Plight of Sikhs in India
Fatima Syed
Recently, leaders of Sikh organizations such as Khalsa Action Committee,
Dal Khalsa, Punjab Human Rights Organization, Shiromani Panthic Council
and Shiromani Akali Dal appealed to United Nations (UN) Secretary
General Ban Ki Moon to intervene immediately to bring justice to the
victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. They said, “Sikhs have been left
with no choice. We are citizens of India and India is a member of UN. As
India has failed to protect our rights and human dignity it is time for
the UN to get involved and unless it intervened, human rights enshrined
in the Universal Declaration would be seriously damaged”.
Raja Janak was an ancient king of India. His Guru or spiritual guider
was a wise man called ‘Asht-Bakar’. Raja Janak once asked his Guru, “If
you wish to wipe out a race, how this can be achieved”? His Guru replied
to the ruler, “In order to wipe out a race you need to do three things.
Firstly, you need to attack their young generation and kill them off.
This will make sure that they are weakened and will not grow as a nation
to gain further strength. Secondly, you need to destroy their history
and distort their culture. A community without a history and language is
finished. And thirdly, you need to attack the heat beat of the
community, the central focus point, through which you will destroy their
morale and dignity. By doing all three things you will eventually
terminate a whole race”.
Indian government used the same technique to purge Sikh identity and
merge them into Hinduism. Since independence Sikhs remained mistrusted
and are being discriminated and treated as aliens. Of the major threats
to Sikhism is that Hinduism wants to engulf it in its fold as it has
already done the same to Buddhism and Jainism. The movement of
annihilation of the minorities is going on in India with complete
support of Indian government. The theological principles, the articles
of faith, the way of life, rites and rituals etc of the Sikhs are
altogether different from those of the Hindus. In Sikhism every one has
the equal right whereas Hindus believe in caste system. Sikhism does not
have a clergy class as it considers this as a gateway to corruption.
According to Sikh’s Holy book Guru Granth Sahib, “All the people have
one base”. (Guru Granth Sahib P.83).In Hinduism, the worship of idols of
the mythological gods and goddesses has great importance, but Sikhism
rejects it altogether and prohibits it. “Those who worship stones are
ignorant and foolish”. (Guru Granth Sahib p. 556)
Nehru and Gandhi, urging the Sikhs to join India, made a commitment that
no constitution of India would be framed unless it was acceptable to the
Sikhs. Even the Indian constitution farmed and adopted in 1950, did not
recognize Sikhs as a separate identity and considers them Hindus with
long hair. Due to this the Sikh representatives had rejected and refused
to give their assent to it. In 2005 the Indian Supreme Court, said, “ if
the argument for recognising every religious group within the broad
Hindu religion as separate religious minority was accepted and such
tendencies were encouraged, ‘the whole country, which is already under
class and social conflicts due to various divisive forces, will further
face divisions on the basis of religious diversities. A claim by one
group of citizens would lead to a similar claim by another group and
conflict and strife would ensue.”
The Hindus burnt the Sikh religious literature several times and
committed the acts of sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib and the Gurdwaras
on the behest of government. To quote a few instances from history, in
1983, the State Reserve Police and the Central Reserve Police were
directed by the government to attack Gurdwaras on the slightest pretext.
