incomplete map .
takht e lahore of maharaja ranjit singh is not shown in this map, why not punjab ? how khalistan can be without gujrat where ranjit singh was born ? whole punjab must be in khalistan .
Because Sikhs are not stupid to have two enemies. In order for Khalistan to be a viable state, they need an allied Pakistan, since India will almost certainly refuse access to its ports. You Indians love using this argument...unfortunately for you, most Sikhs are not interested in West Punjab.
Furthermore, Sikhs are more than welcomed in Pakistan...afterall, Anand Karaj Act was passed by MUSLIM Pakistan, rather than "Secular India".
Panjab & 1984
In 1951, the President’s Rule was first imposed on then Panjab for almost 10 months to “help the state Congress government get its act together.”
In 1953, the “President’s Rule” was first imposed in India for a little over a year in the now defunct state of Patiala and East Punjab States union (PEPSU) by dismissing Akali government led by Gian Singh Rarewale.
Between 1966-1993, current state of Panjab was under the President’s Rule seven times to bifurcate Panjab, break its coalition, re-election, dissolving majority governments in Panjab Legislative Assembly, and “insurgencies and breakdown of law and order.”
On Vaisakhi Day 1973, the Working Committee of Akalis adopted the Anandpur Sahib Resolution (ASR). ASR was more of the Akalis political manifesto on political, economic, religious, cultural, and social issues. The very first resolution demanded “a real federal shape” for the Indian constitution “to enable the states to play a useful role for the progress and prosperity of the Indian people in their respective areas by the meaningful exercise of their power.”
An astute observer, researcher, and documenter of Sikh and Indian leader dynamics for last 70 years, Gurmit Singh in
Failure of Akali Leadership observed the new alignments in India:
During the Emergency Indira Gandhi had become a captive Prime Minister in the hands of the caucus and all the excesses that were committed during Emergency were well-planned with a view to alienate the various sections of society from the Congress Party. Central leadership watched it like a helpless spectator. What were the forces controlling the destiny of this nation during that crucial period have not been named or unmasked so far and those who are being named are only the puppets who danced at the movement of strings held by those forces. The result was a “democratic revolution” a new experiment indeed in these days of military coups. The poll results showed political polarisation on geographical basis i.e., north supporting Janta and south going with the Congress. This is a new feature in the Indian political system.
Pritam Singh in
Class, Nation & Religion: Changing Nature of Akai Dal Politics in Punjab, India presents the Sikh foresight in middle of the Emergency: “In this phase the view was that to protect the Sikhs as a minority in a Hindu-majority country from a long-term view required protection of democracy and democratic institutions. The impulse was protection of religious and cultural rights of Sikhs but the articulation of that impulse was as a struggle against undemocratic rule.”
In 1977, right after the successful anti-Emergency electoral victory for Akalis in Panjab, Gurmit Singh opined on the compromised foresight after the sacrifices:
One rarely finds an article making critical analysis of the present day problems facing the community. Sikhs have no English daily of their own and the Punjabis are busy with criticism of personal lives of the leaders, nay not even leaders but second rate editors of contemporaries … Sikh leadership continues to befool the public with empty slogans and resolutions. I am informed by a very reliable source that no draft of All-India Gurdwara Bill been prepared so far by the committee constituted for the purpose. Not only that, but the aforesaid committee has never met for any serious deliberations. Recently, a resolution was passed by the Shiromani Akali Dal for the enactment of separate personal law for the Sikhs to regulate matters such as succession, marriage etc. But may I ask: Has anyone cared to do even some spade work in this regard?
During the Emergency, the Sikh demonstrations were peaceful and effective. Yet, the Sikhs in India for the first time were labelled “anti-national” and the term is still invoked, but now not just by the ruling party.
In the Emergency-era, police detained people as political prisoners without charge or notification to families; they were abused and tortured as well. The public media institutions such as the national television network Doordarshan was used for government propaganda. The government enacted large-scale and illegal laws including modifications to the Constitution.
The same was repeated against the Sikhs in Panjab, 1980s onwards.
On 2 July 1984,
Time “In The Roots of Violence: Sikh Deaths Fit the Sad Pattern of Troubled Land” recorded Gandhi’s reason for invading Golden Temple complex:
Like her 1975 declaration of a state of Emergency and her detention of thousands of political opponents, her latest moves have had the effect of reinforcing her position as the head of India's strong central government. The conventional wisdom for the moment is that though she has alienated the Sikhs by the events of the past month, her action has strengthened her popularity among India's Hindu majority. It also has removed whatever doubt there may have been that she will win the election campaign that she must call by January 1985. It will be her fifth race for national leadership. She stoutly denies any suggestion of a political motive behind her latest actions. "Elections come and go," she said recently, but the unity of the country is much more important." She has used this very criterion to put down unrest ever since she first came to power in 1966.
