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Mock and Win
WSN network
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The Bharatiya Janta Party has one Varun
Gandhi and a score of Tagodias. The Congress has Jagdish Tytler,
Sajjan Kumar, Kamalnath and other unknown names to tease and
taunt the Sikhs. The Indian state has a bank of hate-Sikhs
pseudo-Gods, carefully nurtured and used to whip up emotions of
Sikhs. One such person who refuses to go out of media and memory
is pseudo-saint Gurmeet Ram Rahim.
As electioneering begins in Punjab, the Dera Sirsa is the hub of
behind the veil politics for constituencies in the Malwa belt of
Punjab and adjacent Haryana and Rajasthan.
Mumbai based young writer, Charanjit Singh, in this
tongue-in-cheek piece presents this monologue which the Sirsa
Dera chief is supposedly making to his core group within the
confines of his heavily fortified retreat at Sirsa. |
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 In the
backwaters of the sleepy town of Sirsa, far away from the Grand
Trunk Road, the makeover started. A simple unknown Aam
Admee….started being mystically transformed to an ‘Insaan’.
My popularity
grew far and wide, my influence gradually transcending political
skies. I started enjoying the patronage of not only my ‘Insaaniyat’,
but also the quiet backing of the ‘guardians of Junta’.
When the above
too became ‘run of the mill’ for my stature, I decided to follow my
self-promoting instinct to dress like a hero and emulate an act
which itself was etched in history. I somehow believed (and I would
be proved right in the aftermath), that the political powers would
implicitly support the reverberations of what was in the making.
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Today, we command sustenance from both fronts, so no matter
which of the pawns move forward to form the ‘Government’, we
would always remain the king makers, Sant Daduwal, Bhai Daljit
Singh and Khalsa Action Committee notwithstanding. In future
too we are ensured of absolution from some of our trivial
misadventures like rape, murder, castration and wrongful
confinement. |
I knew very well
that our Sikh compatriots don’t even allow their martyrs to be
edified in any form, let alone their Gurus.
What a great
spectacle it would be….when this ‘fragmented’ community would be
teased, mocked, and reiterated to, again, that in our ‘free nation’,
anyone had the right to make fun of their revered Guru, his
tenets….and all they could do…is virtually remain mute. After all
they were nothing more than a tiny fragmented minority in the vast
sea of a monolithic Brahmin polity of the country called India. And
such people should not have dreams and expectations, should they?
As per my plan,
it was time to be audacious enough to dress as the Tenth Master,
Guru Gobind Singh and relive Anandpur Sahib, 13th April, 1699.
You remember
that day in history, don’t you?
The only
difference though, was that I never asked anyone for a Head to be
sacrificed for the cause of secular freedom. I knew well, that
though I may have dressed myself as the Guru, I possessed neither
the conviction, nor commanded the reverence from my followers to ask
of them, the supreme sacrifice … which the Guru had done. My
job was simple: Mock and win supporters, not followers.
 Nevertheless,
the act did its job. It flared them. There were protests all over
the country and around the world. They did what they have always
been doing and are best at -Brandishing swords, shouting slogans,
demanding apologies.
But they forgot
one thing, that when someone decides to mock or tease a minority in
India, it is deemed to be his fundamental right of expression. We
are the world’s largest democracy…after all!
And also that,
an enemy’s enemy… is a friend. In doing so I further strengthened
my bonds with the government of India and the political bigwigs of
the government of Haryana. I received accolades from them, my
security cover was increased, I was heard in the court at my own
terms and I was provided, as earlier, the full liberty to move
around wherever I wanted.
The reaction of
the Sikhs –the followers of Guru Gobind Singh was on expected lines.
Nothing much happened except that the streets of
Amritsar
and Ludhiana were peppered with aggressive slogans of ‘Raj Karega
Khalsa’. Actually, you know, they have still not fathomed why I did
what I did and what is the extent of my support base and how I build
it.
The matter died
in their collective memory.
Suddenly, the
Sikh spirit was at display when a group of young Sikhs confronted me
in Mumbai. I and my core team had always that this spirit is now a
relic of the past, just a page from the history books.
This was a
direct affront! There couldn’t have been a better opportunity.
