In a stir­ring dis­play of sol­i­dar­ity and re­silience, the Sikh com­mu­nity, led by Gi­ani Ragh­bir Singh,  Jathedar Akal Takht, and Dal Khalsa ac­tivists, gath­ered at the Akal Takht to mark two somber years since the shock­ing sac­ri­lege at­tempt at Dar­bar Sahib on this day 18 De­cem­ber 2021. This gath­er­ing, tran­scend­ing mere re­mem­brance, emerged as a pow­er­ful call for jus­tice and strength. WSN re­ports.

Jathedar Gi­ani Ragh­bir Singh, em­body­ing the com­mu­ni­ty’s per­sis­tent quest for an­swers and ac­count­abil­ity, im­plored di­vine in­ter­ven­tion to re­veal the cul­prits be­hind the heinous act when in 2021, an un­known per­son jumped the rails and at­tempted to des­e­crate the holi­est of holy spots in­side the sanc­tum sanc­to­rum of Dar­bar Sahib -Golden Tem­ple, Am­rit­sar.

Dal Khalsa ac­tivists also staged a peace­ful sit-in out­side the Golden Tem­ple com­plex. Their protest, a poignant hour of re­flec­tion, un­der­scored the gov­ern­ment of In­di­a’s fail­ure to un­mask those re­spon­si­ble for the sac­ri­lege and ex­posed the in­ad­e­qua­cies of the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion

As de­vout Sikhs, the con­gre­ga­tion im­plored Akal Pu­rakh to re­veal the iden­ti­ties and in­ten­tions of those be­hind the sac­ri­lege and to pro­vide di­vine strength to our fu­ture gen­er­a­tions in their pur­suit of jus­tice.

To­day’s Ar­das is not only a re­mem­brance but also a uni­fied call for strength and per­se­ver­ance till jus­tice is done. 

Singh Sahib Gi­ani Ragh­bir Singh, Jathedar Akal Takht 

Harpal Singh Cheema, Dal Khal­sa’s pres­i­dent, and spokesman Paramjit Singh Mand voiced their con­cerns, de­scrib­ing the in­ci­dent as a di­rect at­tack on the Sikh com­mu­nity, ex­e­cuted in­di­rectly.

“The de­lib­er­ate and cal­cu­lated na­ture of this act, along with re­cent ex­tra­ju­di­cial killings of Sikh lead­ers in Canada, the plac­ing of the re­lease of Sikh po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers’ or­der of 2019 on the back burner, sug­gests a con­certed covert at­tempt to at­tack and un­der­mine the Sikh com­mu­nity on all fronts at every level,” said party pres­i­dent Ad­vo­cate Harpal Singh Cheema.

They drew con­nec­tions to broader pat­terns of ag­gres­sion against Sikhs, in­clud­ing ex­tra­ju­di­cial transna­tional killings and the ne­glect of Sikh po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers. These ac­tions, they ar­gued, paint a pic­ture of a tar­geted cam­paign against the com­mu­nity.

“The lack of progress in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and the height­ened tar­get­ing of Sikhs post the farm­ers’ move­ment in­di­cate a pos­si­ble col­lu­sion of var­i­ous pow­er­ful en­ti­ties, in­clud­ing el­e­ments of In­di­a’s deep state and Hin­dutva ide­o­logues in­im­i­cal to Sikh val­ues and rights.”

Kan­war Pal Singh, an­other leader of the party, high­lighted the in­ef­fi­cacy of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, even with ad­vanced bio­met­ric tech­nolo­gies at the dis­posal of the Pun­jab Po­lice. The con­tin­ued anonymity of the ac­cused casts doubt on the sin­cer­ity and ef­fi­ciency of the au­thor­i­ties in­volved.

Paramjit Singh Mand shed light on the con­cept of the “deep state”, an opaque power struc­ture tran­scend­ing po­lit­i­cal changes, be­lieved to be ac­tively work­ing against Sikh in­ter­ests. This, cou­pled with the re­cent in­ter­na­tional cen­sure of In­di­a’s ac­tions, of­fers a dis­turb­ing glimpse into the chal­lenges faced by the Sikh com­mu­nity.

Ex­plain­ing the se­cre­tive na­ture of the “deep state”, party spokesper­son Paramjit Singh Mand said it con­sists of a se­cre­tive power struc­ture and a par­al­lel sys­tem of gov­er­nance com­pris­ing the po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship, bu­reau­cracy, and the se­cret cells of the po­lice, para­mil­i­tary, mil­i­tary, and in­tel­li­gence net­work with un­ques­tion­able pow­ers and unau­dited bud­gets.

Such a net­work ex­ists in all gov­ern­ments across the world, he said, and added that Dal Khalsa be­lieved that af­ter the at­tack on Dar­bar Sahib in June 1984, a Shadow Net­work is per­sist­ing across gov­ern­ments -ir­re­spec­tive of the po­lit­i­cal party in power, which in­dulges in con­spir­a­cies to pur­sue a de­fined anti-Sikh agenda lo­cally and glob­ally.

For­mer head H S Dhami stressed the in­ter­na­tional reper­cus­sions of these ac­tions, urg­ing the global Sikh com­mu­nity to rec­og­nize and con­front these covert forces. He lamented In­di­a’s tran­si­tion from a cel­e­brated democ­racy to an au­thor­i­tar­ian state, high­light­ing the im­pli­ca­tions for mi­nor­ity rights and free­doms.

“Luck­ily for the Sikhs, re­cent de­vel­op­ments across the world in­clud­ing the US in­dict­ment and US­CIRF ask­ing the State De­part­ment to des­ig­nate In­dia as a coun­try of par­tic­u­lar con­cern, Canada say­ing that it has cred­i­ble ev­i­dence on the floor of the Cana­dian Par­lia­ment have laid bare these ne­far­i­ous de­signs. An­other fea­ture that lends cre­dence to this is the tran­si­tion of In­dia from the much-touted largest democ­racy in the world to an au­thor­i­tar­ian ma­jori­tar­ian state,” he added.

The pro­test­ers ques­tioned the cred­i­bil­ity and ef­fec­tive­ness of po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion and in­tel­li­gence. Hold­ing plac­ards they termed the sac­ri­lege as a state-spon­sored stealthy at­tack on Guru Granth and Guru Panth.

Dal Khal­sa’s im­pas­sioned plea for jus­tice and recog­ni­tion of these grave in­ci­dents by the au­thor­i­ties re­flects a com­mu­nity united against in­jus­tice and de­ter­mined to safe­guard its rights and dig­nity.