In a move that show­cases the brew­ing dis­con­tent within the Sikh com­mu­nity re­sid­ing in Jammu and Kash­mir (J & K), a del­e­ga­tion of the All Party Sikh Co­or­di­na­tion Com­mit­tee, com­pris­ing Harmi­lan Kaur and Man­meet Kaur re­cently met Ms. Droupadi Murmu -Pres­i­dent of In­dia dur­ing her visit to Jammu and Kash­mir last week, mak­ing a fer­vent ap­peal for jus­tice while high­light­ing the com­mu­ni­ty’s pro­longed griev­ances. WSN re­ports.

Echo­ing sen­ti­ments of ne­glect, two lady rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Kash­mir Sikhs pre­sented a mem­o­ran­dum to the In­dian Pres­i­dent Ms. Droupadi Murmu, throw­ing light on light on the press­ing is­sues faced by Sikhs in the val­ley.

Sig­nif­i­cantly, there’s a pal­pa­ble sense of dis­il­lu­sion­ment, es­pe­cially when jux­ta­posed with the ex­ten­sive eco­nomic and po­lit­i­cal sup­port that other mi­nor­ity groups, no­tably the Kash­miri Pan­dits, have been re­ceiv­ing from both cen­tral and state gov­ern­ments.

Draw­ing at­ten­tion to the “silent ex­o­dus” of Sikhs from the re­gion, Jag­mo­han Singh Raina, chair­per­son of the All Party Sikh Co­or­di­na­tion Com­mit­tee, un­der whose sig­na­tures, the doc­u­ment was sub­mit­ted un­der­scored “the alarm­ing so­cio-cul­tural cri­sis un­fold­ing in the val­ley. De­spite the ad­ver­sity, the Sikhs, in their in­domitable spirit, have cho­sen to re­main in Kash­mir, and yet feel dis­re­garded.”

The sub­mis­sion of the AP­SCC em­pha­sized the key de­mands of the Kash­miri Sikhs, in­clud­ing,

1. Equal Mi­nor­ity Rights: Ex­ten­sion of the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties Act (NCMA) to J&K to guar­an­tee equal mi­nor­ity rights.

2. Re­lief for In­ter­nally Dis­placed Sikhs: Jag­mo­han Singh Raina is adamant about the need for Sikhs to re­ceive the same re­lief pack­ages as non-mi­grant Kash­miri Pan­dits.

3. Re­in­state­ment of Pun­jabi as a Recog­nised Lan­guage: Fol­low­ing the ab­ro­ga­tion of Ar­ti­cle 370, Pun­jabi’s sta­tus was un­cer­e­mo­ni­ously re­voked in J &K. Raina ve­he­mently ap­peals for its re­in­state­ment to pro­tect cul­tural and lin­guis­tic her­itage.

4. Po­lit­i­cal Rep­re­sen­ta­tion: Af­ter the De­lim­i­ta­tion Com­mis­sion’s rec­om­men­da­tions, seats were ear­marked for mi­nori­ties, pre­dom­i­nantly Kash­miri Pan­dits. The let­ter em­phat­i­cally calls for sim­i­lar po­lit­i­cal reser­va­tions for the Sikh com­mu­nity.

“Our women del­e­gates were promised pos­i­tive in­ter­ven­tion by the Pres­i­dent. We hope that the wheels of jus­tice will move soon.”

Jag­mo­han Singh Raina, Chair­per­son, All Party Sikh Co­or­di­na­tion Com­mit­tee, Kash­mir

Speak­ing to The World Sikh News, Jag­mo­han Singh Raina said, “Our women del­e­gates were promised pos­i­tive in­ter­ven­tion by the Pres­i­dent. We hope that the wheels of jus­tice will move soon.”

The Kash­miri Sikh com­mu­nity -from so­cial work­ers to stu­dent lead­ers, from farm­ers to busi­ness­men, from ed­u­ca­tion­ists to writ­ers to politi­cians, -all are united in their call for recog­ni­tion of the rights and con­tri­bu­tions of Sikhs in J & K.