WSN will pro­tect Sikhs of Shil­long on slow death un­der siege of a bi­ased Shil­long me­dia, threats from trib­als and leg­is­la­tors, il­le­gal or­ders of Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board and un­law­ful High-Level Com­mit­tee of the state. The si­lence of Sikh lead­er­ship af­ter a noisy start hurts.  Mazhabi Sikhs of Shil­long pe­ti­tioned the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Hu­man Rights last week and also ex­pect re­prieve from Mi­nori­ties Com­mis­sion meet on 12 July. 

“Believe me, we are in the throes of ha­rass­ment, may­hem, even death and to­tal evic­tion from our home and hearth of nearly 200 years” cried Gur­jit Singh over the phone line talk­ing to The World Sikh News. “Since the last two decades we have been con­test­ing for our rights, but now it seems our de­struc­tion is im­mi­nent as the gov­ern­ment bull­doz­ers are ready to dis­lo­cate us -our women and chil­dren have not slept prop­erly for the last 35 days since the May 29 at­tack.” said he nar­rat­ing how every­day the me­dia car­ries threats from politi­cians and bi­ased re­ports by jour­nal­ists out to spread ha­tred and lies about the Sikhs of the Har­i­jan Colony of Shil­long.

WSN learns that though it has not yet be­come a pub­lic and me­dia con­cern, mi­nor­ity com­mu­ni­ties, other than Sikhs are also be­ing threat­ened as the 2-mem­ber BJP sup­ported gov­ern­ment be­comes more stub­born and un­c­op­er­a­tive. One of the old­est dailies of the re­gion -The Shil­long Times and other lo­cal news­pa­pers hardly al­lows any word in favour of the Dalit Sikhs and is full of di­a­tribes and veiled threats from MLAs to the Sikh res­i­dents.

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

Cou­ple of days back, a re­port read, “The chair­man of the Megha­laya State Plan­ning Board and In­de­pen­dent leg­is­la­tor from Non­grkrem, Lam­bor Mala­giang said the state gov­ern­ment has iden­ti­fied a few places for the re­lo­ca­tion of the le­git­i­mate res­i­dents of the Pun­jabi Lane (Them lew Maw­long.). He is re­ported to have fur­ther said that, “We have seen that a num­ber of or­gan­i­sa­tions from As­sam and New Delhi are com­ing here to in­ter­fere in the mat­ter re­lated to the state, while the whole process is still on.” He went on to say that the gov­ern­ment will not com­pro­mise on the sub­ject of re­lo­ca­tion of the res­i­dents. We would like to see that the place is va­cated.

“Since the last two decades we have been con­test­ing for our rights, but now it seems our de­struc­tion is im­mi­nent as the gov­ern­ment bull­doz­ers are ready to dis­lo­cate us -our women and chil­dren have not slept prop­erly for the last 35 days since the May 29 at­tack.”  

Gur­jit Singh, Pres­i­dent, Guru Nanak Dar­bar, Shil­long

The Syn­juk Ki Nong­shyn­shar Shnong ka Bri u Hyn­niewtrep (SNSBH), a tra­di­tional body of head­men is also re­ported to have said that since the houses of the Dalit Sikhs were locked when the so-called in­ven­tori­sa­tion sur­vey of their houses was ini­ti­ated, it was ev­i­dent that they were il­le­gal set­tlers in the Sweep­ers Lane. The or­gan­i­sa­tion re­sisted the vis­its of “out­siders” and claimed that this was a state sub­ject.

It is not that the Union gov­ern­ment is un­aware of this. Akali Dal MP Har­sim­rat Kaur Badal has ap­prised Home Min­is­ter Ra­j­nath Singh about the sit­u­a­tion and the pub­lic and me­dia have been given to un­der­stand that the Home Min­is­ter has ac­cepted to look into the mat­ter, though one does not see any ev­i­dence of that.

Deeply con­cerned for the poor­est of the poor Sikhs of the re­gion, vet­eran scholar Dr Hi­madri Baner­jee cat­e­gor­i­cally asks, “Why is Pun­jab and the Sikh Di­as­pora silent to the slow death suf­fer­ing of the poor Dalit Sikhs of Shil­long?

In their rep­re­sen­ta­tion on the let­ter­head of the City Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee, Bada Bazar, Shil­long, the Mazhabi Sikh res­i­dents of Pun­jabi lane, Shil­long sub­mit­ted to the Na­tional Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion last week, seek­ing im­me­di­ate in­ter­ven­tion.

