As India celebrates Nehru’s 128th birth anniversary, the treachery of Nehru, Gandhi and others cannot be easily forgotten, Sikh leadership cannot be easily forgiven, and Sikh yearning for self-rule and self-determination has to be respected.

Many of the present-day ills of Sikh society have their seeds in the past when the Sikh leadership was seriously influenced by a divisive social policy which had casteism as its hallmark. The empty promises of Indian leadership to grant the Sikhs “the glow of freedom” and soon after 1947, Nehru’s words that “the times have changed” continues to haunt the Sikhs.

It is no wonder that SGPC president Kirpal Singh Badungar sees nothing wrong in demanding a separate Sikh state and Dal Khalsa continues to seek the right to self-determination.

Exploring the background of the events around 1947 we clearly see that there is a huge gap between precept and practice of Sikh principles by the Sikh leadership -religious and political.  Peeping into the past, it is clear that the Sikh leadership has to go beyond lip service.  

At the end of World War-I, when the so-called low caste Sikh soldiers returned home, they visited Golden Temple Amritsar to pay their homage for their safe return but they were prevented to enter in Darbar Sahib by the then Jathedars and Mahants (keepers of the shrine) who were self-assumed upper caste Sikhs. In protest thereof, a public gathering was organized at Jallianwala Bagh against this discrimination, which was against the ethics of Sikhism. The lower caste Sikhs and other Dalits were not allowed to enter in Darbar Sahib  aka Golden Temple by these Mahants, whereas the Sikh Gurus had made this place of worship open for all human, irrespective of their castes, creeds, colours or even faith.

“After this bloody massacre of Jallianwala Bagh on 13 April 1919, there was a very strong and revolutionary movement initiated by the Sikhs, popularly known as Gurdwara Sudhar Lehar and Jaito da Morcha.”

The foundation of Darbar Sahib was laid by a Great Muslim Sufi Faqir of the times – Sain Mian Mir Sahib at the calling of the Fifth Master Guru Arjan Dev Sahib and its four doors on North, South, East and West sides were meant to be architectural indicators to depict that the doors to this Abode of God was open for all human beings irrespective of any kind of discrimination whatsoever, which was being seriously flouted by the Mahants who had managed to oversee the affairs of Darbar Sahib Amritsar.

It will be pertinent to mention here that the firing by the British on the peaceful assembly at the Jallianwala Bagh was post-facto approved by the Mahants and the then Jathedar of Akal Takht Sahib, working under the tutelage of the British. General Dyer was presented with a Saropa at Akal Takht by Jathedar Roor Singh and was invited for lunch by Jathedar Majithia. They were gifted with of lands by way of Jagirs and Murabbas by the British Rulers.  The Sikh community has not forgiven them and they are always referred to as traitors of the Khalsa Panth who were entrenched as cohorts of the British.

After this bloody massacre of Jallianwala Bagh on 13 April 1919, there was a very strong and revolutionary movement initiated by the Sikhs, popularly known as Gurdwara Sudhar Lehar and Jaito da Morcha, which left a very deep effect on the ongoing freedom struggle of India. It was duly recognized by the then Congress leadership. All historical Sikh Gurdwaras and Akal Takht, were got freed from the clutches of Mahants who were working as touts of the British Rulers against the interests of Khalsa Panth. The Sikhs, thinking that sacrifices during the Indian struggle for freedom would result in Sikh freedom too, laid down maximum lives. Congress leader Sita Ram Pitta Ramayan in his book “The History of Indian National Congress” mentions that nearly 89 percent of the martyrs were Sikh.

“Even as Dal Khalsa reaffirms that the Sikhs have their distinct identity, Sikhs once ruled Punjab under Baba Banda Singh Bahadur and Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the Sikh nation has a long distance to traverse till it meets its own “tryst with destiny” unlike the one delivered by Nehru and Mountbatten.”

Sikhs were respected all around. Sikh saints of the period surveyed every village of Punjab and started Amrit Prachar Lehar to convert all so called lower caste people as Sikhs in an endeavour to free them from the deeply entrenched clutches of the caste-system. Darbar Sahib aka Golden Temple was freed and its doors were opened for all. It was a revolution for Dalits and Shudras to achieve a respectable place in society as Sikhs.

