The Sikhs have a glorious history of heroic valor and sacrifice beginning with the Gurus themselves. The Sikh faith stands for all that is noble in human nature and many a Sikh has attained the greatest heights of heroism, Sikhs had built such a reputation for honesty that their word was accepted as the truth in British Indian courts. Even today there is no walk of life the world over where Sikhs have not excelled.
Yet there are those who would have us believe that we do not have what we ought to. That we are as a community deficient. Their arguments are absurd, and would not normally be worth even our contempt, but for the fact that they seem to have an insidious effect on the community.
Such attacks are not uncommon; a similar one was launched against the Sikh community by the leaders of the Arya Samaj movement in the 19th century, when the likes of Swami Dayanand attacked us. It was at that time that the Sikhs found the impetus to get out of the morass of Brahmanism in which the community found itself at the time. It led to the rise of the Singh Sabha movement led by Bhai Jawahar Singh, Bhai Dit Singh and others who educated the Sikh masses on the malicious propaganda against them, edited the Khalsa newspaper in Lahore, wrote the book, ‘‘We are not Hindus” and held the educational conferences of the Chief Khalsa Diwan which contributed in opening educational institutions.
After the partition of India in 1947 we were confronted by the Mahashas who refused even to recognize Punjabi as a language and said that it was a dialect. This outraged the community and resulted in activism which eventually resulted in the Punjabi Suba movement, during which the Punjabi Hindus showed their true colors and said that Hindi was their mother tongue, even if they attested to that in Punjabi!
Nowadays, it is becoming increasingly common for the Indian media and so called intelligentia to claim that Sikhs do not have the ability to rule themselves. The argument goes, “‘even if you get Khalistan, how will you not fight amongst yourselves? That is a problem, if true, the Sikhs must face and resolve. How does it matter to the Hindus? One may well say the Russians do not know how to govern themselves. How well did the Hindus govern India that they have secessionist movements not only in Punjab and Kashmir But several in the north-east as well?
Such arguments were used in Africa, and even in colonial India, and by using arguments which were used by the Colonial rulers against the “natives” the ruling classes of India have shown us their true character. Many Sikhs still refuse to recognize it since it threatens their petty economic interests. They owe it to themselves, their families and their community to break away from the shackles of slavery.
Today, do not let anyone tell you that Sikhs are terrorists.
The negative propaganda and disinformation orchestrated by India must not discourage Sikhs from their aspirations for freedom.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 2, 1990
