If there had been live television news in 1978, I would have shown you the visuals from that summer in Punjab, and made you wonder how little things seem to have changed in three decades. But then, angry religious mobs carrying kirpans would always look the same. The more interesting, and scary, thing here is that their causus belli also sounds so very similar to what it was in that summer of '78 that unleashed a spiral of violence that ultimately took 15 years to subside, but not before it had consumed tens of thousands of lives, threatened to divide the country, caused a sizeable mutiny in its army and, most important of all, pushed Punjab back by at least a decade. That 15-year phase is one of the primary reasons that the state, once the most prosperous in India by a long distance, now ranks number seven. Doubly distressing then that the anger, the prejudice and the violence that we had thought we had left behind with so forgettable a phase of history that nobody in Punjab seemed to even talk about till the other day should now threaten to make a comeback.

Nobody who was in a newsroom on the evening of April 13, 1978 can forget those hours, particularly somebody in a newsroom in Chandigarh and who was then a still wet-behind-the-ears reporter, the type our founder Ram Nath Goenka proudly - often with a mischievous look that was both dismissive and affectionate at the same time described as Goenka's drain-pipes, since narrow trouser legs were in vogue then. Tickers had just reported a clash between a sect called Nirankaris and devout Sikh followers of a Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. Until then, both Nirankaris and Sant Bhindranwale were unknown, and the next morning's papers had front-page side-bars headlined, predictably, Who are the Nirankaris, and, Who are the Bhindranwales? Just as, today, we are asking, What is Dera Sacha Sauda? Why are devout Sikhs angry with it?

Similarities, unfortunately, do not end here. Then, as now, there were demands for the chief's arrest, an apology from the sect, and a new fire raged against what the Sikh clergy saw as apostasy and worse. Then, as now, the Akalis were in power in the state, actually under the same Chief Minister as now. Then, as now, the Congress was fishing in troubled waters. There are still many who would argue that it was the Congress, or Mrs Gandhi and Zail Singh, or Zail Singh at her behest, or some variation of the same theme, that created Bhindranwale and then paid for it. That is simplistic. One, it would give too much credit for the conspiratorial and organisational abilities of the Congress; two, it would do injustice to the kind of appeal Bhindranwale built for himself, for his communication skills, his ability to pick his moment and seize it. Yes, at the first sign of trouble on Punjab's streets, the Congress, then in the dumps after the postEmergency defeat, many of its state leaders including Zail Singh facing prosecution and inquiries for excesses, saw an opportunity. Here was an opportunity fitting so nicely into its strategy for Punjab politics crafted by Zail Singh who was not merely a devout Sikh but had greater knowledge of religious practice and scriptures than many priests. He had built his own popularity by playing with orthodox religious sentiment when in power, particularly during the Emergency years.

I did get to know Zail Singh rather well as I interacted with him over nearly a decade and a half in my reporting life and can recount memories and anecdotes that will fill a whole chapter in my memoirs. But the two more striking ones belong to days when I was still a journalism student in Punjab University in Chandigarh. Gianiji came to inaugurate a global conference on anthropology, where many of us had been drafted to help as volunteers, and in his keynote address lambasted the scientists gathered there for indulging in 'bhed-chaal' (herd mentality) by accepting whatever Charles Darwin had said. Then he raised the question that, I suppose, would still fox any Darwinian anthropologist: "If, as Darwin says, man evolved from monkey, where did the parrot come from?"

The second is more politically significant. He swung his politics distinctly towards religious orthodoxy. The high point of this phase was the much-celebrated 'home-coming' from England of two 'descendants' of one of the most revered Guru's horses. Gianiji led them in a procession through the state and devotees packed the streets, some, particularly older women, even picking up the dung they sprinkled as they walked the marquee. Such was the mood of that phase, and so repressive the Emergency regime, that the only man who still found the courage to mock this was Khushwant Singh.

This story is relevant because it represented the central pivot of the political strategy he crafted: when in power, Congress should do things that Akalis do when they are in power, like pandering to orthodoxy. And when out of power, do things, like making extreme demands, that Akalis do when out of power. So, the moment he lost power and Badal replaced him, he was looking for an opportunity to embarrass him. This was provided by the emergence of Bhindranwale who, to begin with, was only making the demands the Akalis always make when out of power. He rejoiced - initially - in the rise of Bhindranwale and the whole phenomenon that grew in his wake. So did his high command, led then by Sanjay Gandhi. And then it spun out of control, and how.

Much water has flown in the Sutlej, Beas and Ravi in three decades, but the similarities in the two situations are too alarming to be dismissed complacently. While Dera Sacha Sauda may be much smaller than the Nirankaris in their spread and reach, the Sikh orthodoxy has always had problems with it as its founder, as well as followers draw liberally from Sikh practice and yet have a separate sect of their own. Some sort of religious tension has always prevailed, and it was the Congress again which stoked the entirely latent fires in its desperation to retain power in the recent elections. It is well known that the Congress reached out to the head of Dera Sacha Sauda and persuaded him to make a public appeal to the sizeable population of his supporters in the state's Malwa region to vote for it. This was a most cynical idea. The Congress provided the spark of politicisation to what was already a highly combustible mix of religious tension and bitterness. It is widely believed in Punjab that the quid pro quo the Congress emissaries offered was a softer CBI view of the many criminal cases against the Sacha Sauda chief. That is why the glee with which state's Congress leaders have responded to the crisis is sickening.

This is not the time for name-calling or for fishing in troubled waters. Certainly, this does not give the Badal government any excuse from its own responsibilities. It has to maintain law and order and provide protection to those following all faiths and sects. The Akali Dal, at the same time, has to take a long-term view of its own relationship with the clergy. The 21st century is not a time for hukamnamas (encyclicals) calling for social boycotts. Certainly, an Akali-BJP government cannot build its credibility around a government that panders to orthodoxy. In fact, Chief Minister Badal, one of the last survivors of the earlier maelstrom, has a special responsibility to make sure things do not spin out of control. But today's Mrs Gandhi will also do well to restrain her own men, to ask them to read again that most forgettable chapter in India's, Punjab's and their own party's history.

Postscript: Pramod Kapur, the publisher of Roli Books and a friend to so many of us, called just last week to raise an interesting question. Some of us, he said, had written a chapter each in a book called The Assassination and After, in 1984, following Operation Bluestar and Indira Gandhi's assassination. A whole new generation has come up since then, he said, and they know nothing about what happened in those momentous days. So why don't we republish that book so people do not forget that history? Good thought, I said. But scary now, to think that history could be repeating itself.

	Web useless-knowledge.com