On the eve of In­di­a’s In­de­pen­dence Day, in an ex­tra­or­di­nary show of dis­sent, ac­tivists of the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal (Am­rit­sar) and Dal Khalsa gath­ered in the in­dus­trial cap­i­tal of Pun­jab -Lud­hi­ana, on the hot and sul­try day of 14 Au­gust, protest­ing in­jus­tices and dis­crim­i­na­tions of the In­dian state, call­ing upon peo­ple of Pun­jab to dis­own 15 Au­gust as Black Day. A WSN Re­port.

CAR­RY­ING BLACK FLAGS AND RAIS­ING PRO-SIKH FREE­DOM SLO­GANS, hun­dreds of ac­tivists from Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal (Am­rit­sar) led by Mem­ber Par­lia­ment Sim­ran­jit Singh Mann and Dal Khalsa led by party pres­i­dent Harpal Singh Cheema marched to the city cen­tre point of Ja­graon bridge in Lud­hi­ana, draw­ing at­ten­tion to In­di­a’s per­sis­tent in­jus­tices, po­lit­i­cal sub­ju­ga­tion, and de­nial of rights to Pun­jab and Sikhs over the past seven decades.

Mark­ing their dis­ap­proval, the demon­stra­tors un­furled black flags, waved ban­ners and dis­played plac­ards bear­ing their griev­ances. Ask­ing Pun­jab’s cit­i­zens to ob­serve Au­gust 15 as a “Black Day” amidst zeal­ous calls of “Sikhs want Azaadi from In­dia” in chaste Pun­jabi.

The demon­stra­tors, flanked by a posse of po­lice through the two-kilo­me­tre route, high­lighted the mis­use of laws like the NSA and UAPA to sti­fle dis­sent­ing voices, fla­grant mis­use of NIA to over­awe in­ter­na­tional lob­by­ing groups, like Sikh Fed­er­a­tion UK and hu­man­i­tar­ian aid agen­cies like Khalsa Aid, along with in­ter­fer­ence in re­li­gious mat­ters and the non-recog­ni­tion and de­nial of the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion, veiled state-spon­sored ter­ror­ism, dra­con­ian laws, and de­nial of rights of Sikh po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers.

Paramjit Singh Mand, the spokesper­son for the Dal Khalsa, chided the no­tion of In­dian free­dom, ask­ing rhetor­i­cal ques­tions about how Pun­jab has no right to its wa­ters, ter­ri­tory, lan­guage, fun­da­men­tal rights, and recog­ni­tion of the unique and dis­tinct iden­tity of the Sikh peo­ple.

“The point is not to rid Pun­jab of BJP or Con­gress or any other party. The point is to up­hold the dig­nity and ho­n­our of the Pun­jab.” 

Paramjit Singh Mand, Spokesper­son, Dal Khalsa

Mand out­rightly dis­missed In­dian Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mod­i’s call for “har ghar tiranga” -every home to hoist the In­dian flag.  Speak­ing from atop a jeep, wav­ing to a re­spon­sive gath­er­ing of Sikh youth, he roared, “The point is not to rid Pun­jab of BJP or Con­gress or any other party. The only way to save the dig­nity and ho­n­our of Pun­jab and of Pun­jabis is for Sikhs to re­gain their free­dom sooner than later.”

Talk­ing to the me­dia, Mem­ber Par­lia­ment from San­grur and sep­tu­a­ge­nar­ian leader of Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal (Am­rit­sar) Pres­i­dent -Sim­ran­jit Singh Mann cat­e­gor­i­cally stated, “If In­dia wants Ram Ra­jya, then what is wrong in Sikhs ask­ing for a sep­a­rate coun­try and home­land?” Ad­dress­ing the gath­er­ing, Sim­ran­jit Singh Mann said that the strug­gle for an in­de­pen­dent home­land would con­tinue as In­di­a’s in­de­pen­dence has not de­liv­ered any­thing for us.

“If In­dia wants Ram Ra­jya, then what is wrong in Sikhs ask­ing for a sep­a­rate coun­try and home­land?” 

