Universal brotherhood is the most cherished ideal of manking. Great religious Masters all talk of the divine spark that is aglow in all human beings and plead for love, peace, compassion, and under- standing. Yet the dark shades of hatred, injustice and blood-shed so pervade the World as to make us involuntarily recall Mathew Arnold’s famous lines:
“WE ARE HERE AS ON A DARKLING PLAIN WHERE IGNORANT ARMIES CLASH BY NIGHT”.
Sikh-Muslim Friendship Society is an attempt to counter this curse. It will endeavour to bring saner elements from diverse cultures and faiths together to regenerate forces of love and peace and to isolate the wicked, the fascist and the fanatic.
The Society aims at developing an effective machinery to expose and to end discrimination and injustice against religious minorities. It is deeply concerned with the fate of the minorities in India where communal oppression has become a State policy, where State terrorism has been let loose to subjugate and crush the minorities in general and Sikhs and Muslims in particular.
The Society will work to create general awareness among its members so that they may understand the plight of their persecuted brethern better. It will establish communications through a network of local chapters. It will also develop meaningful rapport with other democratic, political, social, cultural and ethnic groups for mutual benefits as well as for better understanding and harmonious relationships.
“ADEQUATE SAFEGUARDS WOULD BE PROVIDED FOR THE MINORITIES IN INDIA ….. IT WAS A DECLARATION, A PLEDGE AND AN UNDERTAKING BEFORE THE WORLD, A CONTRACT WITH MILLIONS OF INDIANS AND, THEREFORE, IN THE NATURE OF AN OATH WE MUST KEEP”.
The first Prime Minister of India, late Jawahar Lal Nehru in The Statesman, July 7, 1946.
When reminded of the “undertaking, the pledge, the oath” after independence, Jawahar Lal curtly retorted that ‘‘circumstances have changed”’. Ever since the ‘“‘change of circumstances”, minorities in India have been subjected to systematic discrimination and persecution. The strangle-hold of the centuries old caste-system in India is too powerful to be neutralized by half-hearted constitutional measures.
The Hindu polity is highly communal; and rigidly conservative. It is just not possible for a fragile sapling like secularism to take roots in such an unfriendly soil. Equally difficult is the task of evolving a truly democratic system in such a climate. The fact that communal Hindus form a permanent majority rules out justice and equality for Muslims, Sikhs, Untouchables and Christians. The minorities can never hope to gain supremacy or even equality through democratic processes. They are doomed to the fate of second class citizens, because the majority community is paying only lip service to secularism. It is using secularism more as a window dressing to mislead the outside world than as moral commitment to legal and constitutional instrument. The post-independence history presents a sad spectacle of successive governments resorting to policy decisions based on short term political expediency of pandering to the communal intolerance of the majority community rather than mobilizing it to adopt a fraternal and patronizing attitude towards the minorities. This policy pattern is singularly responsible for the “escalating scale and frequency of social violence in India. It is already clearly understood in India that there are wide range of conditions in which it is quite possible to get away with large scale murder. The results are profoundly destablishing and demoralizing. A number of India’s leading civil liberties and human rights organizations are convinced that government has become a partner in a process that is tearing India apart’. State-gangsterism and terrorism through police and paramilitary forces have rendered all norms of the free world irrelevant.
To weaken the minorities and to assimilate them in the folds of Hinduism, a carefully planned process has been put into operation. Muslims, who constitute the largest minority, are scattered all over India and forma majority only in the State of Kashmir. Kashmir was forcibly occupied by the Indian Army and continues to be ruled from Delhi. Muslim states like Hyderabad and Junagarh were also forcibly annexed to India. Through a policy of systematic discrimination and denial, minorities are being reduced to a point of economic bankruptcy so that they should lose their moral fibre and docilely accept the yoke. Rulers have bribed some convenient self- seekers from among the minorities and have given them some decorative offices to serve as window dressing for the out-side world. Those of the minorities who dare to demand justice are instantly branded as ‘“‘separatists’”” and “ terrorists’ and killed in cold-blood either in fake encounters or through State sponsored and police aided riots.
Although the ruling elite champions human rights at International Forums but at home the human rights of minorities are violated with impunity.
According to Syed Shahabuddin, Editor of Muslim India, the Indian Muslims do not want extraordinary treatment.
