGPC have also joined the clemency chorus. However, many feel that the Akali Dal's reverting to the Sikh agenda is part of its electoral strategy as the Assembly elections are just a few months away, due in February next. In this competitive politics, the Congress, despite the party high command keeping a safe distance from the controversy, has gone a step ahead with Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit leading a delegation – that included DSGPC chief Paramjit Singh Sarna and Bhullar’s mother Upkar Kaur – to Congress president Sonia Gandhi. The delegation submitted to her the legal opinion of eminent lawyer Ram Jethmalani.

Bhullar taught in a technical educational institution before he was sucked into militancy like several other educated youth at that time. His name hit the headlines in the case of a bomb blast outside the Youth Congress office in New Delhi on September 11, 1993 in which eight persons were killed and the then Youth Congress chief M. S. Bitta was seriously injured. His name also cropped up in the bomb attack on Chandigarh Senior Superintendent of Police Sumedh Singh Saini in 1991. Saini escaped unhurt. Devinder's father Balwant Singh Bhullar and another relative were picked up by the police and they went missing. This case is with the CBI. Though Badal and his Deputy Chief Minister son Sukhbir Singh Badal have pleaded for Bhullar, they are silent about his father and uncle. The state government had filed the affidavit defending Saini in the Supreme Court in this very case!

“For the Badals, the only consideration is the Sikh vote bank which has got eroded after the party shed its minority agenda. Badal is not sincere at all as the effort is just to retrieve the eroded Sikh vote bank,” says Dal Khalsa general secretary Kanwarpal Singh. The Badals have sought “direct and immediate intervention” of Prime Minister  Manmohan Singh to save Bhullar’s life on grounds of “statesmanship, humanitarian and civilised concern and over all national interest”. The SAD feels that this would be “an act of grace which would ensure that the atmosphere of acrimony, suspicion and estrangement between the Sikhs and the Centre was not vitiated any further”.

Bhullar was  awarded the death sentence by a three judge bench in a majority verdict and not unanimously. Those pleading his case argue that the basis of capital punishment was his confession before the police. There is another significant dimension. He had escaped to Germany and was deported. As per the media reports, the German foreign  ministry had protested against the death sentence awarded to him.

Incidentally, the issue came up near the anniversary of the Operation Blue Star that was done on June 6, 1984. While both Badal and Amarinder are eyeing the Sikh votes, the BJP, the alliance partner of the Akali Dal, has taken a different stand. “Let the law take its own course,” said Shanta Kumar, in-charge of party’s Punjab affairs.

After the hanging of Kehar Singh in the Indira Gandhi assassination, here is the second case which most of the political parties and the leaders in Punjab are pleading. Kehar Singh’s case had been taken up by the leaders at the national level while support to Bhullar is only confined to Punjab and the Sikh organisations in Delhi.

While the political parties are engaged playing politics over clemency, Bhullar’s wife Navneet Kaur, 44, is praying for him in Canada and maintains that her husband is innocent. They had been married only for about two months when Bhullar went underground. She has now appealed to the President that being a woman herself, she would fully understand her situation. Supporting her are the residents of Bhullar’s native village Dyalpura Bhaika in Bathinda district and panchayats of adjoining villages that have joined hands to plead with the President for converting the death sentence into life imprisonment. For them, the issue is not political. Then there is his mother Upkar Kaur who has suffered silently. She has pleaded with the Sikh organisations to join hands to plead the case of her son.

The issue is likely to generate further heat in the coming days and it would be an acid test for the ruling Akali Dal whose stand suffers from dichotomy with the state government having taken a different stand earlier. It is the motives which are more important.