As the cur­few in Shil­long’s Pun­jabi lane has been with­drawn, Shil­long Sikhs restart the com­ple­tion of their Gur­d­wara with mea­gre re­sources with the threat of their dis­lo­ca­tion still loom­ing large on them as the gov­ern­ment seems de­ter­mined de­spite sta­tus quo or­ders from the Na­tional Mi­nori­ties Com­mis­sion and the Shil­long High Court. They await the promised funds from SGPC and the Pun­jab gov­ern­ment.

Three tor­tu­ous months for a tiny Sikh pop­u­la­tion in the Pun­jabi lane of Shil­long, reel­ing un­der veiled threats by the Megha­laya gov­ern­ment to dis­lo­cate them from their habi­tat, the 200 plus house­holds are piec­ing to­gether their lives bit by bit, step by step.  The cur­few has been with­drawn. Se­cu­rity forces and the bar­ri­cades are still there. Though none of the promised funds from DS­GMC, SGPC and the grant from Pun­jab gov­ern­ment have been re­ceived, af­ter the with­drawal of the cur­few, with what­ever min­i­mal re­sources they have, the Sikh San­gat has started re­con­struc­tion of the Gur­d­wara so that it is com­pleted be­fore the 550 year birth an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions of Guru Nanak.

 Also Read: Shil­long hur­ries Mazhabi Sikhs evic­tion, dis­re­gards all ob­jec­tions

De­spite all the stay or­ders of the Shil­long High Court and the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties, there is a live threat poured out in the lo­cal me­dia that the Chief min­is­ter’s high level com­mit­tee has asked the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board to again do their in­com­plete in­ven­tory and sur­vey of the Pun­jabi Lane Sikh res­i­dents. It is a clever and sin­is­ter move to seg­re­gate em­ploy­ees of the cor­po­ra­tion from the rest of the res­i­dents and then seek their re­lo­ca­tion else­where.  Sig­nif­i­cantly, the po­lice and the ad­min­is­tra­tion do ap­prise the Sikhs of their de­ci­sions but there is no Sikh rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the gov­ern­ment-con­sti­tuted high-level com­mit­tee, which clearly shows the in­ten­tions of the gov­ern­ment.

“We have re­quested many Gur­d­wara bod­ies and ma­jor so­cial ser­vice or­gan­i­sa­tions of the Sikhs, how­ever, we have not re­ceived any funds from any­body so far. I am sure that Guru Nanak will pro­vide us the re­sources.”

Gur­jit Singh, Pres­i­dent City Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee, Shil­long

Speak­ing to WSN on the phone line from Shil­long, Gur­jit Singh who has been run­ning from pil­lar to post to pro­tect his brethren said, “I hope that when the SGPC ex­ec­u­tive meets to­mor­row in Am­rit­sar, they would take up our mat­ter and ex­pe­dite the send­ing of funds for our Gur­d­wara Sahib. We des­per­ately need them.”

Re­spond­ing to WS­N’s spe­cific query about the grant from the Pun­jab gov­ern­ment, Gur­jit Singh, who had met the Chief Min­is­ter Pun­jab Amarinder Singh with Cab­i­net Min­is­ter Sukhjin­der Singh Rand­hawa, two weeks back, said, “I am main­tain­ing con­tact with the re­spec­tive de­part­ment and hope to get the grant soon for the Gur­d­wara Sahib and the Guru Nanak School.”  

 The “Sweeper” Sikhs -Dkhars -for­eign­ers in Shil­long

The DS­GMC has been en­abling le­gal as­sis­tance in the High Court and the NCM and the United Sikhs has also pro­vided sup­port and le­gal as­sis­tance in the cases of bail for the three Sikh boys who were de­tained un­der sus­pi­cion of vi­o­lence.  “Our San­gat will re­main grate­ful to one and all who have sup­ported us through these dif­fi­cult times, said Gur­jit Singh.

“WSN be­lieves that the liveli­hood of Shil­long Sikhs can be pro­tected by reg­u­lar mon­i­tor­ing by Sikh bod­ies and sus­te­nance by Sikh phil­an­thropists and Gur­d­waras. Is some­one lis­ten­ing?”

