In principle at least, in the prevailing circumstances, Khalistan will come into being perhaps less by a new unity amongst descendants of Kadphises (Sikhs) and more through bigotry and prejudice and characteristics of Hindu politics, the traditional practice of which has resulted in the establishment of Pakistan.
On May 14th., 1948, a small Zionist community of a few hundred thousand only, though in a stark minority position, in the British administered Palestine, unilaterally proclaimed itself a state, over an area of Palestine much larger than the portion earlier envisaged by the United Nations General Assembly in a partition plan, that today is the erstwhile State of Israel. Why cannot twelve million Sikhs, as the rightful owners of all the lands in Punjab, as well as being in a 60 percent numerical majority, proclaim themselves, constitutionally, as the Independent State of Khalistan?
No evictions will be necessary of non-Sikhs from this area, although in the case of Palestine, Arab villages were forcibly occupied by armed Zionist soldiers during the crucial but short period, of a few weeks, in 1948, when the matter was being re-considered by the United Nations General Assembly. Self-help proved to be the best means of achieving the State of Israel. So reminisced Chaim Weizmann, Israel’s first President, “Our only chance now, as in the past, was to create facts, to confront the world with these facts, and to build on their foundation.”
This might well be pertinent advice in the Sikh case for Khalistan. However, Sikhs do not need to create facts. The facts are already there, as outlined earlier in this paper and abundantly recorded by the Political history of the sub-continent that we are instantly concerned with.
What we need most is an international lobby. It should be of the caliber that the mercantile community of Jews was able to marshall in Europe and America. We are not entirely unknown to either community. In Europe, especially to Britain, and to the pioneers of liberty, the Americans, we are kindred people.
- Revolutionary forces, principally Communists, are already at work, quite actively, in India to overthrow the Delhi government. _ In late 1973 all the seven or eight opposition parties joined in the Indian Parliament and condemned Indira Gandhi for the failure of her Government to solve the country’s problems. Those very coolies, rickshaw drivers, laborers, and the naked and hungry, who voted Mrs. Gandhi into power two years ago under the illusion that she will reclaim their lives from the dragon of “Garibi” (poverty, hunger) are now so frustrated that they will do anything to bring change.
Indira cannot transcend change. The same change will be in evidence that came with the degeneration and disintegration of the Mughal rule of India, before the advent of Sikh and British power, respectively, in India. Before the conditions were brought under control, by Sikhs, the political disintegration of Delhi government had inspired and encouraged repeated Afghan invasions of northern India. The same can be anticipated by the present regime of a seething India. Military coups are not uncommon these days, nor are high-jacking’s. A relatively small number of people were responsible for the overthrow of the King of Afghanistan, and the socialist regime of Allende in Chile went in hours before the military action of the opposite forces and the military junta is now in power. The old established ruling powers in Ethiopia and Portugal have just been overthrown and new forces of progress have assumed control, in 1974. In Indira ji’s second reincarnation as Prime Minister of India, a state of emergency, a second time, again blankets the country.
In all the political and economic troubles that beset, or will beset the Hindu government, Sikhs will not hesitate to seize upon the opportunity and proclaim their sovereignty if India continues playing the old game. History testifies to the fact that Sikhs were able to do so in the past. The train of political events, natural and irreversible, will topple the present system in India in the near future, and with it will go the Hindu Raj. It will be a boon for the Sikh aims. Ours will be the freedom twice won, more rarified and prized, once from British and again from Hindus, like the case of the be labored attorney who first had to fight to win his client’s case and then had to fight the client to win his dues! But that is the way things go sometimes.
- Meantime, Sikhs abroad can help the cause of Khalistan by exposing the perfidy of the Hindu Raj to the international community. What is needed is a steady international lobby to advance the Sikh point. The international community of Sikhs can organize to provide the much needed lobbying. Sikhs have to learn fast the art of modern lobbying and modern organizational techniques so essential to boost their political achievement in the world. There are able and highly knowledgeable Sikh individuals all over America today. These eminent scientists and scholars and students can provide this service of lobbying. It merits the priority of their mortal energies. Persistent and consistent lobbying is essential for Khalistan, and Sikhs living outside India are most advantageously situated to carry out this task. Every assistance should be sought from the press and media in this cause. It has not been well exposed in the west, and very little understood by Europeans or Americans, so far.
