III Religion and Caste in the Punjab:

Transcription

1 THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY August 4, 1962 Studies in Voting Behaviour III Religion and Caste in the Punjab: Sidhwan Bet Constituency Baldev Raj Nayar One approach by Congress candidates in their election campaigning in the Punjab was based on what may be called the "theory of factions". According in this theory every village, more particularly the Jat section of every village, is divided into two factions and these factions govern the entire life oj the village. During the election it was expected that these factions would align themselves with different political parties -in the typical case, one supporting the Congress and the other the Akati Dal. But, if the result of the election in the Sidhwan Bet constituency is any guide, the! theory of factions did not hold during the general elections. It was also expected that scheduled castes and Hindus Would invariably vote for the Congress when the choice was between an Akali Dal Sikh and a Congress Sikh. Here again, the result of the election failed to show any correlation between the per cent of scheduled castes in the population of a polling station and the votes secured by the Congress candidate. A corollary of the proposition that scheduled castes lend to vote for the Congress is that Jat Sikhs are unitedly behind the A kali Dal. In the Sidhwan Bet constituency, however, the Congress candidate did cut into the Jat Sikh vote. Affinal and agnatic ties, the traditional political, affiliations of particular villages, the presence of bitter factions all influenced the Jat Sikh vote. THE reserved Assembly constituency of Sidhwan Bet lies in the Ludhiana District of the Punjab; the major part of it is in Raikot thana of Jagraon tehsil. The Ludhiana-Ferozepore road divides the constituency into two parts one known as Sidhwan Bet side and the other as Dakha side. The constituency derives its name from the village Sidhwan Bet which was founded by the caste of Sidhus, the Bet referring to the fact that it is in the river area of the Sutlej. There are no towns in the constituency though a large market centre called Mullanpur serves the area. The main crops are wheat, sugarcane, maize and groundnuts. All the villages in the constituency are now covered by the community development program. There are some historic Sikh gurudwaras (temples) in the constituency places which had been visited by the Sikh Gurus a fact of considerable importance in the political loyalties of the area. The Candidates and Their Background There were five candidates Ajit Kumar (Akali Dal), Gopal Singh Khalsa (Congress), Bachan Singh (Independent), Bir Singh (Swatantra), and Lal Singh (Independent) - running in the 1962 general elections from this constituency for the 154-member Legislative Assembly of the Punjab. However, for all intents and purposes, the main contest was between Ajit Kumar (Akali Dal) and Gopal Singh Khalsa (Congress). Ajit Kumar was the general secretary of the Punjab State Republican Party and, though not a Sikh himself, was running on the Akali Dal ticket, and under the symbol of the Hand allotted to that party, through an electoral alliance between the two parties. He was born in 1928 in a scheduled caste home in Ludhiana City, though his ancestral village is Dhat which is a part of the constituency. Because of prejudice in -Hindu and Sikh schools at the time, he received his primary education in a Muslim school in Ludhiana. However, when Muslims started converting scheduled castes to Islam. Hindus especially those belonging to the Arya Samaj began taking interest in the education of the scheduled castes, and Ajit Kumar joined an Arya Samaj school. The treatment he received at the hands of Hindu teachers and students was not exactly a happy one. and eventually he passed his high school examination in 1945 as a private student after leaving the school. Ambedkar and his All-India Scheduled Castes Federation (SCF) had by this time stimulated in him an interest in politics, but due to the economic circumstances of the 1267 family he joined government service as a clerk. He left the job in 1952 to support the S C F candidates during the first general elections. Later he joined the Central Tractor Organization in Bhopal as an accounts clerk. While in service he passed his intermediate examination in 1948 and afterwards joined the railways as a ticket collector first in Jodhpur and then in Hissar. During his service in the railways he took active interest in the welfare of the scheduled castes and in railway labour unions. Finally, in 1957 he quit railway service and contested the reserved seat from Raikot double member constituency, and secured 30,011 votes as against the Congress candidate with 39,466 votes, who was then supported by the Akalis. Since then Ajit Kumar has been in active politics. In 1959 he went on an eight days hunger strike in the food agitation. Later, during the antibetterment levy agitation an agitation against the increase in land taxes imposed on the plea that government projects had increased agricultural yields, a sort of prosperity tax he was arrested in 1959 and sent to Amritsar jail for 40 days. During the Punjabi Suba agitation he was arrested for his part in the agitation for the protection of civil liberties, going on at the same time, and served 37 days

