Every new year sup­pos­edly brings hope. British colum­nist Jagdeesh Singh, be­gins 2022, with nag­ging an­guish, pain and a strong opin­ion about the last­ing and con­tin­ued ef­fects of the his­toric British con­quest and sub­ju­ga­tion of Pan­jaab. Even though the British es­tab­lish­ment has seem­ingly gone, the last ef­fects of what they have stripped away from Pan­jaab, con­tinue to be felt both emo­tion­ally and ma­te­ri­ally, as Pan­jaab lingers on in the geopo­lit­i­cal world as a state­less peo­ple and a lost coun­try. The Pan­jaabi na­tion­al­ist au­thor shares his pro­found thoughts and feel­ings, as an over­seas Pan­jaabi sit­ting in the heart of the British main­land.

THE BRITISH IM­PE­R­IAL ES­TAB­LISH­MENT STOLE NOT ONLY the vast ar­ray of na­tional icons and trea­sures of the in­de­pen­dent, sov­er­eign coun­try of Pan­jaab; but so too the ac­tual po­lit­i­cal sov­er­eignty and the en­tire ex­is­tence of this once pow­er­ful and vi­brant South Asian in­de­pen­dent coun­try.

In­vaded in 1845, as part of its cease­less im­pe­r­ial ex­pan­sion across South Asia; Pan­jaab was seized and sub­dued af­ter the first gru­elling  An­glo-Pan­jaab war, gen­er­ally known as the An­glo-Sikh war. Then, af­ter a Pan­jaabi na­tional up­ris­ing to oust the British oc­cu­piers, in 1848-1849, Pan­jaab was de­feated again -not in the least due to the ne­far­i­ous use of treach­er­ous se­nior po­si­tion hold­ers in the Pan­jaab gov­ern­ment like Gu­lab Do­gra by the British. This was the sec­ond An­glo-Pan­jaab war. 

Whilst we mark mul­ti­ple other an­niver­saries, it is strange that we don’t mark these crit­i­cal an­niver­saries in the Pan­jaab na­tional life. The loss of our coun­try, state and own sov­er­eign gov­er­nance: con­tin­ues to detri­men­tally af­fect us to­day, on so many lev­els. 

British pol­icy-mak­ers and strate­gists had con­cluded that for the progress of British power, it was es­sen­tial to ter­mi­nate and elim­i­nate the vi­brant, fear­less, mil­i­tar­ily pow­er­ful Pan­jaabi na­tion and state -with all its rev­o­lu­tion­ary sub­stance and his­toric fire and power.  Lord Dal­housie, the head of the in­vad­ing British power -the British East In­dia Com­pany, wrote: “…it is in­dis­pens­able to the se­cu­rity of British ter­ri­to­ries….that you should put an end to the in­de­pen­dence of the Sikh na­tion and re­duce it to en­tire sub­jec­tion.”

The for­mal an­nex­a­tion of Pan­jaab in 1849 into the grand British In­dia em­pire, was the end of Pan­jaabi-Sikh free­dom, se­cu­rity and state­hood. It was the ma­jor start of a process of slowly but surely crush­ing Pan­jaabi-Sikh iden­tity, con­scious­ness and civil­i­sa­tion. It was the start of an en­dur­ing 220-year-con­tin­uum of dev­as­ta­tion and de­struc­tion – both, large-scale and piece­meal -of Pan­jaabi na­tion­hood. Even the Am­rit­sar Ha­ri­mandir Sahib -‘Golden Tem­ple’ was about to be sold at one point. 

The Jalian­wala Bagh mas­sacre in 1919, within six months of the end of the First World War in which Pan­jaabi sol­diers had fought and died for Britain to vi­tally and gal­lantly.  In 1947, 2-mil­lion Pan­jaabis were mas­sa­cred and 10-mil­lion dis­rupted from their cen­turies-old homes (largest dis­place­ment in hu­man his­tory). All were gifted to the pow­er­less Pan­jaabi peo­ple, by the glo­ri­ous British em­pire. 