Sikhs domiciled in-countries outside India have to be vigilant against staffs of Indian Embassies and diplomatic offices abroad. These are the subverting brigades, often employing “decoy” Sikhs, for corrupting Sikh political activity outside India.
Only recently it was learned in Washington, D.C. that as a sequel to the political agitation carried on in the Punjab by Sikhs, and reacting to the protest demonstrations against Mrs. Gandhi, encountered in her Canada visit, special directives had been issued by Delhi to its foreign offices to mount especial surveillance against foreign Sikhs. For the first time in the diplomatic annals of Canada, the Sikh first Secretary of the Indian High Commissioner in Ottawa moved out west and put up camp in Vancouver and spent the month of September in 1973 fraternizing with Sikh elements. With the chummy letters he befittingly issued to thank his new contacts, upon his return to Ottawa, he had promised to return to be with the Sikhs here again. According to one account, even Indira Gandhi was anxious to help and would come out to Vancouver to contribute a solution to the Sikh Temple problems here!
When, before the partition of 1947, lobbying for Pakistan was popular amongst the Muslim villagers of Punjab, the train, crossing an imaginary boundary and entering what was later to become Pakistan, would sometimes come to an unexpected halt in the Punjab countryside awaiting the signal. Little Muslim boys, in twos and threes, carrying buckets of drinking water, would come up, out of nowhere, to the stopped train. “Cool, Pakistan water,” “Sir, have cool Pakistan water,” they would announce as they tiptoed in the hot weather to the curious passengers looking out the windows.
This is the kind of lobby that Sikhs today need more than any other armament to win their freedom and be Khalistan.
- Contrary to the natural and logical speculation, no Chinese or Pakistani intervention or invasion will be necessary to knock power out of Delhi. The loss of power of the present regime will result from the change brought about by the people of India from within.
- Rising hunger, poverty, insecurity of life and property, political instability, inflation, unrest and discontent have already forced the Central Government of India to suspend state legislatures in a dozen provinces of India, including the U.P., the native province of the Nehru family. A vast area of India is now being governed directly by President’s rule, under special provisions of the constitution. All this foretells the fate that is about to befall the country. In the south, other people and groups have demanded separate status and a break with India. The Tamil-Nad state, in southern India, in fact had declared that it will cease to be part of India and will form its own independent government. The peoples of India are sure to buy any system that brings in the desired and necessary change and makes living conditions more tolerable. The revolution in life styles next door, under the Red Chinese government, cannot be shut out from the awareness of the much harassed Indian. The old argument that religion is too strong to permit the Indian to join a Godless totalitarian, communist society is not holding water today. People can see for themselves the quick advantages of the changed system. Basic needs of man have to be satisfied before man can survive to evolve and practice religion.
The worsening situation in India is patented by the fact that India has now scrapped all its national family-planning and birth control programmes. Indian government has thrown in the towel.
- Food riots are erupting in India at this time. In Gujarat and Andhra states of India police were powerless to quell the free looting of shops and stores that the hungry mobs ransacked. Student riots rocked the country. The army had to be called in. For how long can a country keep a stable government when the plight of the masses is reaching the same pitch that preceded the world revolutions? The French revolution, the Russian revolution, and even the more recent revolution that overtook Pakistan, are all precedents for an India that now appears clearly to be in line for major upheaval.
- Founders of Khalistan will naturally expect friendly intercourse with Pakistan, which is our natural and cultural neighbor. Pakistan can open its border to Sikhs in the Punjab so that this free association may flower to the mutual satisfaction and advantage of the two peoples.
Sikhs, especially in border areas, have always been eager for arms. Love of arms is implicit in Sikh character. There is reasoning behind this characteristic of Sikhs. The ultimate sanction behind organized civil government is the physical force that a state packs to back up its laws. When governments and laws are unjust or degenerate it is the physical force in man that enables man to challenge and destroy established power. Sikhs have always been such men who rose to save man’s sovereignty and moral virtue. And the fruits of freedom and self- government demand a price in terms of individual sacrifice and suffering. Sikhs paid heavily before the Khalsa Raj was achieved in the 18th century. The Indian Congress party leaders sacrificed personal liberty by serving jail terms in fighting the British Raj. Even Indira Gandhi took short excursions to jail, along with her late father, Pt. Nehru, in the struggle to overthrow British rule in India. And today she rules India as its tough Prime Minister. Sikhs can be no exception to the rules of the game. They must be ready to repeat history. They may be required to sacrifice life, limb and property in their current struggle to gain their freedom. Nobody is going to offer them Khalistan on a silver platter at this stage of events. In fact, they will be expected to better themselves to win Khalistan.
