Punjab, Sikhs and Politics
The Congress leader Sajjan Kumar has been convicted in the case of killing of five Sikhs in Delhi. Many people have come out to defend the Congress party that its leaders, the party and the Gandhi Dynasty had nothing to do with the Sikh Genocide of 1984. At the front seat is the Chief Minister of Punjab.
I’ve said it several times that there will be no justice for Sikhs in India. Many people have been suggesting that the justice has been delivered. What I cannot comprehend is the naked truth that how the thousands of Sikhs getting killed in daylight be said to get justice by just only countable guys convicted by the court. This’s done only for the murder of the five Sikhs. There’re thousands of Sikhs who were massacred then. What about them?
The emotions of the Sikhs are so high that they’re demanding a noose around Sajjan Kumar’s neck. Some even said to burn him alive. That will be so quick. I never understood the capital punishment. A guy is involved in a heinous crim and we are going to hang him for two minutes? It’s not a hard punishment according to me. Avenging someone is different than capital punishment. In the Indian Panel Code, some severe punishment should be introduced. People like Sajjan Kumar and the others who killed or involved in direct or indirect incitation to slay innocents should be locked behind the bars without having any access to the outer world, without the interaction with another human being. The loneliness should make them suffer more than any other punishment.
1984 Sikh Genocide was the beginning for the political parties to involve the criminals into the politics and make them the leaders to take as many blood-hungry mobs as possible to kill the innocents. The problem is that the police officers will be in the hands of the politicians. There should be some laws which will make the police say that they wouldn’t execute the orders because of their unethical nature. They should have the power to do that, but in India the police officers are the politician-fearing people.
Once the Congress won the elections after killing the Sikhs in 1984, it showed a path to other political parties too. 2002 is the year which can be included in the diagram to show how the mob violence can change the election results in the Indian politics. The worst part is people are justifying the killing of innocents. This list includes Jagrati Shukla, who should be institutionalized first because of her hate mongering spree on the social media. Latest on that was her account on Twitter has been suspended.
She’s not the only one, there’re many out there who live to spread the hatred among the masses. Not only they bring the reasoning to justify the killing of innocents but also convince the masses how and why it’d to be done. And the political parties who’re linked to these people keep silence on these matters. Why? Because the whole system is driven by the hatred, this’s not just the BJP, no; the Congress is no better than them. Congress supporters have the soft heart for the Gandhi Dynasty, specifically Jawaharlal Nehru. The promises of the stalwart leader of Congress were no better than the leaders that are there in India now.
With the conviction of Sajjan Kumar, it highlights how the politicians drive the campaigns during the elections. Many who are staunch supporters of the political parties will argue how their leaders are clean. They are either so immature or fool because this game of power has no boundaries and no rules. When the political parties are breaking the laws, the same law that they brought into the picture, you can see how much a law book is useful to the citizens.
A law book is nothing but a tool which is used to control the masses, where the politicians sometimes don’t get caught in the process. Now think of the 1984 Sikh Genocide. Do you think only Sajjan Kumar was involved in this? No. There are many out there who’re hidden somewhere, escaping the justice. Now how hard will it be to know more names from Sajjan Kumar who’re linked to him in direct or indirect way? Will the justice department do something about it or just stop there by punishing one terrorist?
After the assassination of Indira Gandhi, the mobs were already ready to kill the Sikhs in the streets of Delhi. Why no steps were taken to stop them? Was ‘khoon ka badla khoon se lenge’ slogan not enough to trigger a response from the bureaucrats to place the troops in the city? Or was it the part of the Operation Shanti which included the Sikh massacre?
In The History of Sikhs, Dr Sangat Singh writes ‘Indira drew a diabolical plan, named Operation Shanti, to carry out a general massacre of the Sikhs, of genocidal proportions, around November 8, when the Sikhs would assemble in various Gurdwaras for Guru Nanak’s birthday celebrations. According to the plan, large scale skirmishes virtually amounting to a war, were to take place all along the India-Pakistan borders. And, it was to be given out that the Sikhs had risen in revolt in Punjab and joined hands with Pakistani armed forces which had made considerable advances into the Indian territory. The Sikhs all over Punjab, especially in Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Ferozepur, Kapurthala and Jalandhar districts were to be subjected to massive aerial bombardment, apart from being slaughtered by army and para military forces. The Sikhs all over India were to be subjected to mass scale massacre, loot, arson and incendiarism by lumpen elements organised by Youth Congress(I) activists. Elaborate preparations were made by Youth Congress(I) network all over India; they were to await a coded signal to start the mayhem.’
