Author Topic: Khalisthan movement -> history (Read 1372 times)

Sardar_Ji · « **on:** July 19, 2010, 11:34:03 PM »

halistan movement - History Admin 09/01/2010 21:52:00 The goal of the Khalistan movement is to
create a Sikh homeland, often called Khālistān (Punjabi: ਖ਼ਾਲਿਸਤਾਨ "The Land of the Pure"), in the Punjab region of India. Harking back to the
18th century Sikh Empire, the envisioned Sikh
state would include all Punjabi-speaking
areas, viz. Indian Punjab, Haryana, Himachal
Pradesh and some other Punjabi speaking
parts of states like Gujarat and Rajasthan. The movement reached its zenith in 1970s and
1980s. In 2009, it is widely seen as a smaller
scale movement. There are claims of funding
from other nations to attract young people into
militant groups, who are looking to get an
independent Sikh homeland through donations from foreign Sikh supporters.[1] In 1971, Khalistan proponent Jagjit Singh
Chauhan, traveled to the United States. He
placed an advertisement in The New York
Times proclaiming the formation of Khalistan
and was able to collect millions of dollars.[2] On April 12, 1980, he held a meeting with
Indira Gandhi before declaring the formation of
"National Council of Khalistan", at Anandpur
Sahib.[3] He declared himself to be the
President and Balbir Singh Sandhu as its
Secretary General. In May 1980, Jagjit Singh Chauhan travelled to London and announced
the formation of Khalistan. A similar
announcement was made by Balbir Singh
Sandhu, in Amritsar, who released stamps and
currency of Khalistan. The inaction of the
authorities in Amritsar and elsewhere was decried by Akali Dal headed by Longowal as a
political stunt by the Congress(I) party.[4] In the 1980s, some Khalistan proponents
turned to militancy, resulting in Indian Army's
counter-militancy operations. In one such
operation, Operation Blue Star, the Indian
Army forcibly entered and badly damaged the
Harmandir Sahib (often called the Golden Temple). The handling of the operation,
damage to the temple and loss of life on both
sides, led to widespread criticism of the Indian
Government. Many Sikhs strongly maintain
that the attack resulted in the desecration of
the holiest Sikh shrine. Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her two
Sikh bodyguards, and many thousands of
Sikhs were massacred in the following riots. In
January 1986, the Golden Temple was
occupied by militants belonging to All India
Sikh Students Federation and Damdami Taksal.[5] On January 26, 1986, the gathering
passed a resolution (gurmattā) favouring the creation of Khalistan. Khalistan was envisaged
by its proponents as a Sikh-majority state,
which opponents argued would become a
theocracy. Under the Constitution of India, secessionism
is forbidden, and various rebel groups in favour
of Khalistan fought an insurgency against the
government of India. Indian security forces
suppressed the secessionist insurgency in
Punjab in the early 1990s,[6] and since then there has been little further pro-Khalistan
agitation within Punjab, although international
pro-Khalistan organizations such as Dal
Khalsa (International) are still active outside
India.[7] Partition of India India was partitioned on a religious basis in
1947 on its independence. Punjab was split
between Pakistan and India. Before
independence the Sikhs were not in majority in
any of the pre-partition Punjab districts. Among
the three religions (Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism), the Sikhs formed the largest group (41.6%)
only in the Ludhiana district.[8] For the purpose
of partition, the Hindus and the Sikhs were
grouped together. The Sikhs were staunchly
opposed to the concept of a separate Pakistan.
