By Prof. Spellman

THERE is a very interesting parallel between what was going on during World War I, and in some respects, what is going on today in India. In 1919, when the Ghadar movement was founded in Punjab, it established a number of overseas branches. One of those branches was in Vancouver, Canada. Another one was in Paris runby Krishan Varma. All of these groups were involved with efforts to get the British out of India.

In 1919, all of these groups identified as terrorist organizations and rounded up by the American authorities and prosecuted. The act under which they were prosecuted was the American Neutrality Act. It is basically the same charge today that is being filed against a group of Sikhs in the USS. In 1919, it was argued that the U.S. was at peace with Britain and the Ghadar movement was trying to produce antagonism towards the English. The only grounds which they could find to prosecute the Sikhs was that of engaging in unfriendly activities with a nation with whom the US. had friendly relations England, not India. Ironically, it is using that same Act today, Sikhs are being prosecuted.

If one were to think of persons violating the Neutrality Act, it would be hard to find someone who is guilty of more violations than President Reagan in terms of his activities in Nicaragua. Here you find a country with who legally the U.S. is presumably at peace. There has been no war declared. Yet, the President and now the Congress, is involved in giving more than 100 million dollars to pull down the lawful established government of Nicaragua. One finds it difficult to understand how the President and Congress can behave in this way and not be charged with the violation of the Neutrality Act. All over the world, countries including Canada and India are now taking pride in advertising, interfering in the affairs of South Africa. They are actually doing something; they’re not simply plotting. They are actually doing something unlike Sikhs in Canada or the U.S. who apparently have killed no one.

One wonders why, particularly in the light of the Charter of Human Rights in Canada free doom of speech and freedom of expression provisions, that Sikhs should be picked up for conspiring to do injury in India when we know of other countries, Libya and Iran, for example where people in foreign official positions,

Attempt to change the lawful government. Such people are not prosecuted; we try to alter governments in a way which is stated as being a natural “right” in the American, Declaration of Independence.

Governments are established for certain purposes. “Among these are the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Whenever governments become destructive of these objectives it is the right of the people to alter or abolish these governments laying it’s new foundation on whatever grounds shall seem prudent”. This is not a terrorist statement. It’s not a statement that anyone has been jailed for. It’s patriotic, American statement found in the “Declaration of Independence”. Why it is that with this kind of background we. Are now observing this persecution against Sikhs? Why should western countries be joining together to hassle Sikhs even more? Canada, Germany, the United States and Great Britain are the main targets. For all of these countries it is usual for a foreign minister to visit New Delhi and discuss the policies against the Sikhs in their respective countries. You can document this from the daily Indian newspapers.

When Joe Clark goes to New Delhi to have trade negotiations, along with those negotiations are discussions about Sikhs in Canada, The Sikhs must be shown their place. Some officials of government of India have now moved in and the suggestion is a simple one. Either, you keep the Sikhs in place, or Indian trade will be reduced. That was the statement made to the British. In fact, certain British trade agreements were postponed by the government of India till the British gave assurances that the Sikhs would be regulated. Here in Windsor, Sikhs who want to go from the Gurdwara to Detroit, or vice versa will be hassled as they are going legally and properly from one to the other. There is a relationship between the kinds of persecution going on today by governments against the Sikhs and the kind of persecution that was going on in 1919.

Indian political concepts advise, in the case of political disputes, the proper method is always SAMA, DANA, BHEDA, and DANDA. If one is to be successful in war, one always starts with SAMA. Conciliation or negotiation, praising the qualities of each other, and attempting to come to some kind of mutual agreement. DANA, gifts, is another effort to get the opponent to come around to your own point of view. BHEDA is splitting the ranks of the enemy. DANDA is war. Manu says, “The results of war are always uncertain…. the results of battle can never be determined in advance”, It doesn’t matter how many troops, you have, it doesn’t matter what the resources are at your command. It can be the Americans in Vietnam, or the government of India in Amritsar. The results of war are always uncertain. For this reason, it is advised that one does not go to war until going through SAMA, DANA, and BHEDA.

Today, much of the issue has fully escalated to the level of DANDA, force or power. If we use all the forces of the government of India together with the force of other countries and their police system, we must understand’ that we will never be able to “put the Sikhs in their place”. It is stupid idea an idea that cannot work. It is an idea that is not working. It will work no more in Punjab than it is going to work in Sri Lanka against the Tamils, or than the British have. worked it in Northern Ireland. The situation is not different in any of these countries. The situation in all of these countries is a question of the right of the people to their identity, dignity, and their cultural heritage. To the extent that any government tries to suppress the cultural identity, dignity or the heritage of a people, they encounter great dangers.

