Journalist: Mr. Ambassador, Sant Bhindranwale repeatedly said, ‘We don’t want a separate state. We have no quarrel with the Hindus. It is for the central government to decide whether it wants the Sikhs to stay in India as equal citizens or wants them out.
Diplomat: That’s right.
Journalist: On the other hand some journalists like Vinod Mehta and Giri Lal Jain, and Congress (1) leaders like Swami Adityavesh are demanding expulsion of Sikhs from India.
Diplomat: Very Correct.
Journalist: How is it that the man who wanted to stay as part of India was branded a separatist and those raising separatist slogans are termed as nationalists?
Diplomat: Not in national interest to disclose.
* * *
Journalist: Mr. Ambassador, Army is being increasingly put to perform police duties whenever there is civil unrest in any part of India.
Diplomat: That’s Right.
Journalist: Sikh units were deployed to suppress the Muslim reaction against the killing of their Kith and Kin by Hindu mobs in Bombay, and Army attack on the Golden Temple was commanded by a Muslim officer, Asghar Khan.
Diplomat: Very Correct.
Journalist: Would you call it pure coincidence or a calculated design to keep Sikhs and Muslims permanently at loggerheads?
Diplomat: Not in national interest to disclose.
* * *
Journalist: Mr. Ambassador, Hindus in Panjab wrongly recorded Hindi instead of Panjabi as their mother-tongue in the census of 1961.
Diplomat: That’s Right.
Journalist: Recording Hindi as their mother tongue was called a big fraud even by Nehru.
Diplomat: Very Correct.
Journalist: How is it that in the terms of reference to the boundary commission, Mrs. Gandhi made the same fraud census as the basis for linguistic division of Panjab in 1966?
Diplomat: Not in national interest to disclose.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 18, 1985