2 August 4, 1962 THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY in jail. Though he himself went to jail on the issue of civil liberties and though the Republican Party itself is neutral on the issue of the formation of the Punjabi Suba, Ajit Kumar could satisfy the Akulioriented voters in (he constituency that he had made sacrifices by going to jail during the Punjabi Suba agitation in 1961, Gopal Singh Khalsa. the Congress candidate, was born in a scheduled caste Ramdasia Sikh family in 1903, in a village which is outside the Sidhwan Bet constituency but not too far from it. After studying at the Malwa Khalsa High School in Ludhiana, Khalsa went to the United States in 1923 and spent three years at the University o' Idaho in Moscow, Idaho, and later in a college at Stockton, California. However, he did not graduate but joined the Hindustan National Party and finally returned to India in After his return to India, he took keen interest in the welfare of the scheduled castes and joined the All India Scheduled Castes Federation of Dr B R Ambedkar. He was a member of the S C F Working Committee and a close associate of Dr Ambedkar from 1937 to In 1937 he ran as an independent for the Punjab Legislative Assembly and was elected. He was then appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Punjab Premier Sir Sikander Hyat Khan. From 1937 to 1946 he was also a nominated member of the District Board of Ludhiana, After the war, in 1946, he was appointed as an officer in the Labour Department of the government of India. In 1952 he joined the Akali Dal, ran on its ticket for the Punjab Legislative Assembly, was elected with 28,179 votes as against the Congress candidate's 15,067 and the S C F candidate's 8,993 votes. He then became the Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Assembly. He had during his political career edited a couple of magazines and papers, and from 1952 to 1954 was Chief Editor of the Daily Prabhat, the Urdu spokesman of the Akali Dal. In 1956 as a result of the merger of the Akali Dal with the Congress party, he joined the latter organization but was unable to get the Congress ticket for the assembly in He played a prominent oart in the organization of the Malwa Akali Dal to oppose Master Tara Singh and his Akali Dal in the 1959 elections to the S G P C ("Shromani Gurudwara Parbandhak Committee") the central organization responsible for the management of gurudwaras in the Punjab though the Malwa Akali Dal as well as other organisations running against Master Tara Singh met with disastrous defeat in these gurudwara elections. Campaigning and Canvassing The Akali Dal Candidate Ajit Kumar proved an able organizer of his election campaign. He started his campaigning in the second week of January 1962 with a definite programme to visit the 170 or so villages at least once and twice if possible. He established offices at strategic places manned by workers with the members of his family playing an active role. His main strategy was based on the caste composition of the constituency. For the scheduled caste votes, he approached the scheduled caste panchayats. On his behalf, about five to ten members from some 30 such panchayats went to various villages on foot canvassing for votes. In addition there were four groups of workers on bicycles. Two station wagons were also used to carry workers to villages. As far as the Jat Sikh vote was concerned, the campaigning was left to Akali workers, and the gurudwaras were the main centres of campaigning. All the gurudwaras in the constituency were under the control of the Akali Dal. The managers of these gurudwaras were active sympathisers and canvassers for the Akali candidate. The Akali candidate and workers, when they entered a village, invariably headed for the gurudwara for canvassing, speech making and for refreshments. On the other hand, the Congress candidate did not, or rather could not. go to the gurudwaras for electioneering. This was an avenue closed to the Congress candidate - though one active Congress worker remarked, as his station wagon slopped in front of the Public Relations Office of the Punjab Government in Ludhiana, "You see. we use the Public Relations Department as much as the Akalis use the gurudwaras. This is our eauivalent of the Akali gurudumras" Use of the Public Relations Department by the Congress took the form of 1268 borrowing entertainers and workers from this department, Gurudwara-Based Campaign In the gwrudwaras, when the people assembled for daily prayers or on