Parkash Singh Badal: Tehsildar-aspirant who became five-time CM, forged alliance with BJP amid peak Hindu-Sikh polarisation

Parkash Singh Badal, 95, passed away at Fortis Hospital in Punjab's Mohali on Tuesday.

The grand old man of Punjab politics and five-time chief minister Parkash Singh Badal is no more. The 95-year-old Badal passed away at Fortis Hospital, Mohali. Badal nicknamed Pash was born on December 8, 1927, in Abul Khurana village in Malout, Punjab.

When Shaheed Bhagat Singh was hanged to death, Badal was a four-year-old toddler, when India won Independence Badal was a 20-year-old youth with a flowing beard. During the 1952 general elections, having graduated from Foreman College, Lahore, Badal who had earlier wanted to be a doctor, now dreamt of becoming a tehsildar. Badal had once revealed, “Giani Kartar Singh, a senior Akali leader told me to forget becoming a tehsildar. One day you will be the one to appoint tehsildars. And that brought me into politics."

A Calling In Politics

During the 1952 general elections, Badal used to accompany political leaders and observe them closely. At times, he would even drive busloads of activists. Two qualities he had were that he was a very good public relations man and he also had a great sense of gauging any imminent danger, even if it was political. The fact that before the farm laws were passed, he got rid of the BJP, confirms how farsighted he was in gauging the political outcome of the farm laws, though ultimately it didn’t benefit the Akalis, says a close Badal aide.

Badal began his political career as a sarpanch of Badal village in Lambi, Bathinda. Subsequently, he became the chairman of Block Samiti, Lambi. In the run-up to the 1957 elections, he had sensed that he was meant for bigger things. In that year, he was first elected as an MLA on the Shiromani Akali Dal ticket.

Entering Vidhan Sabha as a lawmaker wasn’t the same as being a sarpanch. In Badal’s own words, he would often put his head down to make himself invisible to the senior Akali leaders in the Vidhan Sabha so that he was not asked to speak. “But Giani Gurmukh Singh, (former CM of Punjab) would call us by name and force us to speak to remove our hesitation and thus we started raising issues related to people in the Vidhan Sabha,” Badal had once said.

Astute Politician Who Won Hearts

Prof Sukhwinder Singh, a keen watcher of Sikh affairs in Punjab, has noted how Badal was one of the few politicians who despite being old could see and sense the changing culture, agriculture, climate, receding groundwater, and politics of Punjab. According to Prof Singh, Badal’s biggest contribution was that post-terrorism in Punjab when there was increased polarisation between the Hindus and Sikhs, he formed an alliance with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the 1997 assembly elections, which sent a signal of communal harmony to people outside Punjab about the Sikhs.

In 2012, Badal's nephew Manpreet Singh Badal had a falling out with him, and Badal's younger brother and Manpreet's father Gurdas Badal, fondly called Dash, too started campaigning for Manpreet’s newly formed political outfit Punjab People’s Party (PPP) and himself fought elections against his elder brother from Lambi assembly segment. Despite the falling out, upon seeing his younger brother, Badal walked up to Gurdas Badal, held his chin, and charmed him with his kind words. And, Gurdas Badal had tears in his eyes.

A senior Indian National Congress leader confided that once when he and others were sitting on a dharna outside his house when he was the chief minister, the thought that police would imminently throw them out was in their minds. But surprisingly, Badal won their hearts by coming out, enquiring about their well-being and sending tea and meals and asking them to hold the dharna inside the house rather than outside! That was the measure of the man and the statesman.

Shamsher Chandel is an independent journalist based out of Chandigarh. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.