Parkash Singh Badal
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Contents |
A brief biography
A
April 26, 2023: The Times of India
Born on December 8, 1927 in Abul Khurana village, near Malout in southwest Punjab, Badal is survived by son Sukhbir Singh Badal (SAD president and Ferozepur MP) and daughter Parneet Kaur, wife of former minister and SAD leader Adeish Partap Singh Kairon. Badal's wife, Surinder Kaur, had died at PGIMER Chandigarh at the age of 75 years while battling throat and pancreatic cancer in May 2011.
Badal was conferred the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian award, in 2015, but he returned the award in December 2020 for the “betrayal of farmers” by the central government while farmers were protesting against the contentious farm laws. The differences over the farm laws had led SAD to snap its ties with BJP at the Centre. Having started his political career in the 1950s, he led the Akali Dal in gaining office in 1997, 2007 and 2012, making him the undisputed leader of the party.
During the 10-year UPA government led by Manmohan Singh, he was accorded a great deal of respect despite belonging to an opposition party and alliance. Modi, too, never hesitated in bowing to touch his feet in public.
Badal is credited with starting a number of welfare schemes during his five stints as Punjab CM, including free electricity for the farm sector in 1997.
However, it was also under his leadership after remaining in government for 10 consecutive years that SAD witnessed its worst performance in 50 years, after the reorganisation of Punjab in 1966. It failed to become even the main opposition party and lost ground to a non-Panthic national party, AAP, in the 2017 assembly election. The worst was yet to come: the 2022 assembly election when Badal and his son faced the ignominy of presiding over the decimation of the SAD to a mere three seats, apart from losing their own seats.
B
Ramesh Inder Singh, April 27, 2023: The Indian Express
Parkash Singh Badal, the Baba Bohr (banyan tree) of the Shiromani Akali Dal, left for his eternal journey on April 25, 2023, at the very hospital in Mohali he had inaugurated in 2001. He had a brush with death when he was diagnosed with liver cancer in 1998. There could hardly be a more paralysing moment than being told of a terminal ailment. He, however, took the news as if he had caught a flu. An innate calm and courage were his strengths. I have known him for over 43 years but never saw him ruffled, except in 2011 when he lost his life-partner, Surinder Kaur Badal.
What made him popular with the masses? It was his illimitable humility and grassroots people contact — he was a man of the masses with boundless faith in Akal Purakh. He bore no grudges, acrimony or animosity towards anyone, not even to his political opponents. A moderate in political thought, he restored harmony in the state after the bloody 1980s. Hindu-Sikh amity was a matter of immutable faith with him. He used to say: “Hindu-Sikh da nau-maas da rishta hai.”
A consensus builder, Badal never imposed his opinion on others. His impromptu wit, one-liners, often politely slipped in during dreary or long-winding official speeches, would lighten up animated discussions and calm tense situations. He had a way of getting what he wished, without ruffling others or giving the impression of having overruled their views.
It was his quintessential courtesy and unfailing politeness that often prevailed over the occasional resistance to his ideas or proposals from officers. No matter how senior or junior a civil servant was, for him, they all were “Sardar Sahib” or “Kaka Ji” or “Bibi ji” and “Biba ji”, depending upon their age. However, he was extremely sensitive to public opinion and would expect his officers to respond promptly to any adverse news. As his principal secretary, I remember him ringing up as early as 5 in the morning, after reading some sensitive news in newspapers, demanding an explanation and then directing corrective measures.
My first interaction with him was during his second term as CM. I was serving as additional deputy commissioner of the then-undivided Faridkot district in 1978. He would leave Chandigarh at midnight, covering a distance of over 200 km and reach some remote part of the district early in the morning. He would tour 10-12 villages each on Saturday and Sunday, before returning to the headquarters. He would meet people, and address their problems, the most acute of which those days was saline-water logging in the district. Projects would be sanctioned on the spot. Thousands and thousands of acres of agricultural land were reclaimed thus.