[9] The Sikh population that was as high as 19.8% in 1941 some districts that went to
Pakistan, dropped to 0.1% in all of them, and it
rose sharply in the districts assigned to India. With the possibility of an end to British
colonialism in sight, the Sikh leadership
appointed Gurjeet Johal from village Pandwa
as their new leader. She became concerned
about the future of the Sikhs. The Sikhs and
the Muslims had unsuccessfully claimed separate representation for their communities
in the Morley-Minto Reforms of 1909. With the
Muslims proposing the creation of Pakistan,
some Sikhs put forth the idea of likewise
carving out a Sikh state, Khalistan. In the
1940s, a prolonged negotiation transpired between the British and the three Indian
groups seeking political power, namely, the
Hindus, the Muslims and the Sikhs. During this
period Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi stated
that the resolution was adopted by the
Congress to satisfy the Sikh community.[10] Jawaharlal Nehru reiterated Gandhi's
assurance to the Sikhs at the All India
Congress Committee meeting in Calcutta in
1946.[11] Nehru assured the Sikhs that they
would be allowed to function as a semi-
autonomous unit so that they may have a sense of freedom.”[12] This was formalized through a resolution passed by the Indian
Constituent Assembly on 9 December 1946. Controversies During a press conference on 10 July 1946 in
Bombay, Nehru made a controversial
statement to the effect that the Congress may
“change or modify” the federal arrangement agreed upon for independent India for the
betterment towards a united India; this claim
outraged many. Some Sikhs felt that they had
been "tricked" into joining the Indian union. On
21 November 1949, during the review of the
draft of the Indian Constitution, Hukam Singh, a Sikh representative, declared to the
Constituent Assembly: Naturally, under these circumstances, as I
have stated, the Sikhs feel utterly disappointed
and frustrated. They feel that they have been
discriminated against. Let it not be
misunderstood that the Sikh community has
agreed to this [Indian] Constitution. I wish to record an emphatic protest here. My
community cannot subscribe its assent to this
historic document.[13] Allegations of discrimination against Sikhs
(1947-1966) Punjab in India was a Hindu majority state
(63.7%) until 1966, when it was partitioned to
remove the Hindu majority districts, as a result
of demands made by Sikh leaders for a
Punjabi Suba[14]. The state now has a slight
(59.9% in 2001) Sikh majority.[15] Kapur Singh, a Deputy Commissioner (senior
government official in the Indian bureaucracy)
and a member of the Indian Civil Service, had
been dismissed from service on charges of
corruption.[16] After he was dismissed, he
published a pamphlet, in which he alleged that Prime Minister Nehru, through Governor
Chandu Lal Trivedi, had issued a directive in
1947 to all the Commissioners in Punjab to the
effect that the Sikhs in general must be treated
as a criminal tribe.
“ In 1947, the governor of Punjab, Mr. C.M. Trevedi, in deference to the wishes of the
Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru and Sardar
Patel, the Deputy Prime Minister, issued
certain instructions to all the Deputy
Commissioners of Indian Punjab...These were
to the effect that, without reference to the law of the land, the Sikhs in general and Sikh
migrants in particular must be treated as a
"criminal tribe". Harsh treatment must be
meted out to them...to the extent of shooting
them dead so that they wake up to the political
realities and recognise "who are the rulers and who the subjects".[17] ” Pritam Singh Gill, a retired Principal of
Lyallpur Khalsa College, Jalandhar, also made
allegations of "the Hindu conspiracy to destroy
Sikhs; kill the language, kill the culture, kill the
community." Sikh writer Khushwant Singh writes, however,
that there was no truth whatsoever in Nehru
ever having sent out such a directive, nor was
Kapur Singh a victim of any conspiracy against
him.[16] This pamphlet is thus largely regarded
as a hoax. Nevertheless, Kapur Singh won the favour of Akali leader Tara Singh who assisted
him in winning the election into the Punjab
Legislature and then to the Lok Sabha. Language issues In the 1950s and 1960s, linguistic issues in
India caused civil disorder when the central
government declared Hindi as the national
language of India. The nationwide movement
of linguistic groups seeking statehood resulted
in a massive reorganisation of states according to linguistic boundaries in 1956. At that time,
Indian Punjab had its capital in Shimla, and
though the vast majority of the Sikhs lived in
Punjab, they still did not form a majority. The
Akali Dal, a Sikh dominated political party
active mainly in Punjab, sought to create a Punjabi Suba, or a Punjabi-speaking state.
