Dr. Harjinder Singh Dilgeer Director, Guru Nanak Institute of Sikh Studies Norway
‘The relationship between Sikhs and the Nehru family spans more than half a century. This relationship began with Moti Lal Nehru, father of Jawahar Lal Nehru and & prominent Hindu political figure during the 1920’s, Currently, this relationship is severely strained due to actions of Jawahar Lal Nehirn’s grandson, Rajiv Gandhi who became the Prime Minister of India in November 1984,
In December 1927, Lord Birkenhead, the Secretary of State for India, challenged the Indian politicians that they were incapable of resolving their communal problems. In response the leaders of all political factions organized a conference 10 refutes the validity of Lord Birkenhead’s pronouncements. This conference was held in Delhi, on February 1928, and was attended by all party leaders,
A second all-party conference was held in Bombay on May 19, 1928 and this resulted in the formation of a committee, with Moti Lal Nehru as the chairman. The findings of this committee were documented and presented in August 1928. This ‘came to be known as the “Nehru Report” and the main recommendations were;
(i) Electoral seats in various legislative bodies should be reserved for Muslims and non-Muslims.
(2) No reservations should be made in Punjab or in Bengal.
‘These recommendations constituted the first injustice faced by the Sikhs under the Nehru regime; The Sikhs were effectively barred from participating in any legislative process.
Curiously, the Congress party, during their annual session in Madras, on December28, 1927, passed a resolution stating ‘whenever the issue of communal representation arose in Punjab, the Sikhs, being an important minority shall receive special consideration.” (Akali Te Pardesi, December 30, 1927) The Sikh Nation totally rejected the infamous Nehru Report and the opponents of … special consideration felt irritated.
The Lahore session of the Congress party also rejected the Nehru Report on Deoember31, 1929; this session re-assured the Sikh nation that … in the future, the Congress shall accept no constitution which does not meet with the satisfaction of the Sikhs. (Lahore Bulletin, January 9, 1930) Subsequently, in July 1946, Moti Lal’s son and successor, Jawahar Lal Nehru issued a press release from Calcutta stating, … the brave Sikhs of Punjab are entitled to special considerations. I see nothing wrong in an area set up in the North of India wherein, the Sikhs can also experience the glow of freedom.
However within less than two months of gaining control over the political reins of the sub-continent their true colors stared ‘emerging and under Mr. Nehru’s leadership, an\ official circular was issued on October 10, 1947, declaring all Sikhs to be criminals and directing the administration to treat them accordingly. It said, “she Sikhs as a community are a lawless people and a menace to the law abiding Hindu ‘community, the deputy commissioners should take special measures against them.”
Accordingly, the administration, acting ‘on these directives, incarcerated more than 12,000 Sikhs in 1955, merely for raising slogans like, “Long live the Punjabi speaking province.”
In 1960, more than 57,000 Sikhs were jailed for demanding the consolidation of Punjabi speaking areas into a Punjabi speaking province,
On 12th of June, 1960 India’s capital city, Delhi, was turned into a battle field by Hindu India’s police. Thousands of Sikhs, assembled in support of a constitutional demand for establishment of a Punjabi speaking province, were made victims of police brutalities, with seven of them succumbing to the injuries inflicted by Hindu Indian police.
Since India had already been reorganized into provinces along linguistic lines, the real reason for cracking down on the Sikhs appears to have been their unique religious identity. Throughout his life, Kashmiri Pundit Nehru opposed the Sikhs and each of their demands firmly, consistently, and vehemently. This blind and malicious ‘opposition to each of the Sikh demands continued unabated during Mr. Nehru’s reign and got worse, upon his daughter’s ‘accession to India’s throne in 1966.
Indira Gandhi displayed deeper communalism than even her father and grandfather. She opposed each and every Sikh demand, including the one for creation of a Punjabi speaking province. In her own book, “My India” Mrs. Gandhi has admitted that she was opposed to the demands for a Punjabi home province, for fear of losing Hindu votes. She was prepared to block the creation of Punjabi speaking province, in 1966 or ever.
However to seek Sikh support during the border conflict with Pakistan, Mrs. Gandhi’s predecessor, Mr. Lal Bahadur Shastri had ordered a commission to look into the merits of the Sikh demand, and his commission’s report, submitted to the government during Mrs. Gandhi’s regime, found 10 justification in denial of the Sikh demand for a Punjabi speaking province.
