The Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board, pur­su­ing the agenda of the Megha­laya gov­ern­ment is de­ter­mined to up­root the poor Sikhs set­tled in the heart of Shil­long since the last two hun­dred years. The World Sikh News pre­sents the lat­est sit­u­a­tion, as to­day, marks one year of the at­tack on the Sikhs in the area and to rub salt on Sikh wounds, the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board has is­sued an­other il­le­gal no­tice seek­ing in­for­ma­tion about Sikhs in the area.  

Tak­ing cue from the of­fi­cially formed High Pow­ered Com­mit­tee, un­der the chair­man­ship of the Deputy Chief Min­is­ter of the state of Megha­laya, which has been ex­pressly and cat­e­gor­i­cally asked by the Shil­long High Court, the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties and the Na­tional Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion to main­tain sta­tus quo in the lane in which the poor­est of the poor Sikhs live in Shil­long, the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board, for the sec­ond time has or­dered a grossly il­le­gal cen­sus and in­ven­tory of the area through a pub­lic no­tice.

The Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee which looks af­ter the wel­fare of the res­i­dents of the area has asked the Mu­nic­i­pal Com­mit­tee to with­draw the or­der through a le­gal no­tice from their lawyers. “If they do not with­draw the il­le­gal in­ven­tory or­ders, we will re­sort to peace­ful satya­graha as we did last time, said Gur­jeet Singh while speak­ing to World Sikh News.

The no­tice pub­lished in a sec­tion of the me­dia reads, “In con­tin­u­a­tion of the Gen­eral Pub­lic No­tice No. SMB/​PW/​62/​18-19 dated 26^th No­vem­ber 2018, wherein the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board has called upon the Gen­eral Pub­lic who are claim­ing to be res­i­dent of Sweep­ers’ Colony at Maw­long Hat to come for­ward to fur­nish in­for­ma­tion with re­gards to their pos­ses­sion of ei­ther piece of land/​build­ing struc­ture in Sweep­er’s Colony and the pe­riod of their oc­cu­pa­tion. They are also re­quested to pro­vide the sup­port­ing doc­u­ment, if any, in sup­port of their claim of pos­ses­sion or res­i­dence.”

To rub salt on the wounds of the Sikhs, iron­i­cally this no­tice was sent on the eve of the an­niver­sary of the at­tacks on the poor Sikhs of the area a year back.  It was on 31 May 2018, lo­cal tribal groups and stu­dent or­gan­i­sa­tions at­tempted to un­set­tle and up­root through at­tacks, vi­o­lence and protests. Since then, the Sikhs of the so-called Har­i­jan Colony, con­de­scend­ingly known as the Sweep­ers Colony, have been fight­ing a bit­ter le­gal bat­tle to save their two-hun­dred-year-old habi­tat.

In an at­tempt to be­fool the peo­ple, the no­tice says that, “The ob­ject of the col­lect­ing in­for­ma­tion as to the num­ber of per­sons re­sid­ing in Sweep­er’s colony and also their du­ra­tion of oc­cu­pa­tion or stay in Sweep­ers’ Colony is to pre­pare both long term and short term pol­icy for re­solv­ing long and pend­ing is­sue per­tain­ing to Sweep­ers’ Colony.”

Peo­ple who have lived there for two cen­turies are be­ing asked to fur­nish in­for­ma­tion in one month. The no­tice reads, “It is in the in­ter­est of the gen­eral pub­lic who are claim­ing to be res­i­dent of the said area to co­op­er­ate with the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board and fur­nish the in­for­ma­tion at the ear­li­est. The res­i­dents of the Sp­ww­ers’ Colony are re­quested to come for­ward and fur­nish the in­for­ma­tion to the of­fice of the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board dur­ing work­ing hours (10.00 am to 05.00 pm) from the 3^rd June 2019 to 3^rd July 2019.”

From across In­dia, Sikh so­cial, re­li­gious and po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tions need to ask as to un­der what law is the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board do­ing this? Who has given them these rights?

Through­out the last year, the ac­tivists of the poor Sikhs, led by Gur­jeet Singh, the chief of the Gur­d­wara Com­mit­tee in Shil­long has been run­ning from pil­lar to post, from Chandi­garh to Am­rit­sar to Delhi, knock­ing on the doors of the SGPC, the Pun­jab gov­ern­ment, the DS­GMC, the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties and the Na­tional Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion, in the hope that jus­tice would be de­liv­ered unto them.

Speak­ing to WSN on the phone from Shil­long, Gur­jeet Singh said, “De­spite court or­ders, the gov­ern­ment is hell-bent on up­root­ing us. They have been ha­rass­ing us a great deal since the last one year.”

“The un­cer­tainty of the sit­u­a­tion is af­fect­ing our nor­mal life. We are liv­ing in fear. Our le­git­i­mate rights are be­ing throt­tled. The gov­ern­ment is now dis­turb­ing our lives through the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board,” he added.

The World Sikh News is keep­ing a con­stant vigil on the de­vel­op­ments in Shil­long. Sikh or­gan­i­sa­tions will have to step up their vigil and in­volve­ment to save the Sikhs there.