Dal Khalsa vet­eran and staunch pro­po­nent of Sikh sov­er­eignty Man­mo­han Singh Khalsa passes away in the wee hours of the morn­ing in Lon­don with his team and sup­port­ers vouch­ing to con­tinue the un­fin­ished task of re­gain­ing Sikh self-rule.

Never say die and never be afraid of any­one were the watch­words of this burly Sikh ac­tivist who fear­ing tor­ture and death made United King­dom his home and con­tin­ued his strug­gle for Sikh sov­er­eignty with­out let up and fear till he passed away in the early hours of to­day af­ter a pro­longed ill­ness.

Since the for­ma­tion of Dal Khalsa in 1978, Man­mo­han Singh Khalsa un­flinch­ingly con­tin­ued as a de­ter­mined and de­voted leader of the or­gan­i­sa­tion. Not only the gov­ern­ment of UK, but well-re­searched doc­u­ments were reg­u­larly sub­mit­ted by him and his as­so­ci­ates at the United Na­tions in Geneva.

Nei­ther the In­dian High Com­mis­sion, who con­sid­ered him a thorn in their flesh, nor the Sikh stal­warts who de­nounced him could dis­suade him to give up war-cry for jus­tice for the Sikhs. Many were way­laid and many qui­etly dis­ap­peared from the scene but Man­mo­han Singh Khalsa was stead­fast and forth­right and re­mained so till the last. Even de­te­ri­o­rat­ing health and warn­ings from doc­tors did not de­ter him. It re­ally did not mat­ter to him whether he was pop­u­lar amongst the Sikhs or not, he stayed fo­cused all his life to the cause for which he had left his home, hearth and home­land.

Noth­ing de­terred him from mak­ing the first call for Sikh sov­er­eignty at every avail­able op­por­tu­nity, in­vari­ably at great per­sonal risk. Re­cently when his name was taken off the so-called Black list -a list of Sikhs not al­lowed to visit In­dia, he said, “I would pre­fer to die on a for­eign soil in the UK which has en­abled me to con­tinue my strug­gle for Sikh free­dom rather than die in In­dia as a de­feated per­son for there was still a long way to go till Sikhs they achieve their goal of free­dom.”

Rev­o­lu­tion­ary poet Gajin­der Singh pray­ing for his speedy re­cov­ery had said last week that “It will be very hard for the Sikh com­mu­nity to find an­other staunch pro­po­nent of Sikh sov­er­eignty as Man­mo­han Singh Khalsa.”  

Man­mo­han Singh Khalsa was also the chief ar­chi­tect of Sikh-Mus­lim re­la­tions. He en­abled Sikh pil­grims from all across the world, es­pe­cially from the UK to visit Sikh re­li­gious shrines in Pak­istan. He forged friend­ship and bond­ing with the po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship and bu­reau­cracy of Pak­istan un­der his In­ter­na­tional Sikh-Mus­lim Friend­ship Fo­rum. In­ter-faith di­a­logue to find out com­mon­al­ity be­tween the two faiths was al­ways on his agenda.

“It will be very hard for the Sikh com­mu­nity to find an­other staunch pro­po­nent of Sikh sov­er­eignty as  Man­mo­han Singh Khalsa .”

Gajin­der Singh, friend and co-trav­eller

In a press re­lease the Dal Khalsa spokesper­son Kan­warpal Singh has pointed out that, “Dal Khalsa is proud of his achieve­ments. He was among hand­ful of Sikh per­son­al­i­ties in whose pres­ence the Pres­i­dent of Pak­istan de­clared the for­ma­tion of the PS­GPC at Gur­d­wara Dera Sahib La­hore on April 11, 1999.”

He fur­ther said, “His na­tion­al­is­tic fer­vor went be­yond the Sikhs. His as­so­ci­a­tion with Kash­miri Di­as­pora was well known. One could see him join­ing them in their pub­lic ral­lies with more zeal and com­mit­ment than Kash­miri ac­tivists.”

Adding a per­sonal touch, Kan­warpal Singh said, “I have lost a friend, guide and staunch sup­porter. My mem­bers and I salute his com­mit­ment.”

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Ad­mir­ing his grit and de­ter­mi­na­tion from very close quar­ters dur­ing the brief meet­ings that this writer has had with him years ago, I re­call the first stanza of John Don­ne’s son­net “Death be not proud.”

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dread­ful, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost over­throw,
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

The Soorma -the brave war­rior lives on.