The incident of violence in Rajasansi in Amritsar has once again generated interest in who are the Nirankaris and what are their roots. The Indian media is again publishing rubbish on the subject. WSN  resurrected the White Paper -They Massacre Sikhs, written by Sirdar Kapur Singh after the Baisakhi killings of Sikhs on 13 April 1978. WSN editor Jagmohan Singh provides a personal insight into the publication of this White Paper and SGPC’s deceit.

Story after story on the Rajasansi killings both in the print media, on the internet and on TV are describing the Nirankaris in a rather shoddy manner. Neither the reporters, nor the anchors or the editors have put their researchers to task to learn more about this section of the Indian population, which conveniently goes as “a group of spiritual seekers” but as you can see online in the Indian Express or the Indian Today story, soon after the first few paras, it becomes a “sect”. It is clearly implied that it is a sect of Sikhism and this becomes fostered because of the faces of the followers but it is left unsaid. The Indian media will do well to do responsible reporting and not rub salt on the wounds of the Sikhs again and allow old wounds to fester.

It can only be described as a conscious and deliberate mischief by the Indian media as it is more than clear from the document They Massacre Sikhs by Sirdar Kapur Singh that the present-day Nirankaris are not a sect, but an appendage of the Indian state to malign and denigrate everything that Sikhs love and respect. There is no question that there is a huge mischief and there is a mischief in this madness. What applies to the media, applies to the Indian state, “those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it.”

“I had a special association with the White Paper.”

After the 13 April 1978 killings of Sikhs at the hands of the Nirankaris in broad daylight in the heart of Amritsar city, the SGPC commissioned Sirdar Kapur Singh to write a White Paper. I managed to retrace the White Paper. Browsing the document brought back bitter memories of how Sirdar Kapur Singh, who had reluctantly penned the document at the instance of SGPC, was cheated as he had been many a times by the SGPC and the Shiromani Akali Dal.   

I had a special association with the White Paper.  As a leader of the Sikh Students Federation Maharashtra, I learnt that the SGPC published the document, some fifty thousand copies, and then under pressure from the Jan Sangh, possibly Atal Bihari Vajpayee, destroyed them all.  The Sikh Students Federation requested Bhai Sahib for publication and he graciously agreed. Before we could garner funds and publish it, Captain Bhag Singh of The Sikh Review, Kolkata published it and saved the day for the Sikh people and for Bhai Sahib Kapur Singh.

Bhai Sahib Sirdar Kapur Singh, in the White Paper categorically states that, “The issue between the Sikhs and Gurbachan Singh and his caucus is three-fold. (1) The main thrust and the real salience of this movement is anti-Sikhism, and its permissiveness and promiscuity is secondary. (2) Its methodology is denigration and coarse ridicule of Sikh doctrines and practices and malicious outraging of Sikh religious sentiments, and insulting Sikh religious beliefs. (3) Its dynamism is politics, promoted and prompted by political power that aims at degrading and demoralising the Sikh people permanently, to deprive them of the control of their own history and their spiritual potential and thus reducing them into secondary citizens and camp- followers, so as, eventually, to divest them of their living separateness, shrinking them into a footnote in History.”

“Matsyanyaya –Fish Justice is a familiar fable for Sikhs in India. They have experienced it far too long and continue to do so. We are seeing evidence of this again in the Indian media. It is perhaps time for the Sikhs to search the idiom and logic to counter this continuum. ”

Explaining the phenomenon, its political roots in Indira Gandhi’s divide and rule policy, the Sikh National Professor of Sikhism says, “This phenomenon, in which Sikh religious sensibility is calculatedly outraged and their human dignity cruelly injured, has its historical antecedents in this part of the world.”

When I re-read the thought provoking, well-researched article, entitled, They Massacre Sikhs, written by the Sikh nation’s National Professor of Sikhism in his typical inimitable style, the sound and image of the words of Kapur Singh instill a sense of awe and respect for his erudite language and depth of knowledge and also build the necessary angst which a thinking Sikh mind should develop. The impact of Kapur Singh is quiet everlasting and young Sikh minds, having the good of the Khalsa Panth at heart, should partake of this flavour in Me Judice, Sachi Sakhi and Prasharprasna.    

Read: They Massacre Sikhs – A report by Sikh Parliament SGPC – Sirdar Kapur Singh

The reader will do well to download the entire document and understand the real issue and the rationale he builds to explain his hypothesis.  Matsyanyaya –Fish Justice is a familiar fable for Sikhs in India.  They have experienced it far too long and continue to do so. We are seeing evidence of this again in the Indian media. It is perhaps time for the Sikhs to search the idiom and logic to counter this continuum.  

“The neo-Nirankaris, since their inception post-1947 are what can be described by the Indian state’s anti-Sikh network. It is upto the government of India and the Nirankaris to prove it otherwise. So far, they have not been able to do so.”

The discerning reader will find similarities between the role of the neo-Nirankari movement and that of the Sauda dera in present times.  Sadly, he will find a lot of commonality between the kind of response generated and delivered by the mainstream Sikh religious and political parties –then and now. As at that time and now, the mantle of protest and designing and delivering a response mechanism fell on the shoulders of fringe parties. Significantly, in 1978 and in 2008 and now in 2018, these small organisations and groups have delivered what was expected of them, but is a long way to go.

For the record, there exists a Hukamnama of the Akal Takht Sahib for all Sikhs against the neo-Nirankaris, issued on 10 June 1978 under the seal of Jathedar Sadhu Singh Bhaura, which dictates Sikhs to sever all social relationship with the pseudo-Nirankaris.

Though, in the last three decades, there has been no incidence of violence between the two, the neo-Nirankaris, except for a half-attempted by former chief Baba Hardev Singh, no serious and clear-cut demarcation was brought out. That by itself is another story, which we will take up in future.

“Wounds of 40 years should not be allowed to fester. Both sides need a closure. The earlier the better.”

Suffice it is to say that no attempt has been made either by the Sikh leadership, the Nirankari leadership or the government of India to  resolve this complex relationship. Do the Nirankaris still mock the Sikh doctrine? We do not know for sure. Does the government of India continue to patronise them? Go to Delhi during their annual event and you will find ample evidence to support this. Has the Akali Dal or the SGPC done anything after the Hukamnama? They are only interested in the electoral side of things. Does the Sikh Sangat still see them as enemies of the Panth? They do see them as such on ideological grounds but their proliferation in Punjab and elsewhere continues unchecked without a whimper of protest.  

The neo-Nirankaris, since their inception post-1947 are what can be described as the Indian state’s anti-Sikh network. It is upto the government of India and the Nirankaris to prove it otherwise. So far, they have not been able to do so.

The Indian media continues to harp on the illusionary reference that they are a “sect” without telling us which religion’s sect they are because the Nirankaris ostensibly do not want to be associated with any religion, but they too would not refute this.

Authoritatively, neither the Nirankaris nor the government of India nor the SGPC and Akali leadership has ever responded to Kapur Singh’s White Paper on the Nirankaris. Till they objectively and truthfully do that, resolving the Sikh-neo-Nirankari relationship will remain a distant dream and as the Nirankari Mission has said today, “they have been targeted perhaps because they are a soft target. We have no enmity with the Sikhs.”

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Wounds of 40 years should not be allowed to fester. Both sides need a closure. The earlier the better.