He kept a hectic schedule, meeting and mingling with the masses, which he enjoyed immensely. He called it “Sangant Darshan”. His passion for agriculture and commitment to the development of the muffasi was remarkable. In his second term as CM, he conceived and launched an initiative that was to change the rural economy. Popularly called Focal Points, the initiative clubbed the entire state into groups of five-six contiguous villages, with one village in each group selected as an economic growth centre for the development of basic infrastructure that included an agricultural marketing yard, godowns to stock agro-inputs, covered storage space for food grains, a veterinary dispensary, medical dispensary, a bank counter, telephone, petrol-diesel outlet, few shops to meet daily needs of people etc. A network of pucca roads linked these habitations to towns and this laid the foundation of rural growth and anchored the green revolution in Punjab.
In his third term as CM (1997-2002), agriculture having reached a plateau, he moored the state towards a white revolution. He established a statutory Punjab Dairy Development Board to promote and safeguard the interests of dairy farmers, milk processors and consumers. Modern scientific dairy farms mushroomed and milk production peaked, placing Punjab at the top in per capita milk availability in the country. A number of new milk processing plants came up in the private sector, apart from the expansion of cooperatives.
In 1977, a visit to the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem moved him. He saw a bonding in the sufferings of Sikhs during the evolution of the Khalsa and the torment of the Jews. Moshe Safdie, the architect of the Jerusalem Museum, was invited to undertake a similar project at Anandpur Sahib. The Khalsa Heritage Centre or Ajuba, as it is called, was built in 1999; it celebrates the 300th year of the birth of the Khalsa and is an amazing recollection of the composite culture of Punjab through a combination of electronic interpretive projections, exhibits, murals, paintings, artefacts, woven tapestries etc. It is an eternal gift of Badal to Punjabis.
The Software Technology Park, Mohali laid the foundation of the IT industry in Punjab. In his third term (2007-2012), he brought the only oil refinery in the state. A number of new power projects were established to make Punjab power surplus, and an international airport was built in Mohali. A number of iconic educational institutions like the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Indian School of Business, National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute, all in Mohali, and an IIT at Ropar were set up, apart from an IIM at Amritsar.
His indelible imprint on the state’s administration was a Governance Reforms Commission. Its recommendations transformed the citizen-state interface, simplified procedures, and weeded out red tape — the suvidha centres were one of the many outcomes of the reforms. He established a string of quality schools, starting with the Dasmesh Academy at Anandpur Sahib (1980), Adarsh Schools in rural areas, and a string of meritorious schools to provide quality education to bright children and the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Armed Forces Preparatory Institution in Mohali.
Spartan in his personal life, Badal had no interest or time for self-indulgence. His day began early in the morning and stretched till late night. Despite the very hectic schedule, he administered Punjab for 19 years without ever wearing a watch or carrying a pen on his person. And yet he was never late and kept his appointments to a minute and disposed of matters promptly, rarely leaving a paper unattended before retiring for the night.
It may be a long time before we get to see another leader like him.
Read the public’s mind
Sarju Kaul, April 27, 2023: The Times of India
Parkash Singh Badal, a five-time Punjab chief minister, was soft-spoken and polite to his many interlocutors and still had an iron grip on panthic politics – until he started losing that control after his record victory in 2012. Enormous influence built over a political career that started with his election as sarpanch in 1947 eroded rapidly.
Badal’s hold on panthic politics kept the Shiromani Akali Dal at the forefront of electoral politics in the state even after he hitched his wagon to BJP’s in 1996. The alliance formula was simple – SAD was the big brother in Punjab and BJP had precedence at national level. Badal, who had a three-month stint as Union minister in the Morarji Desai government in 1977, preferred to stay connected to Punjab politics. So involved was Badal in Punjab politics that he never seriously considered expansion to other states with significant Sikh populations.
Badal’s control over Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee and over the appointment of Akal Takht Jathedar helped him sideline stalwart Akali colleagues, including Gurcharan Singh Tohra.
But it’s this tight control over panthic institutions that boomeranged on the Badal family. First, when the then Akal Takht Jathedar granted pardon to the Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim in a blasphemy case of May 2007, which the community believed was at the behest of the Badals. Ram Rahim was accused of imitating Guru Gobind Singh, the 10th Sikh Guru.
Then came the Bargari sacrilege and subsequent police firings in 2015.
