Post the famous Battle of the Hydaspes, a victorious Alexander the Great, greatly impressed by the bravery of Hydaspes king Porus, asked the latter how he would like to be treated. The vanquished king replied, “As one king would treat another.”
Fast forward to 2017 Punjab in India, and the newly-elected Congress government is giving some serious lessons on how the opposition should be treated, from which even the Centre could take a leaf out of.
In a surprise move, the Captain Amarinder Singh-led Congress government has decided to let former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal retain a government house in view of his status. This, despite the Badals owning a palacial bungalow at a prime location in Chandigarh.
The chief minister has also decided not to go with his finance minister Manpreet Badal, who wanted to rewrite the history of Punjab, wipe out the entire colonial time and focus on the Sikhs, particularly the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.
In fact, Manpreet Badal, who authored the Congress manifesto for the recently concluded Punjab assembly elections, had proposed the 'Law of Historical Memory'—a collective recognition of the region's past identifying specific periods of both prosperity and decline and to erase all remnants of humiliating British rule. "The era of the Empire under Maharaja Ranjit Singh is to be celebrated as an era of greatness and strength... the British Raj is to be formally condemned as the single most unfortunate, cruel and humiliating phase of Punjab's history, and indeed that of India,” read the manifesto.
"This law must not be confused as an attempt to distort history, but should rather be understood as a conscious effort to encourage widespread knowledge of Punjab's past," said Badal.
While the proposed law, inspired by a similar one in Spain, would have been welcomed by hardcore Akalis and their Sikh peasantry support base, the military historian in the chief minister held rightly that history cannot be simplistically rewritten. He does not care for such a law, even if it means he will have to look for an alternate route to win the support base.
On the other hand, the newly-elected government has a lot of expectations from people who had successively voted the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) to power during the previous two occasions. The way the Badal government dealt with businesses in the state was one among the primary reasons for the heightened animosity of the people towards SAD.
During the decade-long reign, the Badals had somehow taken away the profit-making businesses from individuals. Another was the way they ensured rival companies of the government began to bleed even as those they owned, laughed all the way to the banks, by hook or crook.
For instance, when the party was in office, there were allegations that most of the private operators of luxury buses were coerced into selling out to companies owned by the associates of the Badal family. As a result, most of the high-end luxury buses plying to different capitals as well as district headquarters of Punjab happen to be owned by the family. So much so that they were known as the 'transport mafia'.
Their business involvement in the transport sector also saw private buses getting preferential and premium time slots and profitable routes. More than 60 per cent of the private transport came the Badals way after 2007 and these companies are said to own almost a thousand luxury buses. Interestingly, some of these buses are also believed to be owned by companies managed by family members of politicians from the Congress.
The former government also bent rules that mandated government to ensure that only state transport undertakings are allowed monopoly in specific routes.
However, the Badals' joy was short-lived. In response to an order from the Punjab and Haryana High Court, the government revisited the transport policy and decided to introduce a new policy, reviewing all inter-state reciprocal agreements with the state.
The government, in fact, reviewed the state of the public sector transport companies—Punjab Roadways and the Punjab Roadways Transport Corporation—that were running in the red and decided to strengthen them by adding luxury buses to its fleet and rationalising the tax structure.
Interestingly, the high-end coaches paid less than the rickety old buses in Punjab. The government also canceled permits to almost 8,000 buses, including luxury buses that were plying beyond their routes.
In short, the Congress government simply decided to ensure that the government sector enterprises would not be allowed to wilt. Through tax rejigs, the government made it difficult, if not impossible, for the Badal's enterprises to enjoy the joyride.
The Badals, however, cannot take rest watching the Congress take away all the brownie points even though the elections are years away.
On Wednesday, the government ordered a special revenue department check for the crops that were damaged due to rains and hailstorms. The former chief minister lost no time and jumped in to take credit. He even thanked the government for paying heed to his words.
The government, in addition, is stepping in with more breathers such as releasing loans to affected farmers pending a further settlement and getting the state and central agencies like Markfed and Food Corporation of India to buy the produce even if they are slightly moist. And, Badal is already sceptical about these actions.
It has been just a little more than a month for the Congress government. But rarely has the relationship between the new rulers and the old been this interesting. Action without noise of the saffron kind.