There’s no doubt the craven politicians will deny the operation and make it look like a conspiracy which comes out of nowhere to degrade the goddess Indra Gandhi, like it’s perpetuated during the Operation Bluestar days, and the Gandhi Dynasty. I remember Kawar Sandhu asking a question to Brar about the Sikhs with their hands tied behind their backs and shot dead by the army. To that, Brar said these were just rumours, nothing like that ever happened. If we take his words as the gospel truth and believe it didn’t happen, then the real question is if it’d happened, would he have admitted publicly? There are many cases where the army or the police officers were put behind the bars for killing innocents. Hashimpura massacre is on that list when the so-called protectors of the citizens killed them for no reason. And what about police officers killing a fifteen-year-old boy? Did they just come in front of the judiciary and asked to prosecute them?
The worst part of all these killings and then the terrorists getting convicted is that the Indian politics can’t be driven without acknowledging the role of the present government to give justice to religions/groups. In the case of Terrorist Sajjan Kumar, BJPians and Akali Dal’s supporters and their leaders will spend so much time to tell how it’s because of the efforts of the current government which led to the life imprisonment of Sajjan Kumar. The vice-versa of that will be true too.
Some politicians are ballless, immoral and opportunist scum, who use the killing of innocents to entice the public to get votes to have a government in the state or centre. This always was, is and will be the catalyst to lure the voters and blind them with the propaganda of the media, which are nothing but a counterparty of the political parties to shadow the important part of the incidents and show the unnecessary illogical talk shows on TV. If you go through all the major national news channels in India, you will see many panellists will have the most critical part of the society in debates. Cow. Their inclination towards the Hindutva is clear from the topics that they choose because in a country where the Hindus are in majority, the political parties push the agenda to have their religious feelings checked and try not to offend. There’s no secular political party in India; all are getting the votes by compelling the people associated with religions.
Another part that comes automatically with this is the Sikh-looking politicians and having them in a lead role to say how the Sikhs who are a minority in India and still from one of them a Prime Minister, a Chief of Army and a Cabinet Minister are made. That silences the whole debate of the horrendous crimes of the political parties and forces who started the mass killing of the Sikhs in India. We’ve your guy in the government. Remember what Baldev Singh, the first Defence Minister of India, said? He said a Sikh is there in the government, what more the Sikhs want!? This is the finest argument that has been used multiple times on the Internet.
The Sikh politicians when come in power forget the ethics and morals of the religion and solely represent the political party that they are affiliated with. Religion comes later to them, first is the slavery of the political party. That weapon has fooled Sikhs a number of times, even in these days many Sikhs just vote because they think the political leader who is representing a Sikh political party will talk about the Sikh issues in the parliament. I think around three times Akali Dal came into power after mid-1990s to till now. How many times they talked about the killing of innocents by the forces? Didn’t they have the power to have a whitepaper on this and issue it in public with all the people that Shaheed Jaswant Singh Khalsa talked about and the police officers involved in that?
The Sikhs voted the party again, back to back. Twice. Did they raise the Sikh issues? How many times? When they think they’ve been surrounded, then only they talked a little about getting Chandigarh back, etc., not before that. Wasn’t the example of Baldev Singh enough for us? Or are we not reading the history? Even the new Akali Dal Taksali laid down the same points that Sikhs have been talking about. Will they truly do what they say … only time will tell.
AAP is covering more ground in Punjab after the win in Delhi. The whole focus of the party during the 2017 elections was giving dreams to the youth of Punjab. It can be related to drugs, employment, entrepreneurship, and most importantly to withdraw the politically motivated and false cases. AAP couldn’t make the government in Punjab, but what is stopping them to work on what they talked about in their manifesto? They might not have the whole power that they could have if in power, but certain things can be handled. Like the ‘politically motivated and false cases.’ Arvind Kejriwal or other senior leaders of the party can at least give the general information about it and tell the public how many people are in jail for committing no crim.
People of Punjab are fed up of the Akali Dal and the Congress, so the big change that the people will be seeing might be from AAP in some near years. They should be very thoughtful before pressing the button to vote. These days the youth of India chooses a side and then never tries to leave it. You can see it from all the political parties that their supporters will try to defend the party to such an extent that they will surely exonerate the politicians for their new decisions and plans. The walk out of Alka Lamba for the ‘resolution’ to take back the award of Rajiv Gandhi is the act that shows how serious they might be for the betterment of the Sikhs in Punjab, if they win … ever.
Eventually what needs to be remembered is that AAP is just a political party. They might have some merit or better than other political parties to some extent. It’s the beginning of the party. At the time of the partition in 1947, the deshbhagat leader Jawahar Lal Nehru said, ‘The brave Sikhs of the Punjab are entitled to special consideration. I see nothing wrong or impossible in an area and a set-up in the North wherein the Sikhs can also experience the glow of freedom.’ Did he keep his promises? No. He’s just another liar who’d do anything to get in power and then forget what he might have thought before promising something. How many political parties you can name which did everything that they’d on their manifesto?
