The demand for an autonomous Sikh State to carved out ‘of the presently constituted Punjab, which has been made by Sikhs all over the Punjab from hundreds of platforms for a considerable period now, may be called at this stage the united national demand of the Sikh people. The entire force of will and national passion of the Sikhs is backing it up. They are determined to push their objective forward irrespective of the sacrifices its achievement may entail.
This demand is not just a counterblast to Pakistan, as is alleged, for there is no condition attaching to its fulfilment. As the Sikhs have thought of it for a considerable time now, they have felt that the only way in which they can survive is to have a state in which they can live and grow as a nation in accordance with the historical traditions, their inner urges and the political ideals. Such growth is impossible for them so long as they have lying over them the burden of any majority Muslim or Hindu whose weaker partners they would in any case have to be, in a larger nonSikh majority state. So Pakistan or Akhand Hindustan, a federation or confederation, whatever shape the India of the future is going to take, the Sikhs cannot visualize themselves in it in any political situation except one of being organised in a state of their own, where they can have the power to shape their life without let or hindrance from any community or group.
This feeling of the urgent need of a separate state has been growing upon the Sikhs now for close upon two decades. As long as the bureaucracy was sitting tight over the provincial administration, the problem of any political future had not come before the people as clearly as it came when after survey of the Simon Commission it became evident that some kind of constitutional changes ‘were imminent. The Muslims began to glamour for a permanent, inalterable Muslim majority in the future legislature of the Punjab. In the event of this Muslim demand being accepted, the Sikhs saw for themselves a very dark future, for they would never be able to make their voice effective in the administration of the province in which the overwhelming majority of their population would reside. The Sikhs in this situation cast about for some way of safeguarding their national existence; and carving a new province out of the existing province of the Punjab was the solution which offered itself and which they suggested in 1930 to Mahatma Gandhi, in 1931 to the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, and in the same year.
Willing don, his successor. In placing this proposal for the solution of the Sikh problem, and incidentally, the communal problem of India, all parties among the Sikhs were united, Later the same suggestion, formulated as the Sikh demand was presented to the British Government at the 2nd Round Table Conference by the Sikh Delegates, Sardars Sampuran Singh and Ujjal Singh. This demand was backed up by 175 signatories representing all parties, interests, groups and viewpoints among the Sikhs. The demand, therefore, was at the time it was first made, the demand of the Sikh people as a whole.
The demand at that stage was, however, not for a separate Sikh State; it was for the splitting up of the Punjab, so as to alienate some Western Districts with an overwhelming Muslim majority from the province and to leave a smaller province, also more compact and homogeneous, from which the pressure of a permanent Muslim Majority would be lifted. It was this demand which later on grew to be the well-known Azad Punjab Demand and has been put forward at present as the demand for an independent Sikh State.
The Sikh demand was nothing very novel or impracticable. It was fully in line with what both the British Government and the Congress had admitted in principle and later in practice in some parts. The Congress had already visualized the redistribution of the existing Indian provinces into 21, on the basis of language, while the British’ Government had on the several occasions actually shifted the boundaries of provinces, as when Eastern Bengal and Assam were constituted into one province and the North Western Frontier Province and Delhi were separated from the Punjab. Out of these the latter two changes were made only for administrative convenience, while the partition of Bengal and the formation of the provinces of Orissa and Sind were motivated by the desire to meet the demand of the nationalities inhabiting the above named areas for free and unfettered growth in their homelands, unhampered by people not related to them by any historical or cultural ties. What the Sikhs demanded round about 1930 and 1931 was just such an opportunity of free survival and growth. The Sikh demand, however, went unheeded and the Communal Award was given, which saddled a permanent unalterable Muslim majority on the Punjab. The strongest and bitterest opposition to this iniquitous piece of constitution making came from the Sikhs, out of all the political groups in India. Then came Provincial Autonomy, as a result of which the Muslim dominated Unionist Party was installed in the seat of Government in the Punjab. Under Provincial Autonomy the Sikhs suffered terrible hardships. Their religious and cultural rights were not only attacked, their proper share in the services was denied to them, and they were thwarted in every sphere of life. Their national language, Punjabi, was suppressed and discouraged; the administration of the Gurdwaras was sought to be interfered with, and Sikhs were persecuted by the emboldened Muslim fanatics in several parts of the Punjab. The life, property, honour and civic rights of the Sikhs were very unsafe in the Punjab under Provincial Autonomy.
