The World Sikh News is com­mit­ted to pro­tect the in­ter­ests of the poor Mazhabi Sikhs of Shil­long. Keep­ing a tab on their sta­tus, WSN pre­sents an ex­clu­sive re­port of lat­est events in Shil­long and the or­ders of the Mi­nori­ties Com­mis­sion sum­mon­ing the Chief Sec­re­tary of Megha­laya and the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties In­ves­tiga­tive team to visit Shil­long, seeks hard an­swers from the Megha­laya gov­ern­ment and the Shil­long ad­min­is­tra­tion.

25June was a hec­tic day in the life of the Mazhabi Sikhs of Shil­long. They re­ceived a com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the Deputy Com­mis­sioner of East Khasi Hills Dis­trict Mr. Dkhar say­ing that there is a meet­ing “to dis­cuss mat­ters re­lat­ing to law and or­der sit­u­a­tion in the city.”  As the Pres­i­dent of the City Gur­d­wara –Gur­jeet Singh was away in Delhi to meet of­fi­cials of the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties, the lo­cal head­man Mr. Billu Singh was to go but he could not go be­cause of the demise of his wife. The Har­i­jans –the Mazhabi Sikhs were rep­re­sented by Sukhwinder Singh, Prithipal Singh and Sangam Singh.  

The en­tire Megha­laya ad­min­is­tra­tion thinks and treats the poor Mazhabi Sikhs ex­actly as they treat all other poor peo­ple –naive and stu­pid. This is what the ad­min­is­tra­tion did to them. When the Sikh rep­re­sen­ta­tives reach there, to their ut­ter sur­prise, the Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board, the Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent of Po­lice and other of­fi­cials were pre­sent. Rather than talk­ing about law and or­der sit­u­a­tion,  the Sikhs were handed over a let­ter from the Mu­nic­i­pal Com­mit­tee “seek­ing co­op­er­a­tion and cor­rect in­for­ma­tion to Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board of­fi­cials who would be con­duct­ing a sur­vey on or­ders of the re­cently con­sti­tuted High Level Com­mit­tee.”

While the Chief Min­is­ter of Megha­laya Mr Con­rad Sagma and home min­is­ter James Sagma are camp­ing in Delhi, per­haps for a green sig­nal for swift ac­tion from BJP, the Ur­ban af­fairs Min­is­ter Ham­let Dohling has re­port­edly told the me­dia in Shil­long that the map­ping of the Pun­jabi lane is done and the Mazhabi Sikhs should co­op­er­ate for re­lo­ca­tion and that the Sikhs are fight­ing a los­ing bat­tle.

“We will live and die in the Pun­jabi lane and will not leave the home and hearth where our an­ces­tors have lived and where we are re­sid­ing for more than 200 years.”  

Gur­jit Singh, Pres­i­dent, City Gur­d­wara Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee, Bada Bazar, Shil­long

Copies of all doc­u­ments, in­clud­ing the min­utes of this il­le­gal meet­ing signed by the Deputy Com­mis­sioner are with the World Sikh News.

Speak­ing ex­clu­sively to World Sikh News, Gur­jit Singh, pres­i­dent of the City Gur­d­wara said, “the high level com­mit­tee is il­le­gal, the or­ders to do sur­vey are down­right il­le­gal and it seems that the gov­ern­ment is in a grand hurry to dis­lodge the Sikhs and has now come up with the new term “re­lo­ca­tion”. This is il­le­gal and not ac­cept­able at all. He said, “We will live and die in the Pun­jabi lane and will not leave the home and hearth where our an­ces­tors have lived and where we are re­sid­ing for more than 200 years.”

“The com­mis­sion has se­ri­ous ob­jec­tion to the name of the colony as Sweep­ers Colony, as it den­i­grates the dalit res­i­dents of the colony.”

-Na­tional Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion

26 June 2018 will be an­other day of test for democ­racy in Megha­laya. Sig­nif­i­cantly, act­ing on a com­plaint by a pub­lic spir­ited lawyer Mr Ra­jesh Gogna of Hu­man Rights De­fense In­ter­na­tional, the Na­tional Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion has chas­tised the gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya for call­ing the res­i­den­tial habi­tat as “Sweep­ers Colony.” The Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion has said that, “the com­mis­sion has se­ri­ous ob­jec­tion to the name of the colony as Sweep­ers Colony, as it den­i­grates the dalit res­i­dents of the colony.”