Ironically, Badal Senior was named co-conspirator and facilitator in the Kotkapura firing case of October 14, 2015, and Sukhbir was named mastermind in the second challan presented by the Punjab police SIT in a supplementary challan before Faridkot illaqa magistrate.
It was this growing anger over the Bargari sacrilege and police firing that decimated SAD to a mere 18 seats in the 2017 assembly polls, pushed to the third spot by AAP, which had already demonstrated its impact by winning 4 Punjab seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
The Akali slide continued in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, where it was reduced to mere two seats, won by Badal’s son Sukhbir Singh and his daughterin-law Harsimrat Kaur. The 2022 assembly elections were hard on the Badal patriarch, who was initially reluctant to contest the poll. He lost his first election after 10 consecutive victories. His party won just three seats.
A part of this decline was the waning importance of SGPC and Akal Takht within the Sikh community – and that was thanks to the anger against the Badal family’s control of these two religious institutions.
The last straw for many Akali voters was the Badals’ strong initial support of the three contentious farm laws introduced by the Modi government. Farm laws also ended SAD’s 25-year alliance with BJP. But voters saw it as too little and too late.
Akali voters were so alienated that they preferred Simranjit Singh Mann, whose party has been floundering in all elections, in the Sangrur bypoll last year.
True, despite the 2007 controversy, SAD won the 2012 state polls. Badal Senior handed over the party to his son Sukhbir. But the seeds of decline, of both SAD and Badal’s influence, had been sowed. It was telling that in the rebellion that followed 2017’s big defeat, senior party Taksali leaders like Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa focused on Sukhbir’s shortcomings as party president and ignored the Badal patriarch. The rebellion did not pan out. But SAD was never to recover from that loss.
When he ruled supreme, Badal’s people connect was faultless. He made sure he visited homes of his constituents in the Lambi assembly segment, whether those families were celebrating or mourning. It says something about Badal the man and politician that even after his defeat in 2022 by 11,396 votes in Lambi, a constituency he had nurtured after winning five elections from there, he went on a thanksgiving visit to Lambi villages. It was this ability to connect and many voters’ affection for him along with his complete control over Akali Dal that gave Badal the control over panthic politics and made him CM so many times. But he lost his influence and his winning formula by failing to understand the depth of voters’ anger and despair over sacrilege.
Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s legacy
Kamaldeep Singh Brar, April 27, 2023: The Indian Express
Soon after coming to power in Punjab in 2022, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government faced its first controversy when a portrait of Maharaja Ranjit Singh was allegedly removed from the wall behind the Chief Minister’s chair in the Chandigarh secretariat office. It had been placed there in 1997 by Parkash Singh Badal, after the five-time CM had led his party, the Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal), to its first single majority win.
Already on many occasions in the past, Badal had publicly spoken of his dream of recreating the rule of Maharaja Ranjit Singh — a revered icon among many Sikhs — in the state. He was often heard saying in public speeches that his government was following in the footprints of the Maharaja, the founder of the Sikh empire.
Over time, more was done to project this myth. “In keeping with his promise to provide a rule reminiscent of the legendary Maharaja Ranjit Singh, CM Badal announces two schemes: an annual Rs 1 lakh award to the police officer deemed most honest and cash rewards to those who helped track down corrupt officials,” reads a Punjab government press note from 1998.
But it was not just the administrative success of the Lion of Punjab. Badal also wanted to create a personal connection with the people. Soon after becoming CM for his third term in 1997, he launched Sangat Darshan — a public outreach programme modelled on the legendary emperor’s rule — to remain accessible to the people, where he would call people by their names.
He was no doubt an accessible chief minister, whom people could meet at his home or office without having to pull many strings. He was also very social, and wouldn’t miss any Bhog ceremony at his Assembly constituency of Lambi. A common sight at his Sangat Darshans was of someone arguing with the security to enter, before the CM would personally ask the latter to let the visitor through.
In fact, the SAD(B)’s slogan for the 2007 Assembly elections was “Raj nahin, seva (Not rule, but service)”, which was inspired by the Maharaja. Soon after forming government for the fourth time in 2007, Badal visited Ranjit Singh’s village, Badrukhan in Sangrur, on the emperor’s birth anniversary, to announce the setting up of the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Memorial Adarsh School there. He also installed a statue of the Maharaja in a park developed for the purpose, donated Rs 10 lakh towards buildings of primary and senior-secondary schools in the village, as well as a Rs 3 lakh grant for the renovation of the local veterinary hospital.
