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Sikh Nation clings to Identity
Consciousness
Jagmohan Singh in Ottawa
 25
years in the history of a nation have been observed in the homeland
Punjab and worldwide in the Sikh Diaspora. The pain, anguish and
bewilderment of the Sikh people has been relived by them, still
benumbed as to how this unimaginable catastrophe struck them in June
1984 and throughout that year and the decades that followed them.
At the
invitation of the World Sikh Organisation, which has been ensuring
that memories do not fade and remain alive in the hearts and minds
of the Sikhs, I joined anthropologist Dr. Cynthia K. Mahmood and
activist-writer Ajmer Singh at the West Block of the Canadian
Parliament for the Annual Parliamentary Dinner to participate in
deliberations on “Past in Perspective –Future in Focus” on Saka Akal
Takht.
With Sikh
activists pouring in from all parts of Canada and with Canadian
Parliamentarians extolling the dexterity and entrepreneurship
qualities of Sikhs and their contribution to Canadian society, the
Sikhs reiterated their belonging –their roots. Each speaker
underlined how the events of 1984 deeply etched the spirit of
Sikhness of Sikhs into their consciousness.
Interestingly,
the programme started with the Canadian and Sikh national anthem,
sung by a group of young Sikh-Canadians.
 Members of
Parliament Bill Siksay, Ed Fast, Mauril Belanger and Peter Braid
spoke on the role of Sikh Canadians and their contribution to
Canadian society at large admiring their hard work and dedication.
Initiating the
presentation, Jasbeer Singh outlined the formation of World Sikh
Organisation after the events of June 1984 –the circumstances which
forced the Sikhs to organize themselves into a world body. He
elaborated as to how the organization, through ups and downs, has
been able to uphold the banner of Sikh identity afloat through
public, legal and political activism.
Delivering the
keynote address, Cynthia Keppley Mahmood, Associate Professor of
Anthropology and Senior Fellow, Joan B. Kroc Institute for
International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame questioned the
silencing of the Sikh community by the Canadian society in recent
times.
In her
characteristic forthrightness, she asked, “The world has still not
really “heard” about the travails of the Sikhs, and I want to
explore why. After all,
India is a
democracy, “the world’s largest democracy,” and it has laws to
protect against abuses of rights and to protect minorities. It has
an independent judiciary and a relatively free press, and relatively
calm and fair transitions of power. The fact is, however – and I
have learned this in the post-9/11 United States as well as in my
research in India – that being a “democracy” by law alone is not
enough to ensure the vibrancy and flourishing of human voices that
alone guarantees human rights.”
She asked the
Sikhs to aware that “an active and vigilant citizenry, making use of
those laws, who are actually the bulwark against abuses like
torture, concentration camps, illegal wiretapping. Picture the
detainee in the jail cell, weak, probably naked, on a cold floor,
living on scraps of food, emaciated, awaiting he knows not what
future. It is not he who can draw on the laws that protect our
rights and freedoms. He relies on others, his fellow citizens, to
use those laws to get him out of that detention, to make public the
abuses, to end the state’s use of exceptions to get round its
commitments to basic human rights.”
Sadly she said,
“In the case of the Sikhs in
Punjab,
the problem was that there was nobody to come to their aid. With a
few rare exceptions, most of
India’s
civil rights and humanitarian organizations turned their backs on
the Sikhs. People with turbans quickly became a pariah population:
“socially dead,” to use
Orlando
Patterson’s fortuitous phrase. To put it bluntly, no one in
India really
cared if they lived or died. Why? Because the image was cleverly
and quickly created of the-Sikh-as-terrorist, and therefore the Sikh
as unworthy victim. The same Indians who otherwise gathered for
protests or organized aid when Christians were attacked, somehow
stood aside when the victims were Sikhs.”
