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The Akali Dal, when in office, had closely identified itself with the interests of
the Jat Sikh farmers, taking bold measures to help them. The big jumps in food
production, from 1.9 million metric tons in 1965-66 to 2.45 million metric tons in
1966-67 and 5.62 million metric tons in 1971-72, had coincided with the creation
of the Punjabi Suba — the Punjabi-speaking state — and the first governments of
the Akali Dal. The productive cycle came to stagnation when the Congress took
control of the government in 1972. Continuous retardation in the agricultural output
marked the next five years. The consistent pattern of decline in food production
over these years fed speculations that the Green Revolution had run its course.
Studies of subsequent developments revealed that the stagnation was linked to the
Congress policies that kept a check on the growth of essential inputs: Credit, fertilizers,
tube-wells and tractors. The Akali Dal, taking control of the government in
March 1977, broke the stagnation by changing the policies. It gave financial aid to
those farmers whose crops had suffered due to natural calamities. It reduced the
costs of electricity for tube-wells, fertilizers and pesticides.
The State Electricity Board gave the highest priority to new connections for
electric tube-wells. The government transferred the administrative control of the
cooperative department to a development commissioner, which allowed effective
planning and application of production programs. The distribution of short-term
cooperative loans rose from Rs.770 million in 1977 to Rs. 870 million in 1978, Rs.
1.05 billion in 1979 and Rs.1.54 billion in 1980. The long-term loans by landmortgage
banks also went up. The result of liberal financing pushed up the consumption
of fertilizers. The total number of tube-wells went up from 362,000 in
1973 to 565,000 in 1980. Thus, by breaking the bottleneck in cooperative loans and
the consequent drop in the use of inputs, the Akali Dal retrieved the Green Revolution
from the plateau it had reached in 1972.
The economic progress attained during this period, however, did not satisfy the
Jat Sikh farmers and their political spokesmen. It merely whetted their appetite for
greater provincial autonomy, particularly in its fiscal ties with the Centre and for
control over Punjab’s river waters. The rapid progress of tube-well irrigation had led
to the fear that ground water resources could soon be depleted. They also wanted to
control their water resources to generate more power through hydroelectric projects.
The richer farmers wanted to invest their surplus money in manufacturing. The
Central government had for long been reluctant to industrialize Punjab, which it viewed
as a volatile border state. The urban Hindu, whom the Jat Sikhs viewed with the farmer’s
antipathy for the middleman of the town, monopolized the marginal industry.
In spite of the undercurrent of hostility that marked their relationship, the two segments
of the population were not averse to mutual accommodation and compromise. In
fact, they had become locked in mutual dependency, following the commercialization
of agriculture and its increased reliance on the urban market, also monopolized by the
Hindus. Jat Sikhs definitely resented the Hindu monopoly over trade and industry as it
blocked their capital, generated from agriculture, from entering more productive avenues.
However, with time, the Akali Dal had developed an effective strategy to compete
against Hindu urban interests, by alternating between belligerence and compromise.
The success of the strategy showed in their ability to form an alliance with the
BJP, formerly Jana Sangh, in spite of the anti-Sikh thrust of its politics.
Bhindranwale, although a Jat by birth, drew his main following from that
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