As always, he did not forget the optics. While making the announcements, Badal criticised former CM Amarinder Singh for not celebrating the Maharaja’s birthday during the latter’s tenure between 2002 and 2007.
At a ceremony in 2016 to gift a bust of the Maharaja to Henri Allard, the deputy Mayor of the French city of Saint Tropez, he said his government had initiated a number of pro-people schemes for the welfare of every strata of society, following in the footsteps of the Maharaja.
His governments also set up the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Technical University at Bathinda in 2015, and the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Armed Forces Preparatory Academy at SAS Nagar in 2011. In his last term as CM, he had a large statue of the Maharaja installed on the heritage street leading to the Darbar Sahib in Amritsar, at the same place where the British had once installed a statue of the then Queen of England.
Akali leaders were also encouraged to make these parallels in their speeches. Former Rajya Sabha member Balwinder Singh Bhunder, in 2016, had said, “After Maharaja Ranjit Singh, it’s Badal sa’ab who has brought Punjab back on the world map. He is a true worker of the Panth and we have to make the next year historic by winning the elections for him.”
Even when he tried to send a message to the Centre in 2020, he used the Maharaja’s name to give heft to his advice, while pragmatically evading any mention of his long-term electoral ally. He said, “It is a matter of grave concern that the present situation in the country is not that good. If you have to succeed in running the government, all religions should be respected. You should take along [with you] the minorities and your allies, so that all brothers can consider themselves part of a family. Governments and political parties must take lessons from Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Among his top five ministers, three were Hindu, and one each Muslim and Sikh. He didn’t do it for votes…”
Ironically, the Badal family patriarch who strode on India’s political firmament for decades, failed to smoothly transfer power to his political heirs, leaving his party in deep crisis — in much the same way that Maharaja Ranjit Singh had once left the Sikh empire he had established in crisis, leading to its rapid disintegration.
The Ludhiana central jail
Payal Dhawan, April 27, 2023: The Times of India
When he was laying the foundation of Ludhiana central jail in 1978, Parkash Singh must have had an inkling of the fate awaiting him - that he would be among the first few inmates of the same prison a few years later.
"Akaliyan nu jail bohat jana painda, islai asi sohnian jaillan bana ditiyan' (Akalis have to go to jail often. Therefore, we have built beautiful jails)," Badal, the patron of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and five-time chief minister, had said in lighter vein while laying the foundation stone of the facility.
Badal was lodged in Tajpur Road jail for about two months, which is now called Borstal jail, under charges of 107-151 of CrPC, as he was arrested for protesting against SYL (Satluj-Yamuna link) canal. He was lodged there on August 5, 1982, and was released on October 10, 1982.
An SAD leader from Ludhiana, Maheshinder Singh Grewal, recalled that later on in 1982, Dharam Yudh Morcha was launched by the Shiromani Akali Dal to protest against SYL, at first in Kapoori village and then in Amritsar. Badal "was protesting in Amritsar and he was arrested there, and later on shifted to Ludhiana jail, construction of which was started by him only". "I used to visit him every Sunday in the jail with home-cooked food," he said. "I still remember when Badal Sahab used to laugh while saying that he is constructing beautiful jails as Akalis often are lodged in jail, as we agitate against injustice," added Grewal.
Prior to this, during Emergency, Badal was lodged in Ludhiana jail which was located in Ludhiana's Old City part, from July 18, 1975, to September 23, 1975. After 1982 also, Badal was lodged in Tajpur Road jail from August 28, 1992, to September 1, 1992. There was another time he went to jail. Grewal said that in December 1992, the then jathedar of Akal Takht, Gurdev Singh Kaunke, of Jagraon's Kaunke Kalan area, had disappeared days after he was arrested by the police. "Parkash Singh Badal had staged a protest against police over the disappearance of jathedar. He was arrested and lodged again in Ludhiana jail from January 1 to 13, 1993," he said
