By Balbir Punj
Many of us, who saw thousands of Amritpal’s supporters, some of them brandishing swords and guns, stomping through barricades and barging into a police station in Ajnala, near Amritsar on February 23 last, and hapless policemen scurrying for cover, were shocked. The disturbing scenes were reminiscent of dark days of terror that rocked Punjab in 1980s.
The script was too familiar and ominous. Many analysts, discussing the sordid episode threadbare, concluded that the Khalistan doctrine was far from dead, with inherent potential to push the border state back to an internecine war, bleeding it white in the process. Whatsoever happened in the border state on that fateful day appeared to be a page straight from the horror book that shook the country during the decade between 1980-90.
Bhindranwale, a small religious preacher, along with his heavily armed followers took control of the sacred Golden temple, turned its holy precincts into terrorists’ shelter home. The law didn’t act. It instead watched helplessly while a bunch of criminals, held the state to ransom. During that time, the state was a silent spectator. Hindus were identified in trains, buses or picked up randomly and shot dead, simply for being Hindus.
This led to a tragic chain of events- the unfortunate `operation Blue Star’ by the Indian Army, subsequent dastardly assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi at the hands of her Sikh body guards, followed by the horrible killings of innocent Sikhs in Delhi and several other parts of the country.
Amritpal, was a clean-shaven Sikh till recently, running a transport business in Dubai. Now he claims to be a religious preacher, trying to don Bhindranwale mantle. Accompanied by religious regalia and armed companions, he successfully brought the state to its knees. This is exactly how Bhindranwale had launched himself. He proved to his followers and opponents that he was bigger than the state and the law.
The Khalistan movement in Punjab may not be visible on surface, but a host of incidents with Khalistan links have occurred lately in Punjab, ever since AAP has got traction in the state. Why is the idea of Khalistan still alive, particularly when post 1980s events have conclusively proved its impracticality?
The answer lies in the short-sighted approach the state and society have adopted in fighting the movement, which has its roots going back by over a century. The Indian state has been fighting Khalistanis, but has never confronted the basic concept of Khalistan, challenged its narrative, based on, white lies, half-truths and twisted facts. India combats Khalistanis, not the idea of Khalistan.
The result, the divisive narrative, spun by the crafty British, is propagated, unhindered, without any questions asked. Pakistan, blinded by hate, has been perpetuating this narrative, funding, arming and training innocents, using them as a fodder in its war against India and its timeless plural civilisation. The fingerprints of infamous ISI (Pakistan’s intelligence agency) are too palpable to be missed.
But how did a section of Sikh community (known for its valour and patriotism) get so alienated from the Indian main stream that it became a willing partner in ISI’s plans to dismember India? This unfortunate chain of events has its origins in British stratagem of ‘divide and rule’, employed by them to perpetuate their control over India in the wake of the first war of independence by Indians in 1857.
The wily colonial masters identified fault lines in Indian society, did the necessary academic exercise to back their divisive plans and worked simultaneously on all of them. The easiest to work on was the Hindu-Muslim fault line. The two communities have mostly been at war against each other for over six hundred years. Their alliance during 1857 uprising was nascent and limited.
The British wisely picked up Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (please see my column, “The many truths, half-truths and blatant lies of Hindu-Muslim bond in India”, of July 26, 2022 in this portal) to carry forward their divisive agenda among the Muslim of the sub-continent. The British obviously found it impossible to get someone’s in the patriotic community of Sikhs to play the treacherous role that Sir Syed was happily doing among the Muslims.
So, they used one from within their own ranks. He was one Max Arthur Macauliffe, born on September 10, 1841, in Newcastle West, Ireland. He got into the coveted Imperial Civil Service (ICS) in 1862 and was quickly posted to Punjab in 1864. Macauliffe soon converted to Sikhism and with the help of Bhai Kahn Singh Nabha, undertook the task of translating Sikh scriptures, including the holy Guru Granth Sahib.
In 1897, the Bhai wrote a pamphlet “Hum Hindu Nahi”, the very basis of the present day Khalistan movement; which has since largely been hijacked by ISI and Islamic zealots. A white man converting to Sikh faith, was a major development in Punjab. His high profile in the British colonial set up naturally gave Macauliffe, now a ‘devoted’ Sikh, an esteemed position in the Sikh community. He undoubtedly pioneered the exercise of creating a divide between Hindus and Sikhs.
In an introduction to Macauliffe’s celebrated work “The Sikhs, their religion, Gurus, sacred writings and Authors”, noted historian and author, Sardar Khushwant Singh writes “It has been suggested that the British government of the day had sinister motives in commissioning Macauliffe to undertake this work. That Sikhs were fast relapsing back into the Hindu fold was recorded by Lord Dalhousie soon after he annexed the Sikh Kingdom. He and other British administrators felt that it would serve their interests better if the Khalsa Sikhs were encouraged to retain their distinct and separate identity”.
The technique adopted by both, Sir Syed and Macauliffe, to achieve their dubious objective had a lot in common. Both invoked “divine” injunctions to alienate the targeted community from the main stream and convert it into an ally of the British masters. Here is a sample from Macauliffe’s work (The Sikhs, Vol 1).
“One day, as Guru Teg Bahadur was in the top story of his prison, the emperor Aurangzeb thought he saw him looking towards the south in the direction of the Imperial zenana. He was sent for the next day, and charged with this grave breach of Oriental etiquette and propriety. The Guru replied, ‘Emperor Aurangzeb, I was on the top story of my prison. But I was not looking at thy private apartments or at thy queens. I was looking in the director of the Europeans who are coming from beyond the seas to tear down thy pardas and destroy thine empire.”
The follow-up of action on the divisive and motivated “academic” exercise by the colonial power was calibrated and swift. On May 1, 1905, the then manager of Golden Temple issued orders banning the practice of worshiping of Hindu deities on the banks of the holy tank by Brahmins. The statues of Hindu Gods and Goddesses were thrown out. Those who spearheaded this divisive agenda termed themselves as “Tat Khalsa” or the “neo-Sikhs”. The trend of eviction of Hindu practices and symbols from the Golden Temple was subsequently followed in rest of Gurudwaras of Punjab.
The population of Sikhs, according to 1901 census, was a little over a million. Prior to 1911 census, the census Commissioner of Punjab issued special instructions to the enumerators, to try to record Sikhs, separately from the Hindus. The result was that the number of Sikhs in the state moved up three times, to over three million, in just a decade.
In the British Indian Army, a separate Khalsa regiment was created wherein the soldier were required to observe all the five kakars, so as to underline the distinction between the Khalsa and other followers of Sikh Gurus.
In the following decades (even after independence) this divisive mindset and practices have continued unabated. The neo-Sikhs, completely different from the ones who follow the Gurus in letter and spirit, dominate the public discourse and political life of Punjab. No wonder Pakistan makes use of this gap in our polity. Every Sikh can decide for himself / herself – whether he / she wants to follow in the footsteps of great Gurus and be inspired by their divine message or walk on the path laid by the British.
Mr. Balbir Punj is a Former Member of Parliament and a Columnist.