Why has the In­dian Min­istry of Home Af­fairs -MHA sum­moned the of­fi­cials and min­is­ters of the Megha­laya gov­ern­ment in the wake of a threat by a pro­scribed mil­i­tant body HNLC to kill the poor Shil­long Sikhs? 

IT has taken a threat from the pro­scribed mil­i­tant body HNLC -Hyn­niewtrep Na­tional Lib­er­a­tion Coun­cil for the In­dian Home Min­istry to call the higher-ups in the Megha­laya gov­ern­ment to Delhi. The cries of the poor Shil­long Sikhs, for the last one year, with rep­re­sen­ta­tions to var­i­ous gov­ern­ment fo­rums have fallen on deaf ears.

The Megha­laya state chief sec­re­tary P S Thangkiew has been sum­moned by the Min­istry of Home Af­fairs of­fi­cials and the Sikhs await with bated breath as to what stand he would take in the mat­ter. De­spite the is­sue be­ing a burn­ing is­sue, no ef­fort has been made by the Megha­laya gov­ern­ment to in­vite the Sikhs and un­der­stand their point of view.

Four days ago, the Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee has sought pro­tec­tion from the Megha­laya CM. In the past, they have ap­pealed to the Gov­er­nor of the state too.  Sikh or­gan­i­sa­tions -SGPC and DS­GMC have met the state au­thor­i­ties but the Megha­laya gov­ern­ment is un­re­lent­ing as ap­par­ently, they are un­der pres­sure of the var­i­ous tribal groups.

It is ironic that the Deputy Chief Min­is­ter Pre­stone Tyn­song briefed the me­dia about this call from MHA, Delhi, with the eu­phemistic an­gle of “it is good to talk”, whereas it has been he who has been lead­ing the sin­is­ter cam­paign to evict the poor Sikhs from the Pun­jabi lane area, lo­cally called Thew Iew Maw­long, where they are set­tled for the last more than 200 years.

“I am telling you, we will not talk fur­ther but the state gov­ern­ment and the High-Level Com­mit­tee are de­ter­mined for re­lo­ca­tion (of the res­i­dents).

Pre­stone Tyn­song, Deputy Chief Min­is­ter, Megha­laya

Yes­ter­day morn­ing he told a sec­tion of the me­dia that “I am telling you, we will not talk fur­ther but the state gov­ern­ment and the High-Level Com­mit­tee are de­ter­mined for re­lo­ca­tion (of the res­i­dents). There is no way out be­cause we have seen that place is not fit for hu­man habi­ta­tion.”  He also ap­pealed to the NGOs and in­di­vid­u­als from the Sikh com­mu­nity not to in­ter­fere in the af­fairs of the state by adding fire to the is­sue. 

Is this talk be­fit­ting that of a Deputy Chief Min­is­ter, who is run­ning a coali­tion gov­ern­ment with the Bharatiya Janta Party? Is­n’t Megha­laya part of In­dia?

Adel­bert Non­grum -the mem­ber of the Leg­isla­tive As­sem­bly from North Shil­long, in which con­stituency falls the Har­i­jan Colony has also joined the cho­rus pres­sur­iz­ing the Megha­laya gov­ern­ment to evict the res­i­dents of the area.

It is com­fort­ing that the Di­rec­tor Gen­eral of Po­lice Shil­long R Chan­dranathan has stepped up se­cu­rity in the area in view of the threat call of HNLC to use mil­i­tary ac­tion against the in­hab­i­tants of the re­gion.

The poor but steely Sikhs of the re­gion have been ag­i­tat­ing and fight­ing for their rights since the last three decades. The tribal stu­dents’ unions of all hues and shades eye their lands which is now prime land in the heart of the city, but which 200 years ago was al­most a jun­gle and Sikhs have de­vel­oped the place brick by brick over the cen­turies with hon­est hard work.

The Megha­laya gov­ern­ment will have to ex­plain to the MHA as to on what grounds is it forc­ing il­le­gal no­tices, know­ing fully well that the mat­ter is sub-ju­dice in the Megha­laya High Court and there are sta­tus quo or­ders from the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties and the Na­tional Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion. The MHA will have to seek the ra­tio­nale for the un­nec­es­sary and un­law­ful pres­sure of the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board, who at the be­hest of the High-level Com­mit­tee has served no­tices to 300 plus houses seek­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion and in­ven­tory.

Sikhs are set­tled in Shil­long for the last 200 years af­ter the British In­dian army in­vited them there for me­nial tasks. Sikhs in the Har­i­jan Colony, also called Sweep­ers Colony have doc­u­men­ta­tion given by the then Tribal chief Syiem of Hima Myl­liem prior to 1863, reaf­firmed in a de­c­la­ra­tion in 2008.

It is rather ironic that while the Megha­laya gov­ern­ment and the lo­cal peo­ple are an­gry with the Pun­jab gov­ern­ment sanc­tion of Rs. 50 lakhs for the Guru Nanak School, Shil­long, in view of the 550 Year cel­e­bra­tions of Guru Nanak Birth an­niver­sary, the amount has so far not been given by the Pun­jab gov­ern­ment de­spite an an­nounce­ment by the CM months back.

Will the gov­ern­ment of In­dia al­low the Sikhs to be­come the tar­get of mil­i­tants and black­mail of the po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship of the gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya? 

The Min­istry of Home Af­fairs will do well to lis­ten to the Sikhs. In the past, the stu­dents’ unions have had their way and have pushed out many Ben­gali, Nepali and other res­i­dents.

The Sikhs build a Gur­d­wara for them­selves and en­abled oth­ers to build their places of wor­ship. In good time, the Sikhs will man­age to build their habi­tat in a mod­ern way. The MHA will have to re­spect the right of the Sikhs by restor­ing the sta­tus quo and di­rect the gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya to stop push­ing re­lo­ca­tion and evic­tion of poor Sikhs.

Will the gov­ern­ment of In­dia al­low the Sikhs to be­come the tar­get of mil­i­tants and black­mail of the po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship of the gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya?

The Sikh world is watch­ing with keen in­ter­est. The agony of the Sikhs in Shil­long is the agony of the Sikhs world­wide.