Every Sikh is deeply hurt and justifiably furious at the wanton attack on the Golden Temple. It has ripped open the wounds that have been festering painfully ever since the Indian army riddled the Sikh Sanctum Sanctorum with bullets and razed to ground the sacred Akal Takht in 1984. Even the most skeptical among the Sikhs is now convinced that there can never ever be any hope of preserving the sanctity of the Sikh shrines in Hindu India.
The attack has not surprised the Sikhs. They know that such attacks are bound to remain a routine feature so long Sikhs continue to be slaves in India. It is not for the first time that Sikh religious institutions have suffered a diabolic onslaught. In fact, Sikh history is nothing but a recurring tale of the heroic defense put up by self-sacrificing Sikhs against devastating odds. The resistance being offered in the Golden Temple by a handful of freedom fighters to stop the invading Indian soldiers from defiling their holiest shrine recalls to the mind the valiant deeds of the Sikh heroes like Baba Banda Bahadur, Baba Deep Singh, Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, Gen. Shubheg Singh and Bhai Amrik Singh, to name just a few from among the galaxy of martyrs.
The legendary resistance conclusively controverts the fraudulent government propaganda that antisocial elements were operating from the temple to extort money from innocent people. Antisocial elements seldom stake their lives for any impersonal cause. The freedom fighters on the other hand have no personal axe of grind. They are dying for a cause. They are dying for the freedom of their nation. To accuse them of turning the Temple into a citadel of subversive ideology or a launching pad for violent forays is to demonstrate a pathological disregard for truth. It is equally misleading to conclude from the casual questioning of the common Sikhs that they lack conviction in Khalistan. Some overzealous reporters are pretty fond of such hollow exercises. They don’t realize that Sikhs cannot any more afford to trust the Indian reporters, especially when they know that speaking out their mind openly is sure to land them in jail, if not expose them to a police bullet in a fake encounter. The naked truth is that every self-respecting Sikh is for Khalistan and if some Indians have any misgivings about this claim, they can test it by holding referendum under the U.N. supervision. The result will stagger their wits out.
It is also quite a pastime these days to talk about the general psychology of the Sikhs and their priorities. Some self-styled theoreticians, who do not possess even superficial knowledge of the Sikh ethos and history weave funny hypotheses and like spiders get caught in the cobwebs of their own wishful visions. They come up with such ridiculous theories as suggest that a Sikh is more concerned about this next crop than about the sanctity of his religious places or the freedom of his nation. Such patently mischievous suggestions are designed to put the real issues out of focus and are aimed to twist the Sikh problem into a mere Jat problem. These tactics may be fool others but not the Sikhs any more.
The incontrovertible fact is that the Golden Temple is not being defiled by the freedom fighters. Rather it is being sanctified by their brave blood. The Sikhs all over the world proudly and adoringly look upon them as the defenders of their faith and true champions of their Guru’s Word. To describe them differently is to betray a jaundiced view. The latest attack on the Golden temple and destruction of the irreplaceable museum have signalled India’s disintegration and no “healing touch” whatsoever will be able to save it,
Article extracted from this publication >> May 20, 1988
