Britain has a win­dow to make a sym­bolic re­demp­tion of its sins against Pan­jaab and Pan­jaabis. In view of the peo­ples’ rev­o­lu­tion ini­ti­ated by the peo­ple of Pun­jab, British Prime Min­is­ter Boris John­son must turn down the in­vi­ta­tion of the gov­ern­ment of In­dia to be the chief guest at the so-called Re­pub­lic Day cel­e­bra­tions on 26 Jan­u­ary 2021. Ru­ing the lim­ited BBC cov­er­age of the Farm­ers strug­gle in the UK, ac­tivist-au­thor Jagdeesh Singh traces the his­tory of Sikh-British re­la­tions writes that “In the face of the pub­lic tyranny of the In­dian state, this will only be a very small ges­ture to put In­dia in its place and the tell the Naren­dra Modi gov­ern­ment that the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity has its eyes and ears on the ground in In­dia.”

TENS OF THOU­SANDS OF PAN­JAABI FARM­ERS HAVE AMASSED in In­di­a’s Delhi cap­i­tal, block­ing many roads lead­ing to Delhi. This is an es­ca­la­tion of four-month-long protests from Pan­jaab against In­di­a’s new farm­ing laws, which open up space and op­por­tu­nity for no­to­ri­ous pri­vate sec­tor cor­po­rate busi­ness to en­croach into the do­main of small-scale, fam­ily-based farm­ing in places like Pan­jaab. Ad­di­tion­ally, the laws re­move the long-stand­ing ‘Min­i­mum Sup­port Price’, which guar­an­teed the farm­ers a min­i­mum price for their pro­duce, and it also re­moves all pre­vi­ous re­stric­tions and lim­i­ta­tions on where the farm­ing pro­duce can be sold.

The British Prime Min­is­ter has no rea­son to be in In­dia on 26 Jan­u­ary 2020. Even if the ag­i­ta­tion con­cludes by that time, Boris John­son can­not pre­side over the cel­e­bra­tions of the farce of free­dom af­ter the re­cent bru­tal­ity by the gov­ern­men­tal forces.

The new farm leg­is­la­tions stink of pri­vate sec­tor cor­po­ratism, which can come steam-rolling in, and start to en­croach on the buy­ing and sell­ing of farm pro­duce at their own un­reg­u­lated prices and fur­ther en­croach into an­other farm­ing in­dus­try which is in­dige­nous, fam­ily-dri­ven, which is a small-scale vil­lage-based en­deav­our.

The British Prime Min­is­ter has no rea­son to be in In­dia on 26 Jan­u­ary 2020. Even if the ag­i­ta­tion con­cludes by that time, Boris John­son can­not pre­side over the cel­e­bra­tions of the farce of free­dom af­ter the re­cent bru­tal­ity by the gov­ern­men­tal forces.

Taken as a whole, in­dige­nous, small-scale farm­ing re­mains a ma­jor chunk of the econ­omy and em­ploy­ment across In­dia. In East Pan­jaab, which is a farm­ing-based coun­try from thou­sands of years, agri­cul­ture is a pre­dom­i­nant and defin­ing fac­tor of life and so­ci­ety.

The Pan­jaabis and Pan­jaabi farm­ers have con­spic­u­ously, led the call for ro­bust ac­tion against the new In­dian laws, which are feared will be the start of a wave of pri­vate cor­po­rate in­tru­sion into the farm­ing sec­tor.

The mas­sive farmer protest in Dheli is grow­ing by the hour and is now into its tenth day.

Yet, for the world-fa­mous me­dia BBC, this is a non-is­sue.  I have asked my con­stituency Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment to raise a protest with the BBC se­nior chiefs about this dis­par­ity and dis­crim­i­na­tion against the Pan­jaabi peo­ple, by a ma­jor world me­dia es­tab­lish­ment.

Why no cov­er­age of the Pun­jab farm­ers ag­i­ta­tion on BBC TV news in the UK?  They have cov­ered protests in Hong Kong, Thai­land, Be­larus, but zero cov­er­age on the long-run­ning and cur­rent­Pan­jaabi farmer protests.

Britain has played a sig­nif­i­cant role in the down­fall of Pan­jaab and Sikhs.

The British rul­ing es­tab­lish­ment does not want the rad­i­cal Pan­jaabi-Sikh thought, rev­o­lu­tion­ary mind­set, dar­ing to chal­lenge and over­throw and re­sist, to ever re­turn to the mighty power it once had. The British es­tab­lish­ment just about, with enor­mous dif­fi­culty, over­threw Pan­jaab be­tween 1845-1849 af­ter two ma­jor wars. Pan­jaab was the most mil­i­tar­ily, eco­nom­i­cally, po­lit­i­cally and so­cially ad­vanced na­tion in South Asia. It was the most staunch op­po­nent of the British ex­pan­sion across South Aisa.  The British es­tab­lish­ment can­not af­ford for Pan­jaab to rise again!