special occasions, the priest or the manager of the gurudwara or a prominent personality of the area, appealed to them in the name of the Sikh religion to vote for the Akali candidate Ajit Kumar. One of the points which the Congress Party tried to exploit was that Ajit Kumar was not a Sikh. But in the gurudwaras and outside, Akali workers explained that what they wanted was to elect a member to the Assembly, and not a priest to the gurudwara. It was also pointed out that since the Sikhs were accused of being communal, they should elect Ajit Kumar to vindicate their position and prove that they were not communal-minded. But as far as the Jat Sikhs were concerned the appeal was made frankly and openly in the name of religion. With war cries of Sat Sri Akal, Akali workers asked the voters to vote for the Sikh Panth. In the speeches, given in the gurudwarars, the sacrifices of the Sikhs were recounted, especially of Guru Gobind Singh and his sons, and the latter-day sacrifices in the cause of the Punjabi Suba; it was emphasized that now it was merely a question of casting the ballot whereas in the past the Sikhs had to fane bullets. If the Sikhs wanted to achieve the Punjabi Suba, they should vote for Ajit Kumar, because if Akali candidates were returned in large enough numbers they could just, vote for the Punjabi Suba in the Assembly. In this connection Ajit Kumar's jail sentences during the agitation days were recalled. Professional singers of martial music created an emotionally receptive atmosphere for the pronouncements of the Akali workers. Two important personalities in Akali politics also campaigned briefly for Ajit Kumar in his constituency - Sant Fateh Singh and the Akali Dal Propaganda Secretary Kehar Singh Vairagi. In his campaigning, Ajit Kumar received full cooperation from the Akali workers who sincerely worked for him. While in the initial stage there was some grumbling because the Akali Dal had not pu up a

3 THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY August 4, 1962 party member as a candidate, there was no question of anybody trying to sabotage his election when, as it was explained, "once the Panth has made the decision." One must note here the identification of the Akali Dal with the Sikh Panth. The Akali party workers were no financial burden on Ajit Kumar as they came either from gurudwaras or were paid by the party: their food and transportal ion was taken care of by the Akali Dal either on its own or through the gurudumrus. The Akali Dal campaign was reinforced by posters from the Akali Dal office in Amrilsar. These included : (1) an appeal from Master Tara Singh and Sant Patch Singh to vote for Ajit Kumar; (2) several pictures of maimed or dead persons in an attempt to depict the atrocities committed by the party in power; (3) a picture of the opponent of Punjab Chief Minister Pratap Singh Kairon in Sarhali constituency, shown contesting; his election from behind prison bars; (4) a poster criticising the Congress government's cultural programmes, showing half-dressed dancing girls and drunken men; (4) a poster showing the Congress government as a demon-goddess, crushing people and civil liberties: (5) finally, a poster entitled "old souls, new lives" showing Nehru with Aurangzeb in the background, and Pratap Singh Kairon with Nawab of Sirhind in the background Aurangzeb and Nawab of Sirhind are the two most hated characters in Sikh history. In addition there was an appeal from the son of Dr B K Ambedkar to vote for Ajit Kumar. emphasizing for the benefit of the scheduled caste vote that Ajit Kumar was a candidate of the Republican Party. The Congress Candidate The Congress candidate's campaign was, in contrast, highly disorganized. Khalsa himself is a witty speaker, and could pour scorn and ridicule on the Akali Dal. its leader Master Tara Singh and the opposing candidate. But, in contrast to earlier elections, voters now - wanted the candidate to visit them individually at their houses. Large meetings no longer interested them. Besides, public meetings needed Organisation. This proved a handicap because Khalsa had in 1952 run in a double-member constituency where the member running for the general seat had done most of the organizational work, and the candidate running for the reserved scat merely tagged along. Congress workers themselves were very critical of Khalsa for his lack of organization. For (me thing he started late in the election campaign, almost a month after Ajit Kumar. Some of the Congress workers were critical of his practice of returning to Ludhiana City in the evening which was precisely the time to meet the voters who were in the fit-ids during the daytime. They also criticised him for choosing Khushkismet Singh. vice-president of the District Congress Committee of Ludhiana, as his election aide since Khushkismet Singh was not liked by certain sections of Congress voters in the villages. These Congressmen said that Khushkismet Singh