Since I was married into a Hindi-speaking Bhatnagar family 1 read, write and speak fluent Hindi, yet I do not fail to identify myself with the Tamil culture in which | had been brought up having been born in a Iyer family. My nationality is Indian, wnose, heritage, 1 adore, my mother tongue is Tamil which I am proud of. I admire those Sikhs who are proud of their Punjabi culture and its language and spare no efforts in retaining it.
I also fail to understand, on what ground did Punjabi and Haryana Hindus oppose the legitimate religious demands of the Sikhs? Are we not, by these very actions, implying that the Sikhs are not Hindus? Why did they oppose the demand of holy status for the city of Amritsar? Don’t they know that the official Sikh name for the Golden Temple is “Hari Mandir” and is no less holy than the holiest of all the Mandirs in India? Are we not already enjoying the holy status for Varanasi, Hardwar and Kurukshetra? Narrowminded fanatics have pushed some of our Sikh brothers into proclaiming that we are not Hindus. We can only blame ourselves for that. False declaration in the census by millions of Punjabi-speaking Hindus is a disgrace to our ancient Hindu tradition, in which truth is given paramount importance.
Even though it is mainly the Hindus of Punjab and Haryana, who owe their Hindu-birth to the Great Gurus and their Sikhs, who made the highest sacrifices for the protection of our Hindu religion from Mogul tyranny, yet it is the Hindus of the South and elsewhere. who seem to have greater respect for the Sikh Gurus and the Granth Sahib than the Punjabi-Hindus, who as history teaches us, only survived due to the emergence of Sikhism in their region of India. While national RSS has incorporated Guru Govind Singh and Guru Nanak in their prescribed morning prayer, some local Punjab and Haryana R.S.S. have joincd hands with the AryaSamaj, who have slandered Guru Nanak in their prayer-book.
Punjab Arya-Samaj apparently has a history of hundred years of hostility against the Sikhs and has found it difficult to reconcile themselves with the gradual influence of Guru Nank’s simple teachings on Hinduism, such as on the Sindhis.
Due to anti-Sikh indoctrination since 1875 by their founder Dayanand, the Arya-Samaj has gradually worked against the Sikh interests and especially more so since the partition of our country, when due to the sudden absence of the Muslim population from Punjab, they could afford more time and energy indulging in Sikh politics, Punjab R.S.S., too was misled in joining hands with the Arya-Samaj in their anti-Sikh activities. Thus far from doing any good, the Arya-Samaj and R.S.S. of Punjab did far more based on certain demands ,most of them being for the welfare of Punjab and eventually found support from several opposition parties. Langowal’s letter of appeal (23.7.83) to all the M.P.’s. titled, “You Owe Us Justice,” is an impressive and humble document, that talks of reason and is _ thought-provoking.
Today, the official director of Akali Morcha, Sant Langowal has plenty of following among the Sikh comunity. He has handled his morcha peacefully and his anti-Khalistan and anti-violence views are well established. Now that the Nirankaris have finally agreed to expunge from their books the offensive references made against the Sikh religion, it should further help to reduce tension. One fails to understand the motive of Arya-Samaj to support and champion the cause of Nirankaris.
Extremist activities have emerged mainly after the police atrocities, especially those at the Asiad and Rasta-Roko satyagraha with 24 shot dead by the police. It seems unfair and unfortunate to blame Langowal for occasional violence stemming from few radical splinter groups, not belonging to his Akali party. On the other hand Bindrawale and his own Dal-Khalsa party were created for opposing the Akalis in 1979. Yet any harsh statements made by this non-Akali leader receive undeserving attention by the press and the Government, frustrating the official Akali satyagraha for certain constitutional demands. Akalis have always maintained that they are not shielding any criminals in Gurdwaras. This now seems to be substantiated by the recent statement from the Inspector General of police — P. S. Bhinder, saying there was no clear proof with the Government that the men wanted by the police were hiding in Gurdwaras including the Golden Temple Complex.
Almost all the non-Congress leaders have already supported the Akali demands. In a recent article in Indian Express Mr Rajmohan Gandhi says, (1) There is truth in Akali charge that some of their supporters have been killed by police by fake encounters. (2) There is truth in Akali accusation that Congress has fostered and backed some extremists Sikhs in order to weaken the Akalis. (3)
Akalis have repeatedly disowned and disavowed Khalistan slogan. (4) Akalis have emphatically stated that communal harmony must be maintained at all costs. (5) Past record of Akali struggle shows an admirable degree of non-violence. While paying the above tribute, he advised Akalis to condemn all killings, no matter who is murdered or by whom. Akalis complain that their condemnation of violence does not receive publicity and for that they blame the media including the UNI and PTI. Recently (11.11.83) the official news agency U.N.I. has once again released the news of yet another anonymous Sikh letter, threatening a Hindu Temple and once again the responsible newspapers like Times of India (12.11.83) published the same and that too in bold type on the front page. This incredible way of publicizing highly volatile and unverified anonymous letters is not aimed at communal harmony but it certainly maligns the Sikh community for some isolated letters which may not even have come from a Sikh.
