Return Of The Khalistanis

[orono]

Return of the Khalistanis

By Asit Jolly

A group of ageing Khalistanis, on Sunday, gave their blessings to the Bhujang Khalsa — a marjeevada or suicide squad that has been specially raised to implement the Akal Takht’s writ on shutting down more than a hundred Punjab-based centres belonging to the Dera Sacha Sauda.

Amidst suddenly louder than ever before "Khalistan Zindabad!" slogans, the new-generation Sikh nationalists chalked grim strategies to carry out the task assigned to them — preceded by their kirpans (swords) the marjeevade will first use "gentle persuasion" to get Dera followers to distance themselves from their spiritual master, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh. And where this fails, they will employ "harsher steps." The marjeevade have vowed to "create terror in the minds of Dera followers." Egged on by their radical elders, the boys have already earmarked a chowk in Punjab’s Muktsar Town as the "cremation site" for the Sacha Sauda chief.

Condemned for more than a decade to a peripheral existence until last week, the separatist Khalistani fringe of Punjab is determinedly pushing its way back to the centre stage. The sectarian confrontation between Sikhs and the ten million strong Sacha Sauda sect has been marked by a disturbing revival of Khalistani rhetoric. Marginalised radicals, who were only occasionally heard and seen at Operation Bluestar anniversaries and the bhog ceremonies of their old comrades, are now orchestrating the building clamour for the Dera chief’s head.

All the way from Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana to Patiala, Mansa, Muktsar, Bhatinda and even in Jammu, Khalistanis can be seen leading the violent street protests against the purportedly sacrilegious acts of Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh. And though the men and women they lead are no Khalistanis, they all willingly join in the separatist chorus amidst rising tempers and cleverly provocative cues from the radicals. Men like Harnam Singh Dhumma, Daljit Bittoo, Kanwar Pal Singh, Gurnam Bandala, Wassan Singh Zaffarwal, Atinder Pal Singh and Jasbir Singh Rode are suddenly visible, besides over-ground radicals of Simranjit Singh Mann and Bhai Ram Singh’s ilk. In Patiala, crowds of ordinary Sikhs shouted out their approval when the former MP and out-of-work Khalistani, Atinder Pal Singh promised that Sikhs would exact their revenge for the Dera chief’s insult to Guru Gobind Singh "on the edge of the khanda (a kind of large sword)."

Also hob-nobbing with the extremist constituency, the jathedar or head priest of the Sikh Takht Damdama Sahib, Balwant Singh Nandgarh publicly offered to weigh in pure gold, "the brave Sikh who brings back Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh’s head."

Both Nandgarh and Atinder Pal Singh’s proclamations dangerously echo the turbulent summer of 1978, when following the Akali-Nirankari clash at Chowk Mehta on Baisakhi day, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale offered a similar bounty for the then Nirankari chief’s head. Two Sikhs, including Ranjit Singh who was later crowned Jathedar of the Akal Takht, actually carried out Bhindranwale’s bidding and assassinated Baba Gurbachan Singh in Delhi. What ensued for the next ten years is history.

And just as Bhindranwale had then proclaimed a young man gunned down by police near Amritsar as the first martyr of the holy war against the Indian state, Jathedar Nandgarh too named Kamaljit Singh — the man who died trying to storm the Sacha Sauda centre at Sunam last Thursday — as the "pratham shaheed" of the new "dharam yudh."

Kamaljit Singh’s funeral on Friday was attended by a galaxy of former Khalistanis, including the present Damdami Taksal chief, Harnam Singh Dhumma, Sikh Students Federation activist Daljit Singh Bittoo, Kanwar Pal Singh of the Dal Khalsa and many familiar faces from the puritanical Akhand Kirtani Jatha. Blinded by an obvious desire to teach the Dera a lesson for siding with Congress in the Assembly elections, the moderate Sikh leadership led by chief minister Parkash Singh Badal appears to have lost sight of the dangers a radical revival could pose not just to Punjab and the rest of the country, but even its own political future.

The new Khalistani nationalists are far smarter and significantly a lot more patient than they were known to be in the past. The current conflagration, for them, is only a means to the larger end. With the honour of no less a personage than Guru Gobind Singh at stake, the Badal government runs the very real risk of angering its traditional support base if it is perceived as acting even remotely contrary to the writ of the Akal Takht.

Aware of the huge opportunity such a situation offers them, the radicals — who are freely enlarging and interpreting the clergy’s successive verdicts — are looking to regain political space in pursuance of their eventual aim.

