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.