According to him, The primary question is what does the average Muslim want? What does he demand? What does he aspire for? What does he expect from the country, from the majority community? Above all he wants to live free from fear. He does not want a separate existence but he wants to be trusted. He doesn’t want a preferential treatment in employment but he wants to be treated equal. He does not want a special position for his language, but he wants his children to learn their mother tongue as well. He does not dream of breaking idols or destroying temples but he wants to have his Mosques. He does not want to hurt the religious sentiments of others but he wants that discrimination and illiteracy, disease, unemployment should not be disproportionately high. He desires that his Mohallas should receive equal Municipal attention. Above all he longs to feel secure.
The hatred against the Muslim religious places is symbolized in the affairs of Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, U.P. The Hindus claim that the place where the Mosque stands is in fact the birth place of Rama. In October 1984, a meeting was organized at Ayodhya which was attended by 60,000 Hindus from all over the country. At the gathering, one of the speakers said, ‘‘Whoever helps in the converting Mosque in to Temple will get the Hindu votes in the coming elections”.
It was also declared that ‘if anybody wants to live in India, he has to say Vade-matram (the Hindu religious salutation, which clashes with the Islamic principles. Interestingly the Mosque was virtually converted to Hindu temple when fifteen idols of Hindu gods were installed in it in 1949. The Muslims, in fact should have protested but being too suppressed they kept quiet at that time.
In November, 1983, a number of Mosques in India were declared as National or Protected monuments under the Ancient Monuments and Archaelogical Sites and Remains Act, 1958. The police force is now used to prevent the Muslims from offering prayers there. The right to practice religion of one’s own choice and the right to earn livelihood without any discrimination, are among the most cherished human rights of today. However, in the so called Indian democracy, these rights are denied to all the minorities every day.
A member of Muslim family burnt alive in Meghaninagar (Gujarat) on July 9,
- The sufferings of Christian minority particularly in Nagaland are well known to Christian Missionaries there. A Catholic disclosed that whenever they tried to bring this to the attention of the authorities, they were told that they were foreigners creating trouble and should leave. The reaction of Hindu Fundamentalist Organizations to Pope John Paul’s visit to India in February, 1986, is known to all the Western world. Pope was greeted by hostile demonstrations and expulsion of Catholic missionaries from India was demanded by Hindus. Riots against Christians in 1982 in Kanyakumari resulted in the death of 12 Christians at the hands of the Hindu mobs. The plight of 18 million Christians which is 2.6 percent of the population is the same as that of other minorities.
After effectively enslaving the Muslims, Christians, and other minorities, the fury of Hindu fundamentalism has now been turned against the Sikhs who are 15 million, about 2 percent of India’s total population. However, 13 million are in the northern state of Punjab and form a 62 percent majority. Punjab is being deprived of its share of economic wealth of India mainly because of Sikh majority. National resources of Punjab are being diverted to other states. Genuine demands of all Punjabis have been distorted to appear as Hindu-Sikh conflict by the Delhi rulers. An agitation for more rights for the State was launched by Akali Dal. Instead of negotiating with the Akalis, a policy of confrontation was put in operation. Sikhs were branded as separatists. Thousands of Sikhs were jailed and plans for attack on the Golden Temple were approved by Rajiv Gandhi himself.
Mr. Clean’s Operation Clean-a short cut to the disposal of Sikhs killed November 84 riots.
The appalling monstrosity of attacking the Golden Temple, killing of thousands of innocent piligrims, destruction of holy Akal Takht, burning of religious literature, historical records and manuscripts written in Gurus’ own hands were all done to destroy Sikh integrity and identity. It was followed by a Nazian witch-hunt to eliminate the Sikh youth and to subdue the entire Sikh population through a reign of terror and death. Reporters from Punjab state nothing but vital truth when they say that in some districts hardly anyone would don a bridegroom’s attire for years to-gather as most young men between 14 and 30 have fallen to police and security forces bullets.
The story of human degradation and bestiality during anti-Sikh riots in the wake of late Indira Gandhi’s death has very few parallels in history. It was the nadir of civilization’s disintegration. It continues to prick most painfully as not a single perpetrator of the inhuman crimes has either been prosecuted or even charge-sheeted. Rather the arch-villains in that tragic drama have been rewarded with top Cabinet positions and other favours. Whatever might anyone say or pretend, the truth is that no Sikh is really safe in India.
Some students of history feel that the focus has temporarily been shifted on Sikhs instead of Muslims. They are wrong. The events of last few months make it very clear that Hindu majority is waging an un-declared war against all minorities. After 1947, Kashmir, Hydra- bad, Junagah, Sikhism and Bhuttan have been swallowed by India. Now Sri Lanka is being attacked. The Hindu Fundamentalists are talking of Akhand Bharat. To fulfill their dream religious minorities are either being converted to Hinduism or they are being impoverished to a point where they will be no better than slaves.
