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The Memories and A Memorial
A score and four
years ago, the Sikh community saw the face of the official Indian
nation state establishment. An establishment represented by the
hegemonic forces of Congress, BJP and their many avatars. It also
saw the bankruptcy of its own leadership, just as it saw the
sterling stuff of some of its brightest sons and daughters.
A score and four
years thence, we know very well that the end of history shall never
be. But lessons we must learn from history. Every anniversary of
Operation Bluestar we hear the deafening silence of what is not
heard, and it shocks any disinterested student of history. The
ruling Akali Dal led by Parkash Singh Badal is busy making a
transition into the mould of Sukhbir Singh Badal. Missing from the
idiom of politics are any references, debate points, thought-markers
to those years of politics in Punjab that singed its finest, scarred
the socio-cultural milieu and psyche and saw the rise of the
brahamanical hold over even the party formed for the welfare of the
Khalsa panth.
Over the years,
we have seen even the better men and women dissipating their
energies in little turf wars or mistimed squabbles over theological
issues. As the panth witnesses internecine wars over Dasam Granth,
the RSS is making inroads and dear Sardar Badal is chanting Hare
Krishna Hare Rama and educating the community about preserving
heritage. His visits to Lord Parshuram temples are not even
commented upon anymore.
Jab lag Khalsa
rahe nayara… Any quom that disowns its legacy is condemned to live
in a denial mode. And it is a dangerous luxury. The Jews know they
cannot afford that luxury. Rendered homeless for two millennia,
history became their defining feature in the absence of a geography.
For the Jews, the exodus and re-entry into the "Promised Land" are
imbued with sacral meaning.
Sikhs not only
have a history; they had a geography too. But even Maharaja Ranjit
Singh's reign made little effort to preserve the collective memory,
a well-known but rarely recalled fact. Shias indulge in collective
remembrance by annually mourning the martyrdom of Hussain at the
battle of Karbala. The Sikhs recall their troubled history in their
ardas. But we need to keep moving. Our children must learn our
history.
Just as the Jews
are transmitting their experiences in exile. Despite the fact of the
Holocaust, Europe has been having some revisionist history-writing
which seeks to diminish or deny it. Obviously there are political
reasons for such a denial. Denials are already being thrust on us.
Now through silence, soon through revisionist history. It is to
counter such denials that we needed the memorial to the martyrs of
Operation Bluestar. We were promised one, and we have been denied
one. By our own. Those who claim to represent us. Today, 24 years
after Operation Bluestar, we will not see a Parkash Singh Badal
paying tributes before the portrait of the Sant installed by the
SGPC at the Sikh museum. We will not see Sukhbir Singh Badal
exhorting the youth to spread the message of those who went down
fighting during the blistering days of June in 1984 inside the
Darbar Sahib. The ruling Akali Dal will not discuss in its PAC how
to deploy its newly learnt corporate skills in spreading the message
of independent identity markers among the Sikhs.
That is the
assassination of memory. The silence about memorial to Operation
Bluestar's martyrs is an attempt at assassination of memory. Soon, a
generation that lived through the Saka Akal Takht will also pass
away into nothingness. The community needs to pass on the memories,
or it will be condemned to live with the corpses of memories.
Carrying remembrance into the future is like nurturing the seed. As
we have always held, the alternative is too scary: Holocausts are
not only denied, denials also bring holocausts.
4
June,
2008
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