With barely a few hun­dred Afghan Sikhs and Hin­dus left in the coun­try, an en­tire bunch of the brave and coura­geous Sikh lead­er­ship and Hin­dus killed by a sui­cide bomber while they were on their way to meet the Afghan Pres­i­dent Ashraf Ghani.  As Sikhs protest world­wide, they seek an­swers from the Mus­lim world as to how have Sikhs sud­denly be­come en­e­mies? 

Kabul de rehn walya lahi nitt muhima -Those who re­side in Kabul are al­ways in a strug­gle for sur­vival. This is a phrase to de­scribe Sikhs in a dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion and how they have to make con­tin­u­ous ef­forts to sur­vive and grow. What more de­scribes the sta­tus of Afghan Sikhs to­day?

10 Sikhs in­clud­ing Afghan Par­lia­men­tary can­di­date Av­tar Singh Khalsa and Gur­d­wara leader Rawail Singh and 7 Hin­dus died and nearly 2 dozen peo­ple wounded in a sui­cide bomb at­tack in Jalal­abad, tar­get­ing a bus-load of Sikh and Hindu lead­ers on their way to meet the Afghan Pres­i­dent. Un­doubt­edly, who­ever did it was seized with the de­sire to rid Afghanistan of its in­clu­sive cul­ture and so­ci­ety by killing these lead­ers and send­ing a mes­sage to the Sikh and Hindu pop­u­la­tion that they are not wanted in pre­sent day Afghanistan, demon­strat­ing the rea­sons for the dwin­dling of Sikh and Hindu num­bers from thou­sands to a few hun­dred.

Av­tar Singh Khalsa would have been the first Sikh in Afghan par­lia­ment this Oct. Deeply sad­dened. He was mar­tyred in a cow­ardly ter­ror at­tack. An ecosys­tem which uti­lizes ter­ror as an in­stru­ment to achieve dif­fer­ent ob­jec­tives is in & of it­self doomed to fail. (1/​4) pic.twit­ter.com/​zTO9rY0LRC

— Hard­eep Singh Puri (@Hard­eep­SPuri) July 2, 2018

The re­silience of those killed can be gauged from the fact that they chose to be there to look af­ter the re­main­ing Sikh re­li­gious places of wor­ship –the Gur­d­waras and tem­ples, as thou­sands of Afghan Sikhs and Hin­dus have taken refuge in Aus­tria, other parts of Eu­rope, United King­dom, USA, Canada and In­dia.

 Also view: HINDU KUSH TO THAMES

Let it be known that ten coura­geous Sikh lead­ers were killed. Liv­ing in the face of death every day, they were on their way to meet Afghan Pres­i­dent Ashraf Ghani. An en­tire gen­er­a­tion of Afghan Sikh lead­er­ship has been wiped out in one day. It will take a long time, if that time will come to bridge the gap and pro­duce such lead­ers again. 

“The re­silience of those killed can be gauged from the fact that they chose to be there to look af­ter the re­main­ing Sikh re­li­gious places of wor­ship –the Gur­d­waras and tem­ples, as thou­sands of Afghan Sikhs and Hin­dus have taken refuge in Aus­tria, other parts of Eu­rope, United King­dom, USA, Canada and In­dia.”

World­wide Sikhs have con­demned the das­tardly in­hu­man at­tack wip­ing out a full gen­er­a­tion of Sikh lead­er­ship. Com­ment­ing on the sit­u­a­tion in the geo-po­lit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in Afghanistan, Dal Khalsa leader Kan­warpal Singh has stated that “Afghanistan is an open bat­tle­field with too many stake­hold­ers, with no di­rect line of au­thor­ity and with mul­ti­ple coun­tries and agen­cies play­ing havoc with the lives of the peo­ple of all re­li­gions and re­gions.”

He fur­ther said that, “We fully com­pre­hend that we are the Sikhs are not the only ones who are un­der at­tack, even the Mus­lim com­mu­nity is.”

Anup Singh And Eqbaal Singh Khalsa were among those killed in to­day's Jalal­abad sui­cide bomb­ing at­tack­ing Av­tar Singh Khal­sa's cam­pain rally. Av­tar Singh Khalsa, a par­lia­men­tary can­di­date from Kabul died along with 19 oth­ers, out of which 10 were Sikh broth­ers. pic.twit­ter.com/​qH7aXkrKvk

— 𝙎. 𝙈𝙪𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙛𝙖 𝙆𝙖𝙯𝙚𝙢𝙞 (@Com­bat­Journo) July 1, 2018

Sig­nif­i­cantly, the land of Jalal­abad has been con­se­crated with the foot­steps of the First Mas­ter Guru Nanak Sahib. Talk­ing about Jalal­abad where this bomb­ing and killings took place, travel writer Gur­preet Singh Anand says that “Jalal­abad was im­mor­talised by the Sikhs in the First Afghan War when nearly a six-month long siege was laid to it in 1842.” Ac­cord­ing to him, apart from the re­li­gious an­gle of Mus­lim su­pe­ri­or­ity, the Sikhs sup­port for Pakhtunistan, the an­nex­a­tion of Pe­shawar and its sub­se­quent amal­ga­ma­tion into Pak­istan may be seen as ma­jor ir­ri­tants be­tween the Afghans and the Sikhs.

