1989, just before the end of the decade of the eighties, brought winds of freedom to the lands which had been shackled by power hungry rulers. Europe was the privileged corner in which a whirlwind of change ousted the old oppressor and the people asserted themselves. Berlin Wall was torn down and barbed wire borders breached.
In China the regime brutally crushed the freedom movement, while South Africa continued to suffer at the hands of racial rulers. We welcome the changes in the World. We hope that the Nineties will usher in an era in which all the people of the world shall be free and the “global village” will truly become a reality.
In Punjab too there was a whiff of change; the people of India threw out the old corrupt and chauvinistic government of Rajiv Gandhi. V P Singh, the new leader took a few positive steps and made a few gestures. He repealed the amendment to the constitution enacted by the previous government which suspended the right to life in Punjab.
That the Rajiv regime could suspend the right to life of its own citizens demonstrates beyond doubt the desperation and the debasement of the power hungry medley.
In the latter half of the decade Indira Gandhi government’s carefully laid plans burst upon the Sikhs and their psyche as tanks and heavy artillery bombarded the holiest Harimandir Sahib and Indira labeled all the Sikhs as “terrorists”. She launched a systematic attack on Sikhs and started the imprisonment torture and extra judicial killings of the Sikhs.
After her assassination, her son Rajiv orchestrated the massacre of thousands of Sikhs in Delhi and other parts of India. He took the reigns of power (which were handed to him by a quisling) and he went further in persecuting the community. Whereas his mother had suspended fundamental rights in Punjab, the son suspended the right to life. Killings of Sikhs, torture of Sikhs-men, women, and even children became commonplace and the Stalinistic secret services could pick up anyone at will. Government sponsored hit squads served the junta.
Sikhs were also harassed abroad and pressure put on friendly governments to take steps to curb the aspirations of freedom in the community. Massive propaganda exercises ‘were launched and Sikhs were shrilly condemned as terrorists, (following the gobbelian principal that if you repeat a lie long enough, people will believe it), while the government committed acts of terrorism.
The end of the decade has brought a ray of hope which pierced the dark clouds which had encompassed the Sikhs in India. But even after the new government, fake encounters go on the children are still tortured, as we reported in the last few weeks. A newly elected Sikh member of parliament appears to have been killed at the hands of the police. K P S Gill is still the chief of police in Punjab and none of the police and other officials who tortured women or killed Sikh youth in staged encounters have been punished. The terror goes on.
We wish our readers a happy new year and hope that the decade of the 90’s will spread the triumph of freedom and self-determination, seen in Europe, to Africa and Asia. We are convinced that the next decade will usher an independent sovereign Sikh state.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 5, 1990