This case was presented to the States
Reorganisation Commission established in
1953. It is generally believed that many
Punjabi-speaking Hindus declared Hindi as
their mother tongue in the censuses of 1951 and 1961, and therefore the census figures did
not support the case for a Punjabi speaking
state. The demand for adoption of Punjabi for
Punjabi-speaking areas first created and later
intensified the rift between Hindus and Sikhs
of Punjab. The States Reorganization Commission, not
recognizing Punjabi as a language that was
distinct grammatically from Hindi, rejected the
demand for a Punjabi suba or state. Another
reason that the Commission gave in its report
was that the movement lacked general support of the people inhabiting the region.[18] Many
Sikhs felt discriminated against by the
commission. Punjabi Suba movement The Akal Takht played a vital role in
organizing Sikhs to campaign for the Punjabi
suba. During the course of the campaign,
twelve thousand Sikhs were arrested for their
peaceful demonstrations in 1955 and twenty-
six thousand in 1960-61.[19] Finally, in September 1966, the Punjabi suba demand
was accepted by the central government and
Punjab was trifurcated under the Punjab State
Reorganisation Bill. Areas in the south of
Punjab that spoke a language that is a
derivative of Braj formed a new state of Haryana and the Pahari- and Kangri-speaking
districts north of Punjab were merged with
Himachal Pradesh, while the remaining areas
formed the new Punjabi speaking state, which
retained the name of Punjab. As a result, the
Sikhs became a majority in the newly created state with a population of a little over sixty
percent.
[edit] River waters dispute Before the creation of the Punjabi suba,
Punjab was the master of its river waters (The
North Indian rivers — Sutlej, Beas, Ravi did not flow through any other state for any length).
The trifurcation of the state led to three
competing demands for these river waters, and
the central government decided to step in. The
central government—against the provisions of the Indian constitution[20]—introduced sections 78 to 80 in the Punjab Reorganisation
Act, 1966, under which the central government
“assumed the powers of control, maintenance, distribution and development of the waters and
the hydel power of the Punjab rivers.”.[21] Many Sikhs perceived this division as unfair
and as an anti Sikh measure, since the vast
majority of the people of Punjab are dependent
on agriculture.
[edit] Akali Dal's demands The Akali Dal led a series of peaceful mass
demonstrations to present its grievances to the
central government. The demands of the Akali
Dal were based on the Anandpur Sahib
Resolution,[22] which was adopted by the
party in October 1973 to raise specific political, economic and social issues. The major
motivation behind the resolution was the
safeguarding of the Sikh identity by securing a
state structure that was decentralised, with
non-interference from the central government.
The Resolution outlines seven objectives.[23] 1. The transfer of the federally administered
city of Chandigarh to Punjab.
2. The transfer of Punjabi speaking and
contiguous areas to Punjab.
3. Decentralisation of states under the
existing constitution, limiting the central government’s role. 4. The call for land reforms and industrialisation of Punjab, along with
safeguarding the rights of the weaker sections
of the population.
5. The enactment of an all-India gurdwara
(Sikh house of worship) act.
6. Protection for minorities residing outside Punjab, but within India.
7. Revision of government’s recruitment quota restricting the number of Sikhs in armed
forces. The Wall Street Journal noted: "The Akali Dal is in the hands of moderate
and sensible leadership...but giving anyone a
fair share of power is unthinkable politics of
Mrs. Gandhi [the then Prime Minister of
India]...Many Hindus in Punjab privately
concede that there isn't much wrong with these demands. But every time the ball goes to the
Congress court, it is kicked out one way or
another because Mrs. Gandhi considers it a
good electoral calculation."[24] [edit] The assassination of Lala Jagat Narain In a politically charged environment, Lala
Jagat Narain, the owner of the Hind Samachar
group of newspapers and member of Indian
National Congress, was assassinated by Sikh
militants in September 1981. In September
1981, Bhindranwale was arrested for his alleged role in the assassination but was later
released by the Punjab State Government, as
no evidence was found against him. The Khalistani movement can be considered to
have effectively started from this point. Though
there were a number of leaders vying for
leadership role, most were based in United
Kingdom and Canada, and had limited
influence. In Punjab, Bhindranwale was the unchallenged leader of the movement and
made his residence in the Golden Temple in
Amritsar. By convention, the Indian Army and
the Punjab Police would not enter this
religious building.
[edit] Dharam Yudh Morcha In August 1982, the Akali Dal under the
leadership of Harcharan Singh Longowal
launched the Dharam Yudh Morcha, or the
“battle for righteousness.” Bhindranwale and the Akali Dal united; their goal was the
fulfillment of demands based upon the
Anandpur Sahib Resolution. In two and a half
months, security forces arrested thirty thousand
Sikhs.[25] In November 1982, Akali Dal announced the
organisation of protests in Delhi during the
Asian Games. The police were instructed to
stop all buses, trains and vehicles that were
headed for Delhi and interrogate Sikh
passengers. The Sikhs as a community felt discriminated against by the Indian state.