To­day we clam­our and strive to wrench our­selves free from the sub­se­quent po­lit­i­cal carve-up, par­ti­tion and ma­nip­u­la­tion that the British im­pe­ri­al­ists set in con­tin­u­ous mo­tion, lead­ing to the cur­rent-day mul­ti­ple par­ti­tion and dec­i­ma­tion of Pan­jaab, its mul­ti­ple geno­ci­dal phases -1947, 1984-1995 and com­pre­hen­sive op­pres­sion by the cur­rent In­dia and Pak­istani states which have now re­placed and taken up the reins of British rule to oc­cupy and dom­i­nate the bro­ken, encaged Pan­jaab.  

I do not think any self-re­spect­ing Eng­lish­man will ever again be able to look a Sikh in the face or shake his hand in the way only ho­n­ourable friends can un­der­stand.” 

Colonel Lan­den Saras­field in Be­trayal of the Sikhs, pub­lished in La­hore, 1946

We are pow­er­less to ask for the re­turn of our arte­facts, as they are sold in front of our eyes as pri­va­tised prop­erty in British royal col­lec­tions and auc­tions. We are a voice­less, dis­em­pow­ered and un­recog­nised na­tion. We are a peo­ple with­out our coun­try, our state, our army, our in­ter­na­tional voice amongst the gov­ern­ments of the world!! We have no po­si­tion or recog­ni­tion in the United Na­tions or the grand ‘in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity of gov­ern­ments! What do we do? Where do we go? What will hap­pen? 2022 and be­yond?  As bro­ken, in­jured and dev­as­tated Pan­jaab rolls into an­other year of con­tin­u­ing muck and mire, many like me are at the end of their teth­ers, but the spirit of Chardikala prompts us to fight back and con­tinue our mis­sion for re­claim­ing our glory. 

In 1946, as the fur­ther phases of Pan­jaab’s dev­as­ta­tion ap­proached in the form of the no­to­ri­ously un­equal, geno­ci­dal and un­de­mo­c­ra­tic British Trans­fer of Power to the cho­sen In­dia and Pak­istan elites ap­proached, pro­foundly con­cerned in­di­vid­u­als like Colonel Lan­den Saras­field spoke out pas­sion­ately for Pan­jaab and the Sikhs as the avante-guard com­mu­nity which sought to ad­vo­cate for the in­dige­nous land of five rivers.

The Sikhs are the only great com­mu­nity whose de­mands have been re­jected al­to­gether…Wher­ever in the East, and very of­ten in the West, a British sol­dier has been in ac­tion, there also were to be found his Sikh com­rades, every loyal, ever coura­geous and ever ready to give their life’s blood in the Com­mon Cause. 

Colonel Lan­den Saras­field in Be­trayal Of The Sikhs

Colonel Lan­den Saras­field in Be­trayal of the Sikhs, pub­lished in La­hore in 1946, poignantly wrote, “Through­out the cen­turies many ef­forts have been made to crush the Sikhs, and de­stroy them as a po­lit­i­cal and re­li­gious force….The Sikhs are the only great com­mu­nity whose de­mands have been re­jected al­to­gether…Wher­ever in the East, and very of­ten in the West, a British sol­dier has been in ac­tion, there also were to be found his Sikh com­rades, every loyal, ever coura­geous and ever ready to give their life’s blood in the Com­mon Cause. From those days in 1857 when nearly all In­dia rose against us and mas­sa­cred as many Eu­ro­peans as were de­fence­less, the Sikhs have al­ways been on our side. Whether at Dheli or on the plains of Flan­ders, in Sa­lonika or in the Is­lands of the Pa­cific, they have cov­ered them­selves with im­mor­tal­ity in our ser­vice. Surely, there­fore, we can­not be so un­grate­ful as to for­get them, to for­get the ser­vices which saved so many British men and women in the past, to for­get that with­out them in 1857 there would have been no re­cap­ture of Dheli, noth­ing but sheer stark dis­as­ter to British arms and con­se­quent vi­o­la­tion and death to so many British women and girls. If we do for­get and per­mit the Sikhs to be con­signed to eco­nomic and po­lit­i­cal obliv­ion, I do not think any self-re­spect­ing Eng­lish­man will ever again be able to look a Sikh in the face or shake his hand in the way only ho­n­ourable friends can un­der­stand.” 

May the glo­ri­ous, rich and em­pow­ered Pan­jaabi na­tion, rise again!