The electoral competition between the two main
parties in Punjab - the ruling Congress Party and
the opposition Akali Dal - for the Punjab
assembly elections in February is resulting in
the reinforcement of regional Punjabi
identities. The Akali Dal under the leadership
of Parkash Singh Badal is invading the
traditional Congress support base by an
unprecedented encouragement to Punjabi Hindus to
join the Akali Dal. For the first time in its
history, the Akali Dal has put up a substantial
number of Hindus as its party candidates. This
newly emerging Hindu-Akali relationship is not a
one way process of Akalis approaching Hindus. In
town after town, the Punjabi Hindus are
themselves joining Akali Dal. If on one hand, the
Punjabi Hindus seem to be realising the need to
hook their destiny with a Punjab-based regional
party instead of being tied to “national” parties
like the BJP and the Congress Party, on the
other, the Akali Dal seems to have realised that
the long-term future of Akali politics lies in
becoming inclusive of all sections of Punjabis.
The process of the transforma-tion of Akali Dal
from a Sikh party to a regional Punjabi party
seems to be at last beginning to take place.

On the other side, the Congress Party in Punjab
under the leadership of chief min-ister Amarinder
Singh has made serious inroads into the
traditional Sikh support base of the Akali Dal.
Amarinder Singh has endeavoured to rebrand the
Congress Party from one obsessed with national
issues to one rooted in the economy, his-tory and
culture of Punjab. His daring move in passing the
river water bill in the Punjab assembly
abrogating the previous river water treaties,
which were unfavourable to Punjab, has left a
deep impact on the consciousness of all sections
of Punjabi people, especially the Sikh peasantry.

During my field trip in Punjab in the month of
December 2006-January 2007, I talked to a large
number of people in both rural and urban areas
who invariably picked up this achievement of
Amarinder Singh to highlight his commitment to
Punjab andits people. He has also been
consistently taking a lead in celebrating various
religiousand cultural festivals relating to the
history of Punjab and has managed todent the
Akalis’ claim as the sole defenders of Punjab’s
economic and cultural interests. Irrespective of
the election results, it is inconceivable that
this process of the Badal-led Akalis attempting
to be more inclusive, and the Amarinder Singh
strategy of making Congress Party more
Punjab-rooted, would be easily reversible.

It appears that the democratic process, however
faulty it may be, is gradually contributing to
the devolution of political decision-making
processes away from the centre to the states. It
does not mean that the centralisation of
political power in the national parties like the
Congress and BJP has ended, but it certainly
means that the state-level leadership of these
parties is increasingly shaping the political
agenda at least at the state level. This process
certainly opens more space for articulation of
regional politico-economic interests and regional
identities.

Deepening of Capitalism in Punjab

The change taking place in the political
strategies of the two main parties in Punjabis
partly the result of electoral to the staggering
economic changes taking place in Punjab. Punjab
is witnes-sing the deepening of capitalism in its
economy, society and culture. The first
large-scale penetration of the logic of
capitalism took place in Punjab with the launch
of the Green Revolution in the 1960s. In its
second phase now, the post-liberalisation phase,
capitalism is entrench-ing and transforming the
Punjabi economy but more so its society and
culture in an alarming way. [1] Capitalism is
leading to the commodification of
everything - land, cattle, trees, education, health,
religion, music, marriage, sex, family, social
and personal relationships. If on one hand, this
capitalist transformation of Punjab is eroding
old religious and sectarian divisions and is
contributing to the making of new political
alignments as discussed above, it is also leading
to cultural pauperisation.

Money culture is all pervasive. There
arewidespread reports of party tickets,
especially in the Congress Party, having been
“sold” for “crores of rupees”. When political
parties talk of “development” as an issue which
has overtaken the old divisive issue of religion
and community, they are partly speaking the truth
but partlyglossing over the commodification of
life. During my field trip, I was told that there
were instances, for the first time, of sex work
taking place even in the villages and that "call
girl" rackets were being reported even in small
towns. Capitalism is certainly leading to the
developmentof markets, products and techniques,
but it is also leading to cultural and moral
degradation. None of the political parties has
shown any vision or proposed any programme to
deal with this two-pronged nature of capitalism.
This is true even of the Left parties who could
have been expected to demonstrate a more radical
and alternative perspective.

It is worth remembering that it is the cultural
dislocation caused by Green Revolution capitalism
in the 1960s and 1970s which had contributed to
the rise of religious revivalism in the 1970s and
1980s. [2] If the deprivation caused by the
deepening of capitalism now in the 2000s is not
subjected to critique and challenge from a
radical perspective, there is the dangerof some
retrograde ideology emerging as a response to
this capitalist deprivation.

Another offshoot of deepening capitalism in
Punjab is the large-scale environmental
degradation taking place in Punjab. This vital
issue remains, by and large, outside the mental
landscape of all the political parties in Punjab.
Environmental politics believes in
decentralisation and itis hoped that the
regionalisation of Punjabi politics would
eventually force Punjabi people and politicians
to deal with the environmental consequences of
deepening capitalism in Punjab.

Notes

1 This argument was developed in my paper
’Deepening Capitalism in Punjab’s Rural Society:
Unleashing Development, Degradation and
Resistance’, Annual Conference of the South Asian
Anthropologists’ Group, Goldsmiths College,
London, July 3, 2006.

2 For elaboration of this, see my paper ’Two
Facets of Revivalism’ in Gopal Singh (ed), Punjab
Today, Intellectual Publications, Delhi,1987.