By Gurbachan Singh, M.A. Sikh National College, And Lal Singh Gyani, M.A. Sikh Missionary College, Amritsar Lahore
This excerpt continued from last week was written in 1946 and shows great foresight. The demand for ‘Khalistan’ was felt by these two visionaries who knew what would happen to the Sikh nation in the decades to come.
The Sikhs are mostly peasant proprietors, people with a predominantly rural economy and clear, simple habits such as country people, who have also imbided a great spiritual gospel, might be expected to possess. Of the various ingredients of nationhood the Sikhs possess quite a large number in so strong a degree that disruptive forces of various kinds have not succeeded in making the Sikh sentiment of nationhood unstrung. The Sikhs still think, feel and aspire as one, visualize themselves facing the future as a single unit, anxious to preserve their singleness and unity in a world which they feel is hostile to their way of life. To deny to the Sikhs, therefore, the right to call themselves a nation on the ground of their not possessing a patch of territory, where they might be having an overwhelming majority in the population, and ‘on the score of their resembling the Hindus in certain respects is unjust and only strengthens the suspicion of the Sikhs that the majorities want to keep them under *heir thumb somehow or other.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 9, 1990