I am not trying to generalize it but it’s the truth. It’s the power that changes everything. It’s the power that makes you forget everything. You want to be powerful. You want to be in control. You want to be remembered.
The Sikh youth has been filled with these thoughts in their minds. Specially, in the universities in Punjab, and some colleges, they get the dose of the politics in the student elections. They feel this small power surging through their veins, in decision-making, influencing the other students, fixing the labels on the other youth wing … it’s the very nature of the atmosphere that drives the whole thing, out of which some become the politicians or to some level help the political parties.
But how many Sikh youth wings are there who want to work altruistically? How many are ready to do the seva of the panth? Why many young Sikhs are driven by the power in politics?
We’ve to change this. This atmosphere where the Sikhs are walking on a path to go against the philosophical aspects of the religion just to reach at the top of the ladder is a force that will be the major factor to change their nature forever and it might be very hard to bring them back to the right course.
Rather than involving in the politics, they should be focusing on the current situation of the panth when many termites are eating the panth out. I am not denying that the Sikhs shouldn’t be involved in politics. Politics, in democracy, has the advantage of changing the lives of people with the right decisions, but it also destroys you internally, the morals, the very nature that makes you human, when you start climbing the ladder to go to top. The rules of the religion which are very important for the Sikhs are forgotten in the process.
Remember when the unlimited power was given to the forces back in 80s and 90s? Were they not the people who were born in the Sikh families? Many of them were. But once they got the power, they did what was terroristic in nature. I remember the advice of Bhai Sant Singh ji to Kavi Santokh Singh ji that not to involve in the politics of Lahore. See what great Kavi Santokh Singh ji achieved and gave us! Many of the youngsters wouldn’t have listened to the thoughts of Bhai Sant Singh ji.
From a very young age, a baby is taught about the Sikh Gurus and the history. I remember when I was small, we’re taught the names of the Sikh Gurus, in sequence. As the kid grows up, he gets in contact with many other people out of his home. That’s a very dangerous stage, because many times the parents wouldn’t be knowing what their child is up to. He might be involved in drugs, or go against the very thing that makes him a Sikh. This age of the kid should be monitored by the parents, if they want him to live his life as a Sikh.
These days the influence of the western countries is much on the Sikh psyche. They wholly want to live their lives according to how they are living. They don’t want to hold the very nature of their living that makes them Sikhs. They will trim their beards. They will drink. They might have sexual relationships with others before marriage. They will question the basic principles of the Sikhs, like ‘Christians’ do. So this transformation of Sikhs into a different set of people is happening drastically.
This new transformation of Sikhs leads them to the top of the political parties and they look at everything from a different angle. A political angle. The political angle is used to blanket everything and to focus on one point. The political point.
As they climb the ladder of power, they show the epitome of how the power corrupts the people. They feel very comfortable sitting at a position that holds significant amount of power to order anything and the people under that power do that without questioning. Ethics and morals are forgotten once they achieve the very seat that they’ve been desiring for so long. It can be from the panchayat elections or the student elections. It’s a dose in the early years that feels like nectar to them.
In the Sikh politics, we need a transformation in the political parties where the values as a Sikh should matter more than acquiring everything for himself or the family. There’re two very fundamental points that can be noted.
First is to start new political parties. The youth in Punjab should learn more about politics and the condition of the people in need, those who vote for a change and eventually get nothing but the fake promises and new dreams for the next elections. The Sikh youth has enough examples to know what to do and what not to do. Many blunders have been made by different political parties in India. They should pay attention to how the politics are driven and more importantly how they could be at the top of the power without leaving the morals. They should learn that morals and ethics are more important than the power. These basic things should be the backbone of the Sikh youth who are seeking to create new political parties or some groups to talk about the issues of the Punjabis/Sikhs.
They should also consider that as a political party’s value increases, the other political parties try to shake hands with the party. And sometimes, due to the poor performance or not much trust of the common people in them, they change their minds and make an alliance. In the 90s, the BJP and the Akali Dal made an alliance even when many political leaders of BJP are said to have asked to have the army sent to Darbar Sahib in 1984. Although some even say the Akali Dal’s leaders appealed to the government too. This’s the corruption that is there. This is what changes all the rules of the party. Anyway, the BJP leaders’ voice in the decision-making to send the army in Darbar Sahib was completely ignored while making an alliance.
Not only this, once two people in the same political party start getting the nod from the public, they start degrading the other one to be on the top. This is the worst kind of tact which’s used by the politicians. As a Sikh in the political party, your focus should always be to do the best for the whole of the state where the party is fighting an election, not to pull the people from top to bottom with the fake propaganda. This’s the 21st century where it’s the ultimate way to be at the top. But if you’re doing the same, then you’re just doing it for power, and you’ve forgotten the basics of Sikhi.
