Re­ject­ing the gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya’s un-ac­com­moda­tive stand on re­lo­ca­tion, Shil­long Sikhs liv­ing in the Pun­jabi Lane area have now ap­pealed to the gov­ern­ment to see rea­son and re­view their own half-baked blue­print and re­it­er­ated their stand to con­tinue to live in their an­ces­tral land, which has been their abode and that of their fore­fa­thers since the last two cen­turies, till an am­i­ca­ble, ac­cept­able to one and all res­o­lu­tion is not found. They say, “We are his­tor­i­cal res­i­dents of Megha­laya and make no mis­take, we are not some il­le­gal en­croach­ers.” A WSN Re­port.

Terming the pro­posal of the gov­ern­ment for re­lo­ca­tion as “in­com­plete, un­suit­able, un­pre­pared, un­fair and un­de­mo­c­ra­tic,” the Shil­long Sikhs have set the tone for the gov­ern­ment to re­con­sider their 8-point pro­posal for re­lo­ca­tion, which the gov­ern­ment had re­jected ear­lier with­out as­sign­ing rea­sons.

In a de­tailed re­ply to the Gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya’s blue­print for re­lo­ca­tion of res­i­dents of Pun­jabi Lane, Shil­long, which can have a far-reach­ing im­pact on the res­o­lu­tion of the on­go­ing dis­pute, the rep­re­sen­ta­tive body of the hard-work­ing Sikhs whose fore­fa­thers made Shil­long their home, when they were taken from Gur­daspur and Am­rit­sar there, the Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee af­ter mul­ti­ple rounds of con­sul­ta­tion with its mem­bers, stated that the gov­ern­ment pro­posal was fraught with la­cu­nae and be­spoke of the high­hand­ed­ness of the es­pe­cially-con­sti­tuted High-Level Com­mit­tee of the gov­ern­ment.

Sig­nif­i­cantly, this re­ply will be taken up for con­sid­er­a­tion, when the High Court of Megha­laya takes up the mat­ter on 24 April 2023. WSN has re­li­ably learned that the se­nior lawyers from the DS­GMC panel of lawyers will be plead­ing on be­half of the Shil­long Sikhs, as they have been do­ing for the past 5 years.

The World Sikh News has been con­sis­tently mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion in Shil­long and we have no­ticed that since the for­ma­tion of the new gov­ern­ment barely a month ago, po­lit­i­cal lead­ers, min­is­ters and leg­is­la­tors have been us­ing in­tim­i­dat­ing lan­guage through the me­dia, in an at­tempt to over­awe the Sikhs into sub­mis­sion to the gov­ern­men­t’s pro­posal. Re­act­ing to such tac­tics, HPC Sec­re­tary Gur­jit Singh told the me­dia, “They are putting our lives and prop­er­ties at risk and mak­ing us vul­ner­a­ble.”

Speak­ing to World Sikh News, on the phone line from Shil­long, the HPC sec­re­tary Gur­jit Singh the sole war­rior for the com­mu­nity there said, “We will not buckle un­der po­lit­i­cal duress.”

The HPC has strongly al­leged that the “en­tire ex­er­cise is an ill-founded re­lo­ca­tion the­ory, borne out of a mi­nor al­ter­ca­tion in May 2018, which ac­tu­ally com­pels the res­i­dent cit­i­zens of the Pun­jabi Lane (Har­i­jan Colony) to forego their rights, ti­tle and in­ter­est over what­ever small land por­tion in the colony and to ac­cept the pris­ons cells like ac­com­mo­da­tion be­ing of­fered in the pro­posed Blue­print.”

Re­it­er­at­ing their stand which was pre­sented to the gov­ern­ment dur­ing the early stage of the talks, some months ago, which were turned by the gov­ern­ment, Gur­jit Singh said, “Our orig­i­nal de­mands pre­sented in the “Eight-point res­o­lu­tion” still stand and we will not buckle un­der po­lit­i­cal duress merely be­cause it is con­ve­nient for the gov­ern­ment to do so and sim­ply be­cause due to pas­sage of time, the land has be­come a com­mer­cial gold­mine.”

“Our orig­i­nal de­mands pre­sented in the “Eight-point res­o­lu­tion” still stand and we will not buckle un­der po­lit­i­cal duress merely be­cause it is con­ve­nient for the gov­ern­ment to do so and sim­ply be­cause due to pas­sage of time, the land has be­come a com­mer­cial gold­mine.”

“All com­mu­ni­ties, in­clud­ing Sikhs are ir­rev­o­ca­bly at­tached to their re­li­gious places. We have a huge, multi-floor Gur­d­wara Sahib, Tem­ples and a church in the area. Can the gov­ern­ment even think of de­mol­ish­ing them in pur­suance of their mis­placed beau­ti­fi­ca­tion plan,?” asked Gur­jit Singh,

The Shil­long Sikhs have once again re­peated their orig­i­nal po­si­tion that the land where they live be­longs to the erst­while King -the Syiem of Myl­liem and the gov­ern­men­t’s move to ac­quire this is ul­tra vires of the Megha­laya Land Trans­fer Act.

