The financial crunch has already started impacting the government's day-to-day functioning as the state's revenue resources and loans are barely enough to meet salary and pensions bills and service the growing debt totalling over Rs.63,000 crore. This has also strained the relations between the ruling allies as both the Akali Dal and the BJP are hesitant to mobilise the much-needed resources from their respective rural and urban vote banks fearing the steps would annoy them.

Two incidents taking place within a span of two days in the state's commercial capital Ludhiana have created communal and migrants-locals tensions. In the first incident which created migrants-locals tensions the police was mainly responsible for allowing the situation to deteriorate. It first refused to register a complaint by two migrants who were robbed by the bikers' gang alleging that the police had failed to do anything about the snatching incidents taking place for the past few days. The enraged migrants, mostly from Bihar and UP, blocked highways and set ablaze vehicles. Having failed to check rioting, the police encouraged youth of nearby villages to combat the migrant protesters with lathis and swords. As a result, what began a clash between migrant labourers and police, quickly turned into a clash between locals and the migrant labourers.

The attitude of the police was not abnormal! The attitude of police towards the 'aam admi' approaching it for help, except in cases of ruling politicians and influential people, is usually indifferent and hostile. The police have, in fact, become highly politcised particularly during the present Akali-BJP government as the dominant ruling group has been brazenly using it for political objectives. This began fiercely, particularly in the state's Malwa region, during the local bodies elections when with the help of police, the ruling Akali Dal extensively rigged the elections evoking protests even from its ally BJP. Recently, the police, obviously at the instance of its political bosses, constituted another Special Investigation Team to investigate the incident involving the stripping and a murderous assault on Ludhiana's Tehsildar G.S. Benipal, a retired Army officer, to protest which even the state's revenue officers had gone on strike. Benipal says that the setting up of the second SIT now was aimed at facilitating the release of two accused including Akali councillor Simarjit Singh Bains and Kamaljit Singh Karwal, both close to the Deputy Chief Minister and Akali Dal President Sukhbir Singh Badal. The earlier SIT, Benipal says had indicted them.

The second incident was triggered by the protests by certain radical Sikh organisations against the holding of the Sangh Parivar-supported satsang (religious congregation) by Baba Ashutosh of Divya Jyoti Jagriti Sansthan (Nurmahal) who they alleged had committed sacrilege of Sikh religion. It was not that the ruling leadership was not aware of the developing serious situation. A couple of days back, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and BJP's senior-most minister Manoranjan Kalia issued quarter-page ads in some language newspapers appealing to Punjabis to maintain communal harmony, unity and peace. However, sections of the ruling Akali Dal and the SGPC must own the onus of not only failing to check such incidents but also for encouraging radical Sikh elements protesting against religious congregations of some 'deras' who were allegedly committing sacrilege of Sikh religion. The most glaring case was that of Dera Sacha Sauda and its chief Ram Rahim Singh who enjoy a large following among Sikhs also. The radicals protests against the Dera holding its religious congregations had led to clashes between Sikhs and Dera followers at a number of places.

The second incident has reignited communal tensions like what Punjab had witnessed during the Punjabi Suba agitation in the fifties and then before the 1980s which were responsible for the spread of the decade-long separatist terrorism.

In the fifties, the Congress-backed Maha Punjab Front and the hotheads of the Master Tara Singh-led Akali Dal's Punjabi Suba movement were responsible for igniting the communal tension of which Ludhiana was the epicentre. Some police officers also helped their ruling bosses play their dangerous games.

In the eighties, it began with the Congress encouraging Sikh extremist elements like Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale in order to use them against the Akali Dal. Then it was the turn of Akali leaders who tried to use these elements against the Congress and its Central government. They allowed Bhindranwale to take shelter in the Golden Temple Complex from where he conducted his separatist militant activities. Ultimately, Bhindranwale turned Frankenstein not only for both his sponsoring parties but also for Punjab leading to the killings of thousands of people mostly Sikhs.

The alarming situation is a wake-up call for both the ruling Akali-BJP and the central governments. Learning from their past experiences the ruling Akali and BJP leaders, will have to firmly curb the divisive and extremist elements within and outside their folds. They must not allow history to repeat itself in Punjab. (IPA Service)