In an editorial today, the Hindustan Times, reiterated the tired old diatribe that Sikhs are terrorists—a narrative that the Indian Government has worked hard to ingrain in it’s citizens for the last few decades.
In the editorial, HT makes the claim that “India need not be apologetic about seeking Britain’s help to recapture the Golden Temple in 1984.” A number of things are wrong with this thesis. HT uses the term “Recapture”. Recapture from whom?
India—or its occupiers—were never the rightful rulers of Akal Takht or the Darbar Sahib complex. Much like the Vatican for Catholics, Akal Takht and the Golden Temple complex have been sovereign land of the Sikhs since their creation. It was the Sikh Nation, time and again, throughout the 70’s and 80’s who occupied Akal Takht Sahib.
In the next sentence HT claims that India wanted to “recapture the Golden Temple from the Khalistani terrorists led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.” Again, this narrative is factually false. Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was at Darbar Sahib with the blessing and support of the majority of the Sikh Nation at the time—in India and out. Furthermore, not once did he call for a separate Sikh homeland, nevermind mention the name Khalistan.
Another argument that HT puts forth is that he was a terrorist. Who was he terrorising? Government aristocrats of the high classes who terrorised their own citizens with disappearances, rapes, and murders of tens of thousands of Indians? There are yet to be any documented cases of his personal responsibility in the harming of innocents. The same cannot be said for Hindustan Times’ hero, Indira Gandhi, or her cronies.
Indira Gandhi gave the final go ahead for the attack on Sikh shrines across Punjab—without informing the Supreme Commander of the Indian Armed Forces or consulting with the President of India—in violation of the Indian constitution. Doesn’t this make her a traitor?
In the ensuing paragraphs, HT tows the line of India’s propaganda against Sikhs, comparing them to the Irish Republican Army and the Islamist terrorists of the recent Mumbai incident. This helps India to request western governments’ help when trying to suppress its minorities at home—by comparing their genocidal tactics to legitimate suppression of murderous terrorists.
It is against the very core of the Sikh ethos to harm innocent people. Sikhs have never had an issue with the average Indian, the problem from the 1970’s till today has always been the second class citizens that Sikhs have become in today’s India. The same issues exist as did before Operation Bluestar. The only difference is that India has killed or expelled anybody who dared speak up.
The scary truth—the truth that nobody in India wants to accept—is that the Indian government itself was the terrorist. If they believed Sant Jarnail Singh was a threat to anyone, they should have arrested him when he offered himself for arrest on 20 September 1981 or other times. If he was a threat that they needed to remove, they could have shot him with sniper fire over the course of the years where he spent his days, sitting on a bed, in the clear, on a rooftop.
What the Indian government did instead, in the auspices of “removing Bhindranwale,” was to invade the holiest Sikh shrine on a holy day when thousands of Sikhs were in attendance, and simultaneously invade dozens of other Sikh shrines across India, with the only goal of inflicting maximum damage to the Sikh people and their psyche.