- Such of the Akali Sikhs, and others, who have not so far declared themselves in the vanguard of Sikh freedom through Khalistan, are in for a shock and regret. The infiltration of Hindu politics into the control of Sikh Gurdwaras, through loaded elections, is going to deprive the Akalis of much of their traditional power that they have exercised in the past in steering Sikh politics of this century. In this respect, the delinquent Akali Sikh politics are about half a century behind times. Gone are those days when a childish “Sikh Ministry” in the Indian Punjab was the epitome of their ambition. A dozen times such ministries have been conceived and died on the vine. And time and time again Punjab Legislative Assembly has been suspended and President’s Rule introduced in the Punjab, thus abruptly ending the Sikh ministry pantomime show in the Punjab. Sikhs today can ill afford to play with these ministries and to continue to fool themselves. They must recognize the real object worthy of their organizational strength and influence: Khalistan, and pitch themselves in for a Khalistan Morcha after a thorough preparation.
Government in the Punjab will not be: possible, in spite of dire measures taken by the central government in Delhi if all Sikhs in the Punjab start a programme of non-cooperation with the Hindu government. Let them fill the jails. Let the Hindu government re-enact the Jalianwala shooting of Sikhs of 1918!
- And finally, the effects of the international community’s interest in the Khalistan campaign cannot be discounted. All freedom loving nations would be expected to sympathize with the Sikh struggle for freedom. And this would cross lines of East and West power blocks. Any help to Sikhs to save Punjab area from the fate of India will be a worthwhile action of the free world. The world powers (i) must see the rationale of Sikh lobby for Khalistan and should be expected to evolve policies mutually advantageous and morally commendable.
- The Bomb exploded by India has in turn speeded up its neighbor’s programme to achieve nuclear capability. The 4 billion dollars U.S. military aid to Pakistan will raise Islamabad’s low profile. With red China as Pakistan’s ally, that country is the recipient of power from both the opposing camps on this planet. India might be depending on the Mirage 2000 fighter planes it is contracting from France. But in any future outbreak of war, which is most likely to occur in the Pakistan-India or the Israel-Middle East theatre, India is going to be severely handicapped if Sikhs remained alienated.
A real and permanent and sincere peace with Sikhs is indeed in India’s own best interests. True statesmanship would seem to almost dictate it. Soon gone will be the time when the divisive policy of India toward Sikhs could alone be relied upon as a solution.
India is soon going to be besieged by new problems. The recurrence of food shortage and the need to import food grains from U.S.A after a gap of 2 years is just one indication of impending difficulties.
The Russian occupation of Afghanistan could well be balanced off by the west strengthening Pakistan enough so that any weak areas of India could be taken care of. A strong showing in Pakistan and the areas adjoining the Indian border is essential to meet the Russian expansion.
In this set up, does India want to precipitate a conflict with Sikhs?
The prudent course appears to be that India ought indeed to hurry and facilitate the implementation of the Sikh State of Khalistan –if she expects peace and an abiding alliance with the Khalsa.
The symbolic high jacking of Indian airliner by Sikh youth is simply a message to India, and the world, that now the Sikhs mean business.
The bombing of congress ‘Chief Minister’ Darbara Singh’s house, (1982), and all other phenomenon of Political agitation and cruel reprisals against Sikh activities in the Punjab, and the unusual evacuation of all congregation from the Gurdwara in Richmond Hills, New York, searching them all, before visiting Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on 1st. August 1982, could safely enter the premises and address the meeting, all point to the advancing Sikh freedom fight.
TO CONCLUDE:
KHALISTAN is a juristic and viable concept. All laws framed by the Republic of India since Independence in 1947 are ineffective, null and void in relation to the Sikh nation, and do not apply to Sikhs. This is so because of the simple reason that the Sikh representatives in the Constituent Assembly refused and never put their signatures to the Indian ‘Constitution’ and rejected it. Sikhs were never part of the constitution. No Indian or other Sikh is bound by the Indian constitution, nor bound by any laws passed since the constitution.