During the year, Gurdwara Sahib Sisganj, Delhi, Gurdwara Imli Sahib,
Indore, Gurdwara Sahib, Churu, Rajasthan, Gurdwara Sahib Chandokalan,
Haryana and Gurdwara Sahib, Chowk Mehta, Amritsar were attacked. In June
1984, on the orders of the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Golden Temple
and 37 other Gurdwaras were attacked by all sections of the Indian Armed
Forces and other security agencies, killing thousands of Sikhs,
desecrating the holy premises, vandalizing heritage records and
artifacts. During the attack on Golden Temple, the Sikh Reference
Library was vandalized by the Indian Armed Forces and the looted
material has not been returned to this day. After the attack on Golden
Temple, Baat Cheet the Indian Army Gazette No. 153, 1984 published, “Any
knowledge of Amritdharis, who are dangerous people and pledged to commit
murders, arson and acts of terrorism, should immediately be brought the
notice of authorities. These people might appear harmless from outside
but they are basically committed to terrorism. In the interest of all of
us their identity and whereabouts must always be disclosed”. In
November, 1984, Sikhs were attacked in 87 towns and cities in ‘secular’
India. According to estimates by human rights organizations at least
10,000 Sikhs were virtually butchered or burnt alive. Officially, 3,700
Sikhs were killed in a matter of 48 hours. More than 200,000 Sikhs
rendered homeless. More than 358 Gurdwaras were desecrated and
destroyed. Justifying this official pogrom against the Sikhs, Prime
Minister Rajiv Gandhi shamelessly proclaimed, “When a big tree falls,
the earth shakes.” Since 1986, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch
and the International Committee of the Red Cross have been debarred from
officially entering Punjab for documenting human rights violations. This
ban still continues.
Apart from above mentioned atrocities, efforts were made from time to
time to undermine Punjabi language and to damage the economy of Punjab,
especially Sikhs. For instance, the Punjab and Sind Bank was understood
to be the bank of Sikhs and Punjabis, when the bank reached the zenith
of its glory, in 1980, the bank was nationalized and brought under the
direct control of the government of India.
Sikhs faced racial discrimination even in the Indian Armed Forces. In
1971 the Defence Ministry under Jagjivan Ram, took a policy decision, to
recruit army personnel on the basis of population rather than merit. Due
to which the percentage of Sikh participation in the Indian Armed Forces
was gradually reduced to a meager 2 percent. Similarly, the government
compelled Sikh officers, both in the Defence and Civil services to
renounce their Sikh identity (i.e. Kesh and Kirpan) if they desired
promotions and possible retention in their services. Repressive laws
were introduced to harm Sikh community. In 1987, the Terrorist and
Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, 1987 was passed. This act not
only violated all norms of criminal jurisprudence but also Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights. Consequently, thousands of Sikh youth were detained,
tortured, and killed both in Panjab and in other Indian states. In 1988,
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi introduced the 59th amendment to the
constitution of India, withdrawing the right to life of the people of
Punjab and enabling more discriminatory laws against Punjab. In 1991,
Brigadier Sinha of the Indian Army publicly declared that the only way
to subvert the culture of the Sikhs was to rape and humiliates Sikh
women.
On 6 September, 1995, human rights activist, Jaswant Singh Khalra, who
had unearthed gross human rights abuses in the district of Amritsar
about individuals who had disappeared involuntarily was tortured and
killed extrajudicially. On 20 March 2000, coinciding with the visit of
US President, Bill Clinton, 35 young Sikhs were killed in Chittisingpura,
Kashmir by state vigilantes. This has been proved without doubt but the
state has not taken any action so far. In the year 2007, while the
blasphemous activities of Sirsa dera chief, Gurmeet Ram Rahim have been
allowed to continue, in complete violation of legal provisions, sedition
charges have been foisted against Sikh leaders. The Indian Supreme Court
called the Indian government’s murders of Sikhs “worse than genocide.”
According to a report by the Movement against State Repression (MASR),
52,268 Sikhs are being held as political prisoners in India without
charge or trial. Twenty-five years after the massacre of thousands of
Sikhs in India the country’s government has failed to bring to justice
those responsible.
That’s why the Sikh community is asking UN for help. Indian rulers
should understand one thing that persecution can not annihilate the
Sikhs and they will never become Hindus even if they are denied their
due rights. There is a need that Indian government must respect the
minority rights and stop its brutalities and atrocities against them.
Otherwise the saying of Franklin D. Roosevelt that “No democracy can
long survive which does not accept as fundamental to its very existence
the recognition of the rights of minorities” would come true of India.
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