The British used Ben­gali and other In­dian ‘na­tive’ troops along­side British reg­i­ments to at­tack and sub­due Pan­jaab be­tween 1845-1849, as well as the open col­lu­sion and co-op­er­a­tion of the likes of the Pa­tiala fam­ily.  A na­tion stripped off its land, its ter­ri­tory, its econ­omy, mil­i­tary and self-gov­er­nance: is a na­tion truly sub­dued. We Pan­jaabis were used as sol­diers in the global British wars, we the so-called brave ‘mar­tial race’. To­day we are ig­nored and dis­missed as noth­ing. Our moth­er­land was used and raped end­lessly. Our na­tional in­sti­tu­tions were seized and de­stroyed. Our lan­guage was sup­pressed. Our na­tional trea­sures from the Ko­hi­noor to Guru hand-writ­ten lit­er­a­ture was sys­tem­at­i­cally looted and given to the British royal fam­ily and later sold off to pri­vate col­lec­tors to fund their greed.

Britain has played a sig­nif­i­cant role in the down­fall of Pan­jaab and Sikhs.

Our hu­man­ity was mas­sa­cred -Jal­lian­wala Bagh in April 1919 (a thank you within 6-months of win­ning WW1 for them), Nankana Sahib in 1921. Our men sent to Malaysia, China and Sin­ga­pore to po­lice the British Colo­nial ter­ri­to­ries and to Kenya and Uganda to build for them rail­ways to move their goods and man­power.

Our coun­try of Pan­jaab sliced up and handed over to two new suc­ces­sor im­pe­ri­al­ist states in 1947 -In­dia and Pak­istan. State­less. Pow­er­less. Un­recog­nised. In dire poverty. We were forced to rush to the work op­por­tu­ni­ties in the UK to fund our fi­nan­cially down­trod­den fam­i­lies in Pan­jaab. Over time, dis­si­pated, dis­lo­cated; we have be­come un­con­scious par­tic­i­pants in the British es­tab­lish­ments’ grand scheme of eco­nomic con­trol, mind con­trol, life con­trol and ‘in­te­gra­tion’ into their British power and the glo­ri­ous life and splen­dour of the United King­dom.

Sikh or­gan­i­sa­tions, in­com­pe­tent and cow­ardly Gur­d­wara com­mit­tees, fee­ble and pa­thetic Sikh politi­cians with no pas­sion and in­sight about the rise and fall of our na­tion: have all be­come a sub­dued, sub­mis­sive col­lab­o­ra­tive pool of fig­ures for the British gov­ern­ment. These fig­ures love to in­gra­ti­ate with the British power. They love to ob­tain their pa­thetic British of­fi­cial awards and ‘ho­n­ours’. The ex­act same is true of Sikh fig­ures in re­la­tion to In­dia.

The BBC barely en­gages the Pan­jaabis or Sikhs for its shows, dis­cus­sions or news sto­ries. We are not only a state­less, dis­em­pow­ered peo­ple, with no place in the in­ter­na­tional fo­rums such as the United Na­tions; we are, also, an ig­nored peo­ple. 

Such cow­ardice and self­ish of­fers no hope or di­rec­tion for our na­tion. We need to start pos­i­tive, mean­ing­ful ac­tion in the UK, bring­ing the en­dur­ing Pan­jaab na­tional ques­tion to the doorstep of the British es­tab­lish­ment. Many may be un­will­ing to have this kind of rad­i­cal di­a­logue be­cause their jobs, ca­reers, busi­nesses, po­lit­i­cal po­si­tions would be ad­versely af­fected.

In the life of the UK, we are only vis­i­ble and known to the wider British so­ci­ety be­cause of our con­spic­u­ous beards and tur­bans and the name ‘Singh’ and good so­cial in­ter­ac­tion. Noth­ing else about Pan­jaab, the Sikhs, our his­tory, An­glo-Pan­jaab wars, Sikh sol­diers: is in the pub­lic do­main. The BBC barely en­gages the Pan­jaabis or Sikhs for its shows, dis­cus­sions or news sto­ries. We are not only a state­less, dis­em­pow­ered peo­ple, with no place in the in­ter­na­tional fo­rums such as the United Na­tions; we are, also, an ig­nored peo­ple. The phe­nom­e­nal rise, lib­er­a­tion, state­hood of Pan­jaab and its peo­ple;  to its is cruel, de­monic and sus­tained sup­pres­sion to now: is a story which only a rad­i­cal his­to­rian or jour­nal­ist would ven­ture to tell to the world.

It is clear, that un­til we ro­bustly and coura­geously raise our voices for jus­tice; the es­tab­lish­ment all around, will con­tinue to ig­nore us. Those of us who gen­uinely love our na­tional his­tory and civil­i­sa­tion will ven­ture to do some­thing. Those who are here just for the pass­ing ride and have other am­bi­tions; will do their own thing.