We are wit­ness to his­tory re­peat­ing it­self in Delhi. The mon­u­men­tal gath­er­ing of Pan­jaab on the doors of Delhi (Dheli says the au­thor) epit­o­mises the great Khalsa Army’s de­ci­sion on 10 De­cem­ber 1845 (start of An­glo-Sikh War) to launch the of­fen­sive against the ever more en­croach­ing British In­dia power, keen to con­sume the last re­main­ing do­min­ion of in­de­pen­dence into its ex­pan­sive em­pire, says British ac­tivist-writer Jagdeesh Singh. This Pan­jaabi Na­tional Mor­cha, the ex­pand­ing re­bel­lion by the Pan­jaabi farm­ers, ex­em­pli­fies the his­tor­i­cally en­dur­ing Pan­jaabi spirit of re­sis­tance, courage and de­fi­ance.

ON 10 DE­CEM­BER 1845, ON THAT HIS­TORIC DAY 175 YEARS EAR­LIER, the glo­ri­ous braves of the sov­er­eign, in­de­pen­dent Pan­jaab na­tion, which had fought and achieved its free coun­try and gov­er­nance, took the brave de­ci­sion to stop the de­vi­ous British In­dian in­tru­sion in its tracks.

The on­go­ing ex­pand­ing re­bel­lion by the Pan­jaabi farm­ers ex­em­pli­fies the his­tor­i­cally en­dur­ing Pan­jaabi spirit of re­sis­tance, courage and de­fi­ance against over­pow­er­ing gov­ern­ments and states and a readi­ness to en­ter into a fear­less head-on dis­sent and bat­tle. This in­di­vid­ual and col­lec­tive defin­ing, in­dige­nous char­ac­ter­is­tic of the Pan­jaabi, sub­stan­tially en­hanced and fine-tuned by the Ten Gu­rus into the model of a ‘saint-sol­dier’; has made its sawa-lakh pres­ence felt through­out his­tory to the cur­rent times.

The sha­heeds -mar­tyrs, from Banda Singh Ba­hadur to Baba Deep Singh to Bhai Garja Singh and Bota Singh to the cur­rent Bhai Jar­nail Singh Bhin­dran­wale and Jaswant Singh Kalra; rep­re­sent an end­less stream of the power within the Pan­jaabi-Sikh char­ac­ter and na­tion.

The Ten Gu­rus taught and in­spired us to be an eth­i­cal, free and em­pow­ered peo­ple, nei­ther sub­or­di­nate nor sub­ju­gated.

Raaj Karega Khaalsa! Degh o Tegh o Fateh!

Demon­stra­bly, the in­dige­nous Pan­jaabi DNA, in­fused and en­hanced by Sikh ide­al­ism, has made the for­mer into a phe­nom­e­nal force for good and jus­tice. Pan­jaabi and Sikhi are an in­ter­wo­ven in­dige­nous force to be reck­oned with.

The cur­rent Pan­jaabi farm­ers protests against the su­per­im­pos­ing, dra­con­ian laws is­sued by the In­dian cen­tral­ist gov­ern­ment, to cre­ate an all-In­dia wide open arena for cor­po­rate in­tru­sion and in­va­sion into the al­ready mas­sively un­sup­ported and hugely vul­ner­a­ble in­dige­nous farm­ing sec­tor: is, again, the rise of the Pan­jaabi-Sikh spirit to the fore­front. Demon­stra­bly, oth­ers have joined in the back of this.

The vivid im­ages of the Pan­jaabis women, Ni­hangs, Sar­daars and farm­ers march­ing for­ward to the Dheli cap­i­tal of the rogue In­dian state, break­ing through mul­ti­ple In­dian po­lice and para­mil­i­tary-style bar­ri­cades and sys­tem­at­i­cally dug holes on the road plus high-in­ten­sity wa­ter be­ing pro­jected as a weapon on the farm­ers cou­pled with the usual hands-on po­lice lathi vi­o­lence. This is all, a stun­ning demon­stra­tion to the world of the de­mo­c­ra­tic power and spirit of the Pan­jaabi na­tion. Even more so, the en­tire Pan­jaabi na­tion, as be­fore, have gal­vanised to­gether both in Pan­jaab, across In­dia and abroad: in sol­i­dar­ity with our cham­pi­ons of the soil, the food-pro­duc­ing back-bone of our in­dige­nous econ­omy and deeply con­nected prac­ti­tion­ers of Pan­jaab’s in­dige­nous farm­ing won­ders!

The cur­rent mor­cha is more than just a ‘farm­ers’ mat­ter. It is about the qual­ity of farm­ing and farm­ing in­come in Pan­jaab, and much more! It is about the soul of Pan­jaab. 

The four-month-long mam­moth ag­i­ta­tion, orig­i­nat­ing in Pan­jaab, and now gath­er­ing sup­port from other re­gions: has now proven to the world its com­mit­ment to take the strug­gle to the door-step of In­dian power. This is a mod­ern-day David ver­sus Go­liath. Peo­ple against the Gov­ern­ment.

The 200,000 or so gath­ered and united in Dheli, with their in­dige­nous Guru Ka Lan­gar, their evoca­tive Sikh slo­gans, their won­drous Sha­heed mem­o­ries (past and pre­sent), their pas­sion, their readi­ness to stand and keen­ness to die: to bear the brunt of In­di­a’s on­go­ing sav­age re­sponse and saint-sol­diers.

This mon­u­men­tal gath­er­ing of Pan­jaab on the doors of Dheli, epit­o­mises the great Khaalsa Army’s de­ci­sion on 10th De­cem­ber 1845 to launch the of­fen­sive against the ever more en­croach­ing British In­dia power, keen to con­sume the last re­main­ing do­min­ion of in­de­pen­dence into its ex­pan­sive em­pire.