The Na­tional Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion has sought to know from the Chief Sec­re­tary of the Megha­laya within four weeks as to “rather than pro­vid­ing se­cu­rity to the dal­its, the gov­ern­ment is plan­ning to re-lo­cate them. The Com­mis­sion called upon the Chief Sec­re­tary to ex­plain why the Sikhs were at­tacked and what steps is the Megha­laya gov­ern­ment tak­ing “to en­sure that the Sikhs are not dis­lo­cated from Bada Bazar.”   

 Read: The “Sweeper” Sikhs -Dkhars -for­eign­ers in Shil­long

Not stop­ping at that, the Com­mis­sion will also be in­ves­ti­gat­ing “why the Dalit Sikh com­mu­nity was tar­geted and what mea­sures are adopted by the State Gov­ern­ment to en­sure that Sikh com­mu­nity is able to live a safe life with­out fear in Shil­long as well as other parts of Megha­laya within four weeks.”

It is learnt from re­li­able sources that mem­bers of the Na­tional Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion would be vis­it­ing Shil­long on 26 June 2018.

“The Megha­laya Chief Sec­re­tary is to ap­pear in per­son be­fore the Com­mis­sion on 12 July at 4 pm, along with all the nec­es­sary files/​doc­u­ments in sup­port of the con­tentions you may want to make be­fore the Com­mis­sion. No fur­ther ac­tion on re­lo­ca­tion should be taken till you ap­pear be­fore the Com­mis­sion.”

Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties

On the other hand, the NCM, which is ad­ju­di­cat­ing upon the case from time to time since 2006 has again sought to pro­tect the in­ter­ests of the poor Dalit Sikhs?  The Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties vide its or­der dated 25 June, a copy of which is in the pos­ses­sion of the World Sikh News, has di­rected the Chief Sec­re­tary of the State of Megha­laya to main­tain a sta­tus-quo in the Sweep­ers Colony, Shil­long till the whole gamut of is­sues re­lat­ing to the ti­tle, pos­ses­sion and res­i­dent sta­tus of Mazhabi Sikhs, set­tled there for more than 200 years is not set­tled.  

NCM has asked the Chief Sec­re­tary “to ap­pear in per­son be­fore the Com­mis­sion on 12 July at 4 pm, along with all the nec­es­sary files/​doc­u­ments in sup­port of the con­tentions you may want to make be­fore the Com­mis­sion.” It has also di­rected to the Chief Sec­re­tary that, “No fur­ther ac­tion on re­lo­ca­tion should be taken till you ap­pear be­fore the Com­mis­sion.”

The or­der men­tions that the mem­ber of the Com­mis­sion Man­jit Singh Rai, act­ing suo moto on me­dia re­ports vis­ited Shil­long and that he rec­om­mended that “cen­tral forces should stay in Shil­long and no re­lo­ca­tion of the Sikhs set­tled in Shil­long should be taken up as they have been stay­ing there for more than 200 years.”

“Why was the Dalit Sikh com­mu­nity tar­geted and what mea­sures are adopted by the State Gov­ern­ment to en­sure that Sikh com­mu­nity is able to live a safe life with­out fear in Shil­long as well as other parts of Megha­laya within four weeks?”

-Na­tional Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion

The Megha­laya gov­ern­ment has not both­ered to heed to any ap­peal made by Sikh or­gan­i­sa­tions –the apex body of the Sikhs –the Shi­ro­mani Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee and the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee. It has even ig­nored the widely cir­cu­lated rec­om­men­da­tions of the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties.

Will good sense pre­vail on the Khasi Au­tonomous Hill Coun­cil? Will the gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya and the Shil­long ad­min­is­tra­tion ig­nore the or­ders of the Hu­man Rights and Mi­nori­ties Com­mis­sion? Will it back­track from its own or­der of July 2017, that there is no plan to dis­lo­cate or re­lo­cate the res­i­dents of a mere 2 acre of land which has sud­denly be­come of high value? Will it re­tract from all the promises made to var­i­ous Sikh del­e­ga­tions?

Time alone will tell. The World Sikh News ap­peals to the Hill peo­ple of the re­gion that the Mazhabi Sikhs are a strong peo­ple, good friends and if “200 years ago they went to Shil­long to serve and pro­tect the British, surely they are not a threat to the Kha­sis.”

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See them as friends and the Mazhabi Sikhs will die for you. If not, surely they know how to die for them­selves!