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Sikhs,
Canada
and India
Past in Perspective –Future in Focus
Commemoration of 25 years of Saka Akal Takht
 In
the Name of God, the light of every soul, Honourable Canadians and
Sikh-Canadian Brothers and Sisters.
Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh!
25
years ago, on this day, I was weeping at the wanton destruction and
vandalism of my dear Akal Takht and precincts of the Golden Temple
premises. Today, I share with you tributes to those living dead who
laid down their lives in the line of fire fighting a battle of
honour and dignity, upholding the high pedestal of the Gurus, “we
die before we fall.” Three days from now, 6th June will
be observed as the brightest day in the history of Sikh martyrdom.
For the committed Sikhs, the moment of truth had arrived to uphold
the ideals dear to all Sikhs.
Elaborating on the Sikh response to the Indian army’s bloody
assault, Justice Choor Singh of Singapore has said, “the doctrine of
Chardi Kala (a mind that never despairs, never admits defeat and
refuses to be crushed by adversities), reinforces the Sikhs’
glorious tradition of cheerfully offering unyielding resistance to
zulum which is not only a religious duty but is also
considered as a honourable and moral response to zulam.”
I
also take this opportunity to pay
homage to those who were burnt alive on the streets of New Delhi and
scores of other cities of
India
in the pogrom of November 1984.
I
will present before you a bird’s eye view of the last 25 years from
a human rights perspective and attempt to suggest mechanisms and
methodologies that the Sikh people and the international community
needs 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.
We
are here to observe the 25 years in the history of a nation -25
years in the history of a people.
25
years ago, the Indian army’s attack was a well-planned action
against the determined will of a nation to uphold its distinct
identity. Scottish anthropologist Dr. Joyce J. M. Pettigrew, who
spent much time in Punjab, in her book, Sikhs of the
Punjab
writes, “The initial crime (Operation Blue Star) was celebrated and
indeed had been planned for a year beforehand. The Darbar Sahib
complex, a place of beauty, the spiritual and political centre of
the Sikh way of life and of the Sikhs as a whole, their historic
home through years of invasion from the west, had its sanctity
shattered. The army went into Darbar Sahib Complex not to eliminate
a political figure or a political movement but to suppress the
culture of a people, to attack their hearts, to strike a blow at
their spirit and self-confidence.”
Each one of you, present here is agonised and concerned and
understandably so. Let me briefly take you down memory lane.
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India perhaps does not learn from
history. Should we also not? The Jews have not forgotten their
holocaust, why should we? |
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In
1849, the Sikh face of the child-king of the Sarkar-e-Khalsa was
defaced and in a move full of deceit and chicanery, the self-rule of
the Sikhs was snatched away from them. In 1947, the Sikh face of the
Sikh leadership itself was so weak-kneed and naïve that they failed
to understand their role and status in history.
In
1984, the Sikh face of the Indian establishment was so weak and
impotent that when the Indian troops were ordered into the Darbar
Sahib complex, under his very nose, to unfold the Saka Akal Takht,
he was so dumb and morally bankrupt that he remained a mute
spectator and even in his dying years did not have the courage to
speak out the truth.
25
years later, in a most sinister and pernicious manner, another Sikh
face of the Indian establishment wants us to forget and forgive
1984. The present Sikh face went further to call human rights
defenders, “shops selling misery.” The community is by and large
proud of his achievements but cannot understand and tolerate his
forsaking everything that the Sikhs stand for, at the altar of a
deformed and inhuman construct of Indian secularism.
So
what do we do? Under the pressure of modernism, under the threat of
being called and perceived as either mischief mongers on the softest
side of the scale to being dubbed as a militant on the hardest side
of it, do we keep quiet and continue a life of subservience and
subjugation?
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The last 25 years have been years of
pain, agony and activism. I envisage that the next 25 years
should see the Sikhs, particularly the Young Khalsa
–transcending political boundaries and engaging the wosrld
community, the powerful governments of Canada, US, UK and Europe
in a more informed way, learning the skill-sets of hard
diplomacy and negotiations. |
India perhaps does not learn from history. Should we also not? The
Jews have not forgotten their holocaust, why should we?
Sirdar Kapur Singh during his visit to
Vancouver
in 1974 said, “The mosaic pattern of Canadian society comes nearest
to the Sikh ideal of a world-society, though in every respect and in
essence, it is not its replica or prototype.” The visibility of the
Sikhs and the religio-political dynamics of their polity in their
homeland
Punjab
impacts Sikhs in
Canada and throughout the world. In that sense and in the interest
of peace in South Asia, it is imperative for governments of Canada
and of the world to maintain a permanent liaison and understanding
of the developments in Punjab.
The
intervention of Canada in the events of Punjab over the last few
decades has been enriching for the community on both sides of the
Atlantic. Whether it is the need to investigate human rights abuses
at the level of parliamentarians, intervention with India when the
security forces used land mines in Punjab or the setting up of a
Consulate office in Punjab, Canada has played an exemplary role.