Gurtej Singh in
Bharat in Bhasmasur Mode provides a counter narrative to Chandan Mitra’s “The Suicidal Missionary” in
India Today (Bhasmasur in Hindu mythology was a demon who was granted the power to burn up and immediately turn into ashes anyone whose head he touched with his hand):
The unlimited fund of intense hatred that is ever available with the permanent cultural majority [PCM] helped Indira Gandhi in dealing with Bhinderanwale and all those who like him defied the illegal diktats of the authorities and talked of religious freedom, rule of law, true federalism, liberty, justice, inalienable rights, people’s sovereignty and democracy. They were to be projected as patrons of terrorism and separatism. It was done very efficiently by the loyal Press notwithstanding the well-known fact that the Sant always kept a copy of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution of the Akali Dal under his pillow to place political limits on his enthusiastic supporters. He never had a political party and no independent political programme. Nevertheless the Darbar was attacked to kill him and in the bargain to destroy Sikh institutions. The only rationale sold to the gullible Indian audience was that all violent activity would end with his elimination and the destruction of the Akal Takhat. It soon became apparent to the neutral observer that PCM had been wrongly briefed. Despite her authoritative propagation of the theory, the violence had escalated a thousand fold after the June 1984 army attack.
No Ray
Siddhartha Shankar Ray who acknowledged that “Indira and I were very close” and “I had known Indira since childhood,” proposed to Gandhi to impose an “Internal Emergency” on 8 January 1975. Coomi Kapoor in
Darkness at Dawn shows the “actual execution of the Emergency followed Ray’s proposed plan of action to the letter” where “the plan was to be put on operation” on 24-hour notice.
The same Ray was appointed Governor of Panjab from 1986-89 when Rajiv Gandhi was the PM. He was forced to quit the governorship because he alienated the Sikhs in civil matters and implemented ruthless police atrocities. Ray admitted that the police had turned sadistic. In his last week as governor, he closed the case against notorious Senior Superintendent of Police Gobind Ram.
According to official police records, although a large number of militants were killed during Ray’s tenure, the number of hardcore and other militants increased from 90 and 225 to 150 and 550. Isn’t that the historical Sikh response against unjust state? Recall Mir Mannu’s atrocities during 18th century and the pre-Akali Khalsa verse in Panjabi:
Mannu is our sickle,
We the fodder for him to mow,
The more he cuts,
The more we grow.
The same Ray was awarded the Ambassadorship to the United States from 1992-96 under PM PV Narasimha Rao administration; Rao was the Home Minister in charge of the security under PM Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi in 1984. In 1995,
Associated Press highlighted Sikhs protesting against Ray in Washington, DC: “This murderer, this ambassador of India here is an accessory.”
According to the letter to the World Sikh Organization in the disappearance of Jaswant Singh Khalra, Ray on behalf of the Indian Government said that the kidnappers were merely “masquerading as policemen.”
In 2010, Ray admitted the following to Dola Mitra in
Outlook: “It was not so much the Constitution’s overarching ideals that attracted me, but rather, its potential usefulness in solving societal problems. I was always a pragmatist about the law. I believed in using the law to reach just outcomes, even if that meant applying it in a way that was not necessarily intended by the framers of the Constitution.”
Reminder
The Emergency years were the biggest challenge to India's commitment to democracy, which proved vulnerable to the manipulation of powerful leaders and hegemonic Parliamentary majorities.
In 1994, declaring President’s Rule dropped off after the Indian Supreme Court brought it under judicial review. In 2016, President’s Rule was back as modus operandi when it was imposed on Uttarakhand and Arunachal Pradesh under Prime Minister Modi.
The document Sikhs demanded be implemented throughout 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s was Anandpur Sahib Resolution (ASR). The present-day Akalis while claiming to be the oldest regional political party in India, replaced its constituents from “Sikhs” to “Panjabis” in 1995 Moga Conference. Since then, ASR is not part of the Akali demands. Panjab now elects Congress or not-so-Sikh-like Akalis. And while Akalis represent the Panjabis, they in 2017 control the two largest Sikh institutions: Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) and Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC).
Now, when the Morcha’s brew, they are suppressed by the State via force or infiltration. Sikhs were warned by Sirdar Kapur Singh in 1980s about how Akalis (time-less, implying constantly ethical) have become A-kalis (time-bound, implying opportunistic).
Will it take another Indian Emergency for Sikhs to reclaim Akali origins? Perhaps, then, Sikhs will free their institutions as well as the disenfranchised Indians of ethnic, religious or gender minorities.
I end with historian Hari Ram Gupta’s observation:
Sikhs who placed themselves at the head of the nation; who showed themselves as interpreters of the rights of the people; who maintained the struggle between good and evil, between the sovereign will of the people and the divine right of kings, and the opposition of liberty to despotism; who avenged the insults, the outrages and slavery of many generations of the past; who liberated their mother country from the yoke of the foreign oppressor; who displayed all that was great and noble; who left to the children of this province a heritage unsullied by the presence of any foreign soldier; who won for the Punjab the envied title of "the land of soldiers"; who alone can boast of having erected a "bulwark of defence against foreign aggression," the tide of which had run its prosperous course for the preceding eight hundred years and to whom all other people of Northern India in general and the Punjab in particular, owe a deep debt of gratitude.
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Harinder Singh is an educator, thinker and activist who tweets @1Force.
