SARBAT KHALSA 2016 Begins In Two Days

Sikhs are going to do what is in the best interest of their kaum – why is that ‘anti national’ resolution? What is ‘anti-national’ anyway? Who decides what is anti-national? We have human rights and civil liberties guaranteed under constitution safeguarding our religious rights which cannot be overwritten just because you start calling those rights ‘anti-national’. Tell me was not the Hinduvta demolition of Babri Masjid an anti-national act as it caused so much hurt to a religious community and created communual division within the nation? No, that is not anti-national. Nor is the Kumbh Mela where fanatic extremist groups like the RSS and Shiv Sena can freely propagate hatred against other religions with speeches, leaftlets and recruiting stalls. The Shiv Sena in Punjab can taunt the Sikhs and challenge them to a physical fight (but not actually turn up when their bluff is called) but that again is not anti-national is it? This most recent example of having to pass a jingoistic law to force Indian citizens to stand up and sing the national anthem as it will be played with the flag at all cinema performances is as clear an example of Hinduvta anti-nationalism as you can get. It will lead to extremists like those who follow the RSS to act as vigilantes with the ‘law’ behind them to enforce a nonsensical sense of ‘nationalism’ upon patrons who decide to use their democratic right not to sing the anthem or salute the flag. This is not the same thing as being patriotic. Tell me if the law is further changed so that we have pictures of the two assassinated PMs of India Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi (who have already been honoured by the State with things like having airports named after them) should Sikhs also stand up and salute them even though both are mass murderers of Sikhs? As for no nation will allow violence to start on its territory, you have police officers murder two Sikhs in cold blood on the streets of Punjab last year and they are still free. The Court in Delhi has rejected Punjab’s rights guaranteed under the constitution and international riparian law to keep all of its water thus usurping democratic rights of the Punjabi people – is that not violence? Let us not forget even though you want it all the time on this website the genocide of Sikhs in 1984 and the decade plu of extra judicial murder of Sikhs that followed. You need to stop confusing the word rebellion with dissent – in a democratic country every citizen has the right and duty to say no to the State when the State is doing something morally or legally wrong. A law does not entitle the State to do whatever it wishes let alone commit human rights violations, acts of torture and extra judicial murder – that was well established at the Nuremburg Trials of Nazi Germany’s leaders who contended they were were not doing anything criminal because their actions were legally sanctioned by the German State. Nationalism should NOT be encouraged as it creates a false sense of exceptionalism which then allows political leaders to take advantage and exploit the sentiment of their populations to see people as ‘the others’, less deserving of respect and empathy. That is the lesson that the Nazi’s taught the world. Patriotism in a democracy is holding polity, police and judiciary to account and not being deferential to them. And why you cant understand why the RSS is modelled on the Nazi SS? I have told you enough times. Okay, again I will explain to you. The RSS is deliberately modelled on the SS of Hitler’s Nazi party because Indians don’t comprehend the full horror of subscribing to where ultra nationalism leads. The Nazi’s called themselves National Socialists, prided themselves as being the so called ‘true patriots of their country, real Germanic peoples who loved the fatherland, true Aryans of pure blood, and who were best placed to decide who was and who was not entitled to see themselves as their fellow countrymen’ – swap out the references to Germany and it is the exact same rhetoric the RSS uses to drum up their politics of hate. In the Nazi instance they decided to persecute the Jews. In the instance of the RSS you have decided to persecute other minorities such as the Muslims and the Sikhs for ‘not being true Indians or not being Indian enough’ with this reactionary claptrap about being ‘anti national’ – the same evil reasoning the SS and Nazis used to discriminate and ultimately try to eliminate ‘anti-nationals’ / ‘undesirables’ from their blessed pure Reich / Bharat. In a democracy one has the right and duty to criticise one’s governance and Sikhs certainly cannot be expected to be subservient as their religious psyche and history of resistance to tyranny amply demonstrates so don’t try to tell us to keep quiet and know our place just to save our lives. Sikhs would rather die on their feet rather than live on their knees as you seem to be intimating we should do. The RSS shares not only share the Nazi’s nationalism but also its means of indoctrinating its ideology into the young Indian (revising school text books to rewrite history is a perfect example) with their rallies – hell even their uniforms are modelled on the Hitler Youth. The Nazis only started invading other people’s countries after they had spent a decade brutally persecuting their own people (effectively anybody who didn’t think like them or had the audacity to stand up against their tyranny was disappeared, tortured and put to death – sound familiar when you talk of ‘Punjab is at peace’?). That is why a Sikh cannot be a member of the RSS or keep silent when it persecutes other Indians (whether they be Sikh, Hindu, Muslim or Christian – all are equal in the Sikh’s mind and equally deserving of life, respect, dignity) because Sikhs are taught to be the staunch defenders of both their and others civil and human rights to practise whatever religion they want without fear or favour. You will answer ‘No one has been massacred in India like the way the Jews were by the Nazis.’. How many times I have explained this to you in detail? I would remind you that Hitler orchestrated his Nazi Regime’s Kristallnacht vengeance attacks on the Jews on the pretext that a German (diplomat Ernst vom Rath) had been assassinated by a Jew (Herschel Grynszpan). The Nazi Kristallnacht was a state sponsored and sanctioned pogrom against Jews throughout Nazi Germany that lasted two days and cost hundreds of Jewish lives. The Indian Kristallnacht lasted four days and cost five thousand Sikh lives in the capitol city alone so please keep your genocide denial to yourself. As a known supporter of the RSS I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that you have no problem with extra judicial killings and rapes as the Nazi SS didn’t have any compunction either. Punjab’s water belongs to Punjab. It is called ‘Punjab’s water. Punjab is even called Land of five rivers. Under Indian constitution and international riparian law it belongs to Punjab. Very simple to understand but obviously difficult for you to accept as Sikhs benefiting from their rights is not something you can stomach and that should be raised in the Sarbat Khalsa as it is a clear and present danger to the survival of Sikh homeland. And you will say ‘No point living in misery of Past.’ We should just forget about 1984 and the decades of extra judicial murder against Sikhs? ‘Okay tens of thousands of Sikhs were brutalised and murdered but lets forget about that because hey after all they were only Sikhs’, right? A people who forget their past have no future. I wonder if you would be so cynically sanguine if Sikhs forgot their past and moved with the times when it comes to our reservation about proselytising our faith. Imagine if went out actively to seek converts from the Dalits you despise so much? You couldn’t use your foul Ghar Wapsi doctrine then could you as Sikhism was born in Indian soil. Be careful then what you wish for when you tell the Sikhs to forget their past or try to deny them their rights. No people in India have been more patriotic than the SIkhs and we need no lesson from those who have never made the blood and land sacrifices we have made for the Nation. You are the ones who are anti-national with this extremist Hinduvta agenda to repress other people’s identity in their own homeland.

“anti-national”, so a gathering to determine a fate of ethno-religious magnitudes and to address the undeniable human rights abuses. Sikhs and other ethnic minorities have tried to integrate into India’s social fabric and all it has been is assimilation policies over promoting cohesion. Clearly, we are not a part of this “paper tiger” nation known as “leftovers of British India”.

You don’t get to choose what issues are discussed and debated by the Sikh masses otherwise let Sikh ‘observers’ have similar control over what is discussed and who attended the Kumbh Mela. We would ensure no ultra nationalism is spoken there by the Hinduvta taliban (recruiting gullible people) which is anti-national as far as other religious minorities are concerned. We would also stop objectionable religious talk at that mela which we find offensive – belief in animal worship and caste system for example. No? You don’t want us interfering in your religious rights. Then why should you interfere in ours?