‘Although Mrs. Gandhi had tried, unsuccessfully, to influence the conclusions of this commission, she still was not prepared to adopt the recommendations in the intended manner, she ordered another commission to determine the size and shape of the proposed Punjabi speaking province. This ‘was used to legitimize the trifurcation of Punjab carving out of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh and leaving a very small part of original Punjab to be called a Punjabi speaking province. The injustices faced by the Sikhs kept mounting under the Gandhi administration. She moved quickly to usurp Control over the hydro energy projects Provincial capitals, major industries and agro sectors of economy.
“Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s machinations culminated in the summary of dismissal of five Successive Punjabi governments between 1967 and 1980; the reduction in recruitment of the Sikhs in armed forces from about 20% to less than 2% and transfer of nearly 25% of Punjabi speaking areas to Hindi speaking jurisdiction. Similarly after assuming arbitrary control over water resource management projects, Mrs. Gandhi diverted the accruing benefits away from the natural claimants in Punjab to other favored provinces of Haryana and Rajasthan, without ANY compensation to Punjab. Control over issuance of industrial licenses was used very effectively to divert industrial development investment away from Punjab. Despite these arbitrarily imposed handicaps the enterprising and industrious Sikh Nation forged ahead to create an island of prosperity.
In accordance with a sinister plan to dilute the Sikh majority in Punjab, the government induced over? Million Hindus from outside the province into Punjab. This had the dramatic effect of reducing Sikh population in Punjab from 57% to 52% between 1967 and 1981. Their devious schemes to hurt the Sikhs and Sikh identity did not spare even the armed forces. The historic practice of wearing Sikh symbols in units of armed forces and police forces was very cleverly done away with and the activities of anti-Sikh groups and organizations ‘were encouraged and patronized.
These activities climaxed in June 1984, when Mrs. Gandhi ordered a massive armed attack on the Golden Temple, the Akal Takhats at Amritsar and 124 other Gurdwaras, Not stopping there, the Hindu army went on a murder spree in the rural areas of Punjab and killed more than 50,000 Sikh men, women and children. More than a 100,000 Sikhs were put behind the bars; many were shot with their hands tied behind their backs. Invaluable and irreplaceable Sikh historic artifacts, scriptures and manuscripts were looted and destroyed.
Five months later, Mrs. Indira Gandhi was assassinated and this was quickly blamed on her Sikh bodyguards. Rajiv Gandhi in collusion with the Premier of Haryana and some other henchmen went ‘on a murder spree to “teach the Sikhs a lesson.” He walked over the bodies of more than 16,000 innocent Sikhs to participate in his coronation. These innocent people had been massacred by mobs of Hindu Nazis led by the Hindu members of Parliament, the Hindu army and police officers. (See India Today, fortnightly from Delhi; November 30, 1984, pp. 38-49, 51) Even Sanjay Gandhi’s wife, Menaka acknowledged the Sikh death toll of 10,000.
Unfortunately Rajiv Gandhi has continued to indulge in unforgivable atrocities against the Sikhs. The mass slaughter of more than 50,000 Sikhs in the shadow of his mother’s senseless and cold blooded attacks on sacred Sikh shrines is only the latest example of their cruelty and injustice.
While the Nehru family has planned and implemented attacks against the Sikhs for four generations, the Sikhs have been at the receiving end of Brahmnical plots and conspiracies since the 17th century,
The Nehru family, although totally opposed to the Sikhs, does not appear to have ever tried understanding the Sikh history and their ideology. As a people, the Sikhs never forget their friends or their foes, treating them appropriately. The sacrifices made by Sikhs in honoring friendships are ‘equally matched by the fury of their actions in dealing with the enemies:
The love and devotion towards the poor, needy and friends, matched by their absolute intolerance of enemies, is a unique behavioral attribute of the Sikhs, While it is not easy to change a Sikh friend into an enemy the individual who accomplishes this Herculean feat, must inevitably encounter Sikh wrath, if not that of God. In reality the individual known to common Indian masses as Cha-cha (uncle) Nehru, the so called messiah of peace and secularism, was in fact, the main architect of anti-Sikh policies and practices, in India and abroad.
Article extracted from this publication >> February 16, 1990
