The Sikhs outside India are an alienated lot. They have their doubts whether the situation in Punjab is on the mend. Even if it is they have distanced themselves from the country so much that they talk about it with a dismissive shrug. They believe India has failed them and they have to fend for themselves.

Their number is not large. They are less than two million all over the world not even 1.5% of their total population of 140 million. But they are affluent well-placed and hence influential. Whatever their clout some among them use it to embarrass or damn India. They are invariably at a hearing in the senate Congress or parliament to stall economic aid to New Delhi. They do not miss even inconsequential forums if the topic is anti-India

During my recent visit to Canada and the USA (earlier I visited the UK and Singapore) I met many Sikhs from different walks of life. They do not deny their hand in anti-India propaganda but their rationale is that New Delhi has not bothered even to know the reasons for their alienation.

It will however be unfair to lump all the Sikhs together. Those in the UK are generally moderate. Even when angry they avoid confrontation. Most of them have woefully concluded that the militants have substantially lost their support in the Punjab countryside because of their excesses. But they prefer to remain silent as they feel that the state terrorism is many times more than that of the militants.

The Canadian Sikhs once intractable are somewhat subdued. The improvement in Punjab has struck them too. The affluent among them want to start afresh. The hard-core among them are still in touch with legislators and editors in Ottawa Toronto and Vancouver but with lesser effect. The response to the militants appeal for funds is limited although there is no let-up in the appeals for contributions in Gurdwara’s where boxes to collect money for Khalistan the Sikh homeland are as many as before.

The Sikhs in America mostly professionals are self-possessed. Academic in their approach they like intellectuals in other communities are far removed from the realities. They still believe that the militants call the shots in Punjab. Their mistrust in New Delhi is total. Even the appointment of Siddharth Shankar Ray a former Governor of Punjab as India’s envoy in Washington is suspect in their eyes. They fear that he “the butcher of Punjab” as they call him has been sent to work against the Sikhs.

All over the Sikhs have serious complaints against the Indian missions which they allege handle them with disdain and distrust. Some have specific charges to make with regard to the treatment meted out to them when they have gone to get a visa for India. Missions have lists of “undesirables” and even when they want to remove certain names they have to seek the permission of the Home Ministry in Delhi.

Some of the Sikhs who have visited India have reported the difference in the climate in Punjab and elsewhere But most of them have a deep-furrowed impression that the people in the country have turned against them. They have a feeling that the Sikhs in India continue to raw deal Tales of diction and humiliation are to:  retold to infer that they are most welcome. But the midst of alienation fears are forebodings there is yet along that a new chapter can begin. That probably explains the question posed to me at every gathering will there be a solution to the Punjab problem? In the same breath they ask: where is the package which the successive governments promised to retrieve the Sikhs?

Contacts with India will give those contacts with their roots. Many cherish old memories. Punjab} literature published abroad underlines the pain and pathos of not being able to visit one’s home and village in Punjab. Even though well settled in the countries they live they are still in search of their identity. How to save the Sikh traditions is their predicament. Indeed they must be worried because many of their children have cut off their hair and most Gurdwara’s display “no-smoking” placards.

Nowhere did the Sikhs bring up the Khalistan question in their discussions with me. They may have deliberately avoided the subject. But my impression is that for most of them the demand represents their injured psyche. It is a peg on which they hang their worries as well as dreams. It is a catharsis of their hurt.

Their deepest hurt is that those who killed more than 3000 Sikhs in Delhi and elsewhere in the wake of Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984 have gone scot-free. The passage of time has not healed the wound. The argument that the militants have killed twice the number in retaliation does not work. In any case the general belief is that the killings attributed to the militants are the “handiwork of the government” which wants to give a bad name to the community.

Their brief about the government involvement is confirmed by the statement of a deputy inspector-general of police arraigned for the 1984 riots that the decision not to summon the Army after the outbreak of violence or not to impose curfew was taken at the residence of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi What is noted is that Narasimha Rao then Home Minister was present there.

The Army’s entry into the Golden Temple the Sikhs Vatican at Amritsar to flush out militants in 1984 has neither been neither forgiven nor forgotten. There was adulation for Sukha and Jinda hanged for the murder of Gen A.S.Vaidya who was in charge of the operation. However I did find a few Sikhs arguing that General Vaidya was duty-bound to carry out the order. Although they are shouted down they make the point.

Indeed the Sikhs have a long list of complaints. What is surprising is that none of them tries to make a distinction between the government and the country. Whatever the acts of omission and commission on the part of Mrs. Gandhi Rajiv Gandhi or Narasimha Rao they were committed by their governments not by India which is as much theirs as any other nationals. This is not realized at all.

They also appear to be obvious of the mistrust developing against them in certain countries. Their presence is being scrutinized with extra care The German Ambassador to India told a Sikh leader in Delhi the other day that his country was finding it difficult to cope with the “sullied image of the Sikh community.” Germany is one of the few countries in the world which has given “shelter” to hundreds of Sikhs on the ground that they were being “persecuted” in their own country. The law to that effect has been _ changed but if the sympathy wanes it will hurt the Sikhs.

The Sikhs abroad realize that the Akalis are not going to unite and that the government will be able to exploit the situation But what they do not understand is that why they are not sinking their differences at a time when the community is at the crossroads It is a tragedy that leaders like Parkash Singh Badal who is having increased acceptance abroad does not speak out. His criticism of the government is understandable but his silence over the killing of the innocent is not. On the face of it seems difficult to retrieve the Sikhs abroad. But think if the guilty of the 1984 riots are punished and amends made for the Army’s entry into the Golden Temple the process of winning them over can begin. This will need to be followed up by decentralization of power. A federal structure where the states enjoy more powers may satisfy the Sikhs. Otherwise they will continue to remain the alienated children of India.

(Courtesy of The Tribune)

Article extracted from this publication >> December 11, 1992