“We have re­quested many Gur­d­wara bod­ies and ma­jor so­cial ser­vice or­gan­i­sa­tions of the Sikhs, how­ever, we have not re­ceived any funds from any­body so far.” Al­ways in Chardikala, he added, “I am sure that Guru Nanak will pro­vide us the re­sources. Brick by brick, we will build our lives and our beloved Gur­d­wara Sahib and school. We are de­ter­mined and I am con­vinced that we will cel­e­brate the his­toric Gur­purab with tra­di­tional fer­vour.

Though the cur­few has been with­drawn, the threat to Sikh ex­is­tence in Shil­long is presently not vo­cal but pal­pa­ble. The lo­cal me­dia fre­quently re­ports of the gov­ern­men­t’s in­ten­tion to re­lo­cate the Sikh res­i­dents to the out­skirts of the city.

 Wake up Call: In­dian state wa­vers even as Shi­long Sikhs on Slow Death

The Deputy Chief Min­is­ter Pre­stone Tyn­song told the me­dia that ex­tra vigil will be main­tained.  No­tably, the vi­o­lence on 31 May, which was di­rected to­wards the Sikhs, shifted to­wards stone pelt­ing at the se­cu­rity forces in the nearby Moth­pran ar­eas. A mag­is­te­r­ial re­port has been sub­mit­ted to the gov­ern­ment but the con­tents of this are not pub­lic. More­over, even now the po­lice au­thor­i­ties are sum­mon­ing peo­ple to de­ter­mine their par­tic­i­pa­tion or com­plic­ity in the vi­o­lence.  More than a 100 peo­ple have so far been sum­moned and the process is on.

The Su­per­in­ten­dent of the po­lice of East Khasi Hills Shil­long Marak has in­formed the me­dia that, “though the sit­u­a­tion is un­der con­trol, it is not fully nor­mal and ex­tra vigil is be­ing main­tained.”

Mean­while, the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties has pre­poned the hear­ing in the case and will hear both the sides on 12 Sep­tem­ber 2018 in New Delhi. Sim­i­larly, the High Court of Shil­long will also take up the mat­ter on 20 Sep­tem­ber, as the state had sought time for fil­ing replies at the last hear­ing.

The Pres­i­dent of the City Gur­d­wara Shil­long Gur­jit Singh fur­ther in­formed us that they had writ­ten to the Na­tional Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion seek­ing their re­port pre­pared by their in­ves­tiga­tive of­fi­cers when they vis­ited Shil­long in the last week of June this year. He said, “I un­der­stand they have or­dered sta­tus quo and we are very keen to see a copy of the re­port.”

The chil­dren and stu­dents liv­ing in the Pun­jabi lane are very up­set at their habi­tat be­ing con­tin­u­ously re­ferred to as Sweep­ers Colony by the Shil­long Times and other me­dia. WSN learns that they have taken up this mat­ter also with the NHRC and the Press Coun­cil of In­dia.

The lands in Megha­laya are gov­erned by the state gov­ern­ment and the tra­di­tional Syiem of Hima Myl­liem which had sev­eral decades back given rights to the fore­fa­thers of the pre­sent oc­cu­pants of the place. To mud­dle the is­sue, there is an­other di­men­sion be­ing added wherein the chief ex­ec­u­tive of the Khasi Hills Au­tonomous Dis­trict Com­mit­tee His­preach­ing Son Shylla has said that the own­er­ship of Them Iew Maw­long (the orig­i­nal name for the Pun­jabi colony or what was re­ferred ear­lier on as “Sweep­ers Colony”) be­longs to the Nongkhlaw clan and not to the Hima Myliem and that these lands were leased to the British in 1874. Sig­nif­i­cantly, Khasi be­came part of In­dia on 26 Jan­u­ary 1950 and not in 1947.  Also the North Shil­long MLA Adel­bert Non­grum is rak­ing up the is­sue in a dif­fer­ent way by ask­ing the var­i­ous gov­ern­ment de­part­ments to pro­vide staff quar­ters to their em­ploy­ees. All in all, a well-thought of game plan to some­how evict the Sikh res­i­dents.

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WSN be­lieves that the lives and liveli­hood of the Shil­long Sikhs can be pro­tected through reg­u­lar mon­i­tor­ing by Sikh bod­ies and sus­te­nance by Sikh phil­an­thropists and Gur­d­wara bod­ies. Re­build­ing a two acre plot for poor Sikhs is not rocket sci­ence, it only re­quires love for the poor, a unique all-en­com­pass­ing ap­proach, proper in­vest­ment of funds and far-sight­ed­ness. 

Is some­one lis­ten­ing?