was openly working for his close relative, Shamsher Singh Dhandari, who was running on the Akali Dal ticket from the adjoining Ludhiana South constituency. Congress leaders and workers in the area were generally disappointed at Khalsa's selection of people to accompany him during his campaign in the villages. He had chosen people who were anathema to many Congress-men. Moreover he had with him workers from the Chamar caste most of the time, with the result that he was unable to gain an effective entry into the Jat sections. At times he was even stoned and prevented from entering villages. One of the reasons for Khalsa s lack of attention to organization, was his over-confidence at the beginning, stemming from the feeling that Ajit Kumar was "only a lad" in politics, a non-sikh running in a predominantly Sikh constituency against a Sikh candidate of the Congress party. Moreover. the Republican Party was not influential among the scheduled castes in the Ludhiana District, and Khalsa was well-known in the territory because of his long history of partieipation in politics. Another of the factors responsible for the mismanagement; of Khaisa's campaign was a rift in the Congress ranks. An important 269 faction in the Congress party in the area left the party and helped the Akalis. The leader of this faction. Joginder Singh, had been an honorary magistrate and an important government official, and commanded considerable respect and influence among the Jats. His going over to the Akalis was a great blow to the Congress candidate. In the Block Samiti elections, his son had been opposed by the other major faction in the Congress in the area and because he feared that attempts were being made to undermine his influence in the Congress he went over to the Akalis. This defection to the Akali Dal was influential in swinging the Jat Sikh votes to Ajit Kumar in 14 of the 70 polling stations. In addition to this major breakaway from the Congress party, there was much factionalism within the party. Approach through Panchayats Khalsa's main strategy, as of most Congress candidates, was to approach panches, sarpanches and landlords, and take them along for campaigning among other voters. It must be said that other political parties also approach panches and sarpanches depending on whether they have their party men on the panchayats. A little more than 50 per cent of the panchayats in the constituency are controlled by the Congress party, about 3() per cent by the Akalis and the rest by the Communist party and the Hepublican party. These are rough figures, because, for one thing, the pawhavat elections are supposed to be fought on a non-party basis and no records are kept as to which party controls a particular panchayat. and. secondly, at the time panchayat elections took place the Akalis had not completely separated themselves from the Congress party. The Akali panchayats today have broken away from the Congress Party after the panchayat elections. Similarly, the Block Samiti was under the control of the Congress party, but its chairman went over to the Akali Dal on the eve of the general elections and won a seat to the legislate assembly on the Akali ticket from an adjoining constituency. Initiallly dominated by the Congress, about 50 per cent of its members are Akali now. some. 12 per cent are Republicans and Communists and the rest are Congressmen. The Zila Parishad

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5 THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY August 4, 1962 has a Congressman for its chairman, hut some 40 per cent of the memhers are Akalis. Except for a very small number of cases such as Pamali (polling station number 1) and Pamal (2) and some villages in the Sidhwan Bel area the panchayats, as far as the Congress was concerned, were unable to exert any special influence on the voters. Khalsa's main point of attack was that Ajit Kumar was not a Sikh and that he was a chain-smoker, which he indeed is (in Sikh religion smoking is taboo). To the Jat Sikhs, A jit Kumar was presented by the Congress workers as an advocate of nationalization of land and of industries, as belonging to a party whose founder. B R Ambedkar, was responsible for the Hindu Succession Act (which the jats opposed) and as an anti-jal. To the scheduled casles, A jit Kumar was presented as having crossed over to the Akalis and having favoured the formation of the Punjabi Suba in which scheduled cash's would find it hard to live in the villages. The Congress party, on the other hand, was presell led as the protector of the scheduled castes. It is an irony of politics how roles can be reversed from election to election. In the 1952 elections, A jit Kumar then campaigning for the SCF candidate against Khalsa, warned the scheduled castes that the Akalis will "finish them" if they came into power. Now, in 1962, Khalsa running on the Congress party ticket was using exactly the same argument. Workers campaigning