On that his­toric day 175 years ear­lier (start of First Ango-Pan­jaab War) , the glo­ri­ous braves of the sov­er­eign, in­de­pen­dent Pan­jaab na­tion, which had fought and achieved its free coun­try and gov­er­nance; took the brave de­ci­sion to stop the de­vi­ous British In­dian in­tru­sion in its tracks. The Khalsa Army crossed the ar­ti­fi­cial re­stric­tive bound­ary im­posed by the British of the Sut­lej river and en­tered into the Pan­jaabi ter­ri­to­ries in south­ern Pan­jaab, where the British were sta­tioned and ready to launch a mil­i­tary on­slaught on the north­ern Pan­jaabi state.

This coura­geous act was to trig­ger the fa­mous First An­glo-Pan­jaab War, which ran from 1845-1846, It trag­i­cally re­sulted in the mil­i­tary and po­lit­i­cal de­feat of the Pan­jaabi na­tion; not least with the ac­tive con­nivance of the no­to­ri­ous Do­gras, Pa­tialas and other treach­er­ous seg­ments (the ear­lier equiv­a­lents of the Badals and many more) of that time who aligned them­selves with the British am­bi­tions and plans to take over and con­sume Pan­jaab into the British In­dia gi­ant.

Like other treach­er­ous fig­ures across the map of South Asia, the Do­gras and Pa­tialas pro­vided the re­quired lu­bri­ca­tion to en­able and fa­cil­i­tate British plans to be im­ple­mented and se­cured, even when mil­i­tary suc­cess was not cer­tain and even in mo­ments of an ac­tual mil­i­tary de­feat by this most for­mi­da­ble op­po­si­tion that the British had ever en­coun­tered. Es­pi­onage, treach­ery, con­nivance is a won­der­ful tool in the de­struc­tion of na­tions and states. One which the British strate­gists used with im­mense adept­ness to se­cure British In­dia, fight­ing off fel­low Eu­ro­pean con­tenders like the French, Dutch and Por­tuguese.

The cur­rent mor­cha is more than just a ‘farm­ers’ mat­ter. It is about the qual­ity of farm­ing and farm­ing in­come in Pan­jaab, and much more! It is about the soul of Pan­jaab. Jus­tice, free­dom and in­de­pen­dence from the sav­age poli­cies of the over­sized In­dian state, since 1947, which has been both ex­ploit­ing Pan­jaab and de­plet­ing and di­min­ish­ing Pan­jaab on every kind of level. Pan­jaab cer­tainly does not de­serve any more In­dian in­jus­tice!

The power, punch and pas­sion of the re­bel­lion of a state­less and sub­ju­gated peo­ple, and their col­lec­tive will to take on a state which is mul­ti­ply more pow­er­ful on so many lev­els: per­fectly epit­o­mises the en­dur­ing psy­chol­ogy of the Pan­jaabi peo­ple never to ac­cept de­feat or sup­pres­sion. To fight back and try again, even when mil­i­tar­ily and po­lit­i­cally emas­cu­lated. To change and break out of the cir­cum­stances.

This rounded and ro­bust spirit of a peo­ple, who have seen so much agony, geno­cide, up­heavals, par­ti­tions, mam­moth dis­place­ments and po­lit­i­cal con­niv­ing and ma­noeu­vring over them by oth­ers; re­mains ready to reach out for that stolen free­dom and in­de­pen­dence. To be able to stand and walk on our two feet. To be able to gov­ern and de­cide our own de­vel­op­ment, in our own way. To sell our in­dige­nous pro­duce around the world mar­kets, as far as the United King­dom and Canada and Eu­rope. To build our econ­omy, ed­u­ca­tional in­sti­tu­tions and pub­lic in­fra­struc­ture to a world-class level. To have our sports teams per­form in the Olympics. To have our peo­ple en­joy a dig­ni­fied and fi­nan­cially se­cure life, which they so pos­i­tively de­serve through their la­bo­ri­ous hard-work and sweat and blood. To have a high-qual­ity army, ready and equipped to counter and de­ci­sively de­feat any mil­i­tary at­tack.

The re­sult of the pre­sent up­ris­ing is def­i­nitely likely to be dif­fer­ent than that of the An­glo-Sikh war. To­day’s con­flict be­tween the Pan­jaabi farm­ers and the In­dian state epit­o­mises all the fac­tors of the above war of in­de­pen­dence for Pan­jaab.
May the cur­rent mor­cha take us Pan­jaabis for­ward to new heights and lev­els on the en­dur­ing jour­ney to un­shackle our­selves from the dol­drums of the In­dian sub­ju­ga­tion, and rise as a free, in­de­pen­dent na­tion in the world.

Those great sol­diers who crossed the Sut­lej on 10th De­cem­ber 1845, did so with the death-de­fy­ing mis­sion to bol­ster and pro­tect the cher­ished coun­try and in­de­pen­dence that his­tory, ex­pe­ri­ence, strug­gle, na­ture and Wa­he­guru had given to de­serv­ing and wor­thy peo­ple.

175 years on, let us re­main in­vig­o­rated and fo­cussed on restor­ing that lost coun­try, and re-achiev­ing that dig­nity and great qual­ity of life which we had be­fore as a free, in­de­pen­dent, sov­er­eign peo­ple.

The feel­ings and sen­ti­ments of the above are man­i­fest and vo­cal in the cur­rent full-scale Pan­jaabi na­tional mor­cha! Raaj Karega Khaalsa! Degh o Tegh o Fateh!