Sikhs want sovereignty and self-determination. For them the elections announced in India are meaningless. Punjab needs a referendum not election. Hindu India simply wants to continue its dictatorial rule over increasingly unwilling minorities. The time now is to show solidarity with those who have given their all in the fight for freedom.
Punjab has 13 seats in the 542 member central legislature. Lackeys can be found to fill these seats. It is not coincidence that mil lions of rupees, which were looted from the Harmandir Sahib by the government forces, were released to the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabhandak Committee, just before the elections were announced. This will certainly help the body to fund the parliamentary elections for candidates which are amenable to the central authorities. The concept of elections implies democracy and freedom. However in India the concept has been corrupted to mean a farcical exercise to decide which group of the ruling majority will run the country for the next five years. This has meant the Nehru Gandhi dynasty with two minor interruptions. So far polls do not mean anything for the minorities because as long as the Hindu chauvinism dominates, the minorities will be dis criminated against and treated as second class citizens. A very recent example of playing to the galleries is the sentencing to death .of Sukhdey Singh and Harjinder Singh in the General Vaidya assassination case. This was timed to get a favorable response from the Hindu electorate. The case was expedited with undue haste, held in a secret Kangaroo court and the death sentence announced, in what was essentially a political action. All this to gain a few votes.
While India was celebrating its independence in 1947 the subcontinent was on fire in the wake of a massive communal upheaval in which hundreds of thousands died. The ashes of communal violence still smolder and periodically erupt. The minorities are almost invariably the victims, with police instigating or participating in the slaughter. No official has ever been convicted for killing a member of a minority community. Minorities, Sikhs, Muslims, and Christians have always been used as scapegoats by the Hindu majority.
Rajiv Gandhi is definitely the most corrupt and inept ruler India has ever had. He does deserve to go but the Sikhs do not dare hope that those who take power from him will be any better. No major opposition party has announced its policy towards Sikhs. What is to be noticed in the Indian polity is the common thread of Hindu supremacist. What can be expected at most is that any regime other than that of Rajiv, will at least not have a personal vendetta against the Sikhs.
Sikhs do not expect that their nation will get any justice in the present political setup in India. Sikhs will get justice only when they have their own sovereign nation Khalistan.
Article extracted from this publication >> October 27, 1989
