20 Pun­jab-based bod­ies -from the left to the mid­dle of the road to those ad­vo­cat­ing self-rule, farmer and stu­dent bod­ies, re­li­gious or­ga­ni­za­tions, and po­lit­i­cal groups, un­der the aegis of Dal Khal­sa’s Pun­jab Sum­mit, gath­ered in Am­rit­sar on the penul­ti­mate day of the G20 meet and de­clared that “No peace with­out jus­tice and no progress with­out peace” ask­ing this in­ter­na­tional group of na­tions to in­ter­vene to cor­rect the de­te­ri­o­rat­ing hu­man rights record in Pun­jab and In­dia. A WSN Re­port.

Sur­rounded by slo­gans ad­mon­ish­ing In­dia and mak­ing fer­vent ap­peals to the G20 na­tions to be proac­tive in ini­ti­at­ing steps to stem the tide of rights vi­o­la­tions in Pun­jab and In­dia, 20 per­son­al­i­ties and ac­tivists pre­sented their view­points on Pun­jab’s so­cial sit­u­a­tion, econ­omy, ed­u­ca­tion, agri­cul­ture, self-rule, hu­man rights and re­li­gio-po­lit­i­cal as­pects.

The Pun­jab Sum­mit, even called P20 re­solved to urge the G20 to take cog­nizance of the whole wa­ters is­sue of Pun­jab in per­spec­tive and in­volve im­par­tial in­ter­na­tional ex­perts to find a so­lu­tion to the vexed prob­lem lin­ger­ing on for decades and made worse by In­di­a’s malafide in­ten­tions and colo­nial mind­set over the Pun­jab.

Wel­com­ing and thank­ing the wide spec­trum of lead­er­ship gath­ered at the round-table meet, Dal Khalsa pres­i­dent Harpal Singh Cheema said that “Dal Khalsa will fol­low up on this P20 and en­gage with the G20 na­tions on the view­points of the re­gion and the Sikhs.

Tak­ing a strong note of rights abuses, po­lice ex­cesses, mis­use of NIA and dra­con­ian laws like UAPA, grow­ing in­tol­er­ance and cen­tral­iza­tion process of the In­dian state sup­press­ing true fed­er­al­ism, the lead­ers sought the proac­tive in­ter­ven­tion of G20.

In a dra­matic show of sol­i­dar­ity, the P20 speak­ers en­dorsed the UN-recog­nised right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion as the key to con­flict res­o­lu­tion every­where, in­clud­ing the Pun­jab.

SGPC pres­i­dent Har­jin­der Singh Dhami chided the In­dian state for med­dling in Sikh re­li­gious af­fairs. He said, in the past gov­ern­ments had at­tempted to make ex­ec­u­tive in­ter­fer­ence in the work­ing of the apex Sikh body, whereas the re­cent trend is to use the ju­di­cial plat­form to serve its ends to dom­i­nate, de­mo­nize and di­lute the im­por­tance and sig­nif­i­cance of Sikh bod­ies. “His­tor­i­cally Sikhs have al­ways re­sisted and this time it will be no dif­fer­ent. The peo­ple’s court is big­ger than all fo­rums and we will go to the Sikh San­gat and ex­pose the mis­deeds of the gov­ern­ment,” he added.

Son of Mem­ber Par­lia­ment Sim­ran­jit Singh Mann, ac­tivist Emaan Singh Mann dwelled on the need to open the Wagha bor­der for trade and peace be­tween the two war­ring coun­tries both of whom pos­sess nu­clear ca­pa­bil­i­ties. “The key to progress, pros­per­ity and peace in this re­gion lies in the open­ing of the bor­der,” said he.

Hu­man Rights lawyers at the meet strongly ad­vo­cated for the re­lease of Sikh po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers who are still in prison even af­ter hav­ing served their terms, say­ing that both the Union and the Pun­jab gov­ern­ment were tread­ing the Bandi Singhs (Sikh po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers) with ha­tred and vengeance.

Presided by Shi­ro­mani Gur­d­wara Parb­hand­hak Com­mit­tee Pres­i­dent Har­jin­der Singh Dhami, the stal­wart par­tic­i­pants who pa­tiently de­lib­er­ated for five hours with­out me­dia glare and pub­lic in­ter­ven­tion in a true Sum­mit-style func­tion in­cluded Harpal Singh Cheema, Kan­war Pal Singh, Paramjit Singh Mand and Har­cha­ran­jit Singh Dhami of Dal Khalsa, Emaan Singh Mann of Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal (Am­rit­sar), , Bhai Dal­jeet Singh repe­sented Panth Se­wak Jatha, SGPC le­gal team head Ad­vo­cate Bhag­want Singh Sialka, SGPC mem­ber Kar­nail Singh Pan­joli, hu­man rights lawyer Jas­pal Singh Man­jh­pur rep­re­sent­ing Pun­jab Lawyers, Paramjit Singh Gazi rep­re­sent­ing Sikh Siyasat, Ajaib Singh Ab­hyasi rep­re­sented Sikh sem­i­nary Damdami Tak­sal, Bhupin­der Singh of Sikh re­li­gious body Ak­hand Kir­tani Jatha, farmer leader Sur­jit Singh Phul from Bhar­tiya Kisan Union (Kran­tikari), vet­eran ac­tivist Gur­deep Singh Bhatinda of the United Akali Dal,  po­lit­i­cal ac­tivist Nar­ien Singh of Akal Fed­er­a­tion, Kun­war Charth Singh of All In­dia Sikh Stu­dents Fed­er­a­tion, Har­man Deep of Stu­dents for So­ci­ety, Sim­rar­jit Kaur from Khalra Mis­sion, Ju­jhar Singh of SATH, Sikh writer Sarab­jeet Singh of Khalsa Fatehnama, Ghu­man Gur­nam Singh from the Sikh Youth of Pun­jab, Pun­jab & Haryana High Court lawyer Simar­jit Singh rep­re­sent­ing Voices for Free­dom and labour ac­tivist Nodeep Kaur of Ma­j­door Ad­hikar San­gathan.

“The UN-recog­nised right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion as the key to con­flict res­o­lu­tion every­where, in­clud­ing the Pun­jab.

P20-The Pun­jab Sum­mit

The sum­mit blamed the gov­ern­ment for re­fus­ing to ad­dress the core is­sues of Pun­jab and the Sikhs and in­stead treat­ing it as a pure law and or­der prob­lem, in­flict­ing tor­ture and crush­ing dis­sent, the lat­est crack­down be­ing a prime ex­am­ple of the state as­sault on civil and po­lit­i­cal rights.

“Ours is a peace­ful strug­gle for self-rule. The gov­ern­ment of In­dia is push­ing us to the wall and this can have dis­as­trous con­se­quences for all. Ours is not a law and or­der prob­lem, it is a core so­cio-re­li­gio-po­lit­i­cal con­flict and crush­ing dis­sent, as­sault­ing civil and po­lit­i­cal rights will not help any­body,” con­cluded Dal Khalsa Sec­re­tary of Po­lit­i­cal Af­fairs Kan­war Pal Singh