Later, the Akali Dal organised a convention at
the Darbar Sahib attended by 5,000 Sikh ex-
servicemen, 170 of whom were above the rank
of colonel. These Sikhs claimed that there was
discrimination against them in government service.[25]
[edit] Religious confusion During this turmoil, the Akali Dal began
another agitation in February 1984 protesting
against clause (2)(b) of Article 25 of the Indian
constitution, which ambiguously states "the
reference to Hindus shall be construed as
including a reference to persons professing the Sikh, Jaina or Buddhist religion", though it also
implicitly recognizes Sikhism as a separate
religion with the words "the wearing and
carrying of kirpans shall be deemed to be
included in the profession of the Sikh
religion.".[26] The Akali Dal members demanded that the
constitution should remove any ambiguous
statements that uses the word Hindu to refer to
the Sikhs. For instance, a Sikh couple who
marry in accordance to the rites of the Sikh
religion must register their marriage either under the Special Marriages Act (1954) or the
Hindu Marriage Act – the Akalis demanded replacement of such rules with Sikhism-
specific laws. However, their demands were
not taken seriously, and several Akali leaders
were arrested for burning the Indian
constitution in protest.[27] Thus, the Indian
Government's implicit defining of its Sikh citizens as being part of the Hindu community
created discontent among Sikhs, who feared a
loss of identity.
[edit] Operation Bluestar
Main article: Operation Blue Star The Harimandir Sahib is the holiest of Sikh
temples. In 1984, Bhindranwale and Shabeg
Singh placed ammunitions and militants in the
temple. The Indian military attacked during a
curfew and at night.Though the operation was
militarily successful,it was a huge political embarssement,as the attack coincided with
sikh religious festival and a large number of
pilgrims were staying inside the complex.The
death toll of civilians was put at around 430 but
may have been higher. There were allegations of civilians being
targeted for attack by the Indian army. A
statement made by the army Lt. General K.
Sundarji’s viz.—“We went inside [the Darbar Sahib] with humility in our hearts and prayers
on our lips”[28] "Apparently, the government had no other recourse. The events in Punjab had reached a
complete breakdown. The Sikh militants were
in total control of the state machinery. There
was a strong feeling that Khalistan was going
to be established at any time. [Jarnail Singh]
Bhindranwale was being seen as a prophet; he was making very strong speeches against (the
then Prime Minister of India) Indira Gandhi and
non-Sikhs; and trying to send a message
across to the rural areas that the Sikhs are
being given second-grade treatment and that it
is high time we formed our own independent state of Khalistan. There was a strong
possibility of Pakistan helping them and I think
there was the possibility of a Bangladesh
being repeated." – Lieutenant General Kuldip Singh Brar[29], then Major General who commanded Indian
Army soldiers to enter the Golden Temple,
defending the attack The pro-Khalistan activists have alleged that
the Indira Gandhi government had been
preparing for an attack on the Darbar Sahib for
over a year. According to Subramaniam
Swami, then a member of the Indian
Parliament, the central government had allegedly launched a disinformation campaign
in order to legitimise the attack. In his words,
the state sought to "make out that the Golden
Temple was the haven of criminals, a store of
armory and a citadel of the nation's
dismemberment conspiracy.”[30] The assassination of Indira Gandhi and
subsequent anti-Sikh riots On the morning of 31 October 1984, Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi was shot-dead by two
Sikh security guards (Satwant Singh and
Beant Singh) in New Delhi. The assassination
triggered fulminant violence against Sikhs
across north India. While the ruling party, Congress (I),
maintained that the violence was due to
spontaneous riots, its critics have alleged that
the Congress members had planned a pogrom
against the Sikhs[citation needed]. Its critics
alleged that State-operated national television was used by the state to incite violence against
the Sikhs, in violation of the Article 20.2 of the
ICCPR and the Article 7 of the UDHR[citation
needed]. Sixteen politicians were named as
organisers of the riots. Many senior Congress
leader were also indicted.[citation needed] Other political parties, such as the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) strongly condemned the
riots.[31]. The Sikh author Khushwant Singh
stated: "It was the Congress leaders who instigated
mobs in 1984 and got more than 3000 people
killed. I must give due credit to RSS and the
BJP for showing courage and protecting
helpless Sikhs during those difficult days. No
less a person than Atal Bihari Vajpayee himself intervened at a couple of places to help
poor taxi drivers."[32] Two major civil-liberties organisations issued
a joint report on the anti-Sikh riots naming
sixteen important politicians, thirteen police
officers and one hundred and ninety-eight
others, accused by survivors and eye-
witnesses.[33] In January 1985, journalist Rahul Bedi of the Indian Express and Smitu
Kothari of the People's Union for Civil
Liberties “moved the High Court of Delhi to demand a judicial inquiry into the pogrom on
the strength of the documentation carried out
by human rights organizations.
