Sikh schol­ars, ac­tivists, ed­i­tors and busi­ness peo­ple from var­i­ous parts of Pun­jab, the United States, Canada, Aus­tralia and New Zealand, in a col­lec­tive re­sponse to the In­dian con­sti­tu­tional and mil­i­tary moves on Kash­mir de­nounce the In­dian Kash­mir Pol­icy and ex­press com­plete sol­i­dar­ity with the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion for the peo­ple of Kash­mir and calls upon the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity and the Sikhs in par­tic­u­lar to take cue from the lessons of Guru Tegh Ba­hadur Sahib and rise to the oc­ca­sion. This is the first of its kind col­lec­tive re­sponse over the decades and a pre­cur­sor of build­ing con­sen­sus on sub­stan­tive is­sues, di­rectly and in­di­rectly, af­fect­ing the Sikhs in Pun­jab and else­where. The World Sikh News in­vites read­ers to share this with friends and as­so­ci­ates and ex­plore pos­si­bil­i­ties of join­ing hands in such ef­forts in the fu­ture.

SEVEN DECADES AGO in the month of Au­gust, as this re­gion was be­ing ripped apart ge­o­graph­i­cally and de­mo­graph­i­cally, our fore­fa­thers trust­ing the words and promises of In­dian na­tion­al­ist lead­ers put their faith in the ‘Idea of In­dia’. An In­dia which would be a sec­u­lar de­mo­c­ra­tic re­pub­lic, com­mit­ted to se­cur­ing for its cit­i­zens so­cial, eco­nomic and po­lit­i­cal jus­tice; lib­erty of thought, ex­pres­sion, be­lief, faith and wor­ship.

This Au­gust that promise of the ‘Idea of In­dia’ which has been shat­tered time and again lies buried. All this car­ried out by the very peo­ple who were meant to up­hold that ‘idea’.

Though re­vok­ing of Ar­ti­cle 370 was first ar­tic­u­lated by the Ben­gali politi­cian Shyama Prasad Mukher­jee – the founder of a right-wing Hindu po­lit­i­cal out­fit, the Jan Sangh, its seeds lay in the age-old Brah­man­i­cal ide­ol­ogy which aims to dom­i­nate and is re­spon­si­ble for the ex­ploita­tion of sub­al­tern groups and mi­nori­ties by dec­i­mat­ing their self-es­teem.

The re­gion is close to the the­atre of tur­bu­lence and con­flict be­tween global pow­ers. It over­looks prospec­tive in­ter­na­tional en­ergy and trade routes and lies sand­wiched be­tween nu­clear pow­ers.

The spirit of Ar­ti­cle 370 had been con­sid­er­ably di­luted by the so-called sec­u­lar Con­gress party and was by now no more than a hol­low ed­i­fice. The Bharatiya Janata Party – the ide­o­log­i­cal suc­ces­sor of the erst­while Jan Sangh, ex­hibit­ing typ­i­cal Brah­man­i­cal char­ac­ter, re­voked Ar­ti­cle 370 as well as Ar­ti­cle 35A.

The spirit of equal­ity and democ­racy was crushed by mas­sive mil­i­tary might. Those in power showed scant re­gard for the Con­sti­tu­tion, the In­dian Supreme Court and even the United Na­tions. They threw par­lia­men­tary rules and norms to the winds. The de­struc­tive might of Hindu to­tal­i­tar­i­an­ism was on dis­play in the re­gion as the cha­rade of democ­racy, fed­er­al­ism and unity in di­ver­sity, lay ex­posed.

This In­dian na­tion­al­ism started tak­ing shape in Ben­gal in the late 19th cen­tury with the sup­port of the British. It was Brah­man­i­cal Hin­duism wrapped up in the West­ern ‘Na­tion-State’ con­cept that made it even more po­tent. It is mil­i­tant, ap­pro­pri­at­ing and as­sim­i­lat­ing in tex­ture, man­ner and char­ac­ter with an ob­jec­tive to con­front, dec­i­mate and at­om­ize mi­nori­ties. It found its ex­pres­sion in the fa­mous slo­gan of “Vande Ma­tram” – a war cry against Mus­lims.

The 5th of Au­gust, 2019, will go down in the an­nals of his­tory as a black day for Jammu and Kash­mir.  On this day in the sum­mer of 2019, the cit­i­zens of Kash­mir were down­graded as sub­jects, the state was sliced in two, its de­mo­c­ra­tic in­sti­tu­tions down­graded, and its pow­ers usurped.

