The ed­i­tor of The World Sikh News out­lines the his­tory of the Sikh prayer to Akalpu­rakh  -God Almighty and how the daily prayers for the Sikhs over the last 70 years has been an­swered. He chides the In­dian lead­er­ship for their game of up­man­ship and re­bukes the Pun­jab CM for his il­log­i­cal be­hav­iour and state­ment re­gard­ing non-par­tic­i­pa­tion at the in­au­gural func­tion on the other side of the fence.

Sikhs have an un­wa­ver­ing faith in prayer and sup­pli­ca­tion, yet it is very dif­fi­cult to gauge how and when prayers will be an­swered.  Since the last 70 years, in­di­vid­u­ally and col­lec­tively, Sikhs have been in­vok­ing in their daily prayer, “Jinha Gur­d­warayan Gur­d­dhama nu Panth tohn vi­chodya gaya hai, tinah de khulle dar­shan di­dar da dhian kar ke bolo ji Wa­he­guru, Hey Sachhe Paat­shah, tina Gur­d­warayan, Gur­d­hama de khule dar­shan di­dar da daan appne Khalsa ji nu bak­sho.” Oh God Almighty, en­able the Khalsa Panth to have free and un­fet­tered ac­cess to the his­tor­i­cal Gur­d­waras and shrines which are presently not within the reach of the Sikhs and  may the Sikhs re­peat O won­drous Lord, af­ter rem­i­nisc­ing about the said Gur­d­waras.

“On 25 Jan­u­ary, 1952, just five years af­ter the par­ti­tion of Pun­jab, Sikhs gath­ered at Akal Takht Sahib and re­solved to add the above lines to their sup­pli­ca­tion. This demon­strates that the Sikh com­mu­nity did not show any ac­ri­mony ei­ther to the peo­ple of Pak­istan or to In­dia and took this his­toric step of ap­peal­ing and pray­ing to the Lord Almighty.”

In 1947, when the Sikhs faced the un­prece­dented di­vi­sion of their beloved home­land Pun­jab and a mas­sive trans­fer of pop­u­la­tion amidst may­hem and killings of thou­sands, it took them a while to come to terms with what had hap­pened to them. Yet bar­ring the Sikh lead­er­ship, the Sikhs had the good sense to face their hard­ship with grit, de­ter­mi­na­tion and prayers. On 25 Jan­u­ary, 1952, just five years af­ter the par­ti­tion of Pun­jab, Sikhs gath­ered at Akal Takht Sahib and re­solved to add the above lines to their sup­pli­ca­tion.  This demon­strates that the Sikh com­mu­nity did not show any ac­ri­mony ei­ther to the peo­ple of Pak­istan or to In­dia and took this his­toric step of ap­peal­ing and pray­ing to the Lord Almighty.

When the Akali Dal lead­er­ship de­cided to tie the des­tiny of the Sikh na­tion with In­dia against the wishes of the Sikh peo­ple, they did so out of their in­com­pe­tence to counter the lies, sub­terfuge and po­lit­i­cal ma­noeu­vring of the Con­gress party whose pri­mary tools were chi­canery and lies. The Sikh lead­er­ship was naive and trust­ing. Naive to the ways of mod­ern pol­i­tics and trust­ing be­cause they were re­li­giously trained and in­doc­tri­nated to have faith. How­ever they did not re­fer to their mil­i­tary tra­di­tion and tac­tics of as­sess­ing the en­emy or those op­posed to them.

The In­dian lead­er­ship of Jawa­har­lal Nehru, af­ter air­ing the car­rot of “glow of free­dom” fol­lowed it with the stick of “the times have changed.” Sar­dar Val­lab­hai Pa­tel crushed na­tion­al­i­ties and called the Sikhs, “a crim­i­nal na­tion” as re­ported by then Deputy Com­mis­sioner Bhai Sahib Sir­dar Ka­pur Singh. Mo­han­das Karam­c­hand Gandhi who pro­claimed in 1921 that “the first de­ci­sive war of in­de­pen­dence has been won” af­ter the Sikhs re­gained the keys to Dar­bar Sahib Am­rit­sar af­ter the “Keys Mor­cha” in 1921, later on said, “Guru Gob­ind Singh was a mis­guided philoso­pher” and also op­posed Sikh-Dalit affin­ity sought to be strength­ened by Babasa­heb Ambed­kar.

“The Kar­tarpur cor­ri­dor prayer has been an­swered and the Sikhs shall al­ways re­main grate­ful to Akalpu­rakh –God Almighty. We cer­tainly, how­ever, do not want to wait for an­other 70 years for Guru Sahib to sat­isfy our yearn­ings we re­peat every morn­ing and evening.”

Yet, the Sikhs con­tin­ued to pray hop­ing that one day Akalpu­rakh will lis­ten to them. The erst­while Akali leader Kuldeep Singh Wadala started the Kar­tarpur Sahib cor­ri­dor move­ment as a pre­cur­sor to the ful­fil­ment of the Sikh as­pi­ra­tion in the daily sup­pli­ca­tion.

Po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­di­ency and elec­toral pol­i­tics notwith­stand­ing, World Sikh News humbly af­firms that the prayers of each and every Sikh over the last 70 years has been an­swered. Noth­ing else can ex­plain the change of heart of the gov­ern­ment of In­dia which is in­vari­ably in­im­i­cal to the Sikhs and the large-heart­ed­ness shown by the mil­i­tary and po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship of the gov­ern­ment of Pak­istan.

It is very sad and dis­heart­en­ing that the role of the Chief Min­is­ter of Pun­jab -the scion of the Ma­haraja of Pa­tiala, Cap­tain Amarinder Singh is that of a de­feated chief­tain un­able to di­gest ei­ther the pub­lic­ity of his co-min­is­ter Navjot Singh Sidhu. in the face of such a golden op­por­tu­nity to talk about peace and how Guru Nanak has blessed the two Pun­jabs, he is harp­ing on an in­ci­dent of vi­o­lence un­mind­ful of the hu­man vi­o­lence com­mit­ted by In­dia unto the Sikhs ir­re­spec­tive of the po­lit­i­cal party in power.

The least he could have done is to pre­tend that he is busy like the In­dian for­eign min­is­ter Sushma Swaraj. He has cho­sen to equate vi­o­lence in Pun­jab with the Kar­tarpur Sahib cor­ri­dor, which is sim­ply fool­hardy. The lan­guage that he has cho­sen to use is un­be­com­ing of a Chief Min­is­ter. He has be­lit­tled the Sikh case and his “holier than thou” at­ti­tude is sim­ply funny and bo­gus.

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The Kar­tarpur cor­ri­dor prayer has been an­swered and the Sikhs shall al­ways re­main grate­ful to Akalpu­rakh –God Almighty. We cer­tainly, how­ever, do not want to wait for an­other 70 years for Guru Sahib to sat­isfy the yearn­ings we re­peat every morn­ing and evening.