Punjab only comes to the attention of this republic during one of the periodic bursts of unrest in the state. For most of the time in between, the rest of the republic is content to nurture the myth of a hardworking if unpredictable people who spend much their leisure time dancing the bhangra while consuming copious quantities of lassi or liquor. Occasionally, a report on one of the ongoing "crisis" in the state, whether that of drugs or agriculture, will make it to the national media.

The current crisis has generated its own exotic images: protestors whose poses and attitudes suitably reflect a "martial race" agitated over the desecration of the pages of a holy book; panj pyaras (whoever they are as far as people in the rest of the country are concerned) in colourful costumes taking the battle to the takht jathedars (whoever they may be). These images are accompanied by reports of "radicals" abroad, helped by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), who somehow, according to the Punjab and central government, manage to manufacture trouble and assemble people in numbers that far exceed their miniscule strength in India and abroad.

The truth is that the origins of the current problems lie in the times in between, when the republic is looking away from Punjab. In a state dominated by the jutt Sikhs who are linked to each other by tribal kin and clan associations, democracy has always been a veneer. The forms of democracy, the legislature and the electoral process appear healthy but they lack substance. Work by the government does not take place through constitutionally mandated channels where citizens can demand services and accountability; instead it is carried out through a network of clan associations where loyalty to a leader is rewarded through patronage.

While this is true of all parties that come to power in Punjab, whether the Akalis or the Congress, the process has been further honed under the leadership of Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and his son Sukhbir Badal. Individual leaders of the party, cabinet ministers and ostensibly powerful leaders in bodies such as the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabhandak Committee (SGPC), which controls all gurdwaras, are all directly beholden to the Badals and have little autonomy. The state has become a conglomerate run by the Badal family through patronage networks.

Three years ago when Parkash Singh Badal and Sukhbir Badal leveraged the construction of a Bluestar Memorial to appropriate the figure of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who, while he was alive, came close to putting the Akalis and Badal himself out of business. At that time, I had noted in an article titled A Community Led by Dunces, “…the voices that represent Sikhs do not speak for them. They represent the most regressive impulses of the community, and in ordinary settings, they would not be able to speak for a roomful of Sikhs, leave alone the entire community.”