"You wait and watch. If things continue at the present pace, we will definitely grab a substantial majority in the SGPC elections two years from now," says Kanwar Pal Singh, a senior Amritsar-based functionary of the Dal Khalsa.

"This is a confrontation that will never end. Even if they do close down Sacha Sauda’s deras in Punjab, there will be trouble every time the sect attempts to hold a function here. And every time the true face of the Akali Dal will become exposed before the Sikhs," he said.

The imminent resurrection of the Khalistani fringe is understandably worrying many who witnessed the violent Eighties and Nineties in Punjab.

"This is not at all a good trend," says former Punjab police chief K.P.S. Gill. But in his opinion it is all a predictable consequence of the fact that successive governments at Chandigarh and Delhi "have been overly lenient in dealing with remnant Khalistani elements."

The retired super cop insists that the only way out is for the Centre and the state to take tough action. "Sikhs have never been known to display a mob mentality and if tackled in time, it will not at all be difficult to control the problem," he said, suggesting in remedy, "a few no-nonsense lathicharges to dispel any doubts that the government knows its business."

Failing the firm hand that Mr Gill is advocating Punjab could very easily slide right back into the nightmarish Eighties.

Besides the scores of Sacha Sauda followers that are already beginning to flee Punjab in fear of becoming targets, the sight and sound of naked swords and threatening slogans is also giving root to apprehensions amidst Hindus and other communities.

http://www.asianage.com/presentation/leftn...halistanis.aspx

[akaal ustat]

"This is not at all a good trend," says former Punjab police chief K.P.S. Gill. But in his opinion it is all a predictable consequence of the fact that successive governments at Chandigarh and Delhi "have been overly lenient in dealing with remnant Khalistani elements."

The retired super cop insists that the only way out is for the Centre and the state to take tough action. "Sikhs have never been known to display a mob mentality and if tackled in time, it will not at all be difficult to control the problem," he said, suggesting in remedy, "a few no-nonsense lathicharges to dispel any doubts that the government knows its business."

Failing the firm hand that Mr Gill is advocating Punjab could very easily slide right back into the nightmarish Eighties.

HE NOT REALLY ONE TO TALK, MURDERER, HE WAS THE CAUSE OF ALL THEM NIGHTMARES TO BEGIN WITH, IF HE HAD HIS WAY, HE'D SHOOT EVERY SIKH ALIVE

HE CAN P*** OFF RIGHT BACK WHEREVER IT IS HE CAME FROM.

[orono]

And just to say I cut and paste that from Tapoban.org, posted by Chandra

[PrabhzSingh]

yes yes thats our Khalistani Singhs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :devil:

[Goli Da Vair Sada]

another biased report. notice how they call gill a super cop.

[mann_kaum_layee_qurbaan]

its funny how they act like "khalistanis" are some kind of breed or different species, lol hillarious man. did they ever stop and think that khalistanis may be punjabi sikhs? hmmmm...

i mean if RSS goons can be called patriotic, why can't khalistanis be human?

its funny how no one in india is alarmed when RSS and Shiv sena kill and rape, loot etc. hmmmm, no cause for concern there. hmmm..

what a bunch of hypocrsiy man. let's talk about those RSS giving people weapons training and also i believe the RSS was training people to fight the muslims, maybe even suicide squads of their own, but hey that's desh bhagati right.....

[Raju]

its funny how they act like "khalistanis" are some kind of breed or different species, lol hillarious man. did they ever stop and think that khalistanis may be punjabi sikhs? hmmmm...

i mean if RSS goons can be called patriotic, why can't khalistanis be human?

its funny how no one in india is alarmed when RSS and Shiv sena kill and rape, loot etc. hmmmm, no cause for concern there. hmmm..

what a bunch of hypocrsiy man. let's talk about those RSS giving people weapons training and also i believe the RSS was training people to fight the muslims, maybe even suicide squads of their own, but hey that's desh bhagati right.....

this is the biggest hypocrisy in India. Ofcourse RSS is not involved in suicide squads or the like, but they only indulge in mass terrorism like that of the whites against the blacks in deep south of America during days of MLK.

But there is no condemnation, it seems all hindus are very happy that there is RSS because it symbolizes some kind of hindu resurgence. I am all for hindu resurgence, since they are a people who were subjugated for 700 years. But this kind of hypocrisy...how does this make them any better than the others ?

Then there are people who justify this by saying that Hindus are free to make their own mistakes or repeat mistakes made by others. Yeah...alright...but don't think that everyone else will just roll over. :nihungsmile:

[Mehtab Singh]

I am all for hindu resurgence, since they are a people who were subjugated for 700 years.

I am afraid we can't wait that long my friend.