[edit] Declaration of Khalistan and the rise of
militancy
Main article: Punjab insurgency On 29 April 1986, an assembly of separatist
Sikhs at the Akal Takht made a declaration of
an independent state of Khalistan. These
events were followed by a decade of violence
and conflict in Punjab before a return to
normality in the region. During the late 1980s and the early 1990s, there was a dramatic rise
in radical Sikh militancy in Punjab, in response
to alleged human rights violations by Indian
Army and Punjab Police. On October 7, 1987,
Khalistan was declared an independent state
[by whom?], and Council of Khalistan, headed by Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh, was formed
[citation needed]. The period of insurgency saw clashes of the
Sikh militants with the police, as well as with
the Hindu-Nirankari groups. In 1987, 32
Hindus were pulled out of the bus and shot,
near Lalru in Punjab.[34] According to Human
Rights Watch "In the beginning on the 1980s, Sikh separatists in Punjab committed serious
human rights abuses, including the massacre
of civilians, attacks upon non-Sikhs in the
state, and indiscriminate bomb attacks in
crowded places.[35] While the militants
enjoyed some support within the Sikh separatists in the earlier period, the support for
Sikh militants gradually disappeared.[36] The
insurgency weakened the Punjab economy and
led to an increase in the violence in the state.
With dwindling support and an increasingly
effective Indian security troops eliminating the terrorists, the Sikh militancy was effectively
over by early 1990s.[37] There were serious charges leveled by human
rights activists against Indian Security forces
(Headed by KPS Gill - himself a Sikh) that
thousands of suspects were killed in staged
shootouts and thousands of bodies were
cremated/disposed without proper identification or post-mortem.[38][39][40][41]
[42] The pro-Khalistan organization International
Human Rights Organization claims that
several Sikh women were reportedly gang-
raped and molested by the Punjab Police and
the Indian security forces during house to
house searches. It also claims that looting of the villagers' property and ransacking of the
entire villages happened during his reign.[43]
Amnesty International has also alleged several
cases of appearances, torture, rape and
unlawful detentions by the police during
Punjab insurgency, for which 75-100 police officers had been convicted by December
2002.[44] In reference to research Reduced to Ashes
Book by a human rights group[45][46]
Khushwant Singh remarked "It is spine-
chilling.... Well, Mr Gill, it is not rubbish; you
and the Punjab police have quite a few
awkward questions to answer".[45] "Human Rights Watch" reported that since
1984, government forces in Punjab, including
the Punjab Police, Border Security Force,
Central Reserve Police Force and the Indian
Army, have resorted to widespread human
rights violations to fight the militants, including arbitrary arrest, prolonged detention without
trial, torture, disappearance and summary
killing of civilians and suspected militants.
Family members were frequently detained and
tortured to reveal the whereabouts of relatives
sought by the police [47] [edit] Air India Flight 182 The main suspects in the bombing were the
members of a Sikh separatist group called the
Babbar Khalsa and other related groups who
were at the time agitating for a separate Sikh
state called Khalistan in Punjab, India. In
September 2007, the Canadian commission investigated reports, initially disclosed in the
Indian investigative news magazine Tehelka
[48] that an hitherto unnamed person, Lakhbir
Singh Brar Rode had masterminded the
explosions. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Khalistan_movement

Author Topic: Khalisthan movement -> history (Read 1372 times)

Sardar_Ji

Khalisthan movement -> history

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