The Sikh Diaspora: The Search for Statehood - Vidhia.com

2 THE SIKHS: SEARCH FOR STATEHOOD
touches on some complex issues of ethnic conflict in the postcolonial
nation-building process in South Asia. It raises issues concerning the
nature of Sikh ethnicity, which in a short period of time has moved from
group consciousness to political community and staked a claim for a
statehood. The form of conflict also calls for an examination of the
emerging nature of the Indian state, which despite having evolved a
common framework for democratic political bargaining, has faced
several regional nationalisms and remains locked in ethnic conflicts.
The Sikh demand for statehood has a number of explanations:
economic factors, the crisis of India’s federal state relations and the
eruption of Sikh ethnonationalism. Economic explanations broadly focus
on radical agrarian changes ushered in by the “green revolution”,
changes that have fuelled many layers of contradictions between the
rich peasantry and the unemployed youth. Small farmers have been
marginalized by squeezed profits and rich peasantry have railed against
central government for better terms of trade. The Akalis have exploited
these contradictions by turning it into a communal issue, identifying
central government or the Hindu bourgeoisie as the real culprit. The
federal state thesis attributes the Punjabi crisis to increasing
centralization of power in New Delhi, and manipulation by the
Congress Party of a regional elite for its electoral base. Thus the central
government of the Congress Party led by Indira Gandhi maximized its
poll returns by depicting the Sikh demands as antinational. A third
explanation finds Sikh ethnonationalism responsible for the troubled
Punjab. By focusing on Sikhs as a nationality, the Akali Dal first fought
for a culturally congruent region in the 1960s, extending its claim for
statehood in the 1980s. This hypothesis finds much corroboration in
Sikhs’ own rhetoric and writings, which emphasize their distinctive
religious traditions, the Sikh rule over Punjab and a political community
destined for independence.
While these perspectives are valuable, the puzzle of Sikh nationalism
has thrown up more serious issues. First, in the past decade, several
thousand Sikh youths took up arms and died for a “homeland”. What
moved them? Can rational and economic reasons explain the
psychological pull of a nation that “joins a people, in the sub-conscious
conviction of its members from all its non-members in a most vital
way?” (Connor 1993:377). Then there is the Akali Dal, a major political
party of Sikhs, and how it could mobilize its supporters by invoking
certain features of the Khalsa Panth, invariably historic shrines and
religious rhetoric, even while pursuing essentially secular pursuits of
power sharing. Thirdly, why have even moderate demands by a