If you visit Punjab, you’ll know that the Sikh youth participate very well in the politics and involve in the campaigns too, but they strive to win without caring about right and wrong. I remember people getting to a political party’s rally just because they wanted to eat meat and drink beer. Are the Punjabis really that cheap? We were known to be the warriors who stopped the great invasions in 18th century! Now we are here!?
Each political party has a youth wing. Can be the Akali Dal, Congress or BJP. They work for the party and the politicians, not for the public that voted them in power. How many times you saw the people talking to the public and asking their problems and then sending them to the people in power? I never saw them. I only see these people behind the keyboards defending their party and criticizing other parties. Is it really the purpose of the youth wing of the political parties? To brainwash the public?
The Sikh youth needs a new method to work efficiently with the whole focus to develop all the people of the state, rather than wasting time to attack the other political parties unnecessarily. The Sikh youth has so much potential to achieve many milestones. Don’t stick to these lame works. Do better. Do meaningful. Not only for your political party but also for the common people who are looking at you for their problems. Can be water issue, electricity issue, bad roads, unemployment, etc., they need you in this. The politicians are chosen to solve all these problems rather than sitting cozily on chairs.
So come forward and bring new political parties or groups to make the lives of the people prosperous.
The recent news that I got from Punjab was that in the panchayat elections, there’re few skirmishes between people. If the youngsters really can’t handle or be at peace in the panchayat elections, we can’t expect that they would do anything for the public if chosen in the legislative assembly or parliament. It also is because we are not at peace inside. And that inside peace can be achieved by living according to the command of the guru. But if we’ve already left the guru and the teachings, then all we will have is the political bullshit that is engulfing the minds of the Punjabi youth.
Second point is to remove the corrupt leaders from the political party. Shromani Akali Dal has a very long history. These days the Sikh youth hate the party because of the Badal family. There’ve been many incidents and the stories which are circling on the Internet, and that’s changing the minds of the youth. The speakers at different seminars talk briefly how the Badals have destroyed the panth.
If the Badal family really cares for the betterment of the Punjabi and the Sikhs, then they should let the other people handle the party. Akali Dal is not the party of one family but so many Sikhs who fought to create it. But the Badal family might also be among those who just want to be in power, no matter what. Good or bad doesn’t matter. Just stay in power. That needs to be changed. And that change should come from all the leaders who’re with the Akali Dal. They all should stand together and send the Badal family off to their home, or at least ask for the power to control the party.
From Parkash Singh Badal to many of his family members, all are in politics. How is that different from the Gandhi Dynasty? They’re doing the same thing. Being very long in the politics, Parkash Singh Badal should think about the party and the Sikhs and Punjabis now. The whole power-attaining thing is over. He’s very old now. If he’s still plotting to be the one who controls everything, then he’s a fool.
And those who’re MLAs and MPs from the Akali Dal should know that the party is not because of Parkash Singh Badal but because of them. They’re the people who’re given the votes, on which the Badal family made its empire. Without you guys, the Badal family is nothing. So before thinking of the political gain, you all should think of the Punjabis and do work now even when you’re not in power.
You guys always blame the Congress party for the massacre and the Operation Bluestar, but forget that apart from that there’re many things to do for the Punjab. Where are you on the water issues? You guys all stand behind the Badal family when elections come near and raise this point but fail every single time. You talk in length but meaningless results come out of it. This is the time now. Punjabis need you. Sikhs need you. The history of the Akali Dal should be preserved and should be shown who the real Akalis are. You’re becoming just a joke.
Even the youth wing of the Akali Dal should play some part in that. They can also approach the people at the top hierarchy and speak openly. Usually what happens is the youngsters in the youth wing try to involve in politics by getting a ticket. They are just following the sheep. Do politics. Play politics. Leave everything else. Your mind should always focus on the issues of the past and present, and then decide about the future and present. Don’t just do the shitty work of luring the people into the traps of politics and do the propaganda on the Internet. Have some responsibility. You are the people who might be holding the torch to lead the Punjabis to a new world, where everyone should have all the necessary things to live, where everyone will be happy, where people will not be afraid of the police, where there will be no corruption, where the Punjabis irrespective of their religion should come first in your mind rather than your political career.
So come forward and save the Punjabis.
I truly believe that the decisions for the Punjabis should be made by the Punjabis living in Punjab, not some political party in Delhi. The new political parties are showing up and they are saying the same. How successful they all be only time will tell. They might also be using these statements for gimmicks to start the political career and make the government in Punjab. But this has to happen. I mean the decision of Punjabis should be made by the Punjabis.
