From our study we could infer that Sikhs still had a lot of appreciation and warm brotherly feeling for the Hindus from outside the Hindi belt. There was plenty of justifiable admiration for our prime minister Indira Gandhi and Rajiv, but obvious resentment against her advisers, supposedly influencing her decisions. We both got along very well with the warm-hearted and hospitable Sikhs. Most of their sorrowful complaints made a lot of sense e.g. why are the Central Government investment in Punjab lowest among all the states? (less than 1%). Even though Punjab’s contribution to the central revenue is among the highest opposition from local Hindus and many years of denials from the Government even on the trivial demands (such as the re-naming of one of the Punjab trains as Golden Temple Express), seemed most incredible. We encountered many genuine issues of this kind which deserve national exposure and serious probing. Is it really due to the discrimination as the Sikhs complain? Or is it a deliberate exercise for causing annoyance, frustration and dissention among this virile and distinguished community in our country? Revelations in S. Hukum Singh’s article are worth reading. It is now well-known that Sant Bindranwale and his Dal-Khalsa were especially promoted with a purpose to establish an opposition within Akali and Sikh politics. The present agitation of Akali party under Sant Langowal, is based on well-defined justifiable demands, and grievances and hence attracts sympathy or support from almost all Sikh masses. Any deliberate suggestion of Pakistani hand behind this massive Satyagraha, is bound to hurt and deeply upset this highly patriotic minority of less than 2% with their most incredible record of over 70% sacrifices during Gandhi’s freedom struggle and their important role in defence and development of our country after the freedom.

During the linguistic agitation in 1953, over 50,000 Sikhs had courted arrest. In the current Satyagraha of 1982-83 over 100,000 volunteers have been arrested. This high number of arrests in undoubtedly a national record and so has been the peaceful nature in which the Satyagrahas (morchas) of this magnitude have been handled by the Sikhs, with extreme tolerance inspite of over hundred lives sacrificed by them in the current agitation. The possibility of some interference in the Sikh politics and the religious affairs cannot be ruled out. The Press has not done itself any justice by failing to expose the basic issues of the conflict and have frequently hurt the patriotic Sikh sentiments, misrepresenting their cause and the case by dubbing them as separatists and unwisely highlighting the issue of Khalistan, a name we did not hear even once from any of the Sikhs we met in Punjab and Delhi. We however, observed a lot of genuine Sikh support for most of the Akali demands and not necessarily for the Akali party. We studied their demands which appeared to be fair, democratic and within the frame work of Indian constitution. While only two religious demands have only been partly conceded by the Government, in the main there appeared to be six major demands:

  1. Chandigarh to be declared capital of Punjab. (Like Bombay was returned to Maharashtra in 1960 after depriving them for 4 years).
  2. River-water dispute should be referred to the Supreme Court.
  3. Appointment of a commission of linguistic experts to go into the territorial claims by Punjab and Haryana, treating each village as a unit and the language actually spoken and contiguity as the sole criteria.
  4. Return of 3 Punjab thermal-head-works back to Punjab administration.
  5. Removal of discrimination in the Armed Forces by lifting the limit of 2% on Sikh recruitment. 6. Enactment of All India Gurdwara Act, covering historical Gurdwaras,

In absence of any initiative from the Congress Sikhs, Akalis got the opportunity to champion the cause of Punjab and the Sikhs, the R.S.S. The Samaj has since recently started fanning anti-Sikh feelings in Maharashtra as well. He explained to us the history of Punjab Arya-Samaj and the role it has played in influencing Government decisions and in worsening Hindu-Sikh relationships. Of late some of them have started a shocking new anti-Sikh campaign, saying that since the wars are now fought with the guns and not with the swords any more, a Sikh is no better soldier than anyone else and the Indian army can do without Sikhs if need be. Even the most ridiculous anti-Sikh invention of this kind seems to have possibly influenced some Government and political circles.

