EXCLUSIVE: Interview With Sikh Intellectual Baljit Singh Khalsa On 2017 Assembly Polls

With the 2017 assembly polls approaching, there is a blurred view of the election landscape from the Sikh perspective since the Sikh voters are in confusion. On behalf of Sikh24, an interview with Sikh Intellectual Baljit Singh Khalsa was conducted. S. Baljit Singh Khalsa is the Chief Editor of the monthly magazine ‘Vangaar.’

The purpose of this interview is to apprise the audience with and clarify the scene of the current Punjab polity from the Sikh perspective.   

20160915165431_img_0346-copy

Question: How do you see the current Punjab polity from the Sikh perspective?

Answer: After watching the upsurge of Sikh masses in October-2015 following the desecration incidents, the mainstream political parties of Punjab started addressing the Sikh issues. This transformation needs to be considered as a new phase of Sikh awareness. 

 

Question: The mainstream media of Punjab always highlights the mainstream parties of Punjab during the elections. Currently, the media is highlighting SAD, Congress, AAP or ‘Awaz-e-Punjab’ as claimant of the forming government in Punjab. How do you see it?

Answer: The mainstream media of India works under highly deliberated policies directed by the Government agencies. Only mainstream parties having faith in the national integrity of India are highlighted by the media.

We can’t deny that a large section of the Punjab masses is committed to the ideology of the great Sikh of 20th century, Sant Jarnail Singh Ji Khalsa Bhindranwale. But the tragedy is that the mainstream media always succeeds in diverting the mind of the Sikh voters towards the mainstream political parties during the polls. The Sikh voters choose to vote for the one having the low degree of worseness among the three or four main parties.  

 

Question: Before considering about the party committed to the ideology of Sant Bhindranwale, every Sikh voter keeps it in his/her mind that Simranjit Singh Mann didn’t enter the Parliament despite winning the election with an exemplary lead in 1989. What would you say about it?

Answer: See, a lot of Sikh Parliamentarians succeeded to move into Parliament since 1989 and we need to see what they have achieved until now. We need to accept that the pro-Hindutva Union government of India is intentionally treating the Sikhs as second class citizens. Our yelling or screaming in the Parliament of India would leave no impact on them. Instead, Simranjit Singh Mann was right in his decision of not entering the Indian Parliament in 1989. At least he conveyed a global message that the Sikh Parliamentarians were not given the basic rights in India.

 

Question: Aam Admi Party is being projected as a pro-Sikh party. What’s your opinion about it?

Answer: Any party that hails from Delhi, either AAP, Congress or BJP, could never deliver justice to Sikhs or Punjab.  

 

Question: But AAP leaders are openly talking about putting drug dealers behind bars to end the drug menace in Punjab. What would you say about it?

Answer: The drug menace in Punjab is not as simple as we are considering. There is a proper hierarchy of people involved in the drug menace from its manufacturers to peddlers. Holding only a single person responsible for the drug menace in Punjab won’t be justice.

AAP leaders, especially Arvind Kejriwal, always criticizes the Akali Minister Bikram Majithia, by terming him the kingpin of the drug mafia. Majithia can be part of a drug mafia; however, we can’t say anything without any proof of what Majithia’s position is in the drug mafia. We need to accept that drugs were sold in Punjab even before Majithia and the truth is that artificial drugs were thrown into Punjab in the 1990’s. So, high level planning is needed to deal with the drug menace, instead of playing the blame game to woo the vote bank.    

 

Question: Having experienced the Congress and BJP, a section of the Sikh community is considering the AAP as a far better option, what do you think?

Answer: Expecting support for Sikh sovereignty from any mainstream political party is like expecting milk from a bull. None of the mainstream parties will address the Sikh issues at the cost of ‘national integrity’.

Recently, when Advocate Prashant Bhushan of the AAP said in an interview that the masses of Kashmir should be given the right to decide about deploying the Paramilitary forces in J & K, AAP’s national convener Arvind Kejriwal separated himself and the party from Bhushan’s statement by terming it as his personal view.  

 

Question: Then, what do the Sikhs need to do?

Answer: The path to our goal was enlightened by Sant Jarnail Singh Ji Khalsa Bhindranwale more than three decades ago. Sikh sovereignty is the ultimate solution to all the Sikh problems and we need to pay attention to achieve Sikh sovereignty instead of getting entangled in the day to day challenges.

Currently, we are entrapped to the symptoms of a disease named ‘slavery’. The drug menace and cultism are symptoms of this disease, and, unfortunately, we are too entangled to cure the symptoms. But, when we decide to break the chains of this slavery, all these symptoms will disappear automatically.   

We need to support every organization or individual that is committed to achieve Sikh sovereignty by keeping aside our personal rivalries and differences.  

