12th Oct 2015. The date that started it all.
Torn angs of Guru Granth Sahib were found in Bargari. This started the beginning of the sit-in protests. We saw the open firing by the police on the protesters on 14th Oct 2015, which killed two people. The investigation dragged on, but no accused was arrested for the sacrilege. Some suggest over 300 sacrileges attempts have been made after that. That number is huge.
With the assurances from the Congress government in the State, the protests were ended by the Sikhs in 2018. Now, the situation in Punjab has drastically changed as the then CM, Amarinder Singh, has left the Congress party and started his own. The assurances became irrelevant. This was not the first time when the Sikhs had believed the politicians that their demands would be met.
We heard many sacrileges attempts made in Punjab over the years after 2015. The newspapers would show now and then a place where a person tried to desecrate the Gurudwara or the scripture.
At the end what the police come up with in these cases is the men involved in these places were mentally ill. I don’t know much about psychology but … are all the mentally ill people go around desecrating the places of Sikhs? Why are they all willing to do that only to Sikhs in huge numbers? I am not suggesting that other religions should be involved by them too. No. What I am coming at is they can’t be that crazy to go to the Sikh places every time. They definitely have a motive, a reason, that the Punjab Police and the intelligence agencies have failed to come up with.
Sacrilege attempt in Harmandir Sahib
I remember the evening of Dec 18, 2021. I was doing my daily job when I heard about the initial video which was shared like fire online. Only the foot on the rumala sahib of Guru Granth Sahib was visible in that video. My first thought wasn’t a man jumping over the barrier to do the sacrilege, but a person might have gone near to Guru Granth Sahib to pay his obeisance. It’s not even imaginable for me that a guy would do something like this in the daylight, in front of tens of people available inside Harmandir Sahib.
I waited for more videos to come up before reaching to a conclusion. The twitter handlers of Sikhs flooded with opinions and different videos, now showing the complete picture how it happened.
The Singh sitting at the taabea of Guru Granth Sahib ji was doing path of Rehraas Sahib. The Singh saw the man approaching, and the verse was ਜਿਨ ਸੇਵਿਆ ਜਿਨ ਸੇਵਿਆ ਮੇਰਾ ਹਰਿ ਜੀ ਤੇ ਹਰਿ ਹਰਿ ਰੂਪਿ ਸਮਾਸੀ ।। Another Singh, who was sitting beside the Singh reciting the Rehraas Sahib, stood up at once and other Singhs also helped to control the situation. He returned to his place, bowed down, and sat again.
The Singh who was reciting Rehraas Sahib was applauded by many that even with the sudden commotion he didn’t stop reciting Gurbani and didn’t forget which verse he was on. We saw him jerking a little with the sudden move, but his concentration was high enough to not lose his tracks. He grabbed the mic stand as it’s going to fall as the other Singh stood up at once and his knee hit the mic stand.
During the first video, it’s also said the guy who jumped over the barrier picked the sword placed in front of Guru Granth Sahib to do the sacrilege. But that wasn’t visible in the video, later it became evident in other videos. Maybe his plan was to hit Guru Granth Sahib, because thinking he wanted to run away with the sword is not possible. You can’t run away from that place with anything; there is so much distance to cover to reach outside, and chances of getting caught is 100 per cent.
The guy waited for some time to jump over the barrier. While faking to bow down to the Guru, he grabbed the top of the barrier and jumped to the other side, picked the sword with his right hand, before he could do anything, the Singhs grabbed him and threw him out. This whole incident happened within 12 seconds. One thing that I noticed was the number of Singhs who threw him out was five. ਮਹਾਰਾਜ ਵਰਤ ਗਏ ।
Post incident
A Sikh came forward and said the accused was asked where he came from, but he said he didn’t know where he came from. It happened in the room number 50. Later, the accused was killed by the Sikhs present there.
When the news of his death appeared the first time, some argued he shouldn’t have been killed; they should have questioned him about who he was, who sent him, etc. If we look back, the questions were asked to all the accused, but nothing concrete was given by them. I believe them to be just pawns. I doubt if these people interact with those who plan everything. Some thought the killing might have happened to stop him from taking the name of the sender, I doubt that. The earlier incidents point to the same that they don’t speak.
Recently at the Singhu Border, where the farmer protests were going on, the man, Lakhbir Singh, attempted to sacrilege the bir of Sarbloh Granth on Oct 15, 2021. His sister said he would often talk to someone who he’d call ‘Sandhu Sahib.’ Who was this Sandhu Sahib? We never learned that. Thinking the Harmandir Sahib incident would have been fruitful if the miscreant had been handed over to police is very naïve.
And in the Bargari case, Rupinder and Jaswinder were arrested by police. But the Sikhs thought the police were trying to frame the innocent guys in the case as they couldn’t find anything. Later, some videos popped up where the two were using the code names for the Bargari incident. Some Sikhs made the videos that they were the real culprits, but the Sikhs stood together for their release from jail.