for Khalsa also dropped hints that Khalsa. because of his close connections with Chief Minister Kairon, would become a minister after the elections and that people should vote for him if they wanted to get their work done later. The Election Results The election for the Sidhwan Bet constituency, as for the rest of the Punjab, was held on February 24, The results of the election are Table 1 : Election Results for Sidhwan Bet Constituency in 1962 Candidate Party Votes Polled Ajit Kumar Akali Dal 23,567 Gopal Singh Khalsa Congress 11,763 Bachan Singh Independent 473 Bir Singh Swatantra 481 Lal Singh Independent 783 given in Table 1. The Akali-Dalsupported candidate won easily. This seat had been won by an Akali candidate in 1952 (by Khalsa, who was now running on the Congress ticket), a Congress-Akali candidate in 1957, and now in 1962 it had gone to an Akali-supported but non- Sikh candidate. This testifies to the ability of the Akali Dal to swing the vote to any candidate of its choice in this Sikh majority constituency. II Analysis of Voting Behaviour About 30 per cent of the population of the Sidhwan Bet constituency belong to the scheduled castes, the non-scheduled caste population consisting primarily of Jat Sikhs, with a sprinkling of caste Hindus and some other backward classes. The Hindus are mostly shopkeepers and small-scale businessmen. Data on the population of Hindus and backward classes in the villages is not available, but on the basis of interview's some estimate of these will be given where possible and necessary. The Jat Sikhs are the cultivator-farmers who own their land. The scheduled castes are land, less agricultural labourers. They also engage in leather and scavenging work. While no figures are available, in the Dakha part of the constituency, about 50 per cent of the scheduled caste population is etigaged in shoemaking, the other 50 per cent in agriculture, half of them being tenants and the otherhalf agricultural labour. In the Sidhwan Bet area, 75 per cent of them work as agricultural labourers, and about 20 per cent work as labourers engaged in digging wells, constructing roads or making mats and baskets. About 5 per cent: or so are small landowning cultivators,. Except for this last category, in both Dakha and Sidhwan Bet sections, the landowners arc invariably Jat Sikhs. Data on the population of scheduled castes in the various villages was obtained from the Office of the Superintendent of Census Operations (Punjab) in Chandigarh. However, it was difficult to locate all the villages which form part of the polling stations in the constituency, but data is available for a total of 58 polling stations either by individual polling stations or a combination of polling stations (in case a 1271 village or group of villages are split into two or more polling stations). The analysis here will be based on the voting statistics for polling stations; one polling station covers approximately a thousand voters. Theory of Factions One approach by Congress candidates in their election campaigning is based on what may he called 'The Theory of Factions." According to this theory, every village, more particularly the Jat section of every village, is divided into two factions, resulting from a variety of factors in village life. These factions, it is said, govern the whole life of the village. At the time of the general elections, these factions align themselves with different political parties, characteristically one aligning itself to the Congress party and the other to the Akali Dal. In other words, the voter's loyalty is not to any political party, or to a political appeal, or to a particular candidate, but to the local faction whose leaders can swing the vote to any party. These factions may switch their loyalties at the last minute; if one changes one way, its opponent will go the other way. In other words, the main determinant of the voter's choice is loyalty to the local faction rather than to a political party or candidate. To be sure, most villages are faction ridden. Even where panchayat elections have taken place unanimously, factions are present, because unanimity in most cases emerged as a result of candidates withdrawing after having been convinced of certain defeat not from an absence of contest. However, if the election results of Sidhwan Bet constituency are any guide, the theory does not seem to hold. It is significant that the Congress candidate could get more than 51 per cent of the vote at only two of the 70 polling stations in the constituency. At 25 polling stations he got less than 25 per cent of the vote. Except for 12 polling stations. his vote at every other polling station was less than 41 per cent. On the other hand, except for II polling stations, the Akali-Dal-Republican candidate got more than 51 per cent of the vote at every one of the 70 polling stations. Table 2 sets out in detail the vote percentages of the candidate by polling stations.