 The “Sweeper” Sikhs -Dkhars -for­eign­ers in Shil­long

“The gov­ern­ment will not com­pro­mise on the sub­ject of re­lo­ca­tion of the res­i­dents. We would like to see that the place is va­cated. ”  

Non­grkrem, Lam­bor Mala­giang , chair­man, Megha­laya State Plan­ning Board and In­de­pen­dent leg­is­la­tor

WSN won­ders whether the NHRC will act post-haste and pro­tect them or will it pre­pare a re­port af­ter the dam­age has been done?

The Mazhabi Sikhs thanked the NHRC for their visit and also their re­marks that they take um­brage at the area be­ing called a Sweep­ers Colony. It is per­haps for the first time that some gov­ern­men­tal au­thor­ity has made such a re­mark.

Ex­hort­ing the NHRC to take quick strict ac­tion, the mem­o­ran­dum pointed out that the Vi­enna De­c­la­ra­tion and Pro­gramme of Ac­tion, adopted by the World Con­fer­ence on Hu­man Rights, Vi­enna, 23 June 1993 has cat­e­gor­i­cally stated that, “The prac­tice of forced evic­tion con­sti­tutes a gross vi­o­la­tion of hu­man rights.”

In­ter alia, the Com­mis­sion on Hu­man Rights Res­o­lu­tion 1993, para 1 states that, “In­ter­na­tional hu­man rights law es­tab­lishes norms and prin­ci­ples touch­ing on vir­tu­ally all facets of life. This is re­flected in the con­sis­tent reaf­fir­ma­tion by the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity of the in­di­vis­i­bil­ity and in­ter­de­pen­dence of all hu­man rights, whether civil, cul­tural, eco­nomic, po­lit­i­cal or so­cial. The in­dis­pens­able equal­ity of all hu­man rights, now firmly en­trenched in the pro­vi­sions of in­ter­na­tional hu­man rights in­stru­ments, is par­tic­u­larly ev­i­dent when ex­am­in­ing hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions re­lat­ing not just to one right, but to a broad range of hu­man rights.

““Why is Pun­jab and the Sikh Di­as­pora silent to the slow death suf­fer­ing of the poor Dalit Sikhs of Shil­long? ”  

Dr Hi­madri Baner­jee, vet­eran scholar and au­thor of The Other Sikhs

One such in­fringe­ment of hu­man rights is the prac­tice of forced evic­tions: the re­moval of in­di­vid­u­als, fam­i­lies or com­mu­ni­ties from their homes, land or neigh­bour­hoods, against their will, di­rectly or in­di­rectly at­trib­ut­able to the State. Forced evic­tions might not ini­tially be viewed nec­es­sar­ily as an is­sue of hu­man rights, but rather as a sim­ple side-ef­fect of de­vel­op­ment, of ur­ban re­newal, a con­se­quence of armed con­flict, or an as­pect of en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion or en­ergy gen­er­a­tion by, for ex­am­ple, hy­dro­elec­tric dams.

How­ever, to be per­sis­tently threat­ened or ac­tu­ally vic­tim­ized by the act of forced evic­tion from one’s home or land is surely one of the most supreme in­jus­tices any in­di­vid­ual, fam­ily, house­hold or com­mu­nity can face. The per­pet­ual in­se­cu­rity of peo­ple in­tim­i­dated by this prac­tice, cou­pled with the fre­quent use of phys­i­cal vi­o­lence dur­ing its car­ry­ing out, be­gin to re­veal the per­sonal and col­lec­tive trauma in­vari­ably in­flicted on those faced with the prospect of forced evic­tion. No one vol­un­teers to be an evictee.

““The prac­tice of forced evic­tion con­sti­tutes a gross vi­o­la­tion of hu­man rights.””  

World Con­fer­ence on Hu­man Rights, Vi­enna, 23 June 1993

Tol­er­ated in most so­ci­eties and of­fi­cially en­cour­aged in many, forced evic­tions dis­man­tle what peo­ple have built over months, years and some­times decades, de­stroy­ing the liveli­hood, cul­ture, com­mu­nity, fam­i­lies and homes of mil­lions of peo­ple through­out the world every year.

