March­ing through the streets of old city Am­rit­sar, around Dar­bar Sahib from Bhai Gur­das Hall, in the Geno­cide Re­mem­brance March, to com­mem­o­rate the In­dian army at­tack in June 1984, Dal Khalsa cadre -men and women with kids in tow, car­ried kesri flags and plac­ards and raised pro-Sikh in­de­pen­dence slo­gans, on the eve of 6 June 1984,  la­belled as Khal­is­tan Day by the pro-Sikh in­de­pen­dence party.  Per­form­ing prayers at the Golden Tem­ple, they re­it­er­ated their re­solve to achieve the goal of Sikh in­de­pen­dence through peace­ful and de­mo­c­ra­tic means. WSN re­ports.

AS A SEC­TION OF THE SIKH COM­MU­NITY LEAD­ER­SHIP -from the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal, which wants to adopt a pro-Sikh stance, with an eye on Pun­jab As­sem­bly elec­tions, six months from now, to the var­i­ous new out­fits like Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal (United) and the Aam Aadmi Party, who are re­viv­ing the over­tones of fed­er­al­ism as an at­tempt to solve the vexed Sikh ques­tion or what is gen­er­ally un­der­stood as the Pun­jab prob­lem, the rev­o­lu­tion­ary groups in Pun­jab con­sider them as rene­gades of the Sikh re­li­gio-po­lit­i­cal move­ment for jus­tice and right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion.

Two days ago, in a rather petty at­tempt to gain brownie points amongst the Sikh San­gat and also to po­lit­i­cal counter the Barghari sac­ri­lege neg­a­tive nar­ra­tive against the SGPC and the Badal Dal, SGPC Pres­i­dent Ja­gir Kaur dis­played the bul­let-rid­den hand-writ­ten Guru Granth Sahib. This cal­ligraphed ver­sion was hit by the bul­let of an In­dian sol­dier di­rected at Dar­bar Sahib.

Some­body has to ask, “why did it take 37 years for dis­play­ing this Guru Granth Sahib? If the walls have been re­painted and the bul­let holes on walls filled in with mor­tar and mud, what at­tempts did the SGPC make to cu­rate this copy of the revered Guru of the Sikhs?

Against the back­drop of Sikh mar­tyr­dom and the pseudo-stance of the Badal Dal and the SGPC con­trolled by it, Dal Khalsa, at the protest march to pay homage to the mar­tyrs of June 1984, ap­pealed to Sikhs around the world to ob­serve 6 June as Khal­is­tan Day, re­it­er­at­ing that “in­de­pen­dence and not fed­eral au­ton­omy is the yearn­ing of the Sikh peo­ple and a per­ma­nent so­lu­tion to the fet­ter­ing Pun­jab prob­lem.”

Speaker af­ter speaker at the func­tion paid rich trib­utes to the mar­tyrs of June 1984 and vowed to carry for­ward the dream of be­ing mas­ters of their own des­tiny. Dal Khalsa made a “solemn com­mit­ment that the strug­gle for the ful­fil­ment of am­bi­tions and as­pi­ra­tions of the com­mu­nity would be taken to its log­i­cal con­clu­sion.”

The pain and the an­guish caused by the events of June 1984 was pal­pa­bly vis­i­ble on the faces of the mar­tyrs and the young ladies were al­most in tears ap­pre­ci­at­ing and ad­mir­ing the mar­tyr­dom of those who de­fended Dar­bar Sahib dur­ing the In­dian army’s full-scale at­tack.

Dal Khalsa pres­i­dent Harpal Singh Cheema said: “Thirty-seven years ago, with the at­tack on the Golden Tem­ple, the foun­da­tion stone for an in­de­pen­dent state was laid. The sen­ti­ments of sov­er­eignty that were strength­ened by the army at­tack have not been buried with the pas­sage of time and change in the po­lit­i­cal sce­nario.”

He told the San­gat that these were not his words but that of Sant Jar­nail Singh Bhin­dran­wale, who in his 27 March 1983 speech, months be­fore the at­tack on Dar­bar Sahib had said, “The day the po­lice will at­tack this place (Dar­bar Sahib), it will be­come an ex­am­ple for the world. On that day, Khal­is­tan will def­i­nitely be a re­al­ity”.

“Those de­mand­ing de­vo­lu­tion of more pow­ers and fed­er­al­ism are lead­ing us to a mi­rage and theirs is a clear di­ver­sion­ary tac­tic. These are at­tempts to de­vi­ate the peo­ple from the pro-in­de­pen­dence stance and tire them out,” stated Dal Khalsa leader Har­cha­ran­jit Singh Dhami.

Pres­i­dent of Sikh Youth of Pun­jab Paramjit Singh Mand was blunt in his at­tack on those harp­ing on fed­er­al­ism, whether they are old-horses, tra­di­tional Akali groups or new po­lit­i­cal en­trants. He said the In­dian state is not go­ing to de­volve power as sought by the Akali Dal and other re­gional par­ties. On the con­trary, the state is on a cen­tral­i­sa­tion spree, with its fas­cist Hin­dutva char­ac­ter.

“The cur­rent In­dian state un­der Naren­dra Modi was trans­form­ing, to­wards more cen­tral­i­sa­tion and more Hin­duiza­tion. In that con­text to ask for de­vo­lu­tion, in our views, was sim­ply ridicu­lous,” he added.

Fam­ily mem­bers of the mar­tyrs of June 1984 were also pre­sent at the pub­lic demon­stra­tion.  Sat­want Kaur, daugh­ter of Bhai Am­rik Singh, the brother of Gen­eral Subeg Singh, who died fight­ing as one of the lead­ers of the war­riors in­side Dar­bar Sahib com­plex -Jaswant Singh also ex­pressed their views on the In­dian army op­er­a­tion and how it has af­fected the com­mu­nity and their fam­i­lies.

Speak­ing to this cor­re­spon­dent, Dal Khalsa spokesper­son Kan­war Pal Singh said, “The BJP asked for the In­dian army at­tack, the then rul­ing Con­gress party car­ried it out and un­mis­tak­ably, a ma­jor­ity of In­di­ans rev­elled in it.”

“On­wards to Sikh in­de­pen­dence, no turn­ing back to re­gres­sive fed­er­al­ism.”