 Also Read: Wel­come to Kabul via Southall, Lon­don

To­day, Afghan Sikhs are sad and an­gry. They have been cry­ing hoarse for the last three decades that the state does not al­low them to cre­mate their dead bod­ies and all cre­ma­tion takes place within the Gur­d­wara premises.  Sikh bod­ies across the globe have failed to per­suade the Afghan gov­ern­ment or the mil­i­tant out­fits to do away with their wrong ap­proach. No­body has re­minded them that the Hezb-i-Is­lami leader Gul­bud­din Hek­mat­yar, once a pow­er­ful mil­i­tant leader and now an in­ter­locu­tor with the pre­sent gov­ern­ment had “recog­nised” the Sikh right to a sep­a­rate Sikh state.  

“Kabul de rehn walya lahi nitt muhima –Those who re­side in Kabul are al­ways in a strug­gle for sur­vival.”

Pow­er­ful Sikh lead­ers of the West need to lobby the US, the UN and through these in­sti­tu­tions the Afghanistan gov­ern­ment and other lead­ers to en­sure that no more Sikh lives are lost though I won­der whether any of them would still stay back. The Pres­i­dent of the Global Sikh Coun­cil, Kan­waljit Kaur in a state­ment is­sued in Lon­don has said, “GSC re­quests the Afghan Pres­i­dent to pro­vide bet­ter se­cu­rity for Sikhs and other mi­nori­ties and pay ad­e­quate com­pen­sa­tion to the be­reaved fam­i­lies. GSC will pe­ti­tion the US am­bas­sador to UN -Ms. Nikki Ha­ley urg­ing im­me­di­ate US State De­part­ment in­ter­ven­tion to se­cure mi­nor­ity com­mu­ni­ties in Afghanistan.”

The SGPC and DS­GMC will be hold­ing a sit-in out­side the Afghanistan High Com­mis­sion in Delhi on 3 July 2018.

As we up­load the story, me­dia re­ports sug­gest that the rad­i­cal Is­lam body -the Is­lamic State has claimed re­spon­si­bil­ity and has said that, “it had tar­geted a group of poly­the­ists.” It is a tragedy that with the Sikhs by their side for cen­turies, the Is­lamic State has not un­der­stand that Sikhism like Is­lam is purely monothe­is­tic.

 Also view: Ex­hi­bi­tion | Sikh His­tor­i­cal Shrines, Peo­ple & Places of Afghanistan

It is heart­en­ing to note that the United Na­tions has quickly re­sponded by say­ing, ….. The Prime Min­is­ter of In­dia Naren­dra Modi has tweeted his con­dem­na­tion, of course, with­out men­tion­ing whether they are Sikhs or Hin­dus. He has the knack of mak­ing con­dem­na­tions and as­sur­ances to mi­nori­ties with­out men­tion­ing names.

While it may be true that Kabul de rehn walya lahi nitt muhima –Those who re­side in Kabul are al­ways in a strug­gle for sur­vival. , it also more than true that Je Kudhi de pekke tagdhe honn te phir dar­ran di ja­roorat nahi hondi –if the par­ents side of the bride are strong and de­ter­mined, there is noth­ing to fear from the boy’s side. One young Sikh writer on his face­book page writes that to­day once again he de­sires for “our own Sikh state.” An­other says, “Since last night, I am re­call­ing the deeds of Hari Singh Nalwa.”  

“Sikh bod­ies across the globe have failed to per­suade the Afghan gov­ern­ment or the mil­i­tant out­fits to do away with their wrong ap­proach.”

The life and times of the West may make it dif­fi­cult for them to come back, but these de­vout Sikhs who know how to live and how to die will res­ur­rect them from the pre­sent sit­u­a­tion and one day soon will re-es­tab­lish their foothold in Kabul and other parts of Afghanistan. 

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To­day, the par­ents’ side of the Sikh Di­as­pora –the Pun­jab is a weak and wa­ver­ing ship, try­ing to find its own foothold. How will it pro­tect oth­ers? I can only say that the Sikhs of Kabul have the spe­cial bless­ings of the Tenth Mas­ter –Guru Gob­ind Singh – “Sar­bat San­gat Kabul Guru Rakhega.  Tu­san utte asadhi bahut khushi hai.”