Con­test­ing for their le­git­i­mate rights, they fur­ther pointed out the pre­sent Megha­laya gov­ern­ment, cre­at­ing a cli­mate of fear and ter­ror against us in con­nivance with lo­cal tribal bod­ies, is ig­nor­ing all ti­tle deeds, doc­u­men­ta­tion, or­ders of the Shil­long High Court and hu­man­is­tic con­sid­er­a­tions and seems hell-bent on evict­ing us from our home and hearth where we have been liv­ing for more than 200 years. This is a clear vi­o­la­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion of In­dia and the right to live, which in­cludes the right to shel­ter and liveli­hood.

Cit­ing a judge­ment from the Supreme Court in a sim­i­lar case in Olga Tel­lis v. Bom­bay Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tion, pop­u­larly known as the “Pave­ment Dwellers Case” a five judge bench of the Court im­plied that ‘right to liveli­hood’ is borne out of the ‘right to life’, as no per­son can live with­out the means of liv­ing, that is, the means of Liveli­hood. That the court in this case ob­served that:

“‘The right to liveli­hood’ is borne out of the ‘right to life’, as no per­son can live with­out the means of liv­ing, that is, the means of Liveli­hood. ”  

Supreme Court of In­dia in the Pave­ment Dwellers Case, Mum­bai 

“The sweep of right to life con­ferred by Art.21 is wide and far reach­ing. It does not mean, merely that life can­not be ex­tin­guished or taken away as, for ex­am­ple, by the im­po­si­tion and ex­e­cu­tion of death sen­tence, ex­cept ac­cord­ing to pro­ce­dure es­tab­lished by law. That is but one as­pect if the right to life. An equally im­por­tant facet of the right to life is the right to liveli­hood be­cause no per­son can live with­out the means of liveli­hood.”

Gur­jit Singh, speak­ing on be­half of the poor Sikhs while sub­mit­ting the mem­o­ran­dum re­it­er­ated that, “Given the cir­cum­stances and the alacrity and speed with which the gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya is de­ter­mined to up­root us from our habi­tat and deny us our right to liveli­hood by terming it “re­lo­ca­tion” is a threat to our lives. Throw­ing us in some cor­ner of the city of Shil­long, where we can­not earn a liveli­hood and where we are sub­jected to fear and re­pres­sion from the lo­cal tribal pop­u­la­tion is on the cards and the Na­tional Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion has to take proac­tive ac­tion to pro­tect us.”

The at­tempt to do il­le­gal sur­veys of peo­ple’s be­long­ings, length and breadth of houses is a gross vi­o­la­tion of the hu­man rights of the poor Mazhabi Sikhs. Such sur­veys are not only il­le­gal but a to­tal in­fringe­ment of our right to pri­vacy, said Gur­jit Singh, Pres­i­dent of Guru Nanak Dar­bar, Shil­long. He also pointed out that the City Gur­d­wara Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee is in pos­ses­sion of all ti­tle deeds, doc­u­men­ta­tion, or­ders of the lo­cal Au­tonomous Hill Coun­cil and var­i­ous or­ders of the Shil­long High Court. 

The City Gur­d­wara Par­ban­dak Com­mit­tee, act­ing on be­half of the peo­ples as well as the Hindu Tem­ples, Valmiki tem­ples and a church in the Har­i­jan colony sought im­me­di­ate in­ter­ven­tion of the Union of In­dia and pro­tec­tion un­der Ar­ti­cle 21 of the Con­sti­tu­tion of In­dia as well as Ar­ti­cle 3 of the Uni­ver­sal De­c­la­ra­tion of Hu­man Rights which states that, “Every­one has the right to life, lib­erty and se­cu­rity of per­son.” 

With a very heavy heart, he said that that they told the NHRC team that, “Our lives are in dan­ger. Our chil­dren and women are scared. All our protests have been or­derly and peace­ful de­spite huge provo­ca­tions. Please save us from this des­per­ate sit­u­a­tion. The acts of the state defy logic, rule of law and all hu­man rights and hu­man­i­tar­ian con­sid­er­a­tions.”

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“The sit­u­a­tion in Shil­long to­day is rem­i­nis­cent of Ger­many in the 1930s” says Dr Baner­jee. Ger­many got a Niemoller to re­mind the world of their du­ties to­wards the op­pressed.  In Mum­bai, when the slum dwellers were be­ing evicted in the name of de­vel­op­ment, ac­tress and ac­tivist Sha­bana Azmi along­side Anand Pat­ward­han stood like a rock and saved them. 

Do the Sikhs have any­one? Will some­one rise to the oc­ca­sion be­fore we start fret­ting, fum­ing and God for­bid, maybe mourn­ing too?