It is a tragedy that the problem has been branded as Hindu-Sikh instead of calling it as Arya Samaj-Sikh or beter still naming it as Punjabi: non-Punjabi conflict. since Hindus in Punjab have time and again claimed to be ‘Not Punjabi Speaking’.
Since none of the Akali demands are anti-Hindu or are likely to hurt Hindu sentiments in any way and most of the demands are for the welfare of Punjab State, one fails to understand why should this agitation (directed towards the Government) attract Hindu opposition and cause communal conflict? Instead of joining the movement and uniting the Hindus and the Sikhs, Arya-Samaj has unfortunately chosen the path of direct confrontation with the Sikhs by mobilising the Hindu-Suraksha-Samiti and the Sangathan and seeking the undeserving sympathy and support from Hindus outside the Hindi-belt by misleading them with false and exaggerated information e.g. while Hindu population in Punjab is as high as 49% yet it is highly publicized as a small minority. It is remarkable that the 3 communal incidents of Punjab happened in Hindu majority cities of Amritsar, Jullunder and Patiala, with over 60% Hindu population and no similar incidents in the village where Sikhs are in majority.
Extremists of both the communities should be dealt with equally firmly and impartially. A recent report in Blitz (14.5.83), named an extremist Pawan Kumar Sharma, (President of Hindu Suraksha Samiti in Patiala) from whom huge stocks of arms, explosives and hand grenades were recovered. On 11.11.83 “Tribune” reported that police has recovered 3 pistols, cartridges and 2 turbans and yellow cloth from the car used in the major Bank robbery on 9.11.83 in Chandigarh. This startling piece of information (discovery of Turbans) confirms the involvement of dacoits and antisocial element using turbans during the time of their crimes. This report provides credibility to strong Akali feelings that the recent inhuman killings near the border, of innocent Hindu passengers in the bus were not carried out by the Sikhs but by some non-Sikh criminals wearing turbans. Possibility of foreign agents in this particular case cannot be ruled out. Time and again Sant Langowal, the Morcha director has requested for the appointment of a committee to study the much publicised violence and _ atrocities and _ to discover the truth and expose the people behind such activities, whether Akalis or Arya-Samajists or both. It is very unfortunate that occasional violence should be used by the Government as a tee Report by agreeing to reorganize Punjabi by a vague resolution dated March 9, while the committee report was signed on March 15, 1966, a week later. It was a deliberate attempt to by-pass this Committee, and undermines its importance. The Parliamentary Committee had come to these conclusions.
(i) The present State of Punjab be reorganized on a linguistic basis;
(ii) The Punjabi region specified in the First Schedule to the Punjab Regional Committee Order, 1957 should form a unilingual Punjabi State.
The Government by-passed the Committee and forestalled its report. The subsequent reference to the Shah Commission was loaded heavily against Punjab. Making the 1961 Census as the basis and the tehsil (instead of village) as the unit was a deliberate design to punish the Sikhs. The language returns in the 1961 Census were on communal lines when Punjabi-speaking Hindus falsely declared Hindi as their language. Therefore, the demarcation had to be on communal rather than on a linguistic basis. Consequently merit was again ignored and justice denied. Naturally tensions between the two communities increased. If Punjabi Suba had been demarcated simply on a linguistic basis, and not on false returns of 1961, there would not have been any extremist movement. Tension between Hindus and Sikhs in Punjab is bound to continue unless the communal section of Hindus sees wisdom and retrace their steps by acknowledging Punjabi as their mother-tongue. If the Punjabi Hindus had not disowned their Punjabi and isolated the Sikhs, then a sense of Punjabi identity would have grown and suppressed Hindu and Sikhs communalism. Those Hindus who lied in the census, betrayed their Sikh brothers, betrayed their language and culture and betrayed their own ancient land of Punjab and were responsible for its division on Hindu-Sikh basis.
The present agitation was started by one section of the Akalis, but the coercive and repressive policies of the Punjab Government have united all the different groups of Sikh behind the morcha. The indiscriminate murders of innocent young Sikhs under the false pretext of encounters, and harassment of women and children, relatives of the hunted persons, wanted by the police under real or cooked up charges, pushed all these families into a mass satyagraha, which so far has fortunately remained peaceful, despite many political and communal provocations.
Gandhi and Nehru had made personal promises to Sikhs before freedom, but soon after the independence they embarked on the long term programme of anti-Sikh politics and policies. 35 years later, there is no end to it in sight. The Government has never seen merit in any Sikh demand. Government has always felt encouraged in this direction by some extremist Punjabi Hindus who have always betrayed their Sikh brothers by opposing their constitutional demands however fair and justifiable they may be. If the facts of the Punjab problem were to be truly understood by the Hindus from outside Hindi belt, they will feel ashamed of the action of their fellow Punjabi (now supposedly Hindi-speaking) Hindus and perhaps even disown them. I pray for the day when Hindus and Sikhs will again be united as one force.”
