“Painful are the things to narrate
And painful is the silence”
Prometheus
Dr Singhs article and a rehash of the said article in the form of a letter appeared in the Feb.7, and Feb.14 issues of the World Sikh News.
As the sole purpose of the article seems to confuse the readers, obfuscate the real issues involved, and belittle the Sikh struggle for survival, it deserves a befitting rejoinder.
Right from its very outset the article impresses a serious reader and fully convinces him or her that the notorious RAW could not have done a better job of voicing “His masters voice.” Since its sinister motive is obvious to one and all, it could not have come at a better time,
In a subtle and surreptitious manner the writer displays. A total disdain for Sikh religion, Sikh history, Sikh culture, Sikh ethos, and the Punjabi language.
His pathetic ignorance of the factual history of the land of five rivers and particularly of the Sikhs shines through the whole article,
In the second paragraph of the article our scholarly writer avers:
- “I become a spoiled child” (read Sikhs)
- “To compromise or admit an error is an unthinkable option for a “(read Sikh).
- “I have (read Sikhs) made marvy such stupid decisions and hurt many causes mine and others!”
Here, one sees that the whole life and death struggle of the Sikhs for survival is a childish affront for the writer!
One is at a loss to comprehend what compromise or errors our wise man of the east wants the Sikhs to admit
Since the intent and purpose of the article seems to be what renegade C.I .A. agent Philip Agee calls “Dirty Work” or propaganda, maybe he wants the Sikhs to admit that it is their fault if their young sons are butchered, bayoneted and slaughtered; if their daughters are raped, their homes are ravaged, their whole families, are wiped out overnight by the marauding police and military hyenas!
May be they should also admit that it is their fault that their most sacred shrines have been turned into military and police fortresses where the worshippers are body searched round the clock.
The article is totally devoid of historical and political facts and stoops to the level of a derogatory statement. It does not enumerate a single cause which the Sikhs have gone.
IT would be appreciated to remind the writer that one great cause (his and others) they “have hurt” is that during the partition of the country they brought all the area from “Wagha to Narella”(a village 17 miles from Delhi to India. The pre-partition population mix in Punjab was such that only the Sikhs could tip the scales and alter the map by riding with India.
In Case they had sided with Pakistan, the present Punjab, Haryana, Himachal and J.K. including the two and half rivers of eastern Punjab would have been part of Pakistan, And imagine the specter Of permanent famine in that kind of India, Because of his Jaundiced historical vision or no vision at all the writer fails to credit the Sikhs found thesis:
(1) The Sikh power in the eighteenth century was a fluke or chance happening.
(2) He also emphasizes that Nadir Shah and Abdali gave it to the Sikhs or contributed to their victory.
(3) Speaking through the mouths of his recent visitor friends tell us that It is “all peace and quiet in Punjab.”
If Singh knew the real genesis of political power, he would not have made such simple-minded observation about the 18th century visa-vis the Sikh struggle.
One should not forget that no individual or group of people or nation grabs political power to languish it. In the political chess game there are no “givers” but only “takers.”
The Sikhs took his power after several decades of consistent guerilla warfare thus becoming the fore-runners of Guerilla warfare in the world; Mind you this happened almost 100 years before napoleon the first encountered guerilla resistance in Europe.
Lord Clive of the East India Company made a veritable commentary about this period of Sikh struggle against Abdali. Says he, “if they (Sikhs) continue to cut off Ahmad Shah’s supplies and plunder his baggage, he will be doomed without fighting; and then, he will either return to his country or meet with shame and disgrace. As long as he does not deficit the Sikhs or comes to terms with them, he cannot penetrate into lndia. And neither of these events seems probable, since the Sikhs have Adopted such effective tactics and since they hate the Shahon account of his destruction of Chak,” (Cited by Arjan Dass Malik in An Indian Guerilla war pp.70-71)..
Sure there was very high price to be paid for such daring actions in mighty Mughal India, and the most noble Sikh souls like Banda Bahadar, Baba Deep Singh, Bhai Manni Singh, Mai Bhago, Mahan Singh and many thousand more perished in these relentless and ever-going-on wars and Sikh holocausts.
And thus they (Sikhs) became “takers of power!” And thus they became Sardars from down-trodden Dalit’s and untouchables!
To make his statement a bit credible Singh quotes his new What a fantastic discovery of India Even his Delhi Walla friends desist from making such baseless wishy- washy or hog-wash claim Only a person living in a fool’s paradise and totally blind to current Punjab situation and reality would made such tall claims.!
“The more presence of the police and military here, there and everywhere, in every street, and on every bend in the road would fully convince a level-headed person that:
(1) Peace has been broken,
(2) The state has been turned into a police state; where they murder, they plunder, they band play the thief in uniform! And there is no stopping them!
