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Editorial
25 Years: Let’s Move Into Phase
II
 In her
scintillating speech in Ottawa at the World Sikh Organisation’s
function, Dr. Cynthia Keppley Mahmood referred to a beautiful movie
which she called “one of the great films of all time.” The movie,
Le Scaphandre et le Papillon or The Diving Bell and the
Butterfly, is the true life biopic of a man paralyzed in an accident
who can only move his one eyelid. He desires nothing but death but
then with the help of a nurse, develops a sort of code with the
eyelid’s movement and succeeds after years in dictating an entire
book, his own life story.
“(T)his is a
story of liberation and of human dignity, because the protagonist
realizes that despite all, he still has his voice and thereby his
humanity. He can still “speak.” So important is the power of speech
in being human...,” Dr Mehmood said.
Several Sikh MPs
had this power of speech when they were repeatedly elected to
Parliament in India, among them many representing the ruling Akali
Dal. But not one of them thought it fit to refer to the 25th year of
the Indian Army’s attack on Sri Darbar Sahib and Sri Akal Takht
Sahib and the massacre of thousands of Sikhs.
In Punjab,
Parkash Singh Badal thought it fit not to be seen at at gurdwara or
event even remotely connected to any observance of the 25th year of
the tragedy. In fact, he is rarely seen at any gurdwara. In
Parliament, his daughter-in-law and wife of the Akali Dal president
Sukhbir Singh Badal, Harsimrat Kaur Badal did not refer to a single
Sikh issue. The fact that she was speaking as the Sikh Nation was
marking the 25 years of the Saka Akal Takht did not matter to her.
She confined herself to the issue of female foeticide, a very
serious issue which she earlier sold to the people of Punjab as
Nanhi Chhanv, a project conceived and pushed by an image
management agency to sell her as a serious politician.
 It fell to
someone like Sardar Tarlochan Singh, the Independent MP from Haryana
in the Rajya Sabha who presented the Sikh voice not meekly but
forcefully and shamed the government for giving gallantry awards to
Army officers who participated in the attack.
One could
nitpick and say that his boss, the late Giani Zail Singh, was
someone who first claimed he had no knowledge about the attack and
later decorated the officers. But it will be pertinent to remember
that Tarlochan Singh was under no pressure to take up the issue, and
when he did take it up, it was not for show.
His tenor, his
tone and the pitch of his voice showed the pain in his heart, and he
let words do the magic. “Sharam aani chahiye,” he was
addressing the Defence Minister. “Gallantry awards kis liye? Kya
Pakistan capture kiya tha? China capture kiya tha?
They killed the Sikhs, that is why you gave them gallantry awards.”
It is not easy
to speak truth to power. It is not easy to speak truth right inside
the power centers. And it is not easy to speak the truth bluntly
when you have no compulsion except the pain in your heart.
That Indian
Parliament’s recesses echoed with words of shame heaped on the
establishment is all the more important since they came when there
is a conspiracy of total silence. Was the 25th anniversary of
Operation Bluestar an event to be taken so lightly the way the
ruling Akali Dal and the SGPC have done? Should there not have been
a built up towards the event and should there not have been a year
long event schedule to mark the occasion?
And should we
not be engaging with the reality of a changed world and understand
and use the new tools, media and knowledge to propagate our point of
view? Dr Mehmood has asked the Sikhs to move into a “more mature
second phase, the hard work of actually making something happen”.
We hail the loud
voice of Tarlochan Singh; it has its place and significance. And we
at the WSN also strongly endorse Dr Mehmood’s call.
17
June 2009
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