As a true friend
of the community, Cynthia Mahmood offered suggestions to the Sikhs,
particularly urging them to grow outwards, conduct workshops on the
question of how the Sikh religion intersects with Punjabi culture,
develop simultaneous translations systems from the Punjabi language
in Gurdwaras, hire reputed international law firms and lobbyists and
involve the youth through a set of internships in advanced
technologies, set up international level holocaust museum and engage
in serious academic work.
In an
emotionally surcharged note, she asked the gathering of Sikh
Canadians to stand up for their rights and also asked Canadian
members of Parliament to ensure that “the faint whispers of every
frightened minority still gets heard in the halls of Parliament.”
Activist-writer
Ajmer Singh embarked on a journey into the past, extensively
dwelling on the religious, social and historical references
necessary to understand “why the Indian government did this unto
us?” At the outset he told the august assembly that unless we
clearly understand the past; our venture into the future will be a
walk in the wild. In recalling memories of such events, he pointed
out that noted psychologist Sudhir Kakar had remarked, 1984 was the
Chosen Trauma of the Sikhs having made indelible impact on their
collective cohesiveness and consciousness.
“1984
transformed the individual lives of the Sikhs in a major and
revolutionary way, changing the build-up and dynamics of the
collective consciousness of the Sikh people. An American journalist
while describing 9/11, characterized it as “the event that defined
this century; it was as though the plate-tectonics of history were
shifting”. Without drawing any parallel or analogy with the event
of 9/11, I would like to say that June 1984 marked a tectonic change
in Sikh thinking, Sikh understanding and all aspects of Indo-Sikh
dialogue,” he said.
Ajmer Singh
stressed the nuances of Sikh-Hindu relationship and Indo-Sikh
dialogue and emphasized that 1984 brought about a major change in
Sikh consciousness. He said, “1984 arrested the progress of
assimilation, forced the Sikhs to unlearn their old methods and
perspectives of thinking and rekindled the spirit of
distinctiveness. Sikhs revived the Sikh vision of God and the Sikh
understanding of human existential situation, social justice with
full focus on social transformation.”
Not known to
mince words or befuddle facts, the author of two books in Punjabi on
the politics of the Sikhs in the twentieth century, Ajmer Singh
remarked that the Sikh response even after 25 years is not
considered and strategic. He deplored that “to continue with the
same kind of nomenclature, vocabulary, thought processes and
street-campaign approach renders our debate incomplete, wayward and
non-credible.”
 With
my earlier interaction with Canadian members of parliament and my
work in the area of human rights activism, I chose to discuss the
role of
Canada in
the field of human rights and what needs to be done by
Sikh-Canadians in this regard as a follow up to the happenings of
1984. I suggested “mechanisms and methodologies that the Sikh people
and the international community needed to take up so that the
history of injustice gives way to respect for human dignity,
restoration of the status of the Sikhs in the annals of history with
their full historical potential intact and a respectable place in
the comity of nations.”
With a little
bit of history from 1849 onwards, I wanted to see ahead. I told the
audience that I somehow see a pattern in the violent attacks on the
Sikhs in the last century. After every round of violence there is
systematic non-violent attack to tease and overawe the Sikhs. The
move by the government of
India
to snatch the minority status of Sikhs when we have a Sikh prime
minister is the latest move, coming in a year when the Sikhs are
again going through the pain of 1984.
I said that,
“The judgement on unshorn hair would mean little relief if the
Government of India succeeds in passing a law whose draft has
already been cleared by the Council of Ministers. The 103rd
Constitution Amendment Bill that seeks to define a "Minority" on the
basis of state-level demographic data will effectively snatch away
the status of a minority from the Sikhs.” I exhorted the Sikhs
living overseas to use their full lobbying and diplomatic pressure
to put a stop to “this insidious logic of the Indian state,”
particularly the Sikh-Canadians who have enriched themselves through
the multiculturalism culture of
Canada.
So what should
the individual Sikh do? What should Sikhs as a nation do? Obviously
there are no easy answers, however, let us all engage in a
determined struggle for peace, justice and Sarbat da Bhala.
Jagmohan Singh
may be contacted at jsbigideas@gmail.com
10
June 2009
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