By Jassa Singh Sidhu | Opinion |
The phenomenal rise of Amritpal Singh did not happen in a void. There was a political vacuum for the young people of Punjab and it was ripe to be led because there is a serious amount of anger and hurt in how the Sikhs and the state of Punjab had been treated by successive “Union of India” governments.
“The emperor has no clothes” is what Amritpal Singh is saying. Amritpal Singh is speaking of the reality of the situation in Punjab, but he is being muffled by the Indian “Deep State”.
Khalistan is an ideology that cannot be removed from the conscience of many Sikhs in Punjab, which the Union of India has tried to demonize by denying and suppressing the free expression of the idea of “Khalistan”. The pictures of Jathedar Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale are everywhere in the Punjab countryside and occasionally seen in Delhi. To say that there is no appeal for Khalistan has been the constant drum roll from the Indian State. The other drum roll is that Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan is sponsoring Khalistan. The only people being fooled are the Indians outside of Punjab state in India.
The “Union of India” prides itself as an inheritor of a civilization and is a civilized nation. Civilization also references ethos. However, the Union of India has not displayed its human rights angle and the ability of its people to speak freely. The reality in India is the overwhelming emphasis on centralisation from New Delhi and the concept of Hindu, Hindi and Hindustan at the expense of the states in Southern India and in Northeastern India.
FEDERAL EXPERIENCE
Many Sikhs have given up that they will ever get justice under the Union of India umbrella, hence the embers of demand have resurfaced for an independent Punjab free of the shackles of the Union of India. The Union of India should ask itself why many Sikhs want self-determination. Even though the Indian national media keeps drumming “that only a small portion of Sikhs want Khalistan”, yet the reality is different on the ground and elections can get effected due to the perception if the Sikh candidate has conservative leanings.
Across the spectrum for many Sikhs, the experience in being a part of the Union of India has been a disaster with many unpleasant experiences of discrimination and pogroms. We should not forget that the “Union of India” was supposed to be a Federal System because it is a subcontinent of many diverse races, cultures and languages. However, instead of being a true Federal System, it has retained a colonial framework with a Governor to implement the Union of India’s colonialism. Every state has a Chief Minister and a Governor. The Governor acts in the capacity of a colonial framework.
The Union of India does not reflect as a true “Union of India” with equality and fraternity for all its citizens. The Union of India is not benign. It has engineered a coup to absorb Sikkim and run roughshod to incorporate the states in Northeastern India; Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur and Sikkim where the inhabitants are people with East Asian phenotypes and these people did not want to be a part of the Union of India but forced at gunpoint. The British ran out of India abandoning these states to the mercy of the “Union of India” without checking if the inhabitants of the Northeast wanted to be a part of the Union of India. The constant rhetoric of Hindu, Hindi, Hindustan is damaging to the very fabric in the Union of India.
DEEP STATE
The concern by many Sikhs across India is that the “Deep State” in the Union of India is working hard to fabricate and manufacture evidence to create a narrative that will play into the politics to create the binary of “Khalistan” and “Hindustan”, to further victimise and hurt Sikhs with the aim of the elections of 2024.
This Deep State was also at work during the Congress control of India.
It is important to contextualise with history why this pain and suffering of the Sikhs happened. The beginning of this problem was the post 1947 treatment of Sikhs by the Union of India. In the past the Hindus of Punjab harassed Sikhs with the slogans; “Kach, Kera, Kirpan enko bhaejo Pakistan, biri ciggarette peekae shaan say jeewange.”
The Punjabi Hindu fanatics destroyed Guru Ram Das picture at the Amritsar train station. Lala Jagat Narayan, a Punjabi Hindu leader, was against the formation of a Punjabi language state even though he was a Punjabi. Lala Jagat Narayan also wrote articles against the Sikh religion and Sikh Gurus (Prophets) and betrayed Punjabi mother tongue.
The Punjabi Hindus created the schism with Punjabi Sikhs by communalising the Punjabi language as a language of Sikhs instead of all Punjabis. Lala Jagat Narayan betrayed and urged Punjabi Hindus to declare Hindi as their mother tongue a total betrayal of “Punjabiat“, this blatant communalism destroyed the fraternity of Punjabis. He further alienated the Sikhs by attacking the Sikh prophets that are revered by many Hindus as well.
During the 1970s, the Congress party wanted to win elections by scapegoating the Sikhs as anti-nationals to win the Hindu vote by dividing the Punjabi community into religious factions. This situation was let to fester with the storming of the Golden Temple in 1984. For many Sikhs this was when the “Rubicon” was crossed in June of 1984 when India’s military engaged in domestic political issues and attacked Sri Darbar Sahib the center of the Sikh religion and destroyed the structure of Akal Takht, with the result in thousands of Sikhs being killed and prisoned in its aftermath. Countless eyewitness saw Sikh pilgrims irrespective of age and gender murdered in cold blood by the Indian Army.
Because of this repression, the Sikhs held a global Sikh gathering at Amritsar, Punjab at the Akal Takht in 1986. At the “Sarbat Khalsa” the call for a Sikh nation was established in 1986, this declaration is non-negotiable according to Sikh ethos, the only way this can be reversed is by having another “Sarbat Khalsa” that reconvenes to declare that the 1986 declaration is reversed. In this historical context, Amritpal Singh is providing leadership and vision and his communication and articulate expressions based on political economy and sovereignty attracted many young men and women to his banner.
Jassa Singh Sidhu is an Asia Samachar reader concerned with the on-going developments in Punjab
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Police action against Amritpal Singh – What is really going on? (Asia Samachar, 20 March 2023)
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