This was not tolerable to the Indian Brahmin leadership and it started to plot. The first move to sabotage Sikh preaching was a move to pursue the Sikh leaders by playing the treacherous master move by saying that Hindus and Sikhs were parts of one family. So much so that Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya even went to the extent of declaring to all the Hindus that “Every Hindu should raise their first son as a Sikh, if they want a strong country” and the Hindu families started making their eldest son as Sikhs till 1947 to protect themselves as recommended by Pandit Malviya, but in 1947 a group called Arya Samaj popped-up and this practice was stopped. It was practiced for a short period of time in Punjab among a few Hindu families but later on their minds were poisoned by Jan Sangh, the  precursor of the present-day BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) and which is a political wing of the RSS.

They even pursued Punjabi Hindu families to declare their mother tongue as Hindi instead of Punjabi, even though none among them ever knew the language. It vitiated the atmosphere in Punjab and further divided Punjab on the basis of Punjabi speaking areas.

Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya was a far-sighted Hindu Nationalist, who remained President of Indian National Congress (INC) continuously from 1909 to 1918. He was born in an orthodox Brahmin family in Allahabad. Initiated in the study of scriptures at a young age, he grew into a bright intellectual. He founded and edited two fiercely nationalistic weeklies called ‘The Hindustan’ in Hindi and ‘The Indian Union’ in English and he was actively responsible for spreading awareness of freedom in India. He represented whole of India with Mahatma Gandhi in First Round Table Conference in 1931. Madan Mohan Malviya founded the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in 1916 and remained its Vice-Chancellor till 1939, when he was succeeded by Dr. Radhakrishnan, the first President of India.

Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya popularized the famous slogan “Satyameva Jayathe” i.e. Truth alone will win. He praised the Sikhs, only in order to befool them in which he succeeded. No one among his own family became a Sikh as per his declaration. He was a big liar. Somewhere deep in his mind, he along with Nehru, Gandhi and Patel were carrying the present-day Hindutva Agenda. He was the mastermind behind building of ‘Durgiana Mandir’ – a replica of Darbar Sahib in 1921 in Amritsar.

Mohammad Ali Jinnah knew very well about the Hindutva mind-set of Congress Leaders. He did not join the Indian National Congress -the INC and made his own party ‘Muslim League’ and demanded a separate Pakistan for Muslims. He also pursued the Sikhs to raise demand for a separate Sikh state, which had been annexed by the British in 1849, but the Sikh leadership fell prey to the promises of Nehru and other Congress leaders who promised Sikhs a separate and unique status in independent India. Typically, those promises are still on paper.

So much so, that the First Home Minister of India – Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who is now awaiting a large than life statue and status at the hands of the Narendra Modi government, declared the Sikhs as “a criminal tribe” in a circular sent to all deputy commissioners of the country, uncovered by the one Sikh deputy commissioner Bhai Sahib Sirdar Kapur Singh. Leave alone giving a unique status in the Constitution, the Indian Constitution in Article 25 continues to treat Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists as part of Hindus. All contribution, protests and struggle till date have not been able to rectify this huge anomaly. In protest thereof, no representative of the Sikhs signed on the Constitution in acceptance when it was implemented in 1950.

Another darling of India -the euphemistically called father of the nation, -Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, also referred to as Mahatma Gandhi was also a sworn enemy of the Sikhs. He influenced Nehru and others to ensure that Dr Ambedkar and his followers did not adopt Sikhism. He never liked the Sikhs and called the Tenth Master Guru Gobind Singh “a misguided philosopher”. He hated the aggressive martial attitude of the Sikhs. How can one forget that he and Nehru approved the death sentence by hanging of Sardar Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev.  Another leader who lead the struggle for freedom Chander Shekhar Azad tried his best to pursue Nehru to save them from hanging but to no avail, rather his news was leaked to the police by Nehru and he was got killed in a false police encounter. Nehru and Gandhi were also responsible for the killing of thousands of Hindu, Muslim and Sikhs during the partition of the Indian sub-continent.

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Even as Dal Khalsa reaffirms that the Sikhs have their distinct identity, Sikhs once ruled Punjab under Baba Banda Singh Bahadur and Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the Sikh nation has a long distance to traverse till it meets its own “tryst with destiny” unlike the one delivered by Nehru and Mountbatten.