Af­ter nearly two years of snatch­ing the full state sta­tus from J & K, to­day, In­dian PM Naren­dra Modi is meet­ing Kash­miri lead­er­ship “with­out an agenda” and the Kash­mir lead­er­ship wants to dis­cuss “restora­tion of Ar­ti­cle 370.” The main­stream me­dia feeds us as talks for “de­lim­i­ta­tion for elec­tions” as In­dia faces pres­sure from in­ter­na­tional bod­ies and many coun­tries. The pro-free­dom Kash­mir lead­er­ship is silent be­cause vir­tu­ally all of them are in prison. The pro-In­dia Kash­mir lead­er­ship is out of de­ten­tion but has de­cided to visit Delhi in re­sponse to the call of Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Modi “to dis­cuss the fu­ture of Kash­mir”. The Sikhs in Jammu and Kash­mir are in a hope­less mi­nor­ity bank­ing upon the good­ness of var­i­ous party lead­ers, who have hith­erto paid lip ser­vice to Kash­miri Sikhs de­mands. The All-Party Sikh Co­or­di­na­tion Com­mit­tee, schol­ars and young Sikh ac­tivists have ex­pressed se­ri­ous con­cerns and wanted to as­so­ci­ate with the talks. A WSN analy­sis by its ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh.

THE TOP KASH­MIRI LEAD­ER­SHIP IS IN DELHI. From what has been re­ported so far, there has not been a mur­mur of protest from the Kash­mir lead­er­ship who spent a good amount of the past year in de­ten­tion. They read­ily ex­pressed will­ing­ness to visit Delhi and meet the gov­ern­ment of In­dia, headed by Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Modi.

The guns are vir­tu­ally silent in Kash­mir. The pro-Kash­miri free­dom lead­er­ship in pris­ons. The bay­o­nets of In­dian sol­diers con­tinue to si­lence the pop­u­la­tion in the Val­ley. The Tal­iban, want­ing to “en­ter” Kash­mir has re­port­edly been en­gaged by the In­dian gov­ern­ment in se­cret talks in Doha. Pak­istan voices its con­cern at de­vel­op­ments in Kash­mir and raises the is­sue of self-de­ter­mi­na­tion. The Kash­miri Pan­dits want to as­sert their lead­er­ship in Jammu as well as Kash­mir and also use their new po­lit­i­cal clout to turn the clock back. The in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity has been ask­ing some ques­tions but is gen­er­ally per­ceived to be go­ing with the sway of In­dia. 

Com­mu­ni­ties have in­ter­ests but com­mu­ni­ties that make bold de­ci­sions are able to pro­tect, pre­serve and ad­vance the in­ter­ests of their con­stituents.  The Sikhs of Kash­mir are lost in the wilder­ness of the val­ley. For the last many decades, they have been vac­il­lat­ing be­tween Sri­na­gar and the val­ley and the Jammu re­gion. 

The de­mands of the Sikhs of Jammu and Kash­mir, with re­spect to lan­guage rights and other de­mands, have not been met at all.  In view of the talks in Delhi, the AP­SCC has de­manded the reser­va­tion of three seats in Kash­mir and four seats in the Jammu di­vi­sion for the Sikh com­mu­nity. 

Writer and re­searcher Jas­bir Singh Sarna in his lat­est book, The Sikhs in Jammu and Kash­mir, talk­ing about the Kash­miriyat of Sikhs says, “Kash­miri Sikhs are the abo­rig­i­nals of Kash­mir.”

Busi­ness Ed­i­tor with The Kash­miriyat, Zainab Rauf in her record­ing of the woes of the Sikhs in Kash­mir in her well-re­searched ar­ti­cle, De­spite Sys­tem­atic Ig­no­rance, Strug­gles amid Con­flict, Undy­ing Unity of Kash­miri Sikhs Con­tin­ues to Ex­ist, shares the pain of the Sikhs from var­i­ous spheres of life in Kash­mir. 

Young Kash­miri Sikh ac­tivist An­gad Singh has been quoted say­ing, “I be­lieve it’s be­cause we Sikhs don’t make a big vote bank; we have been ig­nored.”

“Our cul­ture is in­ter­twined by our lan­guage as Kash­miri Sikhs. It al­lows us to re­al­ize and prac­tice our unique iden­tity as Kash­miri Sikhs.” 

“I be­lieve it’s be­cause we Sikhs don’t make a big vote bank; we have been ig­nored.”

An­gad Singh, Sikh Kash­miri ac­tivist

Zainab Rauf ex­plains that “Mak­ing 0.88% of the pop­u­la­tion of Kash­mir, the long pend­ing de­mand of a Mi­nor­ity Sta­tus of Kash­miri Sikhs till now has led to the fail­ure of the for­mal­ized process of stud­ies, re­search, and poli­cies on mat­ters specif­i­cally re­lated to the em­pow­er­ment of Kash­miri Sikhs.”

The re­silient, ever brave, and car­ing mem­bers of the Kash­miri Sikh com­mu­nity says the eco­nom­ics grad­u­ate from Canada has been for the last “73 years with­out a Mi­nor­ity Sta­tus, Kash­miri Sikhs have been de­nied their de­mo­c­ra­tic right of fair par­tic­i­pa­tion in ed­u­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tions and job po­si­tions in Jammu Kash­mir and across In­dia, which crip­ples the pos­si­bil­ity of their growth on the so­cio-eco­nomic lad­der and the mere pos­si­bil­ity of their ex­is­tence last­ing as a unique com­mu­nity in the long term.”

