TALWANDI SABO, Punjab—Once again advocating freedom for the Sikhs, the SGPC-appointed Akal Takht Sahib acting jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh today said that after 1947, the situations that Sikhs went through made us feel that we have no option but to demand own separate nation. Giani Harpreet Singh termed this as “qaumi ghar”.
Giani Harpreet Singh was addressing a function organized by Sikh Students Federation (Grewal) at Takht Sri Damdama Sahib here to mark foundation day of the sole student body of the Sikhs. “Though process was initiated in 1947 to divide the community, after 1984 this process was intensified. Who divided us? They were those who started thinking that Sikhs are the sole community which poses threat to the integrity of Hindustan. In fact, Sikhs had never thought to disintegrate this country, because they themselves agreed to live with Hindustan,” he said.
The Akal Takht Sahib acting jathedar said, “We agreed to live in this country with a hope that we would get a respectable atmosphere here, where our religious scriptures, language, beliefs and principles etc. would be safe. Ironically, nothing of them has remained safe. And when we found our everything in danger, separatist demand was natural to come out of our mouth. Then, we were forced to utter that we needed our quami ghar (independent homeland).”
“And what happened next? Our voice in Hindustan was presented in such a way that we started to be considered criminals as if we would commit any big offence. I wonder, we were tagged ‘terrorists’ and ‘separatists’ for this reason”, he said, adding, “What we want? We want our worship places, our principles and traditions to be safe. However, ours everything was hurt. Now, our age-old traditions are being hit by creating confusion in them. Doubts are being raised on our historical sources. Authority of Akal Takht Sahib is being challenged now by some persons playing in the hands of anti-Sikh forces”.
Giani Harpreet Singh said, “The Sikh Students Federation should unite the Sikh youths and educate them in light of Sikh principles. This is the only method with which we can tackle with the negative propaganda being run over social media against the Sikhs”.
Pertinently, he said, “Land of Punjab is fertile not only for agriculture but also ideological movements. Dayanand, founder of Arya Samaj movement, was not bothered by the people anywhere else in India except Punjab. Here, he did not only secure his fan-following but also prepared ground for India-Pakistan partition on communal basis”.
It is worth mentioning here that Giani Harpreet Singh stated on anniversary of army attack on Sri Darbar Sahib and Akal Takht Sahib on June 6 that every Sikh wants Khalistan and if Indian government offers it they would accept it happily. This statement brought storm in politics of Punjab as no his predecessor ever made this kind blunt statement on the issue of Khalistan in recent past.
