LONDON, UK—Ahead of his formal engagements with the British leadership, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi today met with ‘pre-selected’ members of the Sikh community in the UK.
”The UK visit begins with a meeting with the Sikh community in London,” the Prime Minister’s Office tweeted.
While tens of thousands are gearing to protest against Modi for his involvement in serious human rights violations in India, the Sikh Council UK met with PM Modi and discussed a number of key issues. While these issues were important, a key member of the council has resigned in protest.
Mankamal Singh from London, was extremely upset that as a member of the Sikh Council UK – even he was not informed of this meeting. Therefore, as an act of protest he has sent in his formal resignation today to the Sikh Council stating the following –
“With no Panthik mandate, no real consensus with the Gurdwaras/Sangat and no real agenda shared with Sikh Council UK, I believe you ended up making a terrible decision that was not in line with what I believed Sikh Council UK stood for. To me this was no different to the covert decision making by the elite groups that Sikh Council UK was set up to eradicate.
To be associated with a group that felt it had the right to represent the Khalsa Panth today with Modi and not in Punjab at the Sarbat Khalsa on Tuesday 10 November is a huge embarrassment and disappointment.”
Similarly, the general Sikh population in the UK had no idea that this meeting had been scheduled nor any inkling of who would be representing them. Considering the high level of security surrounding Modi and the minute attention to detail in the pre-planning of this visit, it seems quite peculiar that any meeting could be considered “last minute”.
While the council has not addressed Mankamal Singh’s resignation, it has however released a press release providing details over today’s “developments”. Copy of the press release is being provided here –
Members of the Sikh community jointly met with the Indian Prime Minister Modi today to discuss long-standing issues of concern to the global Sikh community.
Secretary General of Sikh Council UK, Gurmel Singh said, “The meeting was useful as it was probably the first time ever Sikhs were able to openly meet with and clearly outline the lack of justice and severe human rights concerns directly to the Prime Minister of India. The meeting was also constructive as during the dialogue, PM Modi accepted our concerns were legitimate and agreed a formal process to further address these concerns through his appointed National Security Advisor.”
PM Modi is currently on an official visit to the UK during which he will face protests from a wide range of communities due to his own record and that of the Indian state in regularly ignoring the human rights of minorities and the lack of justice for historical and recent events.
Sikh Council UK facilitated two open Panthik meetings on 3rd October 2015 and 24th October 2015 during which the issues of concern to Sikhs were discussed. The meeting with PM Modi today was dedicated to those same issues which include:
- Release of Sikh political prisoners
- Prosecution of Police officers involved in human rights violations in Punjab
- Justice for the Sikh genocide of November 1984
- Returning rare and priceless items taken by the Indian Army in June 1984 from the Sikh Reference Library, Sri Harmandar Sahib
- Review of Article 25 of the Indian Constitution
- Compensation for Sikh farmers in Gujarat forced to leave and prosecution of those responsible for violent attacks against them
- Increase in the cases of deliberate desecration of Guru Granth Sahib Ji
Secretary General of Sikh Council UK, Gurmel Singh said, “It was my hope that the meeting would acknowledge the outstanding issues of injustice and help open up a channel for dialogue with PM Modi’s office leading to a speedy resolution of all these issues. The willingness to engage further is encouraging and cautiously welcome. I would urge all Sikhs to await full details of the meeting which we will be circulating shortly and engage positively as a Panth to determine future steps.”
Dear Ricky,
You are right, we have to meet government officials and talk to express what is going on, thus no denying in it but i think people are angry because they kept it hidden like a secret. If you/your organization is honest then you should be open to scrutiny about your decisions at least in your own working committee.
Few things, first those handpicked jathedars are only temporary, until a proper procedure is formed in terms of basic requirements, basic duties, how to appoint them, and how to remove them is formed. Quite a few intellectuals are involved in it including people from other countries are involved in forming guidelines, and we all will have opportunity to express opinion on it, because they will solicit emails/opinion on it. There are quite a few things many of us did not like in this meeting but there are far more which we like, top most is that we are coming together and sikh youth cant be made fool of easily now. Getting arrested is not like going to hotel, why have badals arrested them just for expressing themselves? Thats violation of very basic rights.
At this time we all need to come together, and come up with basic minimum program. Khalistan demand is not going to work under constitution, but per anandpur sahib resolution more autonomy for all the states not just ours can be worked under constitution. For that we need to educated ourselves, come together and work together.
Whats wrong with this? If we reject all meetings with the current government what will this achieve? Atleast Modi and his BJP cannot say they were not “aware” of what the Sikhs wanted.. Give him some time i think from the outside this was a positive meeting. Compared to the Sarbat Khalsa where Simranjeet Singh Maan who picked his own yes men to become current jathedars of the panth! Why do people let Simranjeet Maan be at the forefront of our Sikh issues just to raise Khalistan slogans and the get arrested? This achieves nothing especially when Maan fights in Indian elections this is completley hypocritical. They used Bhai Hawara’s name to validate the rest of there handpicked leadership for the posts. I’am sorry but we are going backwards with such a leader at the healm.