Though the J & K po­lit­i­cal par­ties have lent an ear to the Sikhs and other mi­nori­ties, yet their de­mands have hith­erto been ig­nored. The whole thrust of the de­lim­i­ta­tion ex­er­cise seems to be ger­ry­man­der­ing in a grandiose ex­er­cise to bring the Kash­miri Mus­lims into a mi­nor­ity in as many con­stituen­cies as pos­si­ble. Fur­ther­more, the pow­er­ful Kash­miri Pan­dit vote bank will now be at­tempt­ing to reap as much ben­e­fit as pos­si­ble from the gov­ern­ment. 

“What’s more im­por­tant is that even af­ter the colos­sal rea­son for re­vo­ca­tion of Ar­ti­cle 370 by the Modi gov­ern­ment, ‘jus­tice’ or rather ‘lib­er­a­tion’ of Kash­mir’s mi­nori­ties, the voices of Kash­miri Sikhs, like al­ways, have been ma­jorly side­lined.”

Zainab Rauf, Cana­dian re­searcher, Busi­ness Ed­i­tor, The Kash­miriyat

Though with the ab­ro­ga­tion of Ar­ti­cle 370, Kash­mir was re­duced to a union ter­ri­tory, yet they did not get ben­e­fits of a mi­nor­ity un­der the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties Act, 1992.  Their sit­u­a­tion was the same as when J & K was a full-fledged state. 

Even Zainab Rauf says, “What’s more im­por­tant is that even af­ter the colos­sal rea­son for re­vo­ca­tion of Ar­ti­cle 370 by the Modi gov­ern­ment, ‘jus­tice’ or rather ‘lib­er­a­tion’ of Kash­mir’s mi­nori­ties, the voices of Kash­miri Sikhs, like al­ways, have been ma­jorly side­lined.”

With their back to the wall, the All Par­ties Sikh Co­or­di­na­tion Com­mit­tee (AP­SCC), in re­sponse to the news of Kash­mir lead­er­ship go­ing to Delhi for talks, has de­manded the in­clu­sion of mi­nori­ties like Sikhs, Gu­j­jars and Pa­haris in the con­sul­ta­tions be­ing car­ried out by the De­lim­i­ta­tion Com­mis­sion as part of its ex­er­cise in the union ter­ri­tory of Jammu & Kash­mir. 

Sad­dened by the fact that whoso­ever is not rel­e­vant as a vote bank, has been ex­cluded, the Com­mit­tee headed by  Jag­mo­han Singh Raina has said that “the ex­clu­sion of mi­nori­ties is un­ac­cept­able and it would be fought tooth and nail by the mem­bers of con­cerned com­mu­ni­ties.” 

“The ex­clu­sion of mi­nori­ties is un­ac­cept­able and it would be fought tooth and nail by the mem­bers of con­cerned com­mu­ni­ties.” 

Jag­mo­han Singh Raina, chair­per­son, All Party Sikh Co­or­di­na­tion Com­mit­tee

In a state­ment, AP­SCC Chair­man said that mem­bers of dif­fer­ent mi­nori­ties need to be taken on board by the De­lim­i­ta­tion Com­mis­sion be­fore any de­ci­sion about the re­draw­ing of as­sem­bly con­stituen­cies is taken. 

Ex­press­ing his con­cern, while speak­ing to WSN, Jag­mo­han Singh Raina said, “any ex­er­cise with­out the par­tic­i­pa­tion of mi­nor­ity com­mu­nity mem­bers would be use­less and mean­ing­less.”

“Kash­miri Sikhs are the abo­rig­i­nals of Kash­mir.”

Jas­bir Singh Sarna, au­thor, The Sikhs in Jammu & Kash­mir

“It is im­per­a­tive that mem­bers of mi­nor­ity com­mu­ni­ties like Sikhs, Gu­j­jars and Pa­haris are con­sulted by the De­lim­i­ta­tion Com­mis­sion since the pop­u­la­tion is large in many as­sem­bly seg­ments. The sug­ges­tions put for­ward by the po­lit­i­cal par­ties and mi­nor­ity com­mu­nity mem­bers should be put in the pub­lic do­main be­fore any fi­nal de­ci­sion is taken by the Home Min­istry.” 

Jag­jeet Singh Su­dan and Such­want Singh of the Move­ment for Jus­tice for Refugees of 1947 from POK, in a mem­o­ran­dum sub­mit­ted last No­vem­ber, sought reser­va­tion of seats for Sikhs set­tled from POK in Jammu and Kash­mir. WSN learns that the De­lim­i­ta­tion Com­mis­sion has turned down their re­quest say­ing that till POK re­mains oc­cu­pied, the said area and the seats shall be ex­cluded in de­lim­it­ing the ter­ri­to­r­ial con­stituen­cies.

When asked what would the AP­SCC do in case their de­mands fell on deaf ears, Jag­mo­han Singh Raina re­torted, “if mi­nori­ties are ig­nored, the fight goes into the streets.”