Sim­ran­jit Singh Mann, Mem­ber Par­lia­ment and Pres­i­dent, Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal (Am­rit­sar)

“The im­po­si­tion of pseudo-na­tion­al­ism, a Uni­form Civil Code on dis­tinct mi­nor­ity iden­ti­ties, and state in­ter­fer­ence in re­li­gious af­fairs or a thorn in our flesh, which is un­war­ranted and un­ac­cept­able.”

Known pro­tag­o­nists of the Sikh in­de­pen­dence move­ment,  the two par­ties re­it­er­ated their com­mit­ment to pur­sue their cause through po­lit­i­cal and de­mo­c­ra­tic processes.

Dal Khalsa Pres­i­dent, Ad­vo­cate Harpal Singh Cheema crit­i­cized the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity for not ad­e­quately ad­dress­ing state-spon­sored vi­o­lence against peace­ful and de­mo­c­ra­tic move­ments ad­vo­cat­ing for hu­man rights, yet we deeply ap­pre­ci­ate the ef­forts of the Sikh Di­as­pora in en­gag­ing lead­ers of re­spec­tive coun­tries and me­dia high­light­ing in­jus­tices to Pun­jab.

“We deeply ap­pre­ci­ate the role of the Sikh Di­as­pora in en­gag­ing lead­ers of re­spec­tive coun­tries and in­ter­na­tional me­dia high­light­ing in­jus­tices to Pun­jab.”

Harpal Singh Cheema, Pres­i­dent, Dal Khalsa

Speak­ing ex­clu­sively to WSN, Dal Khalsa se­nior leader Kan­war Pal Singh,  said, “In­ter­na­tional fo­rums have ig­nored the de­mo­c­ra­tic and peace­ful strug­gle of the Sikhs and Kash­miris and have turned a blind eye to the mis­ery, pain and vi­o­la­tion of their hu­man rights. I won­der what more they are wait­ing for. Notwith­stand­ing their cold re­sponse so far, we will still con­tinue to knock on the doors of UN fo­rums and the diplo­matic com­mu­nity to plead for our rights un­der UN treaties and con­ven­tions.”

“De­spite the cold re­sponse of the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity so far, we will still con­tinue to knock on the doors of the UN and the diplo­matic com­mu­nity.”

Kan­war Pal Singh, Se­nior Leader, Dal Khalsa

“The least that UN bod­ies and world pow­ers should do is to de­bunk  In­di­a’s ob­sti­nacy to al­ways push the the­ory of de­rid­ing de­mo­c­ra­tic move­ments for rights as law and or­der prob­lems,” he added.

“The un­ex­plained mur­ders of Sikh mil­i­tant leader Paramjit Singh Pan­jwar in Pak­istan and Sikh ac­tivist Hard­eep Singh Ni­j­jar in Canada lead the nee­dle of sus­pi­cion to In­di­a’s se­cret agen­cies’ ex­tra­ju­di­cial mis­ad­ven­tures.”

Sig­nif­i­cantly, the con­cerns ex­tended to Ma­nipur, Kash­mir and Na­ga­land. Out­raged at the con­tin­u­ing vi­o­lence and weaponiza­tion of rape in Ma­nipur, the lead­ers said that what was hap­pen­ing in Ma­nipur was state-spon­sored ter­ror­ism. Al­lud­ing to the fourth an­niver­sary of Ar­ti­cle 370 ab­ro­ga­tion in Kash­mir, it was stated that In­dia has mur­dered democ­racy in Kash­mir.  They squarely blamed In­dia for not ho­n­our­ing the 2015 Frame­work Agree­ment for Indo-Naga Peace Ac­cord.

“All mi­nori­ties, in­clud­ing in­dige­nous groups and Dal­its, were also suf­fer­ing.”

SGPC mem­ber Kar­nail Singh Pan­joli prayed seek­ing bless­ings of Guru Sahib for the suc­cess of the rally and the mis­sion of the or­gan­is­ers.

In essence, the protest un­der­scored the con­tin­u­ing strug­gle of Sikhs and other mi­nor­ity groups against on­go­ing in­jus­tices and op­pres­sion in In­dia. The demon­stra­tion, framed as a re­sponse to decades of griev­ances and un­ful­filled promises, high­lighted the deep-seated dis­sat­is­fac­tion that has fu­eled these calls for change.