Amidst rad­i­cally dwin­dling num­bers of Sikhs and Hin­dus in Afghanistan, Sar­dar Narinder Pal Singh has been ap­pointed as the new Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment through the mi­nor­ity quota by the Afghan Pres­i­dent Ashraf Ghani Ah­madzai. WSN chron­i­cles Sikh Afghan Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment over the decades.

Des­pite mul­ti­far­i­ous chal­lenges to life, the dras­ti­cally de­creased Sikh and Hindu pop­u­la­tion in Afghanistan, still con­tin­ues to keep the flag fly­ing.

Narinder Pal Singh, the son of Av­tar Singh Khalsa, who was Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment in Afghanistan and who along­with other Afghan Sikh lead­ers and ac­tivists was killed in a sui­cide bomb at­tack nearly a year ago has been nom­i­nated Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment.

Aw­tar Singh Khalsa -Mas­ter Ji, killed to counter Sikh pres­ence

With the num­ber of Sikhs and Hin­dus down from a nearly two lakhs to just un­der a thou­sand, those that re­main are fight­ing a strug­gle to keep their re­li­gious his­tor­i­cal legacy in­tact by guard­ing their Gur­d­waras and Tem­ples.

Sar­dar Jai Singh Fani was the first Sikh Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment in Afghanistan and he was elected as an in­de­pen­dent can­di­date in 1969 dur­ing the reign of King Za­hir Shah.  Sources in the Afghan Sikh com­mu­nity told this writer that when Mo­ham­mad Daud Khan be­came prime min­is­ter by over­throw­ing monar­chy un­der King Za­hir Shah, he rec­og­nized the qual­i­ties of Jai Singh Fani and of­fered him se­nior min­is­ter­ship in the first cab­i­net of the Afghan Re­pub­lic. How­ever, it was not to be as Sar­dar Jai Singh passed away in the flight on­route to  Delhi for his treat­ment. Sub­se­quently, the Afghan Sikhs had Gajin­der Singh Safri as the sec­ond Mem­ber Par­lia­ment from 1988-1992.

Dr Jogin­der Singh Tej Khu­rana was also a mem­ber of the Afghan Grand As­sem­bly and has writ­ten a fore­word of the re­cent book on Afghan Hin­dus and Sikhs, painstak­ingly writ­ten by UK-based In­der­jeet Singh.

 

Dr Anarkali Kaur Honar­yar has been a mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, a mem­ber of the Afghan In­de­pen­dent Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion and in 2009 was Ra­dio Free Eu­rope Afghanistan “Per­son of the Year”.

The Na­tional As­sem­bly of Afghanistan is a bi­cam­eral body, com­pris­ing two cham­bers, Wolesi Jirga or the lower house with 249 seats and Meshrano Jirga or the Up­per House with 102 seats. It was a Pres­i­den­tial de­cree by Pres­i­dent Harmid Karzai, over­rul­ing the Par­lia­ment, on 26 Au­gust 2003, which gave the Sikh and Hindu Afghan na­tion­als rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the lower house of the coun­try’s Par­lia­ment.

While the Afghan Sikh com­mu­nity has wel­comed the ap­point­ment, many Hin­dus and Sikhs rue the fact that they have been mal­treated so much in the last few decades. They are very skep­ti­cal about what Narinder Pal Singh can do un­der such try­ing cir­cum­stances.

Writ­ing on the time­line of Afghan con­tem­po­rary his­tory doc­u­men­tal­ist Prit­pal Singh, the Afghan ac­tivist, founder and di­rec­tor of  ‎Porsesh Re­search and Stud­ies Or­ga­ni­za­tion –Ehsan Shayegan says, “Please do not over-op­ti­mize the sit­u­a­tion by just a photo leaked out on so­cial me­dia. The sit­u­a­tion for Afghan Hindu and Sikhs cit­i­zens is very tragic in Afghanistan. I have trav­elled to dif­fer­ent provinces, vis­ited their homes and con­ducted re­search on them. Pho­tos are po­lit­i­cal pro­pa­ganda. Let’s not for­get how un­fair the Afghan politi­cians have been to our broth­ers and sis­ters -Hin­dus and Sikhs.

Wel­come to Kabul via Southall, Lon­don

Nev­er­the­less, ex­press­ing the Sikh dic­tum of Chardi kala, Prit­pal Singh says, “ever hope­ful.”

PHOTO CREDIT: PRIT­PAL SINGH