Set­ting at rest all fears re­cently raised in the In­dian and in­ter­na­tional me­dia, in this ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with the World Sikh News, dur­ing his re­cent New York trip, chair­per­son of the Pak­istan Sikh Coun­cil -Ramesh Singh Khalsa cat­e­gor­i­cally de­clares that Pak­istan is safe for the Sikhs and Sikhs in Pak­istan have a bright fu­ture. 

Make no mis­take. Be­lieve no pro­pa­ganda. Pak­istan is a safe coun­try for Sikhs. And other mi­nori­ties too. Uni­ver­sal prob­lems of vi­o­lence hap­pen, but they af­fect us all, not just the se­lect few.

“Pak­istan is safe for the Sikhs and Sikhs in Pak­istan have a bright fu­ture, notwith­stand­ing any small mishaps that may oc­cur. Sikhs world­wide need to visit their his­tor­i­cal Gur­d­waras and cen­tres in Pak­istan with­out any fear and reser­va­tions” said Ramesh Singh Khalsa, Chair­per­son of the Pak­istan Sikh Coun­cil in an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with the World Sikh News, dur­ing his re­cent New York trip.

For the nearly 25 thou­sand Sikhs, the tini­est of all mi­nori­ties in Pak­istan, it is not a ques­tion of num­bers. It is liv­ing the life of a true Sikh ex­em­pli­fied by the re­mark­able fact that Sikhs who con­tinue to live there af­ter the Indo-Pak sep­a­ra­tion of the In­dian con­ti­nent, do so re­mem­ber­ing that their el­ders chose to stay there to “look af­ter the his­toric shrines and other cen­tres of glo­ri­ous her­itage of the Sikhs.”

Ramesh Singh Khalsa was can­did and di­rect, “No doubt mi­nori­ties face mi­nor prob­lems some­times, but such prob­lems are faced by the ma­jor­ity Mus­lim com­mu­nity too.  We have had no forcible con­ver­sion of Sikhs to Is­lam in any of the four states where Sikhs live since the for­ma­tion of the coun­try.” In fact, it would not be wrong to say that there is no con­ver­sion of Hin­dus, Chris­tians and Par­sis, who too con­tinue to live peace­fully and fol­low their re­li­gious and so­cial tra­di­tions, he added.

“Al­most the en­tire Sikh pop­u­la­tion in Pak­istan was Sabat Soorat -in the full Sikh form, as or­dained by Guru Gob­ind Singh and that their chil­dren love Sikhi.”

Re­fer­ring to the re­cent re­ports of In­di­a’s height­ened in­ter­ests both po­lit­i­cally and in the me­dia about the wel­fare of the Sikhs in Pak­istan, Ramesh Singh was cat­e­gor­i­cal, “A small in­ci­dent of a way­ward bu­reau­crat has sim­ply been blown up out of pro­por­tion. The said of­fi­cial has been sus­pended, an en­quiry has been or­dered by the lo­cal gov­ern­ment, and there was no cause for con­cern.”

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sioner Tehsil Tall Yaqoob Khan, who was ha­rass­ing a few Sikhs in the Hangu dis­trict of the Khy­ber-Pakhtunkhwa province -one of the four provinces in which the Sikhs live, has been sus­pended. The Deputy Com­mis­sioner of the dis­trict -Shahi Mo­hammed has clar­i­fied that the ad­min­is­tra­tion guar­an­tees full re­li­gious free­dom and no such con­ver­sion has taken place, as al­leged in a sec­tion of the me­dia.

Ho­n­oured by the Gur­d­wara Sant Sagar in New York, the ever so hum­ble Ramesh Singh was so happy to share that “al­most the en­tire Sikh pop­u­la­tion in Pak­istan was Sabat Soorat -in the full Sikh form, as or­dained by Guru Gob­ind Singh and that their chil­dren love Sikhi.” He ac­knowl­edged that there were Sikhs from all eco­nomic strata in Pak­istan and that those who have more are al­ways ready to share with their eco­nom­i­cally weak brethren.

Sikhs in Pak­istan have cre­ated a niche for them­selves in all walks of life -we have a ma­jor in the army Her­cha­ran Singh, a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Ramesh Singh Arora, doc­tors, teach­ers, uni­ver­sity pro­fes­sors, singers, peo­ple in busi­ness and oth­ers who have ex­celled through sheer hard work and have glo­ri­fied the tur­ban. 

An­other rare trait to im­bibe was his sense of grat­i­tude -al­ways thank­ful to God Almighty for be­stow­ing his love and bless­ings. He was grate­ful to the gov­ern­ment of Pak­istan that en­ables the Pak­istan Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee to cel­e­brate Gur­purabs and other func­tions at his­toric Gur­d­waras the Sikhs left be­hind 70 years ago and takes care of the hos­pi­tal­ity and se­cu­rity of nearly 6000 Sikh pil­grims who visit Gur­d­wara Nankana Sahib and other shrines from In­dia and across the world.

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Early this year, Ramesh Singh Khalsa was ho­n­oured with recog­ni­tion in the Sikhs in Char­ity sec­tion of the World Sikh Awards in Canada. He would be tour­ing Wash­ing­ton and Cal­i­for­nia in the sec­ond leg of his pre­sent US tour.