Car­ing too hoots for the sta­tus quo or­ders of the High Court of Megha­laya, the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties and the as­sur­ances given by the Gov­er­nor of Megha­laya to Sikh del­e­ga­tions, in a con­spir­a­to­r­ial move in­volv­ing the Megha­laya gov­ern­ment, the tra­di­tional king -Syiem of Hima Myl­liem and the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board, the gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya has taken tech­ni­cal pos­ses­sion of the land of Pun­jabi lane on which re­side more than 400 Sikh fam­i­lies, who have been liv­ing there for two cen­turies. WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh, who has been keep­ing a close eye on the de­vel­op­ments in Shil­long ex­am­ines the fu­ture pos­si­bil­i­ties for the be­lea­guered Shil­long Sikhs.

FOR THE LAST THREE YEARS, close to 2000 Sikhs have been liv­ing in fear in the Pun­jabi Lane area of Shil­long which is now prime land for the gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya, which wants to beau­tify the city by dis­lo­cat­ing the per­ma­nent res­i­dents there. The Megha­laya state’s Ur­ban Af­fairs Min­istry has taken over the land of the poor Sikh res­i­dents, ad­mea­sur­ing 12,444.13 square me­tres and hav­ing a Sikh Gur­d­wara, a Hindu place of wor­ship which in­cludes a Shiv Mandir, a Valmiki Mandir and a Durga Mandir as well as a CNI Church in the area.

The Deputy Chief Min­is­ter, mock­ing the Sikhs said, “a beau­ti­fi­ca­tion drive of the area will be soon taken up as the area is ‘un­fit for hu­man habi­ta­tion’ and also gave a veiled chal­lenge to the Sikhs say­ing, “the state gov­ern­ment has plans to re­lo­cate Gur­d­wara Guru Nanak Dabar and a school from there.”

Sig­nif­i­cantly, for the first time in the last three years, the Deputy Chief Min­is­ter while mak­ing the an­nounce­ment of pos­ses­sion of the land said that “NGOs from out­side Megha­laya are free to visit Shil­long and share their griev­ances and con­cerns with the gov­ern­ment.”

Is some­one lis­ten­ing, please?

Ear­lier this month, fol­low­ing the sub­mis­sion of a re­port by the High-Level Com­mit­tee of the gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya headed by Deputy Chief Min­is­ter Pre­stone Tyn­song, the state cab­i­net gave fi­nal­ity to a tri­par­tite lease deed for the land with the Syiem (king-like chief­tain) of Hima Myl­liem and the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board for tak­ing over the land where the Har­i­jan Colony or Pun­jabi Lane stands. As part of the land pos­ses­sion deal, Ru­pees Two crores were paid as lease pre­mium to the Syiem of Hima Myl­liem.

The Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee and the Gur­d­wara Guru Nanak Dar­bar have been putting up a re­lent­less strug­gle to save their home and hearth, knock­ing on all doors of the Sikh com­mu­nity from Delhi to Am­rit­sar, the doors of the Pun­jab gov­ern­ment and Sikh Di­as­pora or­gan­i­sa­tions. 

The Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee has clear sta­tus quo or­ders of the Megha­laya High Court, the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties, the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Safai Karam­charis and the Na­tional Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion.  The moot point is whether ‘all the king’s horses and all the kings’ men will be able to tame the Megha­laya gov­ern­ment, which is un­der pres­sure from the land mafia lobby and some dis­grun­tled lo­cal stu­dent unions.

The moot point is whether ‘all the king’s horses and all the kings’ men will be able to tame the Megha­laya gov­ern­ment, which is un­der pres­sure from the land mafia lobby and some dis­grun­tled lo­cal stu­dent unions.

Ex­cept for the DS­GMC, which has pro­vided reg­u­lar le­gal as­sis­tance and the SGPC which has sup­ported the build­ing of the Gur­d­wara Sahib, no ef­fec­tive po­lit­i­cal and so­cial steps have been taken by any­one to save their sit­u­a­tion.  In the ini­tial pe­riod, when the trou­ble started in 2018, United Sikhs had also in­ter­vened.

To­day, with the fam­i­lies dis­pos­sessed of their land, as per the gov­ern­ment an­nounce­ments, it will take a her­culean in­ter­ven­tion by the Sikh com­mu­nity to save the res­i­dences of the poor Sikhs. 

Of course, we will be free to cry over spilt milk, in case we do not do any­thing. If Sikhs fail to get their act to­gether now, we will def­i­nitely wit­ness breast-beat­ing and “Oh, it is an RSS game” against drama. 

WSN is cat­e­gor­i­cal. Whoso­ev­er’s game this is, the writ­ing is on the wall. Shil­long Sikhs, though de­ter­mined to fight back, are count­ing hours, not days. 

Pres­i­dent of Gur­d­wara Guru Nanak Dar­bar – Gur­jit Singh, who has been sin­gle-hand­edly re­but­ting all moves of the Megha­laya gov­ern­ment in the most dili­gent and hon­est man­ner pos­si­ble dur­ing the last three decades, as the mat­ter has been sim­mer­ing for a very long time, told The World Sikh News, “We will fight back. We will die here in the Pun­jabi Lane, but will not move an inch.  Re­lo­ca­tion will be over our dead bod­ies.”

“We are in the throes of a le­git­i­mate strug­gle and will soon start the next phase of the bat­tle for our land, while our le­gal re­course will con­tinue like be­fore,” he added.

Dur­ing his re­cent visit to Shil­long, DS­GMC Pres­i­dent Man­jin­der Singh Sirsa vowed to take thou­sands of Sikhs to Shil­long for pro­tect­ing the Shil­long Sikhs and also to hire the best of le­gal brains to counter the il­le­gal moves of the gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya.  

It is time for this to hap­pen. To­day, not to­mor­row.

Dur­ing his re­cent visit to Shil­long, DS­GMC Pres­i­dent Man­jin­der Singh Sirsa vowed to take thou­sands of Sikhs to Shil­long for pro­tect­ing the Shil­long Sikhs and also to hire the best of le­gal brains to counter the il­le­gal moves of the gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya. It is time for this to hap­pen. To­day, not to­mor­row.

The Sikh world is ob­serv­ing the an­niver­sary of the mas­sacre of No­vem­ber 1984. It is shock­ing and dis­turb­ing that the Megha­laya gov­ern­ment of NPP-led Con­rad K. Sangma and the BJP is rub­bing salt on Sikh wounds.

The Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee has been cry­ing hoarse with reg­u­lar SOS mes­sages. The poor Sikhs con­tinue to beckon us for im­me­di­ate and strong in­ter­ven­tion.  

“Do Poor Sikhs Lives Mat­ter!”

The World Sikh News has been lead­ing the cam­paign to save the Shil­long Sikhs. While we have been able to ex­cite a small sec­tion of the com­mu­nity, given the re­tarded re­sponse of the com­mu­nity, we are re­strained to ex­press in dis­be­lief, “Do Poor Sikhs Lives Mat­ter!”