Khalistan - Some Misconceptions

[mundasingh123]

I feel for khalistan to have any real basis and credibility then we got to demand from pakistan the area

And Pakistan will accede to the demand for western punjab, the most fertile and the wealthiest province in pak ... Wishful thinking or did you mean lets just demand irrespective of whether pak agrees or not

[dalsingh101]

I have a muslim friend who actually thinks Maharaja Ranjit Singh's rule was great for muslims. I don't think currently going by the news most muslims are happy with Pakistan they have there own issues they are dealing with. I am sure not all Hindu's are happy with India since India does not cater to every Hindu's needs. Most in both countries are sitting in poverty.

I've lived in many Muslim majority areas. I don't think what your friend is telling you really represents majority thought in that community. You need to be careful not to misjudge realities due to personal relationships.

We never threatended muslims with violent realiation i know they looked up to the singhs but we gave them high paying jobs and freedom and that is the reason they helped us keep the Mughals and also the British from invading us.

That is a total misapprehension and a way too simplistic interpretation of history. Sirhind was flattened by Banda Singh Bahadhur. Read contemporary sources about it. Some Muslim women would kill themselves at the approach of the fauj. Later European accounts mention an antipathy to Muslims by Sikhs too, especially nihangs. There are a lot of reasons why Panjabi Muslims ended up having to reconcile themselves to Sikh rule, and helplessness in the face of the destruction of Moghul rule there was a contributing factor. Have a read of unedited older surviving rehats as well, to get an insight into how people thought back then. I'm not saying we should blindly hate sullay by this btw, just saying that your impression is not realistically based on history and way too idealistic.

We actually gave them there independece and good jobs that is the reason they stuck with Khalsa Raj otherwise they could have easily turned against us had the Mughals tried to invade us or the British when Maharaja Ranjit Singh was alive.

Mughals were severely weakened by Abdali Shah and Nadir Shah's invasions, they didn't have the strength to seriously face Singhs as a result, plus Sikhs employed successful/better tactics against those that tried. Common Muslims had to face and accept Muslim leadership wasn't able to protect them in Panjab. Factor that in.

In the previous Khalsa Raj they could have done easily suicide attacks then against us but did not. In the end it all comes down to for people two things money and freedom if they have that then majority of the people of that country don't do anything to disrupt it.

Not at all. It is modern technology that makes suicide attacks so dangerous now. Before this, they were a different ball game altogether. Can you imagine a suicide bomber in the middle of a nagar kirtan or packed Gurdwara? That's what would probably happen. They'd have hordes of volunteers for this from the NWFP or Afghanistan as well. America offers these people money, 'freedom' and opportunities more than we could ever do, does that keep them happy? Watch the news/read the papers and judge for yourself.

What do you think we should do to fix our current issues? Do you believe in Khalistan or India?

All I know is, wherever we are or whatever we plan, we need to resolve a lot of fissures,inequalities, fractions and internally negative behaviour amongst ourselves before we jump into anything risky. Otherwise we are likely to fail in our objective. Outsiders will simply exploit the differences we have between us and have us turning on each other. That was a part of how they derailed the Khalistani movement before in any case. Will we learn from it?

[punjabking]

And Pakistan will accede to the demand for western punjab, the most fertile and the wealthiest province in pak ... Wishful thinking or did you mean lets just demand irrespective of whether pak agrees or not

Well isnt this what we are demanding from India? Pakistan is no where as powerful as India!

[mundasingh123]

Well isnt this what we are demanding from India? Pakistan is no where as powerful as India!

Hmm. On a second thought your logic seems to have some rationale behind it . Imagine Pakistan getting reduced to half after it gives away Western Punjab out of fear of retaliation from us Sikhs . lol

India is not gonna lose much but pakistan will surely be reduced to the size of Afghanistan

[KhalistaniGunMan]

Just thought i might add to the topic with a bit of khalistani propoganda lol :D

[PunjabiPredator]

I've lived in many Muslim majority areas. I don't think what your friend is telling you really represents majority thought in that community. You need to be careful not to misjudge realities due to personal relationships.

That is a total misapprehension and a way too simplistic interpretation of history. Sirhind was flattened by Banda Singh Bahadhur. Read contemporary sources about it. Some Muslim women would kill themselves at the approach of the fauj. Later European accounts mention an antipathy to Muslims by Sikhs too, especially nihangs. There are a lot of reasons why Panjabi Muslims ended up having to reconcile themselves to Sikh rule, and helplessness in the face of the destruction of Moghul rule there was a contributing factor. Have a read of unedited older surviving rehats as well, to get an insight into how people thought back then. I'm not saying we should blindly hate sullay by this btw, just saying that your impression is not realistically based on history and way too idealistic.