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7 THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY August 4, 1962 It is true that a palling station may include more than one village and the results would thus be distorted, but the election figures for those single villages for which data are available, indicate the same trend, as will be seen from Table 3. If the theory of factions had been true, it is odd that the Congress candidate gets the smaller faction in the overwhelming majority of the cases. Data from the Sidhwan Bet constituency shows a majority for the Akali Dal candidate in most villages. However, the theory is not to be dismissed entirely for it does contain some truth in regard to those villages where factionalism is bitter, or the prestige of the leaders of the factions is at stake in the election. In these villages, each faction, whether large or small, does align itself with opposing political parties. On the basis of information available from interviews, factionalism in the village was influential in the following polling stations or villages mentioned in Table 4 (these examples are illustrative and not exclusive). Scheduled Caste Vote An essential supplement to the so-called "theory of factions' 1 is that scheduled castes at least in the Malwa area of which Ludhiana District is a part - and the Hindus invariably vote for the Congress, when the choice is between an Akali Sikh and a Congress Sikh. The Hindus vote for the Congress because the Akali Dal is professedly a single community party standing for Sikh interests exclusively. The scheduled castes are sympathetic to the Congress, it is said, because the Congress Government has abolished untouehability, has provided for the reservation of seats in legislatures and posts in Government offices for scheduled castes, and enacted various measures for their welfare and advancement. Another reason is that the scheduled castes form the under, privileged sections of the village, and come into conflict with Jal Sikh landlords. The Jat Sikhs are behind the Akali Dal and its demand for the Punjabi Suba. whereat* the scheduled castes are against Punjabi Suba because of the political power it will vest in the Jat Sikhs. Consequently, it is said, the scheduled castes overwhelmingly vote for the Congress party. It may well be that Sidhwan Bet constituency is an exception, but a look at the polling station figures does not show any consistent correlation between the percentage of scheduled caste persons in the total population of a polling station and the voting percentage of the Congress candidate (See Table 5), To be sure, in this constituency the sharpness of the contest between the Congress party and the Akali Dal, as far as the scheduled castes were concerned, was blunted by the fact that two scheduled caste candidates opposed each other with a resultant division of the scheduled caste vote. It may be that the scheduled caste population does vote for a Congress candidate but only where the choice is between a -fat Sikh of the Akali Dal and a Jat Sikh of the Congress party (in such constituencies, the Akali Dal candidates do not even approach the 1273 scheduled castes, convinced as they are that they would inevitably vote for the Congress candidate). More Tabled: Vote Percentages of Congress and Akali Candidates in Sidhwan Bet Constituency Percentage of Number of Polling Votes Polled Stations Ajit Kumar Khalsa

8 August 4, 1962 THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY THE BIG HURRY IN THE WORLD OF SURGERY 1274

9 THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY August 4, 1962 important, in this case, the non- Congress scheduled caste candidate though running on the Akali Dal ticket in fact belonged to a distinct political party which, in spite of its name the Republican Party represents exclusively the interests of the scheduled castes. Moreover, he had worked in the constituency over a period of four or five years and had been able to build an image of himself as a sincere and dedicated worker for the cause of the scheduled castes. It may be noted that even in 1957, when running on his own party's ticket in the Raikot double member constituency, of which the present constituency was then a part, he was able to secure 43.2 per cent of the vote as against the Congress candidate's 56.8 per cent, at a time when the Akalis were merged organizationally with the Congress party. In fact, the vote of the scheduled caste sections is full of subtleties, compounded of gratitude, fear, and revolt. There is genuine gratitude on the part of many scheduled caste persons for what the Congress has done for them. As one Ramdasia Sikh villager belonging to the scheduled castes remarked, "Guru Gobind Singh made a condition of