Decades of un­ful­filled promises and sys­tem­atic ne­glect by suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments of dif­fer­ent po­lit­i­cal par­ties have prompted the Sikh lead­er­ship in Kash­mir to em­bark on a ground­break­ing mass con­tact ini­tia­tive. Un­der the ban­ner of the All Party Sikh Co­or­di­na­tion Com­mit­tee (AP­SCC), com­mu­nity lead­ers will fan out across the val­ley, reach­ing out to every Sikh house­hold to am­plify their con­cerns. WSN re­ports.

In a sig­nif­i­cant de­vel­op­ment that sig­nals a shift in the com­mu­ni­ty’s po­lit­i­cal stance, The All Party Sikh Co­or­di­na­tion Com­mit­tee has an­nounced that they will no longer sup­port any po­lit­i­cal par­ty’s can­di­date. In­stead, they will iden­tify and pro­mote can­di­dates from within the Sikh com­mu­nity.

“We are a live com­mu­nity which has suf­fered, which has been ig­nored and is be­ing po­lit­i­cally dis­armed by re­duc­ing us to merely a vote bank. Enough is enough. We have de­cided to re­sist this with all our might.”

As per the 2011 cen­sus, the to­tal num­ber of Sikhs in Jammu and Kash­mir is 234,848, which makes up only 1.87 per­cent of the state.

Over the last many decades, we have been meet­ing the peo­ple at the helm with le­git­i­mate de­mands of the Sikh com­mu­nity, ex­pressed a vis­i­bly dis­tressed Jag­mo­han Singh Raina, the Chair­man of AP­SCC. He added, “Every time our is­sues were given a cold shoul­der.”

Raina em­pha­sized, “The Sikh com­mu­nity, de­spite be­ing a mi­nor­ity, has been con­sis­tently side­lined. We’ve sought di­a­logue with Chief Min­is­ters of the erst­while Jammu & Kash­mir state, gov­er­nors, and even the cen­tral lead­er­ship. Yet, light at the end of the tun­nel re­mains elu­sive.”

While the Sikh pop­u­la­tion in Kash­mir is­n’t ex­ten­sive, their rich his­tory and close ties with the ma­jor­ity Kash­miri Mus­lim com­mu­nity make their voice cru­cial in the val­ley’s so­cio-po­lit­i­cal land­scape. A sen­ti­ment echoed by Raina, “We have shared hap­pi­ness and sor­row with the mem­bers of the ma­jor­ity com­mu­nity dur­ing tur­moil and crises. We have been with them through thick and thin.”

“We have shared hap­pi­ness and sor­row with the mem­bers of the ma­jor­ity com­mu­nity dur­ing tur­moil and crises. We have been with them through thick and thin.”

One of the key is­sues raised dur­ing the con­fer­ence was the non-con­duct of the Jammu & Kash­mir Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Board elec­tions, de­spite the in­ter­ven­tion of Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor, Manoj Sinha. In ad­di­tion, the de­lib­er­ate omis­sion of the Na­tional Mi­nor­ity Act in J&K post the ab­ro­ga­tion of Ar­ti­cle 370 and the neg­li­gence to­wards re-in­tro­duc­ing the Pun­jabi lan­guage in ed­u­ca­tional in­sti­tu­tions was also high­lighted.

Raina lamented, “It’s ex­tremely un­for­tu­nate that pack­ages meant for mi­nori­ties that did not mi­grate were ma­nip­u­lated. The same was changed for the ben­e­fit of the favourite mi­nor­ity.”

“It’s ex­tremely un­for­tu­nate that pack­ages meant for mi­nori­ties that did not mi­grate were ma­nip­u­lated. The same was changed for the ben­e­fit of the favourite mi­nor­ity.”

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

The con­fer­ence saw par­tic­i­pa­tion from Sikh lead­ers and Gu­rud­wara com­mit­tee mem­bers from across the val­ley, in­clud­ing Prin­ci­pal Ni­ran­jan Singh, Ex-Pres­i­dent GPC Pul­wama, Sant Singh, In­dumeet Singh, Devin­der Singh, and Gu­rud­wara com­mit­tee mem­bers from Kash­mir val­ley in­clud­ing Navtej Singh, Engg. Jetinder Singh, Jas­bir Singh, Sukhbirb Singh, Harpal Singh, Nis­hant Singh.

As the com­mu­nity pre­pares for its out­reach pro­gram, the broader nar­ra­tive of the Kash­miri Sikhs’ de­mand for jus­tice and right­ful rep­re­sen­ta­tion gains mo­men­tum. Their close ties with the Kash­miri Mus­lim com­mu­nity, stem­ming from a shared his­tory of re­silience, en­sure that their voice, though sup­pressed, will never be si­lenced.