Letter to the editor,
Date 25th April,2023
From Simranjit Singh Mann,

To The Editor,
The Tribune,
Chandigarh,

Sir,

Fateh,

Please refer to your editorial captioned – “Amritpal in the dock”. The title of the editorial indicates that the majoritarian Hindutva rulers must have got a lot of glee. We still do not know what Amritpal Singh has been charged with ? Your editorial admits this too as you say that further steps would be taken after his interrogation. This means that the state has no evidence of a criminal nature against him.

We believe that no person should give life threatening warnings as Sikh’s believe that God gives us life and God takes it away.

You further state that Punjab has “ no takers for Khalistan”. So what is the point of raising this question. Obviously you have seen a smoke and a smoke rises only when there is a fire.

You state that Amritpal Singh is “pursuing the agenda of anti-national forces”. What are these anti-national forces? Do you include the forces that committed the genocide, memoricide, vandalism and ethnocide of the Sikh peoples in 1984, those who brought to the ground the Babri Masjid in 1992, or those who massacred 43 Sikh’s in village Chithisinghpura in Kashmir in 2000, when former President Bill Clinton was on a state visit to this country and have you read the memoirs of his Secretary of State Madeline Albright which squarely blames the state forces for these abominable crimes against a miniscule minority ?

Were the massacre of Muslims and rape of Bibi Bano in Gujarat in 2002 an anti-national act?

In 2013 Mr. Narendra Modi as Chief Minister of Gujarat confiscated the legitimately acquired landholdings and homesteads of 60,000 Sikh farmers rendering them landless and homeless, an anti – national act ? is it ?

You further state that there were “attacks on the Indian High Commission in London and the Indian Consulate in San Francisco”. Are peaceful protests attacks ? Why were the Sikh peoples provoked to an extent that Sikh’s abroad had to show their distrust in the Hindu Indian state by such protests. Do you know every minute in the West counts and those Sikh’s protesting must have lost a huge sum of their earnings?

Are West -based religious Sikh’s radicals? An insult to the Sikh’s.

You state that the Central Agencies job is to find links of Amritpal Singh with Pakistan’s ISI ? This is strange. It is like the Soviet bigot Stalin’s maddening charges against the Tartars for having links with the Nazi German intelligence in World War II and thereafter transferring them, the whole population to serve in forced labour camps in Siberia. Where are you planning to send the Sikh’s?

As regards links with the ISI of Pakistan are you aware that Gandhi, Nehru and Patel sent Subash Chandra Bose to the Axis powers headed by Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo to fight against the British Indian soldiers who were fighting for democracy and Human Rights. You are aware of the Nuremburg Trials and the Tokyo Trials and recall what happened to these wretched inhuman murderers.

Would your Hindutva newspaper support Nehru, Gandhi and Patel for sending Subash Chandra Bose to these powers which have committed worst crimes known to history?

If, since 1947 no one from the ruling Hindutva authority has been speaking to the Sikh’s and there is a vacuum in Hindu Sikh relations don’t you think that nature will fill it as a vacuum never remains empty ? Does your Hindutva intelligence ever realise that in this vacuum opponents would fish in troubled waters ?

Then you talk of the Punjab’s faith in “the democratic system”. Do you know that elections to the Sikh Parliament -SGPC (Shriomani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee) that came into being by an act of law in 1925 have not been held for the last twelve years and this democratic body has become a lame duck Parliament ? Have you ever written an editorial on this classic Hindutva largerdomain?

Then why do you say that the Sikh’s are enamoured by the Hindutva democratic system ? Are we Sikh’s some Hillbillies, which you do not understand as we came into being in the 15th century when Guru Nanak Sahib founded the Sikh faith and famously said Sikh are neither Muslim’s nor Hindu’s. like an ostrich you people of Hindutva just want to wish us out of existence ? That can never happen as Sikh’s dare and endure and never accept defeat.

The forces of Hindutva and its press have become like the Ancien Regime which like the Bourbons has learnt and unlearnt nothing from history. We can assure you that the Sikh’s will survive as a separate religion and a nation and do not address the Sikh struggle for political emancipation as anti-national as you the Hindutva are a separate nation and the Sikh’s have always been a sue generis sovereign people and nation. So Hindutva should show some resistance and we hope it will acquire the spirit of irredentism and get back the territories surrendered to Communist China and Islamic Pakistan since 1947.

These surrendered territories are Kashmir which was annexed by the Lahore Darbar( Sikh Empire 1799-1849) in 1819 and Ladakh annexed in 1834.

When I was under training as an IPS officer our Ustad would repeatedly tell us that if a shrimp jumps to high it lands into the frying pan.

Simranjit Singh Mānn,
President,
Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar),
Email: simranjitsinghmann@yahoo.com
website: https://akalidalamritsar.in/
facebook page: @sardarsimranjitsinghmann