Thursday, August 10, 2017

The contribution of the Congress Party to the Sikhs

The Indian National Congress has played a very important role in modern Sikh history. There are 3 landmarks that must be remembered:


1. 1947 : As Amardeep Singh says in his book , the rioters during the partition came with the slogan - Hindu ka zar aur sardaar ka sar (Loot the Hindu and kill the Sikh), the Sikhs suffered more fatalities. This was because the Sikhs were considered more capable of fighting back and needed to be killed.


2. The partition of Punjab: The Congress party prevented the Sikhs from creating a strong regional party by convincing Master Tara Singh that he had a seat at the table and that Sikh concerns will be heard and absorbed in the partition talks. Instead, the Punjabi sooba was most mercilessly partitioned with no consideration for the ethnic mix. Most sacred Sikh shrines were handed over to Pakistan, where they now rot and are written about by Amardeep Singh. Not only that, the Sikhs were largely land owning farmers. Their wealth was stripped off them and remained in Pakistan as they escaped with nothing but their lives.


3. Post independence, Punjab was the first state to be broken into smaller states - even though Punjabi was spoken all the way from Delhi to Jammu - the original extent of the Punjab state. First Himachal, and then Haryana were carved out of Punjab with exactly one objective - the weakening of the Punjab state.


4. Who can forget Bhindrawale? Just to ensure that the Akalis do not get power on the basis of their allegiance to the Sikh panth, she created a monster that plunged Punjab into a decade of pointless, violent and inhuman terrorism. She should have been tried for the worst crime against humanity. 


5. After that, the 1984 riots happened. 3000 people were killed in 3 days on the streets of the national capital of India. Their bodies were swept away and rewarded with 1000 rs by the aakas of the riots. Read H. S Phoolka's book to know more on the subject. It has now been 33 years, and we are still waiting for the Indian judicial system to do its constitutional duty. In spite of 1984, no Sikh ever retaliated with violence. Not in 33 years.


And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the contribution of the Congress to modern Sikh history. This video sums it up rather well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_Kp8gsdne0&feature=youtu.be

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