Sardar Parkash Singh Badal, the leading light of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), Punjab’s 103-year-old regional party, the country’s oldest political formation after the Indian National Congress, who died at the age of 95 last Tuesday, will perhaps be best remembered for being Punjab’s youngest chief minister (in 1970) as well as its oldest (in 2017). It will be hard to match such a record, or his milestone of being CM five times in stints of various durations, besides being president of SAD for more than 15 years at a stretch.
The late Akali leader perhaps stands out as a voice of moderation in Punjab as well as in Akali Dal politics (alongside Sant Harcharan Singh Longowal, who was assassinated after he signed the Rajiv-Longowal accord with the Centre that would help the calming down of society and politics in Punjab with the subduing of Khalistani militancy that ran through the 1980s).
The first 20 years after Independence saw Congress leaders — Hindu and Sikh — as CMs of Punjab, when the state included present-day Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. Under the pressure of Akali politics from shortly after Independence, the agitation for a “Punjabi Suba” or Punjabi Province or region that would be Punjabi-speaking with the predominance of Sikhs, yielded the present-day state. In this new entity, the Congress and Akali Dal practically alternated in power, and became state-level rivals. It was this Akali Dal — the “panthic” or religious party of the Sikhs that was rooted in the Punjab peasantry — that Parkash Singh Badal dominated.
In the post-1966 politics of Punjab, the late Sikh leader became a close partner of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, and later its current avatar the BJP. Without such an alliance, the Congress would be difficult to beat. Mr Badal, therefore, also became a synonym for being the fulcrum of anti-Congress politics in his state and the BJP’s oldest ally in the country, besides the Shiv Sena. (Ironically, both would mark a break with the BJP when the Hindu party came under the dominance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.) When the Janata Party government was formed at the Centre in 1977 after challenging the Emergency, Mr Badal was made the Union agriculture minister. He counted among the most prominent politicians of northern India in that period.
Returning to state politics after the collapse of the Janata dispensation, Mr Badal, among Punjab’s richest landlords, devoted himself to the cause of the peasantry — on questions relating to water and remunerative prices for crops. He also introduced free power for agriculture. It was logical that the Akali Dal’s break with the BJP should come on the issue of the three unpopular farm laws in 2020, and the SAD leader returned his Padma Vibushan. This did not help his party win power in 2022 though, and the stalwart lost his own seat. His party won only three seats out of 117 in the Assembly, it lowest tally ever. Parkash Singh Badal’s political legacy can at best be called a muted one, not least because he anointed his son party chief after his own term ended. This indicated that the Akali Dal itself had lost touch with its history of struggle and sacrifice.