Anti-Sikh policies and activities of Arya-Samaj are responsible for alienating the Sikhs from Hindu Society and pushing more Sikhs into saying that they are not Hindus. Arya-Samajis themselves during the last 100 years many a time proclaimed not to be Hindus. Veer Savarkar wrote that even in rigorous conditions of Kalapani, the Arya-Samaji prisoners refused to be called Hindus in the 1921 census and also refused to attend the Hindu temple and made their own, thus also adversely influencing their Sikh colleagues in Kalapani. Arya-Samaj have many times savagely criticized Sanatana Hindu Dharma and the word ‘Hindu’ itself. By any measure or yardstick, a Sikh is more of a true and valuable Hindu, than the Arya-Samajist, who in an attempt to hoodwink the other Hindus of India, pretend to champion the cause of Hinduism against Sikhism, by promoting Hindu Surakhsa-Samiti and the Sangathan against the Sikhs, who have sacrificed countless lives for protecting the Hindu religion itself. Due to irresponsible support from some popular news-media, the cry-wolf clever tactics of Arya-Samaj seem to have succeeded in influencing many Hindus across the country which is a very unfortunate development.

Prof. Mansukhani branded Arya-Samaj as India’s most fanatical cult, which according to him was a serious embarrassment to the tolerant and broad-minded religion of Hinduism and other religions of Hindu origin. He then quoted us the Arya-Samaj bible, written by Mr. Dayanand the founder of the Cult. In it the author has savagely attacked Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism and the lot. He has directly slandered Mohammed, Kabir, Buddha, Christ, Nanak, Gobind Singh and many others, all in the name of Hinduism.

We found it difficult to believe that any text purporting to be religious could be so derogatory to other religions. We studied “Satyarath Prakash” for ourselves. This is what it contains.

Sikhs: Page 443 (chapter 1X) Guru Nanak did not possess any learning . . . he wanted to show that he had some pretentions to the knowledge of Sanskrit . . . anxious to gain public applause, fame and glory … He was vain. . . resorted to gain reputation and acquire fame. Page 446 .. . if Sikhs were to read vedas, they would no doubt embrace Vedic religion

Hinduism: It too has not been spared by him. On page 434 (Chapter XI) he explains how Vaishnavites are as bad as Shivites.

Buddhists: Page 517 . . . Buddhist assertion is as valueless as the mutterings of a patient suffering from delirium

Jainism: Page 557 (Chapter XIII) . . . it appears that the Jainees are perverse and ignorant. . . Page 559… we do not think that there exists a religion more idiotic than Jainism . . . Page 561. . Idol worship with its evils originated with the Jainees and therefore the Jain religion is at the root of all fraud…

Christianity: Page 634-635 Chapter XIII) . . . Jesus was neither an enlightened man nor was he possessed of any miraculous power he pretended to be the Son of God and those savages (around him) believed him to be such. No wonder he was so clever in dividing people and causing discord and dissensions among them.

Islam: Page 670 (Chapter XIV)… Quran is not the word of God but of some bigot … The Quran, its God and the Muslims are embodiment of bigotry and ignorance. Page 680… Quran’s author must have been a hypocritical and deceitful person . . . Page 684 . . . Quran is the production of minds steeped in savagery and destitute of all knowledge of God.

The above are only a fraction of the slander inflicted by Dayanand on all other religions, in the current edition of his bible. In the 1st edition he has called Guru Nanak as (dhurta) crafty and dishonest. The Sikh scriptures Granth Sahib as (Mithya) falsehood and Sikhism as (jal) a trap for the innocent.

Half of his seven hundred page bible has been devoted towards attacks on other faiths. We could never believe it until we our Selves looked into the original work of Dayanand, who has named his book as “Satyarath Prakash” meaning Light of Truth. In the publishers note, Mr O. P. Tyagi (MP) says, “This book is Magnum Opus of Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati, founder of Arya Samaj. This book is regarded as the Bible of Arya Samaj and is as immortal as the truth is. We are particularly tempted to call it a ‘Cult’ because we hate to see it identified with our ancient (and yet modern) highly philosophical and tolerant religion of Hinduism. We were really amazed to hear that over half of the Punjab and Haryana Hindus are followers of this fanatic cult. How members of this kind of hateful sect can co-exist with other religions is indeed hard to understand. After studying their slander on Guru Nanak and his humble teachings, we became inclined to look at the causes of Hindu-Sikh conflict in a different perspective: Arya Samaj support for the Nirankaris and the object of their similar other anti-Sikh activities became self-explanatory. We wondered how many Arya Samajists in the garb of Hinduism have helped influence Hindu national opinion through some of their own controlled media and also perhaps affect the Government’s judgment and its decisions through the positions they may occupy in the ruling party and the senior posts they hold in the Civil Service. The anti-Sikh mentality of former Home Minister Gulzarilal Nanda, and former Prime Minister Charan Singh are perhaps due to their origin in Arya Samaj and also responsible for influencing the usually impartial attitude of the Congress towards minorities.