AMRITSAR: The Shiromani Akeli Dal president, Prakash Singh Badal, said over the years, the government never gave justice to the Sikhs and appealed to the ‘Sikhs to fight for their rights. Addressing a huge gathering on the concluding day of the first World Sikh Convention here, the Akali Dal Chief said the Sikhs were born fighters and were still fighting after they were forced to quit their home in Pakistan.
He said the Sikhs have made tremendous progress in all fields but the real progress can be made only when the state developed industrially. He said the real ‘solution was that industries should come to villages and the farmers should diversify. He added that it was wrong to assume that the Sikhs had reached a pinnacle.
And said that this laxity is what made them “backward.” He added that this attitude had to be given up if the Sikhs as a community had to reach somewhere.
Badal urged the Sikhs to establish their religious and linguistic identity and safeguard the interests of the community by stopping infighting and squabbles. He revealed that the Akalis would celebrate 75 years of their existence in a grand manner on December 14.
The Chief of the Shriomani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), Gurcharan Singh Tora, in his speech urged the Sikhs to converge to Anandpur Sahib and develop the birth place of the Khalsa. He said the Sikhs would celebrate 300 years of the Khalsa panth at Anandpur Sahib in 1999, He said during the celebrations, the second World Sikh Convention would also be held there.
The SGPC Chief urged the Sikhs to continue their struggle against the government until they were given a respectable place in society and their demands ‘were met. He told them that they would never get their due if they did not fight. Calling the Congress claim that the Sikhs had been crushed as “ridiculous,” “he said that whenever the enemies thought they had inflicted a crushing defeat on the Sikhs, they came back and progressed more than, before.
The Akali leader, Bhai Manjit Singh, and the brother of the slain Bhai Amrik Singh, in an emotional speech, said the Sikhs ‘were going astray and urged them to come into the mainstream and follow the teaching and ideals of the Bhai Amrik Singh and Sant Jamail Singh Bhindranwale, He said the Sikhs should desist from going towards other ills that plagued the society ‘and strive to adopt traditional values. The veteran leader, Jagdev Singh ‘Talwandi, appealed to the Akali Dal Chief. to organize a political conference on the lines of the World Sikh Convention because “unless we talk polities, the government will not listen.” He said the government would not give them anything until they fought for it and asked the Sikhs to “fight politically.”
Article extracted from this publication >> September 29, 1995
