“For those who live by the Gun” are reprinted below to help make S. Amrik Singh’s rebuttal coherent to those who did not see the original article. W.S.N. also wishes to take exception to the point of view expressed by Mr.Prem Sharkar Jha, author of the “India Abroad” article to which S. Amrik Singh refers.- Editor.
In the U.S. a man who opens fire on a mob would be called a lunatic and hunted down, Swat troops would come and surround the building in which they finally trap him and if he does not walk out, would probably riddle it with bullets. No one would ask whether he got a trial or not. Once he opened fire unprovoked on anyone at all, he would lose his human rights. German soldiers and officers who indulged in reprisal killings were convicted of war crimes and imprisoned or hanged. But when a man sprays bullets on innocent civilians in Punjab or Delhi, Amnesty International, and a score of parliamentarians in half a dozen countries stand up and start demanding that his human rights be respected.
Have these people gone mad? Not entirely A few of them are confused, frustrated people who see in the gun a romance symbol of the power and potency that they lack in their own lives. But most believe that the militants are fighting for a cause their freedom and must therefore be judged leniently. They also assert that the state must abide, and be judged, by a higher moral code than the terrorists,
In Europe, states were created through conquest followed by annexation. Annexation has invariably been followed by assimilation. Minorities have therefore come under tremendous pressure to conform to the ethos of the majority community. The resulting pressure on their ethnic identities has become a fertile breeding ground for insurgency.
What is more, the nation states built on the European model were almost always unitary. This denied minorities any political room for maneuver, except what they could get by voting as a block in parliament. Tyrannies of the majority over the minority have therefore been frequent, and have given added impetus to movements for self-determination, The rebellions of the Irish against Britain, of the Catholics in Ulster against the Protestant majority, of the Kurds in three countries Turkey, Iraq and Iran of the Armenians in the Soviet Union, of Bangladesh against Pakistan and the Tamils against the Sri Lankan government have all been this kind of unitary state.
The insurgency in Punjab is taking place in a totally different setting. Independent India was not created through conquest and annexation, No one forced Punjab, where Sikhs are in majority, to join with the Indian Union, It is true that India is ethnically a highly diverse nation, and that ethnic nationalisms have vied in the past with the concept of a paramount sovereign state, But the Indian Constitution took this fully into account when it created a federal stale.
Indeed Indian federalism, adjusted in 1956 to make states contiguous with ethnic-linguistic areas, reproduced within the context of a modern democracy, the de-facto federal polity, presided over by anon-interventionist central authority that had characterized the Maurya, gupta and Moghul empires, The ancient roots of Indian federalism need to be held in mind because they explain why there is no history of oppression of any community in any part of the country. The entire history of independent India has been one of accommodation and not elimination of minorities. The religious wars that shaped Europe, the brutal suppression of Kurds, Armenians and Jews, and the systematic discrimination against Tamils in unitary Sri Lanka, have no parallels in India.
Indian federalism guarantees the ethnic identity of all the linguistic-ethnic groups in the country, and where these are so small that they become minorities even within a slate, new forms of devolution are being tried out such as the creation of autonomous districts within a state. Far from there being any pressure on ethnic groups to adopt a single majority culture, every effort has been made to preserve the cultural and linguistic heritage of the various peoples of India.
Thus Punjabi is spoken and taught in Punjab as is Kashmiri in Kashmir. Most of the business of government is carried on in the state language both states have their own legislatures, and the state government has sole legislative and administrative power in most matters that directly relate the citizen to the state such as law and order, education, culture, agriculture, irrigation, road transport and shelter.
Far from being repressed or discriminated against Sikhs have prospered in India. Not only is Punjab the most prosperous state in the country, but four million Sikhs live in complete security in the rest of India and are among the most affluent sections of ever society they belong to.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 10, 1994