In 1940 came the Pakistan Resolution of the All India Muslim League. This was only a symbol of the rising aggressive intentions of the Muslims, who’s ambition to rule over and dominate others was now only too manifest. On the other hand, the Sikhs had been disillusioned with regard to the Congress, the political organization with an overwhelming Hindu majority in its ranks. The Congress sought to appease the Muslims at the cost of the Sikhs, and while taking exception to the Sikhs organizing themselves in self-defenses, encouraged and accommodated Muslim Communalism. The Sikhs at that time felt that national survival and an honourable existence for them were possible only if they could acquire independent political power. This was possible only in a tract where they would not beat the mercy of a constitutional majority of any other group. In this situation emerged a further step in the old Sikh demand for splitting up of the Punjab, called the Azad Punjab Scheme. This scheme visualized the constituting of a new province, out of the Lahore, Jullundur, Ambala and part of the Multan Divisions, in which area the Sikhs would be able to have an effective voice in the administration. In this area the Sikhs would hold the balance of power. This scheme was presented as the Sikh demand to Sir Stafford Cripps by the Sikh leaders in 1942, while rejecting the Pakistan demand, Sympathy for the Sikh aspirations was expressed by Mr, Amery, the then Secretary of State for India, in Parliament in 1942. After the return of Sir Stafford Cripps from India.
The All India Akali Conference held at Vahila Kalan, in Lyallpur District, in which Sikh leaders from all over India participated, passed on the 24th of July, 1942 a resolution demanding the readjustment of the boundaries of the Punjab. The Working Committee of the Shromani Akali Dal, the National political organization of the Sikhs, demanded the establishment of Azad Punjab by its Resolution dated the 7th June, 1943.
When the famous Gandhi Raja Formula was floated, according to which the Muslim aspiration for Pakistan was to be accommodated, after separating the non-Muslim majority areas from the absolute Muslim majority areas, the Sikhs saw that according to this suggestion, the Sikhs would be divided into two one part of them bottled up in Muslim Punjab and the other in Hindu India, both dominated by overwhelming nonSikh majorities. Such a situation would put an end to the integrity of the Sikh nation forever. By this time the feeling had grown on the Sikhs that the national existence of the Sikhs would be safeguarded only if they got a territory in which they could build up political power for themselves, free both from Hindu and Muslim dominations. So the Panthic Gathering which assembled at Amritsar on the 20th August 1944 in response to a call from Master Tara Singh, while rejecting the Gandhi Raja Formula, made the demand for the establishment of the Azad Sikh State in the event of Pakistan being established. Thus at last the Sikhs made the demand according to which they sought to establish themselves in power in areas where they have the overwhelming majority of their population, where their sacred places are situated and with which they have indissoluble historical ties and associations. This political objective caught the imagination of the Sikh people, who saw in this demand the only way in which they could survive in the midst of aggressive communalism. The Sikh aspiration to have an effective say in the administration of the Sikh part of the Punjab is very old and rooted deep in history. Throughout the 19th century the Sikhs have dreamed of reestablishing their rule in Lahore, and with the organization of the political life of the Indian people on a more or less democratic basis, this desire has been to establish a democratic state, in which the liberal and socialistic Sikh basis of life should be made the basis of general civic life.
Since the meeting of the Panthic Gathering the demand for the establishment of the Azad Sikh State has come from Sikh Sangats all over India, It has caught also the younger generation. The All India Sikh Students’ Federation, in a memorandum which they submitted to the Sapru Conciliation Committee, made this demand. The Shromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee passed on the 19th the demand for the establishment of the Sikh State.
The demand has found support from the communist Party of India. The Communists have supported the Sikh claim to a separate autonomous area under the name Sikh Homeland, where they can develop unhindered culturally and politically, on progressive and democratic lines.
The Sikh demand for a Sikh State is not based upon aggressive and uncompromising communalism. It suggests the only way in which a small nationality, very sensitive and independent, can survive in the midst of communal aggressiveness which is on the ascendant in
India at this moment of the history, of our country. The Sikhs find that while the Muslims is hostile to them with: all the bitter memories of the Sikh Muslim struggles handed down from history, the Hindu Nationalism, especially its Punjab brand, has tried to disrupt the Sikhs, to break up their unity and to reabsorb them into Hinduism. Without political strength no minority can survive, especially in the present-day world of total organization and mobilization of peoples. The only way, therefore. In which the Sikhs can escape the fate of such almost extinct peoples as the Paris, the Jews, the Jains and others is that they carve out for themselves a state in which they can make laws and be free from aggression. The Sikhs do not seek to dominate anyone. They want to establish a secular democratic state, in which the bulk of the Sikh population may be concentrated. The economic basis of life in such a state is bound to be socialistic, in accordance with the traditions of the Sikh society, and the inner urge of the hardy, self-respecting Sikh peasantry.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 2, 1990
