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