When you consider the number of people in this world who are Sikhs, they are greater than the population of Israel and Palestine together. No one would argue that in the battles which have been going on between Israel and Palestine, Israel is a cult, or that the Jews are a pre-Christian cult. It would be a stupid proposition. It’s Just absurd to suggest that the Sikhs are a cult or ever more absurd, a Hindu cult. All of this seems part of a strategy to reduce the identity and absorb the cultural heritage of Sikhs by saying Sikhs are not Sikhs, Sikhs are Indians. Sikhs are not Punjabis, they are Indians. That’s fine: but, it’s like saying that there are no Englishmen, Frenchmen, or Germans in this world. They are all Europeans. Even if you were to total all the Europeans, denying that any of them belong to a country, you would have less people than if you totaled the 700 million people in India. There are far more people in India than there are in all Europe. No one objects that some Europeans are known as Frenchmen, others as Englishmen, Germans, Spaniards, Portuguese, and the rest.

But, for some reason we object that in India some people want to be known as Tamils, others as Punjabis, Malayalees, Telegus, or whatever. The cultural heritage of the people in India or the countries of India, are no less viable than the countries of Europe. The countries of India have their own language, architecture, music, literature, and dance. Many of these cultural features does not have! Canada, for example has no advanced system of dance as the Bhangra of Punjab or the Kathakali of Kerala. Canada has no music in the way of either Punjab or Tamilnadu. No architecture which is distinctly Canadian in the manner of Kerala, Tamilnadu or Punjab when we. look at the features of cultures, we find that the countries of India have certainly at least as much identity as exists in Europe or North America.

To the extent that we continue to try to erode these cultures, destroy them in a kind of cultural genocide, in the name of nationalism or patriotism, the country itself wills bectroyed. The nation is the total of the petals on the flower. If you begin to destroy the petals, ultimately you destroy the flower. To the extent that you nourish the solid so that the petals are beautiful, then the flower itself becomes beautiful. This, unfortunately, is not happening in India today. It is especially not happening in terms of relationship between the government of India and the Sikhs. What to do? Well, it is a very difficult and long battle. It is not something that will be gained easily, if the issue is, as I say it is cultural heritage, dignity, and identity.

In the long run, the only way that this awareness is going to be firm is when the Sikhs themselves have an awareness that is deeper and absorbing of their own identity, cultural heritage and dignity. To the extent that the Sikhs do not have a significant awareness of their own identity or a meaningful application of the hundreds of years of cultural heritage, then, the Sikhs themselves are participants in their own defeat. That is why I applaud workshops such as this. They assist in giving some awareness of your cultural heritage, identity, and hopefully of your dignity. To the extent that you get involved with the life of getting and spending in the world: to the extent that you are involved with all of the distraction of clothes, school, possessions, or whatever; and, to the extent that these attentions take away from your study or effort to understand your own heritage or identify, to that extent, you participate in and contribute to your own defeat.

It is true of Sikhs, I’m sorry to say, as it is true today of many Indians, particularly those who are in the West, that they are like bats. They are neither a bird nor a beast. Many Indians, unfortunately, do not know if they are Indians or Westerners. Also, many Sikhs do not know whether they are Sikhs, Westerners, Indians or what. They are uprooted in their own culture and drift from one set of ideologies into others whether they be political, social or economic, unaware of their own fundamentals, religion and culture. It is not enough to be aware simply of one’s religious heritage as a Sikh. One must also be aware of one’s cultural heritage as a Sikh.

It turns out, in a: sense, that the same thing that the Sikhs in World War I were fighting for, it is to be repeated today. How that repetition will take place is very largely up to you. Not up to you because you happen to be a group of Sikhs here at the University of Windsor: but, because Canada is one of the main countries for the struggle of Sikhs. In Canada, unlike any other country in the world, nearly 60% of the Indians are Sikhs. it is here in Canada, to a certain extent, that the Sikhs are not only Sikhs, but also the largest representative group from India as Indians.

If in this country you gradually become increasingly unaware of what Sikhism, cultural heritage, values, and identity is about, then you will have lost this struggle. You will have lost the struggle not because you haven’t fought and not because you wanted to lose it, but through the ignorance of not knowing about yourselves. Your own ignorance about your own special culture will, due to sheer apathy, defeat you. If that happens, then it will be much easier to assimilate Sikhs. It would be much easier to remove the areas of distinction. It would be much easier to see that Sikhs make no special claim to dignity. That is where the issue, I think, ultimately comes. It will not come with guns, bullets, or Khalistan. It will come with one’s knowledge and commitment to your own identity and for your own cultural heritage.

Article extracted from this publication >>  May 1, 1987