De­spite sev­eral at­tempts, In­dia has in­vari­ably failed to neu­tralise the Sikhs. Yet, Pan­jaab in­vari­ably re­mains in a state of siege, lock-down, cruel re­pres­sion and sub­ju­ga­tion by the mighty, over­sized, im­pe­ri­al­ist In­dian state, which took over where the British Raj left off in 1947. In this short es­say, ac­tivist-writer Jagdeesh Singh re­lates the his­tor­i­cal de­vel­op­ments of 1947 and how since then, Sikhs con­tinue to lose the hold on their des­tiny.

THE HIS­TORIC, IN­DIGE­NOUS NA­TIONAL COUN­TRY OF PAN­JAAB was seized and stolen in 1849 by the in­vad­ing British im­pe­ri­al­ist elite, an­nexed and sub­sumed into the grandiose red map of op­pres­sive British In­dia, which we still find upon now un­der the guise of ‘in­de­pen­dent In­dia’.

The pre­sent, his­toric 170-year sub­ju­ga­tion has changed from white-British im­pe­ri­al­ism to re­plac­ing brown-In­dian im­pe­ri­al­ism. The 1947 British-Indo carve-up, par­ti­tion and trans­fer of power, was a smoke­screen ‘in­de­pen­dence’. It was a demon­stra­bly sham ‘free­dom’. Mul­ti­ple and in­creas­ing forms of gov­ern­men­tal cor­rup­tion and mal­ad­min­is­tra­tion, po­lice re­pres­sion and tor­ture, mis­treat­ment of civil­ians, de­nial of pub­lic health, ed­u­ca­tion and hous­ing ser­vices and an as­sort­ment of bru­tal­i­ties and in­jus­tices be­ing the norm of life in ‘sec­u­lar, de­mo­c­ra­t­ic’ In­dia.

The same is equally true in the es­tranged twin state of Pak­istan, born at the ex­act same time from the same British In­dia par­ent state; and with the ex­act same pre­ten­sions and in­trin­sic dis­eases and ail­ments. Side-by-side, In­dia and Pak­istan as the di­rect off­spring of the British colo­nial In­dian em­pire, have made an ut­ter mess of South Asia, in­di­vid­u­ally, jointly and sev­er­ally.

To­gether they have dom­i­nated the map of South Asia and re­fused to al­low any third force to emerge. The an­nex­a­tion of Sikkim by In­dia in re­cent times, the pres­sures on tiny coun­tries of South Asia, in­clud­ing Nepal. The seize of Kash­mir. To­gether, they are a con­do­minium of over­sized power, mis­use of power and power for pur­poses of con­trol and en­force­ment of power, com­bined with the sys­tem­atic de­nial of the pub­lic good, hu­man rights, eco­nomic wel­fare and bet­ter­ment and self-de­ter­mi­na­tion.

To­gether In­dia and Pak­istan have dom­i­nated the map of South Asia and re­fused to al­low any third force to emerge. The an­nex­a­tion of Sikkim by In­dia in re­cent times, the pres­sures on tiny coun­tries of South Asia, in­clud­ing Nepal. The seize of Kash­mir. To­gether, they are a con­do­minium of over­sized power.

Both have no­to­ri­ously vi­o­lent, mur­der­ous and ram­pant po­lice forces. Both have sub­stan­tial armies, spend­ing sev­eral times more on arms and sol­diers and para­mil­i­tary forces than they do on hous­ing, ed­u­ca­tion and health. Both fail to pro­vide clean wa­ter to their pop­u­la­tions. Pol­lu­tion and dis­ease are ram­pant. In In­dia, a child goes miss­ing every 10 min­utes, a woman is raped every 20-min­utes, and 4 civil­ians are killed in po­lice cus­tody every day. The pic­ture in Pak­istan is not very dif­fer­ent.

