When George Orwell published his book “1984” in 1984 perhaps he never anticipated that some of the predictions of his grim satire will be applicable to Sikh affairs in the fateful year, The shadow of Big Brother has menacingly loomed larger and the atmosphere of imposed helplessness has been brought about by a state of extreme moral stress and mental illness.

The shock of 1984 is too big to be properly explained as yet. However its tremors have not been uniformly felt even amongst Sikhs.

Human beings have been fiendishly done to death. They were hunted like animals, mercilessly beaten to unconsciousness, burnt gruesomely to become mutilated corpses. The number of gory deaths, burning of holy books, humiliation of women folk and devastations speak for themselves. Their loud and heart rending wails did not reach the deaf cars of administration nor seen by the blind eyes of police, from whom they had the right for help as citizens of the country. Callousness has been rampant.

There has been no mourning, Hardly there have been voices feeling sorry for the heinous atrocities, many from their own community have not visualized the full import of the tragedy. Their so called leadership hierarchy, like Nero, has continued with their favorite sport of mutual fighting for self-aggrandizement. Even so called god men, (Sants) who are seen in scores in the Punjab in Mercedes and with all luxuries following them did not make any effort to reach disturbed areas and give healing touch to the sufferers. This has shown that sensibility and sensitivity have evaporated; Persons are deeply embedded in the primitive stages of family and clannish levels. Hardly anybody has risen above to the universal concept of Sikhism. We have ceased to be religious.

We have willingly put up semiliterate persons of limited awareness to deal with and find solutions of Sikh problems requiring acute minds, full of modern resources, Hence there is no effort to study the heart of problems, analyze them and search for sound solutions. As regards common man he has not developed the ability to evaluate the leaders much less to correct them when they go astray.

Article extracted from this publication >> June 8, 1990