Punjab Polls 2017: Drugs, Sikh Pride and Baba Banda Singh Bahadur

Why Baba Banda Singh Bahadur is making the BJP, Akali Dal and AAP froth at the mouth 300 years after his death.

An artist’s impression of Baba Banda Singh Bahadur. (Photo Courtesy: bhaisahib.org)  

Drugs and Sikh pride. Political parties vying to win the 2017 Punjab election have set their election agendas. In the process, a new generation has been introduced to an old Sikh hero.

Who was Baba Banda Singh Bahadur?

Baba Banda Singh Bahadur was a Sikh military commander who also set up the first Sikh raj in Lohgarh, now in Haryana.

In the six months that the ‘steel fortress’ survived the Mughal onslaught, Baba Banda Singh Bahadur issued his own mint and abolished the Zamindari system to give farmers ownership of their own land. He also staved off the Mughals while expanding his own reach into present day Uttar Pradesh.

Born a Rajput, Baba Banda Singh Bahadur left home at 15 to become an ascetic and was known as Madho Das. He was indoctrinated into the Khalsa by Guru Gobind Singh who entrusted him with his life-long mission to achieve sovereignty.

Full page ad issued by the Delhi government announcing the renaming of the Barapullah flyover after Baba Banda Singh Bahadur. (Photo Courtesy: Indiasamvad)

Why Now?

On Sunday, Prime Minister Modi announced his government would form a high-level committee to celebrate the 300th martyrdom of the Sikh icon, not just in India but across the world. Rs 100 crore has been earmarked by the Centre and the Punjab government will contribute a matching amount. The event organised at the Indira Gandhi stadium was attended by Akali Dal leader and Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his son Sukhbir.

Addressing the packed stadium, Deputy Chief Minister of the poll-bound state referred to the Aam Aadmi Party’s campaign against the Akalis and said “Sikhs, who follow the Gurus are being defamed as addicts” and warned “the Sikhs know how to finish those who defame us.”

The Aam Aadmi Party began its door to door campaign in Punjab when the Akali-BJP alliance was at its lowest point and the Congress was still wrangling with Captain Amarinder Singh. The headstart allowed it to set the state’s drug problem as the number one election issue. But the party also balanced it by drawing on ‘Sikh pride” by making Punjabi compulsory in Delhi schools and renaming the Barapulla flyover after Baba Banda Singh Bahadur.

As for the BJP, its references to Baba Banda Singh Bahadur are incomplete without a bringing up his Hindu past. Inaugurating the celebrations of the Sikh leader’s 300th martrydom, Prime Minister Modi spoke about how an ascetic named Madho Das had been forgotten by history after he met Guru Gobind Singh.

At a young age, he hunted a deer but was so wrought by guilt that he became an ascetic. That one incident changed his life and brought him to Guru Gobind Singh. It is only after meeting the Sikh guru that his life changed. There was a time when he was known as Madho Das but that has been drowned in history.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Link Between Baba Banda Singh Bahadur and the Jat Agitation

On 3 June, the Haryana government held a Shobha Yatra to commemorate Baba Banda Singh Bahadur’s 300th death anniversary. Sikh groups had at the time, taken an exception to their icon being portrayed as a Hindu leader.

In April, the Haryana government announced its plan to develop Lohgarh, the erstwhile capital of Banda Bahadur as a tourist destination. This includes a 3-km road connecting Adi Badri, the point of origin of Saraswati river, with Lohgarh, construction of a dam to ensure year-round supply of water and a 2-km road and bridge to connect Lohgarh to nearby villages.

This focus on Lohgarh and Baba Banda’s legacy could be because of the likely political fallout of the Jat agitations.

Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar heads the first BJP government in Haryana. A Punjabi, his handling of the Jat agitation has alienated roughly 25 percent of the state’s electorate. Cultivating a non-Jat constituency, specifically, a Punjabi constituency would be a natural survival strategy for the BJP in Haryana. Extolling Baba Banda Singh Bahadur’s Hindu credentials could also be a plot to appeal to the upper-caste Brahmins, Baniyas and Punjabi voters who form 30 percent of the state’s electorate.

It also adds weight to the the Akali Dal-BJP’s fight to retain Punjab.