Amidst mas­sive pro­pa­ganda by the state ma­chin­ery -from Pun­jab to the Union of In­dia, tele­phone calls by Pun­jab po­lice to par­tic­i­pants to de­sist from go­ing to the event, the no­to­ri­ous false nar­ra­tive of the state-spon­sored so­cial me­dia trolls and me­dia, and the con­tin­u­ing ha­rass­ment of Sikhs across the state of Pun­jab -with a vir­tual seize of his­toric towns of Anand­pur Sahib and Damdama Sahib, po­lit­i­cal body Dal Khalsa on Vaisakhi, Dal Khalsa with a host of sup­port­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions hoisted the Sarkar-e-Khalsa flag at Anand­pur Sahib , re­it­er­at­ing its re­solve to re­gain Sikh sov­er­eignty by peace­ful and de­mon­cratic means. A WSN re­port.

Anand­pur Sahib’s his­toric ram­parts turned Ke­sari and Blue, the colours of the Sarkar-e-Khalsa flag and the colours which Sikhs splash aplenty to de­clare their in­de­pen­dent, dis­tinct iden­tity. This year, the Dal Khalsa event added more colour and life into the on­go­ing Vaisakhi cel­e­bra­tions.

Set­ting the tone for the meet, Jathedar Takht Kesh­garh Sahib -Gaini Ragh­bir Singh per­formed Ar­das for the well­be­ing and re­lease of po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers and paid homage to Sikh mar­tyrs.

While the SGPC, un­der pres­sure from Jathedar Akal Takht, has is­sued a le­gal no­tice to the Pun­jab po­lice, al­leg­ing defama­tion of the Sarkar-e-Khalsa flag, while cit­ing ev­i­dence against Am­rit­pal Singh, the Dal Khalsa event at Anand­pur Sahib was a his­toric re­buke of the po­lice ad­min­is­tra­tion’s claims, giv­ing more cur­rency to the as­pi­ra­tion of Sikh self-rule.

Un­furl­ing the Sarkar-e-Khalsa flag, the high spir­its of the Dal Khalsa cadres was pal­pa­ble. Other than them, promi­nent Sikh re­li­gious and po­lit­i­cal per­son­al­i­ties were pre­sent, with the stage re­ver­ber­at­ing with slo­ga­neer­ing of Sikh self-rule and the ubiquo­tous Bole-Se-Ni­hal war cry. The po­lit­i­cal con­fer­ence saw speak­ers elo­quently talk­ing about the Sikh re­sis­tance in the face of state re­pres­sion -both his­tor­i­cally and in the pre­sent times.

Dal Khalsa Pres­i­dent Ad­vo­cate Harpal Singh Cheema, de­lin­eat­ing in cat­e­goric terms the ra­tio­nale for their ap­proach de­clared, “While we un­furl and salute the flag sym­bol­is­ing Sikh Sov­er­eignty, we live the mo­ment to re­call that our rule will en­sure that no one will be with­out rights and jus­tice.”

The Dal Khalsa state­ment re­leased on the oc­ca­sions re­peated their re­solve an­nounced by vir­tu­ally all speak­ers on the state, “Not very long ago, in 1849, the Khalsa Raj, the Sikh self-rule un­der Ma­haraja Ran­jit Singh, af­ter span­ning a pe­riod of nearly half a cen­tury, was eclipsed through the un­law­ful an­nex­a­tion by the British.  By un­furl­ing the Sarkar-e-Khalsa flag the ob­jec­tive is to retell the Sikhs and to tell those oth­ers who would have the heart to hear the truth that eclipses do not last for­ever.”

March­ing from the fore­ground of the Takht Kesgarh Sahib, hun­dreds of Sikh youth reached the Takh Sahib to of­fer prayers for the Chardikala -Ever As­cen­dance of the Khalsa Panth. Hold­ing pho­tos of mar­tyrs, po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers and Sikh ac­tivists still in ex­ile, the plac­ards re­buked the use of NSA with an eye on the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Coun­ter­ing the mis­in­for­ma­tion and dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign againt the Sikhs in Pun­jab, In­dia and the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity by the In­dian state, the party sec­re­tary for po­lit­i­cal af­fairs -Kan­war Pal Singh said, “the pangs of Sikh rule are not an ex­pe­di­ency born out of the in­jus­tices of a state, or a counter to forces who want the Hindu Raj in pre­sent day ma­jori­tar­ian In­dia and cer­tainly not a theo­cratic ex­pres­sion by the Sikhs for dom­i­na­tion of over an­other set up peo­ple of dif­fer­ent faiths and po­lit­i­cal be­liefs. It is our birthright and our legacy.”

“the pangs of Sikh rule are not an ex­pe­di­ency born out of the in­jus­tices of a state, or a counter to forces who want the Hindu Raj in pre­sent day ma­jori­tar­ian In­dia and cer­tainly not a theo­cratic ex­pres­sion by the Sikhs for dom­i­na­tion of over an­other set up peo­ple of dif­fer­ent faiths and po­lit­i­cal be­liefs. It is our birthright and our legacy.”

Sikh ac­tivist and leader of the Panth Se­wak Jatha Bhai Daljit Singh em­pha­sized that the Sar­bat da Bhala doc­trine is the key to defin­ing Sikh dis­tinc­tive­ness.

Sikh Siyasat ed­i­tor Par­m­jeet Singh Gazi, who him­self and whose pub­li­ca­tions are see­ing reg­u­lar ha­rass­ment, speak­ing at the con­fer­ence said, “What we are wit­ness­ing in the last few days and weeks is a psy­cho­log­i­cal at­tack by all state forces. Sikhs will have to be alert, aware and ready for more and sin­is­ter re­pres­sion at the hands of the pre­sent Pun­jab gov­ern­ment.”

Emaan Singh Mann chal­lenged the Bhag­want Mann gov­ern­ment say­ing, “The more the crack­downs and ha­rass­ment, the more there will be pos­i­tiv­ity amongst the Sikhs. This is how and what we are. His­tory bears tes­ti­mony.”

Se­nior Dal Khalsa leader Har­cha­ran­jit Singh Dhami took strong ex­cep­tion to the po­lice ques­tion­ing and de­tain­ing fam­i­lies, es­pe­cially lady fam­ily mem­bers of Sikh ac­tivists.

SGPC mem­ber Kar­nail Singh Pan­joli told the au­di­ence that the Bhag­want Mann gov­ern­ment is chas­ing the Sikhs like despots.  It is un­nec­es­sar­ily cre­at­ing chaos in the state of Pun­jab.

Dal Khalsa spok­ersper­son -Paramjit Singh Mand, sum­ming up the event stated, “Call it by any name -Sikh self-rule, Sarkar-e-Khalsa, Khalsa Raaj, Azad Pun­jab or even the cur­rent coinage of Khal­is­tan -all these are man­i­fes­ta­tions of our yearn­ing for be­ing mas­ters of our own des­tiny.”

“Our com­mu­nity is learn­ing to win the minds and hearts of the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity for their sup­port to our cause through in­ter­na­tion­ally-recog­nised prin­ci­ples, like that of self-de­ter­mi­na­tion”, he added.