That the whole purpose of this police and military saturation is to terrorize the Sikh masses into complete submission,
(3) And that is there i any semblance of peace it is “peace of the graves” but no real peace.
Like a well-versed fortune-teller Singh emphatically assets and expects us to believe that Punjab would not fall like the Soviet Union. I believe that fortune telling is a pseudo-science or quackery at best and tom-foolery worst It is that area of darkness in which I would not dabble and crosswords with him. I wish him good luck in this field,
Rather than admitting and et lightening the readers that Indias religious and linguistic polyglot, with several regional and sub nationalities aspiring and struggling for political, religious and economic freedoms, and total independence, Singh declares it a “synthetic county.” What a remarkable synthesis of his thesis And how original?
Either willingly or due to some inner Psychic compulsions he hides the historical truth that during its recorded history of five-thousand years the country was united only twice under the Mughals and the Britishers. Ironically both times it were its foreign invaders who united it
Even that rare unity was fragile and there were strong centrifugal forces causing strong regional rebellions. Due to these powerful rebellions, the last great Mughal King was absent from his capital for22 years to suppress are billion in the south and returned to the capital in a coffin
Its hard w say whether India would “limp along and stumble intothe21 century totally unruffled not” Historical and political wisdom points to the contrary.
The fires of rebellion and popular guerilla wars are visible in Assam, Jand Kand Punjab. These guerrillas are not only well organized and trained they have mass support among the people of the said states. No wonder they have tied down more than one third of the entire armed forces of the country.
Guerilla wars are not wars of fixed positions hence in these wars “the members” lose their conventional significance. A guerilla war is an extension and continuation of polities through other means. It is the highest form of struggle and cannot be waged without mass support. It is a war which the guerilla nucleus wages on behalf of the people for their emancipation from state terror and regular Army and police bestialities and crime.
In a nutshell a guerilla war is people in arms. “It is used by the side which is supported by a majority but which possesses a much smaller number of arms for us in defense against oppression.”
Since guerillas fight for a cause Which is dear to the masses, they hold high moral ground than the mercenary police and army which fights for coin crumbs and fat sinecures, the army soon loses ground is demoralized and often defeated.
It might be too early to predict the outcome of these guerilla confrontations in different parts of the country. Just the length of these confrontations suggests that it is a no win situation for the army.
If the past and present policies of the Brahmin dominated vote oligarchy” at the center continue and they keep on treating the Federating units as colonies where people can be divided and ruled, raw materials exploited and finished products dumped at will, the Sikh, Muslim, Assamese, Tamil and Naga cards are played, and genuine aspirations of the people for state autonomy and human rights and dignity are trampled under the army books in a hunched times worst way than the Britishers, then like the Britishers they hence to “divide and quit” sooner or later. There would not be any other way out.
Its hard to agree with Singhs fertile imagination that “Indias international stock is high.” I do not know how he hatched such bright and far-fetched ideas! All serious economic studies throughout the world for the last 25 years are pointing out that India, Bangla Desh and Nepal are “basket case countries.” It is relative significance was due to:
(1) Super-power tug-of-war.
(2) And as a major consumer of super-power weaponry and hence a vested interest in an arms market.
Because of the consumption of these arm son its native population in different pans of the country; and in neighboring Bangla Desh and Sri Lanka, India has turned out to be a major creator of the refugee problem in the world. Due to the devise and division of the Soviet Union as a super-power, the economic super-powers like the U.S., Germany, Japan and France are more likely to play with their new-found Soviet toy. These powers know that there are enormous oil, diamonds, gold, mineral and other unit appeal resources in those countries and what they badly need is carpetbaggers.
There might be a difference of opinion about the scale of insurgency but nobody denies the fact that there is a state of revolt against the government in Punjab, Assam and Kashmir.
In a state of war the colonies is as formidable a weapon as other weapons of war. That is what makes the growth of wheat a weapon; Sure the farmers would grow enough for their own consumption. It is the marketable Surplus that needs to be curtailed sand used as a weapon. Why should they provide food for their own oppressors and the profits of middle men and other wheat exporting fat cats?
We can conclude by saying that any genuine writer worth his salt should not prostitute his pen by distorting facts, paddling disinformation or body guarding lies.
Our illustrious Punjabi poet warris Shah was rightly pointing to this human myopia when he said: Annahn Baaj Shutta magar Titraan de Jaa Chambreyaa Balad pataloo an noon.”
“The blind falcon chased the Partridges to hunt them.
In blind confusion it pounced upon the testicles of a bull.” by:
Jamal Singh
Article extracted from this publication >> March 6, 1992