Can the gov­ern­ment even think of de­mol­ish­ing a Gur­d­wara, tem­ples and a church in pur­suance of their mis­placed beau­ti­fi­ca­tion plan?”

In the blue­print the key ques­tion of ti­tle, and trans­fer of rights has not been touched. There is no time­line and the fa­cil­ity be­ing of­fered is, to say the least “un­live­able.” De­rid­ing the gov­ern­men­t’s haste in the mat­ter, with one min­is­ter say­ing that the dis­pute will be re­solved within the month of April it­self, the let­ter pointed out that, “It has been held by the Supreme Court of In­dia and other courts as well that the right to lead a dig­ni­fied life is an in­alien­able right and pro­vi­sions of hous­ing can­not be such that it is in­hab­it­able for res­i­dents to live there. In the light of such ju­di­cial pro­nounce­ments, the res­i­dents are en­ti­tled to a bet­ter res­o­lu­tion.”

“There are so many grey ar­eas and gaps. The gov­ern­ment must clar­ify all such con­cerns and only then it can be taken up for con­sid­er­a­tion by the Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee, with­out prej­u­dice to our right to re­ject the pro­posal” stated Gur­jit Singh while speak­ing to me­dia per­son­nel.

We will not buckle un­der pres­sure. We want to live with dig­nity and ho­n­our in our an­ces­tral lands. 

Gur­jit Singh, Sec­re­tary, Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee

In an earnest ap­peal to the gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of Megha­laya, Gur­jit Singh said, “The gov­ern­ment must stop the witch hunt and al­low us to build our houses and we can as­sure that the beauty of the area will be fully main­tained and for this, the res­i­dents have the full sup­port of the Sikh com­mu­nity.”

Speak­ing to World Sikh News, Gur­jit Singh said, “I have spo­ken to Pan­thic as­so­ci­ates and or­ga­ni­za­tions. If we are al­lowed to live where we are liv­ing, we will need the Sikh com­mu­nity to gar­ner re­sources for the con­struc­tion of our houses and beau­ti­fi­ca­tion of the place be­fit­ting its changed sta­tus.” When asked whether the com­mu­nity will come to their res­cue, Gur­jit Singh said, “I am con­fi­dent that my peo­ple will not miss this op­por­tu­nity to help us per­ma­nently re­ha­bil­i­tate our lives and re­build our homes.”

“If we are al­lowed to live where we are liv­ing, we will need the Sikh com­mu­nity to gar­ner re­sources for the con­struc­tion of our houses and beau­ti­fi­ca­tion of the place be­fit­ting its changed sta­tus.” 

Re­act­ing sharply to the re­sponse of Megha­laya Deputy CM Pre­stone Tyn­song that the gov­ern­ment will pre­sent de­tails of the re­lo­ca­tion to the High Court, Gur­jit Singh af­firmed, “That is pre­cisely the point.  Why were de­tails not pre­sented ear­lier?”

Re­it­er­at­ing that the HPC is al­ways ready for talks, con­sul­ta­tion and ne­go­ti­a­tion, Gur­jit Singh said that it is noth­ing but shock­ing that the Deputy CM is now say­ing, “How is it pos­si­ble that they are stay­ing there for 160 years?” Gur­jit Singh said that it was the same Deputy CM, who had ear­lier said that the res­i­dents of Pun­jabi Lane are not il­le­gal set­tlers.

Re­fer­ring to his­tor­i­cal doc­u­ments Gur­jit Singh reaf­firmed, “We are here since 1863, pos­si­bly ear­lier and we are in pos­ses­sion of au­then­tic doc­u­ments un­der the name and seal of the Syiem of Hima Myl­liem.  In a let­ter of 2008, the Syiem of Myl­liem Dar­bar has said, in­ter alia, “…the plot of land was al­lot­ted to them long time back by the pre­de­ces­sors of Syiem of Hima Myl­liem till to­day.” In an­other 1954 doc­u­ment, it is cat­e­gor­i­cally men­tioned that the land be­longs to the res­i­dents of the Har­i­jan Colony.

“Let it be known to every­one, loud and clear that we are le­git­i­mate res­i­dents of Pun­jabi Lane. The res­i­dents of Pun­jabi Lane want to live with ho­n­our and dig­nity in the land of their fore­fa­thers and it would be im­proper to treat them as aliens. The so­lu­tion to this should be peace­ful, am­i­ca­ble, mu­tual and per­ma­nent, with­out tram­pling on our fun­da­men­tal rights,” added Gur­jit Singh.