Now, with the killing of the culprit in the Harmandir Sahib incident, the right wing Indian media isn’t happy about it. According to them the man wasn’t killed but lynched. The words matter a lot. It should be reminded that Muslims were lynched by people on the suspicion of possession of beef few years back in India. There were many incidents like this. The word started getting used by many since then. Beef isn’t the matter here; Muslims are. As the right-wing mob is on the rise in India, we see numerous attempts made by them to denigrate the Muslim population to the lower level of humans. If it had been right-wingers in the 18th century, they would have labelled Banda Singh Bahadur, or Bhai Sukha Singh and Bhai Mehtab Singh as lynchers.
The faujji joined hands with the right-wing to condemn the killing.
It is very crucial to hear the words of the Jathedar of Akaal Takhat, Giani Harpreet Singh:
In Sachkhand Shri Harmandir Sahib at Darbar Sahib, there was a nefarious attempt made to desecrate the place. Sachkhand Shri Harmandir Sahib is the heart of Sikhs. By stepping foot on the heart of the Sikhs if one thinks he’ll live it’s his misconception. The big invaders like Abdali fell on the place (with malicious motives). Indira Gandhi too, who attacked Sachkhand Shri Harmandir Sahib, Shri Darbar Sahib, tried to prove herself brave and victorious, but the Sikhs didn’t tolerate that.
Giani Harpreet Singh has been very vocal on these matters. We have seen him taking the stand when the then DGP of Punjab made bad remarks about the Kartarpur Corridor.
During these situations, the Sikh youth shouldn’t waste their breath listening and believe in the politicians. They are there for one reason: vote bank. Those who are standing with Sikhs are hoping the Sikhs would favour them in the next 2022 Assembly Elections. Those who are against, they have the ‘nation first’ theory with them to lure the voters.
A conspiracy?
According to SGPC President Harjinder Singh Dhami, the man who tried to desecrate the place seemed to be trained by commandos. This doesn’t seem to be a far fletched allegation, because the man literally reconnoitred the place before jumping over the barriers to enter the parkash asthaan of Guru Granth Sahib ji. The CCTV footage showed the man coming to Darbar Sahib at 8.30 in the morning. But the sevadars didn’t let him enter on suspicious grounds, then he moved to Guru Ramdas Saran and entered at 9.40 am from the Langar Hall side. He was seen in Harmandir Sahib at 10.34, but didn’t bow down to Guru Granth Sahib, went to the first floor, stayed there for one hour. He tried to enter through Darshani Deorhi again but the sevadar didn’t let him enter on suspicious grounds.
This doesn’t seem to be the work of a mentally ill guy. If one supposes that he did it on impulse, he wouldn’t have tried entering the place multiple times. He was there for one reason, and he wasn’t successful in that.
Planning to enter the Harmandir Sahib and doing sacrilegious acts is surely a one-way path. You can enter but going out isn’t very much certain.
Some have also pointed to the beginning of the sacrileges in Punjab and connecting it to the presence of AAP back in 2014. AAP or any political party shouldn’t be that stupid to get involved in these sorts of acts. Not because Kejriwal and his party is secular – he isn’t – because they didn’t have the religious agenda the time they came into existence. Angering the Sikhs on the religious grounds and hoping to win elections in Punjab requires great imagination.
Why these actions?
But why would someone do it? There can be political reasons behind that or to destabilize the harmony in Punjab. These are major reasons which require planning at a very big level.
But why a person would enter the place to do such acts, if the Big Fish is outside, waiting for the outcome?
I am a Sikh, and I see many differences between my religion and other religions. What I can’t do is me going to their religious places to do sacrilege. That’s not what’s taught during my childhood through my religion and culture. If we find some faults in other religions or rules, we don’t follow them. Simple.
If we believe these attackers are not religious, or don’t believe in any Supreme Power, still they can’t be crazy enough to get themselves killed in these matters, unless they were pressurized enough, or some incentives were assured by the Big Fish. This definitely causes emotional backlash from the religious communities.
1984, 2002, or any other genocides or brutal killings are the political moves of different parties and organizations. It’s pure politics, nothing else. The common people are blinded by the propaganda on the TV, or some hardliner websites and blogs. They link almost everything to enmity against the religions. There are hundreds of videos available on the Internet where the so-called religious people go against other religions, and openly denigrate them and threat to eliminate them.
The latest blast on 23rd Dec 2021 in Ludhiana should be the news now. People will forget the sacrilege attempt in Harmandir Sahib soon. Maybe the blast was to eliminate someone present in the court. Elections are nearing next year, we are going to see the masses getting split into three parts: one who’s going to blame Pakistan for this, the second will bring the anti-nationals, and the third will bring the Khalistanis.
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂ ਸਭ ਨੂੰ ਸੁਮੱਤ ਬਖ਼ਸ਼ੇ ।