these symbols" pointing toward his beard "before making us an equal of the other Sikhs. The Congress, however, granted us equality unconditionally". At the same time there is a feeling that the scheduled castes have got all they could get from the Congress, and that they have now to adopt other means and organizations to further their ends. The element of fear springs from the fact that the scheduled castes can be subjected to reprisals social, economic and political if they go against the wishes of the local village leaders who come from among the Jat Sikhs. In the Sidhwan Bet section of the constituency, many scheduled caste voters voted against the Akali candidate because, due to their own weak and dependent economic position, they accepted the leadership of the Jat Sikh leaders, some of whom were against the Akali candidate for his part in fighting for the rights of the landless agricultural labour in the past in this area. One Sikh villager was asked as to the voting intention of his village: "We are going to vote for the man who is in jail." "But that is in Amritsar District, far from here." "Well, we are going to vote for the Panth." "How about the scheduled castes people?" "They too will vote with us." "Why, won't they vote for the Congress?" "No, we would stop their fodder," 1275 When the relations between the Jats and the scheduled castes are bad, then the scheduled castes vote against the side with whom the Jat Sikhs are aligned and since in this area the Jat sections are, generally though not totally, inclined toward the Akali Dal and since the contest is between the Akali Dal and the Congress, the scheduled castes would tend to vote for the Congress. In Sidhwan Bet constituency, however, in 1962 relations between the Jals and the scheduled caste sections were by and large good, partly perhaps because of the realization on the part of Jat Sikh voters that since this was a reserved constituency they had to work through a scheduled caste member in the legislature, and partly perhaps because of the electoral alliance between the Akali Dal and the Republican Party which in turn helped the joint Akali-Republican candidate. Something may also be said for the loyalty of scheduled caste voters to the leadership of the late B K Ambedkar, his party the SCF and its successor, the Republican party. Khalsa who had been elected in 1952 from this area had been a close associate of Ambedkar, and Ajit Kumar who won in 1962 is the general secretary of the Punjab State Republican Party. Hindus, Christians and Backward Classes Hindus form an insignificant part of the population in this constituency. But where there is a concentration of Hindus, this community votes for the Congress in the Punjab when the choice is between the Congress and the Akali Dal. This is obvious from two polling stations: (1) Sidhwan Bet, polling station number 21, where the Congress candidate received 50.3 per cent of the vote polled, and (2) Akalgarh, polling station number 61, (where Hindus constitute about 50 per cent of the population and Christians another 20 per cent) where the Congress candidate received 60.2 per cent of the vote polled. Data on the backward classes is not available. These classes consist largely of carpenters, ironsmiths and barbers, and are present in every village. While they were converted to Sikhism long ago, they are not completely accepted into the Sikh fold by the Jat Sikhs who consider them inferior Sikhs. On the other hand, they insistently want to prove that they are as good Sikhs as any other, and the act of voting becomes a form of self-assurance and a public demonstration of being a complete Sikh. They vigorously and demonstratively supported Ajit Kumar because he was a candidate of the Akali Dal and all staunch Sikhs were supposed to be with that party. Jat Sikh Vote According to some, a corollary of the proposition that scheduled castes tend to vote for the Congress party is that the Jat Sikhs are unitedly behind the Akali Dal. A look at the voting returns for the Congress candidate shown in Table 5 would indicate that at several