Mughals were severely weakened by Abdali Shah and Nadir Shah's invasions, they didn't have the strength to seriously face Singhs as a result, plus Sikhs employed successful/better tactics against those that tried. Common Muslims had to face and accept Muslim leadership wasn't able to protect them in Panjab. Factor that in.

Not at all. It is modern technology that makes suicide attacks so dangerous now. Before this, they were a different ball game altogether. Can you imagine a suicide bomber in the middle of a nagar kirtan or packed Gurdwara? That's what would probably happen. They'd have hordes of volunteers for this from the NWFP or Afghanistan as well. America offers these people money, 'freedom' and opportunities more than we could ever do, does that keep them happy? Watch the news/read the papers and judge for yourself.

You made good points and i don't think a Punjab with majority muslims will work either we will probably end up getting Bluestar #2. I will continue to support Khalistan and whatever way i can support it will continue to do so...

All I know is, wherever we are or whatever we plan, we need to resolve a lot of fissures,inequalities, fractions and internally negative behaviour amongst ourselves before we jump into anything risky. Otherwise we are likely to fail in our objective. Outsiders will simply exploit the differences we have between us and have us turning on each other. That was a part of how they derailed the Khalistani movement before in any case. Will we learn from it?

Khalistan was derailed by India by simply labeling Sikhs as either extremists or moderates and it is still on going today. India bribed certain sikhs to tell them where certain people were living so they could kill them in fake encounters. It is political backstabbing by Akali's and people being Bribed so easily which has hurt us and damaged sikhi. At the present momemt we are divided on caste, color, gender and until we all give up on these issues we won't get anything resolved. I think we will learn from it if people know about it most people don't know about it and think about it as part of there tradition when it comes to caste. Some people don't know what Sant Ji fought for and we need to make his speeches avaliable to everyone so they can see them and then judge him and everything that happened in 1984.

Is that why many of these hindu asserted that their mother tongue was Hindi and not punjabi when it came to division of land on the basis of Language Spoken in the erstwhile years

You made a good point bro.

[dalsingh101]

Is that why many of these hindu asserted that their mother tongue was Hindi and not punjabi when it came to division of land on the basis of Language Spoken in the erstwhile years

It might help to contextualise this issue. I read a paper recently (you can read it here), that described how people started dividing themselves along the lines of language (which in reality reflected religious fissures), in Panjab not long after the Sikh kingdom was 'annexed'. It started with Muslims affiliating themselves to the British introduced Urdu. Muslims back then seem to have started strongly associating Panjabi to Sikhs and distancing themselves from it. Personally I have witnessed more than a few Pakistanis express the belief that Urdu is a sophisticated, beautiful language whilst considering Panjabi a common, vulgar language, so the effects of this still persists to this day. (Not that there aren't some proPanjabi Pakistanis around mind you.)

After partition, this trend continued with Hindus distancing themselves from the language, seeing it as Sikh, like the Muslims before them. So we need to understand this in the wider, longer (time wise) context. Underlying all this is how a shared cultural construct like language can quickly become politicised and result in a distinct polarisation between people who formerly shared it.

That both Hindus and Muslims did this with Panjabi is something we need to analyse and understand with a cool head. If only to try and make sure we understand how people manipulate these things so we get a more sophisticated grasp of the political/social mechanisms at hand.

[proactive]

Do you know why the Ramgharia gurdwareh came about?

My great grandfather was one of the original for runners with it and helped create it and was very well known by both sikh and kenyan communities in kenya and still is with the elders of kenya. Jatts wouldnt let the ramgarhia's into their committees in india, when they moved to East Africa they built gurdwareh with their OWN money collectively. The few Jatts familys got into the committees thus again not allowing ramgarahias to stand in their own gurdwara's they built. The singhs had enough and took their gurdwareh back, they then created the ramgarahia gurdwara name, only people who are of ramgarahia desent can be allowed to stand, keeping the gurdwara in their hands only.

Caste discrimination was high against non jatts hence why you have soo many gurdwareh in different names because Jatts refused to let anyone who was seen lower than them into their committiees.

Never heard so much bukwas in my life. How could Jats who were a small minority compared to the Tarkhans and Lohars in Kenya be able to take over the Gurdwaras there. The Basic fact is that Ramgarhias despite their small numbers want a big piece of the pie. What's wrong with the majority controlling the Gurdwaras? If Ramgarhias built their gurdwaras then the only way they can bypass a non-Ramgarhia becoming Pardhan is to restrict their sangat to just Ramgarhias..hardly in line with Gurmat. The Ramgarhias just like the Jats want to lord over everyone other Sikh but whereas Jats have the numbers to make that a reality under democratic process the Ramgarhias who don't have the numbers have to set up an anti-Gurmat constitution in their Gurdwaras to achieve this end.