Human Rights Special: Panjaab calls out against inequality and injustice on the occasion of 70 years of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.  WSN columnist Jagdeesh Singh presents Sikh perspective on the inclusive and unified Panjaabi demand for self-determination and of other beleaguered nations, which remains on the treaties and conventions of the UN but is still practically a far cry in many parts of the world.

Divided territories and nations like Panjaab, Kashmir, Kurdistan, Palestine, Korea, Bengal, Cyprus, Tamil Eelam, Balochistan, Catalonia and others around the world, have been broken by vicious and unjust political decisions and schemes imposed on those indigenous peoples. Imperialism and colonialism remain as present and evident today, as it has been for hundreds of years past. These affected people aspire to return to their former indigenous unity and integrated living, as free, self-governing countries. Why should any country and people give up control of its affairs and development, willfully and subordinate itself to a bigger, mightier, imposing state? Why should Panjaabis be submissive tenants to the Indian political super-state, when they could be sovereign masters and decision-makers in their own homeland, as historically before?

The Indian state, by its sheer bombastic size, covers the entire territory of the 28 independent states of Europe. Additionally, India has four times the same population of those 28 states combined.  How can India be a single ‘nation’?

By its very existence, Pakistan as a break-away to the notion of a single, ‘united’ India; represents a moral challenge to the ego of the bulky, bloated Indian ruling class. Had Pakistan not had its own substantive military, it is certain that India’s power masters would have by now taken over substantial chunks of Pakistani territory.  The powerful presence of an overlooking China represents an added deterrent to the boisterous but nervous Indian mind. As John Papworth, has stated, a dominant, belligerent mind, ready and armed with weapons; cannot help throw its weight around over others. India is certainly a regional bully, held in check by neighbouring Pakistan and China.

“Why should Panjaabis be tenants to the Indian political super-state, when they could be sovereign masters and decision-makers in their own homeland, as before achieved?”

The once independent and sovereign Panjaabi nation (subsumed into the expanionist British India in 1849), was viciously and gruesomely partitioned in 1947 by the outgoing British imperialist elite (epitomised by Lord Mountbatten and his UK based government) in conjunction with the incoming founders of modern Pakistan (Mohammad Ali Jinnah) and modern India (Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi). This controversial and questionable trio decided upon the carve-up of Panjaab and Bengal, as part of their grandiose, most genocidal and undemocratic transfer of power from one mammoth British imperial state into the select hands of two new territorial blocks -substantial states -carved directly out of the original mega British India constructed by piecemal conquest.

The Radcliffe line on the Panjaabis, like the Curzon line on the Bengalis, the Durand line on the Pathaans was a superimposed strategem, serving the discrete, concealed purposes of the decision makers and no good purpose of the affected victim nations.

“The Indian state, by its sheer bombastic size, covers the entire territory of the 28 independent states of Europe. Additionally, India has four times the same population of those 28 states combined.  How can India be a single ‘nation’?”

The blood-ridden Transfer of Power was not a victory for freedom, but another chapter in unethical geo-politics and the beginning of a new phase of grim, oppressive misgovernance of South Asia under brown imperialists, who replaced their white counterparts.

Just like its predecessor, the new offspring states of Pakistan and India are and demonstrably remain, just as artificial and undemocratic. They represent no less the accumulation and concentration of territorial and political power as their white imperialist originating British India. With territorial power, comes political power, and vice versa. And, with that, the actual physical power to impose governance and misgovernance.

Panjaab epitomises the acute problems of unnatural division, separation of populations and whole-scale artificial bisection, which many natural countries and territories around the world have suffered, due to the unprincipled interwoven games of imperial politics and modern geopolitics.

The vast majority of territorial states that we currently see across the global map are the chaotic product of ongoing empires, expansionism, political scheming, conquests, competing invasions and annexations, territorial divisions, and, political wheeling and dealing. Extremely few states actually correspond with authentic indigenous ethnic national societies. Many such historic ethnic nations are stateless, oppressed, subject to tyrannical persecution and repression from larger, engulfing states like China, Russia, Turkey, Sri Lanka, India, Burma and Pakistan. They sit over the naturally, indigenous small-scale nations and enforce their stately presence through the physical power of their armies, paramilitaries, police and draconian legal systems designed to criminalize dissent and ‘separatism’.

Indeed, many of the states that have been formed in the much glorified, yet chaotic colonial transfers of power in the 1940s to 1950s (e.g. Kenya, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, India, Burma, Indonesia), are actually clumsily carved out mega states directly and simply replacing western imperialist structures with local brown and black ruling elites.   Power has shifted from the obvious external elite to new more localised elites, who often appear similar in physical appearance to the mass populations that they are currently oppressing. Both intrinsically wrong and vicious. Both deceiving and disingenuous.

The excruciating and torturous forward march of history, at a slow and erratic pace, is the clamour by inidigenous peoples (the real nations) to gain democratic control of their affairs, infrastructure, lands, economies and governance. It is all about authentic nations, rather than centralised, state superimposed ‘nations’. There can be a will to recognise and actually empower diversity within an overarching, unitarian state; without suppressing or oppressing its constituent nations. The United Kingdom whose Prime Minister has recently stated publicly that, the UK is made up of four nations – Scottish, English, Welsh and Northern Irish. This is a good example of a flourishing, democratic, diverse union state. India is the exact opposite, with its imposing stamp of Hinduisation and Indianisation running hand-in-glove.

Panjaab is a small country, nation, a civilisation, which is crying out for its life, independence and sovereignty. For its right to grow, express itself, speak for itself. Be an international player and contributor. Panjaab and its people have all qualities to achieve the aforesaid. As avid global justice campaigner and writer John Papworth (Fourth World) has eloquently argued, “Small is powerful!”

For all its resources, productivity, vibrant and exceeding human spirit, displayed at home and by the global Panjaabi diaspora in foreign countries; the Panjaabi homeland remains a suppressed child, not being allowed to grow and develop. It epitomises the grim reality of so many nations around the world – unrecognised, unprotected, unheard – Karen, Kashmiri, Tamil, Borneo, Matabele, Igbo, Catalonia, Baluch, Manipuri, Mizo, Naga and more.

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A country is expressed through its natural landscape, its indigenous language, its domestic history, its intrinsic culture, its ethnic people. Panjaab, like other partitioned nations like Kashmir, Kurdistan, Balochistan, Bengal, Korea, Cyprus, Catalonia has all those qualities. Each of these countries and nations are crying out for empowerment, self-governance, independence and sovereign expression and representation of their affairs. Each wants to share and be together among their indigenous people. None should be the property of any overarching, imposing state.

There is an anxious and agitated spirit across these suppressed and broken nations: to reclaim their true shape and identities. To speak their own language. To express their cultural substance. To develop their own economies. To express themselves through international sports and development. None of that is possible, if one is reduced to a minuscule object within the grip of a mighty, imposing colonialist state.

Panjaab zindabaad! Jai Panjaab! Vive la Panjaab!

Maps Courtesy: Panjab Digital Library