10 August 4, 1962 THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY places he secured a higher percent, age of voles than the scheduled caste.percentage of the population. While part of this may he from other categories of backward classes, the evidence ' suggests that the Congress candidate did cut into the Jat Sikh vole, and that the Jal Sikhs did vole for the Congress party. Precisely what the bases of this loyalty are it is hard to say. Opposition workers attribute it to the grant of quotas, allocation of depots and other favours shown by the ruling party. However, there is a variety of factors involved, working not only in the case of the Congress candidate hut also the other candidates. One of the most striking features of election campaigning by all candidates in Ludhiana District is the extent to which affinal and agnatic ties are used by candidates and their workers to put pressure on voters to vote for a particular candidate. These relatives help irrespective of their own political inclinations. The whole system of relationships is reactivated during elections. Daughters-in-law, for instance, visit their ancestral villages to win support for a certain candidate. Candidates depute special workers for approaching relatives. Past political affiliations do not make any difference, and helping relatives cuts across party-lines. A person may be helping two opposing parties in adjoining constituencies. While in this case the Congress candidate was a member of the scheduled castes, there were always a considerable number of people who were interested in his victory and had a stake in it. Thus Jat Sikh leaders having lies with the Congress party bring along other relatives and friends into the party fold for voting for the Congress candidate. Another factor is the past political history of the village. Villages which were strongholds of the Congress movement in the pre-independence period find it difficult to break away from their old loyalty. Sometimes old Congressmen, torn between their loyalty to the old Congress and Nehru, on the one hand, and their dissatisfaction with the present Congress regime in the Punjab, on the other, just sit it out at home. On the other hand, the experiences with the Congress Government may induce the voters of a particular village to vote against the Congress candidate, An example of this is the village of Aitiana where the Akali Dal candidate received 75.6 per cent of the votes. This village was a prominent centre of the antibetterment levy agitation in 1959 and witnessed a police firing in which a couple of people were killed, including a scheduled caste woman, and several were injured. The Congress candidate,.because of the resentment against the Govern, ment among the villagers of Aitiana. was able to secure only 1.1,2 per cent of the vote. Again, another factor is the presence in certain villages of extremely hostile and bitter factions which divide the village in its voting; The voting here is an expression of hostility against the opposing faction rather than of political preference. Many Jat Sikh votes go to (he Congress Party in this manner. Then, some vote for the Congress party because it embodies governmental power. As one villager said, "We voted for the British Government when there was a British Government; we vote for the Congress Government when there is a Congress Government; if the Akalis ever form a Government we will vote for them too. We vote for the Government, whosoever it is - not the political party.' 1 On the other hand, it should be noted that the electorate voted overwhelmingly against the Government in the Sidhwan Bet constituency. As a matter of fact, one could point to the existence of an anti-government sentiment. This is obvious from the fact that in when even the Akalis were in alliance with the Congress party. Ajit Kumar could secure 30,011 voles as against votes for the Congress candidate. Perhaps it may well be that part of the reason for the success of the Akali Dal lies in its ability to attract to itself this anti-government sentiment. Still another factor influencing the voter's choice, though not in the case of the Congress candidate here whose ancestral village lay outside the constituency, is geographical loyalty. Ajit Kumar polled 85,4 per cent of the polled voles at polling station number 48, which included his village Dhat. Similarly, while the election returns for the other candidates were extremely 1276 low, at Bhundri polling station (18) they went up to 37.9 per cent because that polling station includes, the village of Lai Singh, one of the other candidates. It was a combination of such factors that cut across ethnic and religious loyalties that enabled the Congress candidate to cut into the Jat Sikh vote. Conclusion What can we say in conclusion about the factors that made possible, the overwhelming victory of the Akali-supported-Republican candidale? It can be said that, considering the composition of the constituency since there is no large town having a large Hindu population and the scheduled caste population is only 30 per cent.the candidate put up by the Akali Dal would have won, not only because of the religious appeal the Akali Dal makes to the Sikhs but also in its ability to marshall on its side anti-government sentiment. What made possible the overwhelming victory of Ajit Kumar was his own work among the scheduled caste population and his superior-organisation.