There is more to do. Today, most countries make stirring postures
but ultimately succumb and subscribe to their respective country’s
geopolitical understanding and priorities, sacrificing their
commitment to upholding human rights and humanitarian rights.
I
believe that Canada needs to exercise stringent scrutiny over what
Indian diplomats say and get away at forums like the United Nations
and its various bodies. The Sikhs in India, the Diaspora and
particularly the young and dynamic human rights organisations need
to follow suit in an even more diligent and systematic way.
I
am greatly encouraged by the role of
Canada
in the United Nations Human Rights Council convened on 28 May 2009
in Geneva, wherein during the discussion on Sri Lanka, Canada made
specific demands of the Sri Lankan government seeking to emphasize
international scrutiny and the need to strengthen key national
protection mechanisms in the island nation.
With regard to the Sikhs, we have a long way to go. Our human rights
defenders from Jagwinder Singh to Jaswant Singh Khalra and many
others have done exemplary work in documenting human rights
violations. World Sikh Organisation and other bodies in the UK,
Europe and US have highlighted concerns from time to time and taken
them up in a pretty consistent manner.
The
last 25 years have been years of pain, agony and activism. I
envisage that the next 25 years should see the Sikhs, particularly
the Young Khalsa –transcending political boundaries and engaging the
world community, the powerful governments of Canada, US, UK and
Europe in a more informed way, learning the skill-sets of hard
diplomacy and negotiations. All our organisations need to first
learn and then effectively use UN mechanisms and methods not with
the sole purpose of embarrassing India, but using them as a tool to
furnish the true side of events suppressed behind the iron curtain.
The
new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Navenathem Pillai
during her recent visit to India categorically pointed out for India
to refurbish its National Human Rights Commission, allow Amnesty
International, Human Rights Watch and the UN Special Rapporteur on
Torture to officially visit India. She sought the annulment of the
Armed Forces Special Powers Act and other proposed anti-terror laws.
Sikh-Canadians and others from the Diaspora need to force this point
home in a systematic and determined manner through activism and
political lobbying.
We
need to tell ourselves that there is a long way to go in regard to
ensuring human rights protection even though we are conscious of the
fact that most countries sacrifice them at the next easy opportunity
for their pecuniary benefits.
The
typical balderdash and fiddlesticks logic of India through its
standard “non-interference in the internal affairs” plea needs to be
countered by studying and using national mechanisms in respective
countries that can try violations of human rights and humanitarian
rights. Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, repatriated
from
Germany,
alongside others, continues to be on the death row.
As
India’s official Human Rights commission has refused to look into
the case of extrajudicial killings of Sikhs, post-Saka Akal Takht in
other districts except Amritsar, I strongly endorse the taking up of
the issue of the working of India’s Human Rights Commission to the
International Coordinating Committee of National Human Rights
Institutions, as suggested by Voices for Freedom which has done
monumental documentation of abuses in all parts of Punjab. Due to
such intervention, the Sri Lankan Human Rights Commission has been
downgraded from ‘member’ to ‘observer’ status. We need to continue
the campaign against death penalty worldwide. We need to work with
organisations like the US based United States Commission for
International Religious Freedom which monitors religious freedoms in
all countries and then uses US diplomatic pressure to ensure it.
As
my friend and executive director of the South Asia Human Rights
Documentation Centre, Ravi Nair has said in his recent scathing
analysis of the European Union intervention in Sri Lanka, and I
quote, “the principle of territoriality apparently did not apply to
Sudan. Why must it apply to Sri Lanka? To which I add, why must it
apply to any place which sees a struggle for the right to
self-determination? After all, the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights has to be universal, isn’t it?
Ravi Nair went on to add, “caution, meticulous legal work, and
collaborations with credible human rights organisations is what will
win the day and eventually win the peace.” This is also my plea and
message to all young Sikh activists in Canada and across the world.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you are disturbed at the developments from
Vienna to Punjab, I exhort you to read Bhai Sahib Kapur Singh’s Fish
Justice, to understand the true nuances of what is happening and why
and what we need to do. Suffice it would be to say that, it is a
well-planned orchestrated event, not off the cuff, aimed at and I
quote Sirdar Kapur Singh, whose hundredth birth anniversary was
celebrated this year, who said, “the aim is to degrade and
demoralising the Sikh people, permanently to deprive them of the
control of their own history and their spiritual potential, thus
reducing them into secondary citizens and camp-followers so as to
eventually divest them of their living separateness, shrinking them
into a footnote in history.”
Let
me take up the last contention I wish to emphasize. Those of you
have been closely following the developments in Punjab, would be
somewhat pleased with the latest judgment of the Punjab and Haryana
High Court, which inter alia says, that “retaining unshorn hair is
one of the most important and fundamental tenets of the Sikh
religion”
My
paper, the World Sikh News, while welcoming the decision, would like
you all to beware of the next danger looming large on the horizon
for the Sikhs in India.