6 COMMENTS

  1. The first to comment is a RSS response from their Internet division so its quite obvious that Indian fascist agenda is in every aspect of Sikh lives. Modi is here to finish Punjab one way or another. The shrinking land of the SIkhs is obvious as the nose on your face. As far as support for Khalistan, you need to look no further to the Sarbat Khalsa that has happened since 1984. They have overwhelming supported a separate Sikh state. The Indian agencies are spending billions of dollars to sway public opinion. From these Internet trolls disguising themselves as Punjabis, or paying for Ghandi statues to be erected all over the world. But sadly the rest of the world is not a victim to the state sponsored rhetoric spewed by all major media outlets in India. Journalism is a figment of their imagination in India. All media outlets are controlled by the right wing Hindu Fascists. Sikhs have to move cautiously forward. The removing of all persons within a 10 km range from the Pakistan border is just another way to punish the Sikhs for standing up for their rights. Any idiot can see their is no real threat from Pakistan. This move is simply intended to starve the farmers from their livelihood. They hope to undermine the Sikh Sovereignty movement for starving our farmers. Unfortunately we have seen much worse times, even after the Indian military spent 10 years murdering every young Sikh man in Punjab from 1984 to 1994, we will never give in. To live as a free people is our right. We are not hindus, its as obvious as the colour of our skin or the height of our physiques, or the self sacrificing nature which built the modern state of India. SOrry India, we sent our fathers and sons to die for you, while you raped our mothers and daughters. While you stole our land to create other hindu dominated states like Haryana, attempt to quash our language. We were the bread basket of India while the country starved, we irrigated the whole country with our five rivers. No there is no going back. Khalistan is the final solution.

  2. I would ask those Sikh families if they are being treated fairly or as not second and third class citizens who have suffered the cruelty of the so called hinduvata dictators. Yes there are few who do not go along with the Khalistan rights nor what Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale’s principles …. Sikhs asking for their homeland and rights are not terrorists. When all failed them they fight for their rights only to be called terrorists. Terrorist are who terrorise the innocent not fighting for rights.

  3. Nobody except few Khalistanis believe in so called Sikh sovereignty. No other community in India has a whole state to itself as Sikhs have in Punjab. What more you want?
    The only legitimate demand are justice for 1984 and justice for fake encounters. Communal politics of Khalistanis destroyed Punjab. Punjab has other communities also. Everyone there is not a Sikh, nor is every Sikh a pro Bhindranwale Khalistani. Sikhs have all rights in India. Sikhs are not slaves. Onky terrorists feel they are slaves. Rest of Sikhs are living a good life.

    • Before you try to pass yourself off as a Sikh at least make the effort to acquaint yourself with both Sikh theology and history. Guru Gobind Singh – you know the tenth Guru of the Sikhs – conferred sovereignty on the Sikh people himself deeming them a nation. This inspired Banda Singh Bahadur and the Sikh misls to rise up against their oppressive overlords (the Mughals at that time) that followed culminating in the establishment of the sovereign Sikh nation state (country) which was the Khalsa Raj of Maharajah Ranjit Singh which covered a vast area from the Khyber in the west to the borders of Nepal and Tibet in the east. In 1947 the British overlords offered Sikhs a chance to once again have their own separate Sikh state again (albeit a much smaller land area) but turned down this overture to throw in our lot with India based on pledges made by Gandhi and Nehru (on behalf of Congress) that not only would Sikh religious rights be respected and protected but that there would be no objection to Sikhs preserving their right to self determination. As for your false contention that ‘no other community in India has a whole state to itself’ – have you conveniently forgotten that Punjabi Hindus in a referendum in 1966 created their own state of Haryana for that express purpose exerting their right to self determination by cleaving Indian Punjab in two and rejecting mother tongue of Punjabi. More recently we have the special status given to the people of Nagaland recognising their autonomy. These HISTORICAL FACTS make us distinct from other communities in India. Those pledges made to induce us were reneged upon which led to the Sikh agitation culminating in the Anandpur Sahib resolutions (which also addresses issues like the theft of water from the Punjab) – nothing whatsover to do with Khalistanis as that term did not exist in the 1960s to late 1970s. The Anandpur Sahib Resolutions are the legitimate longstanding demands and grievances going back to 1947 which have only been compounded by the injustices and atrocities of 1984 and fake encounters (effectively state sponsored pogrom of Sikhs) so stop trying to brand Sikhs as terrorists, you wouldn’t even have a country without our sacrifices. Sikhs have all rights in India? Tell that to Bapu Surat Singh who is repeatedly kidnapped from his own house for being on hunger strike for the rights of Sikh prisoners who are still languishing in jails long after their dubious sentences have been served. Rest of Sikhs are living a good life? Tell that to the jawans suffering under an ethnic cleansing proportioned drug epidemic in Sikh homeland and the families raising children with uranium polluted water. And yes Sikhs are living a good life as beadbi of our Guru continues unabated in Sikh homeland whilst those Sikhs who protest are shot dead by the police! You are just the same as RSS troll ‘Harinder’ in trying to brand Sikhs as terrorists if they dare to stand up for their human rights and dissent when their civil liberties are infringed (Sikhs are arrested for sedition for daring to speak up) which is their democratic right and duty.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here