The cur­rent Coro­n­avirus has ex­posed in both rogue states, the ut­ter fail­ure and ab­sence of ad­e­quate hos­pi­tal fa­cil­i­ties, med­ical care ser­vices, safety equip­ment, and so forth. In In­dia, even space for stor­ing dead corpses of Covid-19 vic­tims has not been avail­able, with the dead be­ing stored in hos­pi­tal wards along­side those still be­ing cared for.

This is the ut­ter mess, mis­ery and mon­strous fail­ure that these two states are. This is akin to many other failed states across the world which have gone through pre-colo­nial, colo­nial, post-colo­nial processes to ar­rive at their pre­sent phase of ar­bi­trar­ily and un­de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cally con­structed bound­aries and du­bi­ous sta­tus as in­de­pen­dent coun­tries, like Iran, Iraq, Saudi Ara­bia, Congo, Nige­ria and In­done­sia.

The cur­rent Coro­n­avirus has ex­posed in both rogue states, the ut­ter fail­ure and ab­sence of ad­e­quate hos­pi­tal fa­cil­i­ties, med­ical care ser­vices, safety equip­ment, and so forth. In In­dia, even space for stor­ing dead corpses of Covid-19 vic­tims has not been avail­able.

In­dia had al­ready com­menced its war of per­se­cu­tion and op­pres­sion on Pan­jaab and the Sikhs from 1947, upon as­sum­ing power from the out­go­ing British. In­dia wanted the land of five rivers, its re­sources, its food power, its hu­man re­sources, but not its dis­tinct Pan­jaabi-Sikh so­cio-eth­nic cul­ture and iden­tity. It wanted to sub­sume, break up and frag­ment Pan­jaab and strip and ex­ploit its hu­man, mon­e­tary and nat­ural re­sources. Its in­de­pen­dent Sikh spirit. Its lan­guage. Its his­tory. Its civ­i­liza­tion. Brah­man­i­sa­tion and In­di­an­i­sa­tion!

Small na­tions were com­pressed and squeezed out of ex­is­tence to make room for an over­whelm­ing Hindu su­prema­cist gi­ant. 1947 to 2020, has been an ex­po­nen­tial growth of that in­trin­sic surge for power and su­premacy, with ter­ri­to­r­ial and po­lit­i­cal con­sol­i­da­tion of the Hin­dutva vi­sion.

In 1947, the British trans­ferred power, not to a de­mo­c­ra­tic class of grass­roots po­lit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives; but rather to an ex­clu­sive, elit­ist hand­ful of British ed­u­cated, trained and groomed in­di­vid­u­als, like Jin­nah, Nehru, Gandhi and their close cir­cles. The British nur­tured, favoured and se­lected this closed cir­cle for the fi­nal de­ci­sive stages of hand­ing over charge of South Asia. Pan­jaab and its in­dige­nous peo­ple were sac­ri­ficed in this dev­as­tat­ing po­lit­i­cal and ter­ri­to­r­ial clash of in­ter­ests, to sat­isfy an over­rid­ing and ar­bi­trary re­li­gious com­mu­nal bi­nary of Hindu ver­sus Mus­lim.

1947 to 2020, has been an ex­po­nen­tial growth of that in­trin­sic surge for power and su­premacy, with ter­ri­to­r­ial and po­lit­i­cal con­sol­i­da­tion of the Hin­dutva vi­sion.

As one of the Sikh lead­ers, namely Mas­ter Tara Singh, said at the time of this geno­ci­dal carve-up be­tween the out­go­ing clique and in­com­ing clique: “What­ever is de­cided in Dheli will leave my peo­ple like no man’s chil­dren in no man’s land!” (quoted in ‘Armies of the Raj’, By­ron Farewell, 1990, page 352). As H V Hod­son (Con­sti­tu­tional Ad­vi­sor to the Viceroy of In­dia, 1941-2), writes: “In­di­a’s grave prob­lem with the Sikhs harks back to the trans­fer of power.” (The Great Di­vide, 1997, page xxiii).

Will Pan­jaab be able to neu­tralise In­dia and un­shackle it­self from brown im­pe­ri­al­ism?