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This distortion of minority rights
needs urgent engagement. This is the latest attack and Sikh
Canadians deeply rooted in the tradition of multiculturalism in
Canada need to take this up as strongly as possible and exhaust
all human rights, diplomatic and lobbying means to ensure that
the latest Sikh face, who happens to be a member of the minority
community does not get away with murder of a community en masse,
so easily. |
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This 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. This will end the SGPC's
right to reserve any seats for the Sikhs in the institutions it runs
in Punjab. In May last year, the amendment draft was cleared by a
Cabinet presided over by the Indian Prime Minister. Acting on this,
quiet some time ago, the Reserve Bank of India has already stopped
sanctioning loans and other facilities to poor Sikhs in Punjab on
grounds that they are not a minority there. As always and as
expected, the Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janta Party government of
Punjab
has merely reacted in a knee-jerk manner without any follow-up.
Since 1980, the National Minorities Commission has been treating
Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Zoroastrians as religious
minorities at the national level. The communities were notified when
the National Commission for Minorities Act came into force in 1993.
In
February last year, India’s Supreme Court refused any immediate
relief to the Sikh community by refusing to suspend the Punjab and
Haryana High Court judgement that had declared Sikhs a majority
community in Punjab and had thus deprived them of the benefits that
accrued from that status.
The
Sikh Diaspora needs to get up and rise as one man to see the
insidious logic of the Indian state. After all, where will a
minority be able to stress, stamp and exhibit its little power and
give out a sign to its upcoming generations that it is making a
collective effort to improve the lot of the masses? Obviously, they
will do so in a place where it has a concentration of resources and
material self-sufficiency. So, for the Supreme Court or the Indian
government to say that Sikhs are not a minority in
Punjab,
on the basis of state numbers would be depriving them further of
their potential. It would be the same for Christians in the north
east of
India and Muslims in Kashmir.
To
those of you who would like to know even more, the proposed
amendment has a provision of benediction by the state to anyone it
wants to declare a minority, thus forcing communities to either toe
the line of the state or be prepared for its vindictiveness.
This is the next round of struggle the Indian state is preparing us
for. We need to see things in proper perspective and plan our
strategies to ensure justice.
Do
you see a pattern in all this? I see. Every decade, from 1947
onwards, there is some covert or overt attack which is meant to keep
the community engaged and lose sight of the bigger picture.
This distortion of minority rights needs urgent engagement. This is
the latest attack and Sikh Canadians deeply rooted in the tradition
of multiculturalism in Canada need to take this up as strongly as
possible and exhaust all human rights, diplomatic and lobbying means
to ensure that the latest Sikh face, who happens to be a member of
the minority community does not get away with murder of a community
en masse, so easily.
I
am grateful to our hosts the World Sikh Organisation, which has
afforded me this opportunity to share my views with you and I
propose that it may take lead in building an international campaign
to thwart the proposed bill for annulling the minority status of
Sikhs in
India.
On
a tour of Punjab in 1997, when they were on a visit to investigate
human rights abuses in Punjab, I accompanied Members of Parliament
from Canada, Mr. Derek Lee, Mr. Svend Robinson and Ms. Colleen
Baumier to the Sikh National Museum at the entrance of the Darbar
Sahib Complex in Amritsar. Having spent a good hour there, glancing
at the pictures of martyr after martyr, Mr. Lee softly and politely
asked me, “how long will this continue? Do you see an end to this?
I
had no answer then. I still do not have an easy answer, except the
reiterate what in 1974, the Sikh nation’s National Professor of
Sikhism and member parliament, Kapur Singh said in a speech he
delivered in Canada and I quote, I quote, “Sikhs want to live, as
all living things do; they do not want to die.”
Looking at the next hundred years, I strongly believe that an
education and empowerment mission needs to be undertaken in
Punjab.
Illiteracy needs to be wiped out, the youth to be prepared to meet
challenges –internal and external and trained to participate in
international organisations and institutions. We also need to work
for the poorest of poor Sikhs in
Punjab.
Sikhs want to exercise their right to self-determination, whenever
the United Nations and history will provide them an opportunity to
do so, and also that Sikhs are conscious of their role as they
recollect and repeat, Kabul de Rehn walia nu nit muhima….the
life of a Sikh is a relentless campaign for justice and dignity for
self, for his nation and for all humankind as exemplied in his daily
prayer for Sarbat da Bhala-May peace and prosperity come to
all. As a people, to quote Sirdar Kapur Singh again, “The Khalsa
shall uphold the banner of Dharma, the banner of freedom for
everybody, the banner of establishing tolerant, plural societies and
the banner of peace and mutual understanding among men, so that
entire mankind may progress and prosper.”
Thank you very much for your kind patience and indulgence.
Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa
Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh!
10
June 2009
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