The 5th of Au­gust, 2019, will go down in the an­nals of his­tory as a black day for Jammu and Kash­mir.  On this day in the sum­mer of 2019, the cit­i­zens of Kash­mir were down­graded as sub­jects, the state was sliced in two, its de­mo­c­ra­tic in­sti­tu­tions down­graded, and its pow­ers usurped. With the re­vok­ing of Ar­ti­cle 35A, the hopes of Kash­miri youth to find mean­ing­ful em­ploy­ment were dashed as the main­land con­querors will rush in hordes to feed on the scant re­sources of the state. The de­mo­graphic al­ter­ation due to mi­gra­tion from the main­land will de­prive the peo­ple of the re­gion of their nat­ural re­sources and al­ter its cul­ture and cul­tural moor­ings for­ever.

Gen­er­ally, un­til now, the Hin­dutva forces of In­dia have whipped up anti-Mus­lim sen­ti­ments prior to an elec­tion – State or Union – but this time the ur­gency seems to have stemmed from an ex­ter­nal stim­u­lus, aris­ing out of changes ma­te­ri­al­is­ing in the power dy­nam­ics of South Asia.

The re­gion is close to the the­atre of tur­bu­lence and con­flict be­tween global pow­ers. It over­looks prospec­tive in­ter­na­tional en­ergy and trade routes and lies sand­wiched be­tween nu­clear pow­ers.

It is a place that is crit­i­cal to the pros­per­ity of global economies and so un­fold­ing events here are likely to have a role in shap­ing the im­pend­ing global or­der. Hence any uni­lat­eral ac­tion in this re­gion is bound to re­sult in an ad­verse in­ter­na­tional fall out.

For mi­nori­ties and other so­cially dis­re­garded sec­tions of so­ci­ety, what is most wor­ri­some is the crude way this change has been ex­e­cuted. To­day the Kash­miris stand trau­ma­tized and hu­mil­i­ated. The lo­cal pop­u­la­tion has been locked down, cut-off com­pletely from the world, and presently re­sides over­awed by a mas­sive mil­i­tary build-up. The de­ci­sions taken by the Gov­er­nor at the be­hest of the Union Gov­ern­ment, low­er­ing the sta­tus of the state to a Union Ter­ri­tory and fur­ther slic­ing a part of the state with­out tak­ing the con­sent or even the opin­ion of the pop­u­la­tion is em­blem­atic of the au­to­cratic at­ti­tude of the rulers of this In­dian em­pire.

In these dark hours of sec­tar­ian op­pres­sion, let’s re­call the supreme sac­ri­fice of Sri Guru Tegh Ba­hadur Sahib, which finds even greater rel­e­vance in the pre­sent con­text.

No­tably, Jammu and Kash­mir was the only Mus­lim ma­jor­ity state in In­dia and was the only state whose sta­tus has ever been re­duced from state to Union Ter­ri­tory. The way they have been de­prived of their rights is a mat­ter of great con­cern for all the sub­al­tern mar­gin­al­ized groups and mi­nori­ties re­sid­ing in this coun­try.

The state­ments ut­tered by some elected pub­lic rep­re­sen­ta­tives in main­land In­dia cou­pled with the nar­ra­tive cir­cu­lat­ing on the so­cial me­dia cir­cuit about Kash­miri land and women were up for grabs by ‘vic­to­ri­ous’ in­vad­ing hordes, dove­tails into the gen­eral Hin­dutva nar­ra­tive built across the coun­try against mi­nor­ity com­mu­ni­ties. It is as if to send a sig­nal to other na­tion­al­i­ties in South Asia and the world at large that fi­nally, Hindu im­pe­ri­al­ism has ar­rived re­splen­dent with the full might re­quired to dom­i­nate the sub­con­ti­nent.

Kash­mir is cen­tral to the in­ter­ests of many in­ter­na­tional forces specif­i­cally nu­clear-armed Pak­istan and resurg­ing China. In­di­a’s brinkman­ship has put a ques­tion mark on re­cent pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ments in the re­gion. It puts Pun­jab once again at the fore­front of a prob­a­ble war be­tween two nu­clear-armed ri­vals and casts black clouds on the fu­ture of the Sri Kar­tarpur Sahib Cor­ri­dor, which finds a strong emo­tional con­nec­tion amongst the Sikhs world­wide.

