The Sikhs are a brave people. They will know how to safeguard their rights by the exercise of arms if it should ever come to that
- Mahatma Gandhi, March 1931.
The great soul of India was speaking to a large Sikh congregation as his movement to spear-head India out of the British Raj gained momentum. But even as he spoke that day, Mahatma Gandhi knew of the peril India would face in the coming years as he slowly edged the jewel of the British Crown towards freedom. That peril was the conflicting interests of multitudes of different cultures and religions which formed, at that time, the united nation of India under the Raj. And the Mahatma was aware that once the British left India, the polarization of religions and cultures would tear at his country like at no other time since the whip had been held by London.
Gandhis vision of a free India was a country where Hindus, Moslems, Christians and Sikhs could co-exist without friction. He wanted a secular country where religion would play no part in the nationhood of the infant nation-state just finding its feet.
But the Raj had already made plans for splitting the country on the basis of religion. At the time the partition of India was being contemplated, the option had been made available to the Sikhs to go their separate way if they chose. But Sikh leaders of the time opted to stay within India. Gandhi, already appalled at the thought of his country being split along religious lines, was relieved that Sikhs, the third largest power-block, did not demand a separate state of their own. That was something Gandhi could not allow to happen. Therefore, when he spoke on that March day in 1931 to a congregation of Sikhs, Gandhi, the man who advocated peace, was assuring the Sikhs that their sword would be the great equalizer should the Congress party double-cross them following the Independence of India.
It was clearly recognized by the leader of the new state of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, that Sikhs deserved special rights within a united India. But successive Indian administrations dragged their feet when it came to keeping the promise of the father of the nation that had been made in 1921 and reiterated several times later. As the doctrine of secularism matured with the administrations in New Delhi it was becoming more and more clear that giving special status and self-governing power to one of Indias numerous cultures and religions would erode the ability of the central government to keep the country together. However, the central government finally bowed to pressure and formed the state of the Punjab in 1966, although leaving out pockets of Punjabi-speaking people in a neighboring state called Haryana which was predominantly Hindi speaking. The formation of Indian states was along linguistic lines generally.
The Sikhs, whose military prowess is admired around the world, would continue to exert profound loyalty to their country and make sacrifices for India far out of proportion to their numbers even as their leadership pressed religious and economic demands. However, the balancing effect of the large segment of Moslem population having gone with the creation of Pakistan, Sikh religious leaders began fearing that their faith would slowly be eroded in a country which has a massive Hindu majority. In those fears lies the answer to the recent turmoil in the Punjab, which has shaken India right down to its foundations. And in the vicious circle of events in the Punjab lies also the answer to why 331 people died in the bombing of Air India Flight 182 and the blast at Narita
bhindranwala was a blood thirsty satan, who wanted to become Guru after Shree Govind Singh ji....
gurmeet2001 2 years ago 3
that is right that fagot thought sikh are fudu and he can fool whole Sikh kaum but forgot not jatts only Sikh there are endless communities those are Sikhs.
They killed once or twice Low Caste Punjabi but when low caste joined hands with Hindus and challenge him to come let s play then that Fagot bhindranalwai ,mouse started Sikh iand started loving them. what a mouse he was who hide his ass in a place where ppl come to pray he took guns there and hide there like Saddam Husein,
TheIndianKafir 2 years ago