WSN pre­sents the story of how a for­mer Dutch For­eign min­is­ter was saved by the Sikhs in In­done­sia dur­ing the Sec­ond World War. The in­ter­view by Bhupin­der Singh Hol­land is one of the se­ries of such in­ter­views con­ducted by him. This is a slice of his­tory which will makes Sikh proud of their her­itage.

Bernard Rudolf “Ben” Bot, a Dutch ca­reer diplo­mat of the Chris­t­ian De­mo­c­ra­tic Ap­peal party rose to be­come the Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs of Hol­land for 4 years from 2003 to 2007. I did not lose time to meet him as soon as I learnt that he was saved by Sikh sol­diers in In­done­sia dur­ing World War II.

Mr. Dolf Kruyt, liv­ing in Hoogeveen, Nether­lands
res­cued by the Sikhs in In­done­sia WW2. In­ter­view by Bhupin­der Singh Hol­land at the Na­tional Mon­u­ment of  World Wars, Dam Square, Am­s­ter­dam.

I pre­sent an in­ter­view with Mr Ben Bot to bring for­ward his ac­knowl­edge­ment of the Sikhs and to re-es­tab­lish the hu­man­i­tar­ian role played by the Sikhs dur­ing the World Wars.

This may come as a sur­prise to the Sikhs. I was amazed to learn dur­ing my in­ter­view that af­ter Japan lost the sec­ond world war, op­po­nents of the Japan­ese were placed in camps. Sikhs freed them from those camps. He (Mr Ben Bot) was merely 9 years old at the time. He was with the Sikh sol­diers for 6 months, where he was well treated, re­ceived clean clothes and food. He praised the Sikhs very much as they were their lib­er­a­tors.

““I am al­ways with the Sikhs” – Ric­chard Rul­doph Ben Bolt, for­mer Dutch For­eign Min­is­ter”

It is pleas­ing to note that this Dutch diplo­mat ac­knowl­edged Sikhs as very nice, peace­ful and hard­work­ing peo­ple and that the Sikh val­ues are very sim­i­lar to Dutch val­ues.

When I men­tioned to him that in June 1984 Dar­bar Sahib -the Golden Tem­ple was in­vaded by the In­dian Army and that many in­no­cent peo­ple were killed, he said that the Dutch gov­ern­ment could not in­ter­fere with in­ter­nal con­flicts as that is the pol­icy of the Dutch gov­ern­ment, how­ever he men­tioned that he knew of the sit­u­a­tion, he saw the pic­tures and he said that the Dutch gov­ern­ment has the sym­pa­thy with the Sikhs. “I am al­ways with the Sikhs” he proudly pro­claimed.

Mrs E. Har­wing, liv­ing in Am­s­ter­dam, rep­re­sent­ing BEGO, Nether­lands which pro­vides help to In­done­sian vic­tims of war  liv­ing in the Nether­lands. In­ter­view by Bhupin­der Singh Hol­land at Gur­d­wara Maan Sarovar Sahib, Nether­lands.

I started my work of chron­i­cling the con­tri­bu­tion, role and mar­tyr­dom of Sikhs in World War I and II nearly two decades back. Since then, I have writ­ten two vol­umes, which give names and other de­tails of thou­sands of Sikhs who laid down their lives in wars, which was not their own.

With the tenac­ity of a Jew look­ing for Nazi crim­i­nals, I have toured ceme­ter­ies in more than 20 coun­tries and met hun­dreds of peo­ple, in­ter­viewed many to un­earth the role of our Sikh sol­diers who came from Pun­jab to an un­known land.

En­joy te tehte-a-tete with Mr Ben Bot, share and do send your feed­back.