I decided that
it was imperative, once again, not only to remind them of their
status, their actual political status but also to reiterate the
unconditional support you enjoy when you indulge in anything which
reminds the minorities… that they are minorities.
Balkar Singh was
shot in broad day light.
This act flared
them, once again. And then the usual protests, brandishing swords,
sloganeering and mayhem in Mumbai and elsewhere. Do these people
really bother to ponder what ‘Raj Karega Khalsa’ actually means?
But I was safe.
In the blanketed cordons of Choppers, Jammers and even Z+ security…
lovingly, respectfully and reverently escorted to my dera at Sirsa.
There was no
need to worry. I was clear then and subsequent events have proved
me right. These people have forgotten the Shahidi of that Singh who
laid his life to protest the sacrilege committed against the very
ethos of his faith. After all, what eminence would poor Balkar
Singh’s sacrifice hold, when they have long forgotten the likes of
Baba Deep Singh and Bhai Mani Singh? These masses will very soon go
back to their comfortable lifestyles.
As it is, these
‘modern’ Sikhs have been too busy in convincing the ‘society they
are a part of’, that they are secular, that the movement for Sikh
rights in the eighties was nothing more than an act of few hooligans
threatening the foundations of Akhand Bharat; and that the true
meaning of the litany –‘Raj Karega Khalsa’ lies securely hidden
somewhere in the hills of Anandpur Sahib.
My tribe also
pities those young Sikhs, who are fighting the battle of faith… deep
within the confines of their consciousness. On one side… their faith
and its sanctity. On the other, Globalization, media, and peer
groups. Not to mention the exuberant hope that youth brings….of
befriending the cute girl from college. The price may be a ‘change
of look’ though, and turning their back to Bhai Taru Singh.
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And
as king makers, we would continue to challenge the Sikhs at
every bend of the road. Because in their defeat would lie our
victory, in their frustrations…our content. |
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Let me also take
this opportunity to thank these Sikhs for blatantly ignoring their
Guru’s visions of a casteless society. While passionately
deliberating the Jat and not-so-Jat Sikh conflict, they deprived
that strata of public (who are my followers today), a chance to be a
part of their social milieu. Their obsession with such trivia is
something which takes away their uniqueness and makes them like us.
Today, we
command sustenance from both fronts, so no matter which of the pawns
move forward to form the ‘Government’, we would always remain the
king makers, Sant Daduwal, Bhai Daljit Singh and Khalsa Action
Committee notwithstanding. In future too we are ensured of
absolution from some of our trivial misadventures like rape, murder,
castration and wrongful confinement.
Today these
Sikhs are finding themselves confused between the palm, the lotus
and their beloved Libra. Aren’t they all acting as our critics,
after all? One fine day, they may realize, may be not, actually,
that all of the above may be divided politically, but are united in
their aim of suppressing Sikhs out of the political arena and paving
way for their further spiritual and moral spiral…downwards. Only
those who are pliable to us and the State, whatever their form will
be seen.
And as king
makers, we would continue to challenge the Sikhs at every bend of
the road. Because in their defeat would lie our victory, in their
frustrations…our content. In the process they may sure fight back.
But their retaliations to our mockery would always be termed as
‘acts of insecurity’ by the media and the politicians who would
altruistically say… “All said and done, is any religion weak enough
to be degenerated… by ‘mere non-conformists’?
In the end, lets
us all hope that the supplies of Khalsa, talked about even in their
prayers, always remain abundant. Doesn’t the direction of its flow
point to the funding of their representative panthic party, the
Akalis? Their ‘leaders’ would in turn be coming to us very soon. For
aren’t our ‘blessings’ coveted for the coming elections? Do you
think that it is only a mere coincidence that the Jathedar of Akal
Takht is making conciliatory moves?
Let’s get
together and guarantee that political party’s victory, which will
ensure us privileges and concessions far better and higher than
those we have enjoyed under the existing Congress rule.
The price of
offending Sikhs is petty when you compare it with the rewards that
follow.
I rest my case:
I have had the courage and audacity to mock them… after all,I am
Gurmeet Ram Rahim.
1 April 2009
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