The pre­sent cri­sis in Kash­mir comes with its own learn­ing, es­pe­cially for the Sikhs of Pun­jab, as to how a frag­mented, in­sin­cere, cor­rupt lead­er­ship pushes its peo­ple into the quag­mire of vi­o­lence, hu­mil­i­a­tion and op­pres­sion at the hands of dom­i­nant groups.

Kash­mir is cen­tral to the in­ter­ests of many in­ter­na­tional forces specif­i­cally nu­clear-armed Pak­istan and resurg­ing China. In­di­a’s brinkman­ship has put a ques­tion mark on re­cent pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ments in the re­gion. 

In these dark hours of sec­tar­ian op­pres­sion, let’s re­call the supreme sac­ri­fice of Sri Guru Tegh Ba­hadur Sahib, which finds even greater rel­e­vance in the pre­sent con­text. Sikhs world­wide as per the Sikh val­ues and teach­ings of Gur­bani should stand with the op­pressed, lend­ing their voice against this op­pres­sion, and seek a quick res­o­lu­tion of the is­sue as per the as­pi­ra­tions of the peo­ple of Jammu-Kash­mir.

Once again let the leaves of Chi­nar set the val­ley ablaze in the myr­iad colours of the Cre­ator, and not the fire that stems from the muz­zle of the gun.

Ajay­pal Singh Brar Au­thor, Speaker and Busi­nessper­son	Aman­preet Singh Soft­ware Qual­ity En­gi­neer	Amardeep Singh Ac­tivist and En­tre­pre­neur – Delhi
Am­rinder Singh Re­search Scholar	Bal­jeet Singh Pe­tro­leum En­gi­neer – Canada	Bhavneet Singh Ac­tivist and En­tre­pre­neur – Delhi
Bikramjit Singh Soft­ware Qual­ity En­gi­neer – Jammu & Kash­mir	Davin­der Singh Sekhon Ac­tivist and Blog­ger	Ekroop Kaur En­tre­pre­neur and Ex-Cor­rec­tions Of­fi­cer, New Zealand
Gangvir Singh Ac­tivist	Gurtej Singh Ra­dio Pre­sen­ter – Aus­tralia	Har­bax Singh Soft­ware Qual­ity En­gi­neer – Jammu & Kash­mir
Har­bir Kaur Au­thor and As­sis­tant Pro­fes­sor	Har­mit Singh Fateh blog­ger and speaker	Harpreet Singh Soft­ware Qual­ity En­gi­neer
Har­winder Singh Ac­tivist – Delhi	Har­winder Singh Au­thor and Ed­i­tor – Eng­land	Iqbal Singh Jour­nal­ist and Daram Pracharak -Delhi
Jag­mo­han Singh Ed­i­tor, Hu­man Rights Ac­tivist, Pub­lic Speaker	Jas­jeet Singh Film Pro­ducer and Busi­nessper­son -US	Jas­pal Singh Man­jh­pur Lawyer and Hu­man Rights Ac­tivist
Jaspreet Singh Ra­dio Pre­sen­ter and Ad­min­is­tra­tor – Aus­tralia	Kan­waljit Singh, Dr. Prin­ci­pal, De­gree Col­lege	Makhan Singh Gan­daun Re­search Scholar and ac­tivist
Mal­keet Singh Bhawani­garh Writer and Ac­tivist	Mand­hir Singh Speaker, Farmer and Ac­tivist	Pardeep Singh Writer and Film Di­rec­tor
Parm Singh Artist – Canada	Par­m­jeet Singh Ed­i­tor and speaker	Ra­j­pal Singh Blog­ger and Busi­nessper­son
Ram­nik Singh Lawyer and Or­ganic Farmer	Ran­jodh Singh Saranda Player	Sandip Singh Teja Blog­ger and Teacher
Sarvkar Singh Blog­ger and Ac­tivist	Se­wak Singh, Dr. Lan­guage Ex­pert	Sikan­dar Singh, Dr. Au­thor, As­sis­tant Pro­fes­sor and HOD, Uni­ver­sity
Sim­ran Singh Ac­tivist – Eng­land	Sukhdeep Singh Bar­nala Writer, Poet and Doc­u­men­tary Maker	Sukhdeep Singh Meeka Dharam Par­charak and Ac­tivist