Attack on Sukhbir Badal exposes Akali Dal’s vulnerability to radical fringe

On August 13, former Punjab Deputy Chief Minister and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal was attacked with a ‘kirch’ (dagger) in Maharashtra’s Nanded. This was the second attack on him — the first came in December 2024, when he averted an assassination bid after a former militant and pro-Khalistan (sovereign state for Sikhs) sympathiser opened fire on him outside the Golden Temple in Punjab’s Amritsar.

Even as the motive behind the latest attack on Mr. Badal — at the Mata Sahib Gurudwara, by a ‘Nihang sevadar’ who worked there — is yet to be ascertained, the pattern suggests that the moderate leadership of the Akali Dal in Punjab could be under constant threat from fringe radicals trying to gain space in the religious, or ‘panthic’ (Sikh), constituencies of Punjab.

The moderate forces stand for harmony and peace in Punjab, which went through a traumatic phase of militancy between the mid-1980s and early 1990s over the demand for ‘Khalistan’, even though the movement has now lost popular support. The radical elements, on the other hand, conflict with and oppose the moderate leadership. They want to occupy space in Punjab’s politics, and if the moderate leadership weakens, they gain more room to do so.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the victories of Independent candidates Amritpal Singh — a pro-Khalistan propagator currently jailed in Assam’s Dibrugarh jail under the National Security Act — and Sarabjeet Singh, son of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassin Beant Singh, signalled the emboldening of radical elements in the State. Amritpal’s outfit ‘Waris Punjab De’ has been steadily building support within the ‘panthic’ space, a trend observers link to the weakening of the Shiromani Akali Dal, led by Sukhbir Badal.

Simranjit Singh Mann, a known hardliner Sikh leader who has repeatedly raised the bogey of ‘Khalistan’, has also periodically stirred up Punjab’s electoral politics. His victory from Punjab’s Sangrur parliamentary constituency in the 2022 by-election pointed to the fragmentation within the ‘panthic’ fold and the persistence of radical space.

The electoral drubbings suffered by the Badal-led SAD — a party considered to follow a moderate approach — over the past decade indicate that the century-old party has lost its traditional support base, leading to a leadership vacuum that radicals are seeking to fill.

Given Punjab’s traumatic history with militancy, the majority of its people are unlikely to rally behind radical elements to fill this vacuum. But while the Khalistan movement has lost popular support within the State, some abroad and elsewhere in India retain an interest in keeping the embers of the long-dead movement alive.