Bhai Gajinder Singh - Living In Exile

[SaRpAnCh]

Bhai Gajinder Singh has been living in exlie for 27 years and till this day has not seen the faces of his family or children.Bhai Sahib along with other Dal Khalsa activists hijacked an Indian Airline plane to Pakistan in protest of the arrest of Shaheed Sant Jarnail Singh Khalsa Bhindranwale,and the killing of Sikhs at Chowk Mehta.

The plane was highjacked on September 29, 1981, by five members of the Dal Khalsa as a form of protest against the arrest of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale who had been accused of being involved in the murder of Jalandhar based Hindu newspaper owner Jagat Narain. The highjackers were under the leadership of Gajinder Singh who a few years later was nominated as Chairman of the organisation while being imprisoned in Pakistan. The Dal Khalsa activists forced the plane to land in Lahore, Pakistan and demanded the release of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale in addition to demanding the release of all persons who had been detained in connection with the Khalistan movement, a ransom of 5 lakh dollars and compensation of 100,000 Indian Rupees (Rs.) for the families of each Sikhs that had been killed on September 20, 1981, at Chowk Mehta after the arrest of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. A day after the highjacking Pakistani commandos arrested the Dal Khalsa activists. The highjackers were identified as Gajinder Singh, Satnam Singh of Paonta Sahib, Jasbir Singh of Ropar, Tejinderpal Singh of Jalandar and Karam Singh of Jammu. Though Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale had never openly or officially associated with the Dal Khalsa the organisation was largely seen have had close links with him.

Shaheed Sant Jarnail Singh Khalsa Bhindranwale once said if a Sikh hijacks a plane in protest agaisnt the Government its called 'desh naal gaddari', if a Hindu supporter of Indira Gandhi hijacks a plane in support of her its called 'Desh Bhagti' not only this they get places in the Govt.

Below are the views of Bhai Gajinder Singh and his views on the 24th Anniversary of Operation Bluestar

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Living in Exile

Bhai Gajinder Singh

Wednesday June 04th, 2008

I am in exile. For the last 27 years. Living in exile is a unique journey. Very few people hurdling through the passage of life are endowed with the privilege of living through this kind of existence. On June 4, when we all bow to the martyrdom of Sikhs who laid down their lives in the 1984 Ghallughara (holocaust), I wish to share with my fellow Sikhs the experience of “living in exile”.

Stepping into the footsteps of adulthood, I penned down a few lines, which set the difficult passage I was to follow. The lines were,

“I have a thought, a dream

I am determined to have” my own house”

I am convinced that I have to lay down my life.”

In a sense, my exile started on that day in December 1971, when during the course of a public meeting of the then Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi at Dera Bassi, near Chandigarh, I openly threw leaflets on the dais and publicly declared my intentions flowing from the lines that I had penned. Soon after, giving birth to the historic movement of Dal Khalsa along with colleagues who thought alike further strengthened the campaign to live a life of ostracism.

When the events of June 1984 unfolded, I was within the four walls of a prison. As news trickled down through BBC radio, I was shattered. I could not do more than visualize the imagery of a destroyed Akal Takht, the devilish rulers of the Delhi Durbar and the blood-soaked bodies of Sikh martyrs. The poet in me could not but say that “the fledgling Delhi Takht had challenged the Takht of the Almighty”. I also imagined the bloody days ahead.

I join the entire Sikh nation in reiterating that the remembrance of June 1984 is an occasion to reaffirm our commitment to the cause for which our brethren laid down their lives. It is also an opportunity to recall the brutality of the Indian state.

Today, when I pay tribute to all those who bravely fought and attained martyrdom, I ask myself the question, “When does one be ready for such a state –to die for a cause? My quick response is, “when one goes into exile”. To go into exile is a state of mind. The numbers of people who undergo physical exile may be small, but there is no dearth of people, either in my nation or in any nation, for whom, living in exile is actually a way of life.

When I was very young, my father secured my Sikhi and my mother instilled the spirit and essence of Sikhi. My key inspiration was Sirdar Kapur Singh. In a sense, I went into exile the day my mother educated me about the concept of “sikhi khanneo tikhi- the path of Sikhi is razor-thin” and the importance and significance of “my own home”. While I was still studying in Chandigarh, I went in search of “my own home”. I went “into exile.” Since then, I have lived life thus.

Though the numbers may be small, there are people –men and women, young and old in our community who are living in exile. They physically dwell where they are, but their heart and mind is somewhere else. Exigencies of life force us to bid our time in search of the “my own home”. The pressures of life make us spend a lot of our time, resources and energies into directions we actually do not want to spend. We are waiting. Still, we are dreamers, living with hope and more hope.

Do you think you are alone in this voyage? Am I alone? Was I alone? Sometimes these questions bother us. Persecution is a worldwide phenomenon. It is the privilege of the few who listen to the voice of their conscience to fight persecution. From Palestine to Kashmir, from Tibet to Sri Lanka, from Nagaland and Manipur to Burma, the search for “my own home” goes on.

So, are we alone? Well, there is only one Dalai Llama in this world. There is only one Aang San Sui Kyi in Burma, one Syed Ali Shah Gilani in Kashmir, one Prabakharan in Tamil Eelam and we had only one Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale in Punjab. They are all conscience keepers of their respective nations. We are all co-travellers. We all have one destination. I am not alone. You are not alone.

The journey of going “into exile” and the path from exile to freedom for any individual or nation has to be a long, painful and arduous one. It has been so for the Sikhs in the past and even today it is so.

Times and technologies have changed. The geo-political realities of the Indian sub-continent have also changed. A substantial portion of the Sikh nation’s demands to the Indian state have become infructuous as technology has overtaken events. Substantial barriers have broken down. Still, it is not time to relinquish our search as a majority of our own people may think and want. Years of governance under colonialism may have numbed us but the facade cannot be assumed to be reality. Truth will strike the Sikh nation when they become masters of their own destiny under a dispensation which unlike the present one is free and fair. It is time that a meeting of minds takes place of all those who are “living in exile”.

Have the times really changed? In 1981, Afghanistan was under Soviet rule and now it is under US domination. Soviet Russia is only Russia today and there is a huge increase in the UN membership. Like men, nations too have their fate. It is a fact of history that there are nations who have been struggling for centuries without result and others, whose names people do not know, are independent.

During the course of the present phase of life, many a friend has posed this to me, “Don’t you feel like “going home”? My reply has been, “which home –the one which has rendered me stateless and forced me into “living in exile”?

(The message was read in the conference on ‘sacrilege of religious places of minorities in India” held at Amritsar on June 4 to mark the 24th anniversary of army attack.)

http://dalkhalsa.com/Archives/News/Jun_08/04_Jun_08_2.html

[dasmesh_regiment]

kwality comment

[Azaad]

Bhai Gajinder Singhs kurbani can never be forgotton...Living in exile for nearly three decades and he couldn't even attend his own daughters wedding a couple of years ago!!!

[Harvinder singh Babbar]

Shere panth da.

[dasmesh_regiment]

but people like spaminder singh will call him a traitor because he feels like it

[wjkk wjkf]

Quick question - does anyone know whether his family has had to deal with coppers or the government since he's been in exile? I was just wondering...we (not to belittle his qurbani) tend to mention him a lot but forget about the people who have been left behind in India...what are they doing through (genuine question) - does anyone know?