Indianism and connected Hinduism is a colonialist, imperialist mindset. Insecure, paranoid and all centred on power, control, consolidation and centralisation. Most academics, journalists, media sources and politicians are too fearful, opportunist, ignorant and expedient to speak out on this. For reasons of expediency, lack of capacity and consciousness, many do not talk about it.
“I am not squeamish about calling these disguised terms what they actually are. I reject both as oppressive, imperialistic and subjugative,” says UK-based self-determinist and Panjaabi nationalist Jagdeesh Singh.

HINDU AND INTRINSICALLY CONNECTED INDIA, are both mutually serving imperialist terms. Both terms and their protagonists and those who conspicuously espouse and advocate these wide-ranging, all-engulfing, umbrella terms; seek to encompass and ‘unify’ all disparate, diverse and even contradictory communities across the map of South Asia under this singular, superimposing categorisation. It serves the inherent, intrinsic imperialistic, controlling, domineering, centralising and singular purpose of Hinduism, India, Indianism and Indianisation.

If they could, they would subsume Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Afghanistan as well! 

India and its arrogant upper-caste Hindu core elite are by default, nature, impulse purpose, practise and design -wired and structured to seek control and superimpose itself all over South Asia. 

Hinduism and Indianism rely on power, control, force and superimposition. They have done so throughout their thousands of years.  Even South Asia has been politically and culturally termed, mislabelled and miscategorized as ‘India’, ‘Hindustan’ and ‘Bharat’ to serve that all-consuming purpose. 

These same forces talk of diversity, but only so long as it is within the context of all-powerful and superimposing Hindu-India and India-Hindu.  It is similar to Hitler’s vision of his European-wide German Third Reich. 

India’s ruling BJP and its 25,000-man (or even more) aggressive RSS -Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh militia (directly founded on the lines of Hitler Youth) express admiration for Hitler’s achievements. Likewise, Hitler expressed admiration for the ordered, controlled, structured society that Hinduism has engendered in India over centuries. He aspired for the same efficient and robust model in Germany. 

By article 25 of the Indian Constitution, all disparate and diverse people across the entire Indian superstate, except Muslims and Christians, are to be treated under law and public administration and in law, as ‘HINDU’. A Sikh of Panjaab marrying in accordance with Sikh rules, traditions and customs, is still issued by Indian public administration and courts with a ‘Hindu Marriage Certificate’ by law. The independent and separate Panjaabi-Sikh Anand Marriage is wholly derecognised in practice. Similarly, Income Tax laws, Succession laws, et al, deem Sikhs to be Hindus.

This superposing, smothering, subjugating extends to much more – language, nationality, politics, cultural independence and the lack of it in all these domains. We are all ‘Indians’ and by default ‘Hindus’, and vice-versa. 

Trying to say you are not, is the equivalent of a criminal act in India. It is seditious. A crime against the state.  Anti-national. All communities, cultures, religions and histories are told by the mighty Indian state and polity, that they are Hindu and Indian. Very neat, tidy and simple. To want to be anything different is anti-Indian and seditious. 

Hindu-India is a suffocating, repressive, caste-oppressing, religiously totalitarian,  control-centric and superimposing block. Calls for referendums in Kashmir, Panjaab, the northeast, have been resisted with the most putrid and brutal Indian political and media rejections and condemnations. If you live under India-Hindu rule, you must be  ‘Indian’ and ‘Hindu’. That is it! Don’t dare to be anything else!

I am positively and ethically anti-Indian and anti-Hindu, not because of any inherent hatred, bias or political inclination, but because of the cruel oppression, genocide, casteism, racism and subjugation -that these labels fundamentally and thoroughly represent. Both are like the white slave traders and colonialists of the past centuries. I am not squeamish and politically correct about stating this politically inconvenient, harsh truth. Plus, I am not in India, so I can speak with some freedom.  

I am inspired by the father of Panjaab, Guru Nanak’s defiant, revolutionary stance in Panjaab in the 15th century when he profoundly and rebelliously declared, ‘I am neither Hindu nor Muslim!’. Guru Nanak and the sequence of rebellious Ten Gurus inspired Panjaab to maintain its unique and distinct identity and fight for its sovereignty -not to subjugate, but for self-rule and to further the good of the teachings of the Gurus and their practices, to no longer be a cultural or hegemonistic colony to the putrefying Hindu gigantism. The Sikh religious scriptures and the history of the Sikhs since the advent of Guru Nanak is testimony to the self-determination of the Sikhs.

Panjaab does not fit into the false, distorted Muslim-Hindu binary on which India and Pakistan, as illegitimate produce of the British India empire were, genocidally and undemocratically created in 1947.  

We are Panjaab! We are Panjaabi. Sikhi is our oxygen and consciousness. That is our crime! That is our consciousness! That is our aspiration!

Jagdeesh Singh is a UK-based social and political activist. A prolific writer -always determined to unsparingly call a spade a spade. He is a staunch protagonist for the right to self-determination of all those who so desire, anywhere on planet earth. He is also a die-hard animal rights campaigner.