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Living in Exile
Gajinder Singh
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 On the
occasion of the 24th anniversary of Operation
Bluestar, revolutionary poet and political activist, Gajinder
Singh goes down memory lane reminiscing events and thoughts that
touched his life in his long sojourn away from homeland
Punjab.
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 I am in exile.
For the last 27 years. Living in exile is a unique journey. Very
few people hurdling through the passage of life are endowed with the
privilege of living through this kind of existence. On June 4, when
we all bow to the martyrdom of Sikhs who laid down their lives in
the 1984 Ghallughara, I wish to share with my fellow Sikhs
the experience of “living in exile”.
Stepping into
the footsteps of adulthood, I penned down a few lines, which set the
difficult passage I was to follow. The lines were,
“I have a
thought, a dream
I am determined
to have” my own house”
I am convinced
that I have to lay down my life.”
In a sense, my
exile started on that day in December 1971, when during the course
of a public meeting of the then Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi at
Dera Bassi, near
Chandigarh, I
openly threw leaflets on the dais and publicly declared my
intentions flowing from the lines that I had penned. Soon after,
giving birth to the historic movement of Dal Khalsa alongwith
colleagues who thought alike further strengthened the campaign to
live a life of ostracism.
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“When does one be ready for such a state –to die for a cause?
“When one goes into exile”. |
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When the events
of June 1984 unfolded, I was within the four walls of a prison. As
news trickled down through BBC radio, I was shattered. I could not
do more than visualize the imagery of a destroyed Akal Takht, the
devilish rulers of the Delhi Durbar and the blood-soaked bodies of
Sikh martyrs. The poet in me could not but say that “the fledgling
Delhi Takht had challenged the Takht of the Almighty”. I also
imagined the bloody days ahead.
I join the
entire Sikh nation in reiterating that the remembrance of June 1984
is an occasion to reaffirm our commitment to the cause for which our
brethren laid down their lives. It is also an opportunity to recall
the brutality of the Indian state.
 Today, when I
pay tribute to all those who bravely fought and attained martyrdom,
I ask myself the question, “When does one be ready for such a state
–to die for a cause? My quick response is, “when one goes into
exile”. To go into exile is a state of mind. The numbers of people
who undergo physical exile may be small, but there is no dearth of
people, either in my nation or in any nation, for whom, living in
exile is actually a way of life.
When I was very
young, my father secured my Sikhi and my mother instilled the
spirit and essence of Sikhi. My key inspiration was Sirdar
Kapur Singh. In a sense, I went into exile the day my mother
educated me about the concept of “sikhi khanneo tikhi- the path
of Sikhi is razor-thin” and the importance and significance of
“my own home”. While I was still studying in
Chandigarh,
I went in search of “my own home”. I went “into exile.” Since then,
I have lived life thus. For the last two decades and more, I have
had virtually no contact with my family, wife and daughter.
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The journey of going “into exile” and the path from exile to
freedom for any individual or nation has to be a long, painful
and arduous one. It has been so for the Sikhs in the past and
even today it is so. |
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Though the
numbers may be small, there are people –men and women, young and old
in our community who are living in exile. They physically dwell
where they are, but their heart and mind is somewhere else.
Exigencies of life force us to bid our time in search of the “my own
home”. The pressures of life make us spend a lot of our time,
resources and energies into directions we actually do not want to
spend. We are waiting. Still, we are dreamers, living with hope and
more hope.
Do you think you
are alone in this voyage? Am I alone? Was I alone? Sometimes these
questions bother us. Persecution is a worldwide phenomenon. It is
the privilege of the few who listen to the voice of their conscience
to fight persecution. From
Palestine to
Kashmir, from Tibet to Sri Lanka, from Nagaland and Manipur to
Burma, the search for “my own home” goes on. So, are we alone? Well,
there is only one Dalai Llama in this world. There is only one Aang
San Sui Kyi in Burma, one Syed Ali Shah Gilani in Kashmir, one
Prabakharan in Tamil Eelam and we had only one Sant Jarnail Singh
Bhindranwale in Punjab. They are all conscience keepers of their
respective nations. We are all co-travellers. We all have one
destination. I am not alone. You are not alone.
 The journey of
going “into exile” and the path from exile to freedom for any
individual or nation has to be a long, painful and arduous one. It
has been so for the Sikhs in the past and even today it is so.
Times and
technologies have changed. The geo-political realities of the Indian
sub-continent have also changed. A substantial portion of the Sikh
nation’s demands to the Indian state have become infructuous as
technology has overtaken events. Substantial barriers have broken
down. Still, it is not time to relinquish our search as a majority
of our own people may think and want. Years of governance under
colonialism may have numbed us but the facade cannot be assumed to
be reality. Truth will strike the Sikh nation when they become
masters of their own destiny under a dispensation which unlike the
present one is free and fair. It is time that a meeting of minds
takes place of all those who are “living in exile”.
Have the times
really changed? In 1981,
Afghanistan was
under Soviet rule and now it is under
US
domination. Soviet Russia is only Russia today and there is a huge
increase in the UN membership. Like men, nations too have their
fate. It is a fact of history that there are nations who have been
struggling for centuries without result and others, whose names
people do not know, are independent.
During the
course of the present phase of life, many a friend has posed this to
me, “Don’t you feel like “going home”? My reply has been, “which
home –the one which has rendered me stateless and forced me into
“living in exile”?
4
June,
2008
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