Gurtej Singh
On October 14, 2007, an explosion took place in the Shingar Cinema Ludhiana. As a result of it 6 people died and about 40 were injured. It was a Muslim festival day and most of the dead and the injured were Muslims. For a long time afterwards, the police were clueless about the criminals and was proceeding on the assumption that the explosion was caused by ‘Islamic terrorists of the HUJI or the SIMI’ group. It had no clues and was just groping in the dark. It assumptions were based on the activity, supposedly, that of the ‘Muslim terrorists’ elsewhere in the country. The Punjab Police did not bother to find out to what extent the police elsewhere in the country were right in blaming the Muslims for explosions in the Mosques and other places where Muslims worshipped. The theory was that the foreign (read Pakistani) terrorists were causing bomb blasts among the Muslim population in an attempt to force them into violent activity against India. (If Pakistani Muslims were to do that, they would be inviting state repression on their co-religionists who are in no position to respond with violent resistance).
This theory has several pitfalls. Firstly, it is based on mere guess work at best. It is also strongly suspected that it is a construct that smacks of camoeuflage. It ignores the thickly prevailing atmosphere of Hindu-Muslim hatred in the country as a whole. In recent times it has erupted into violent activity in Bombay, Gaziabad and particularly in Gujarat. In Uttar Pradesh, its expression was in the form of a police Battallion abducting young Muslim boys and youngmen at random and shooting them dead as a kind of collective punishment for perceived wrongs of the Muslim community. In Bombay the Muslims were retaliating for the destruction of the five hundred year old Masjid in Auodhya, said to have been built by the Mughal emperor Babar at the supposed birth place of the mythical Hindu incarnation – Sri Ram (who never appears to have existed according to an affidavit presented by the Union Government to the apex court). All evidence in Gujarat, collected mainly by independent agencies, such as the Press and based on confessional statements of the political leaders recorded on camera, points to the fact that the carnage was a politically sponsored and was a state supported pogrom . It only differed with Hitler’s total solution in this that a burning train and not the burning Reich building was made the excuse for the monumental crime which made the then prime minister and the then home minister of India hang their heads in shame at international fora.
The activity of the Hindu extremist organisations originating in zero tolerance of the existence of minorities, particularly the Muslims and the Sikhs, has a long history and has also been confirmed by direct evidence in the past three decades or so. Contrary to it, there is no evidence of Sikh-Muslim enmity prevailing in India since atleast 1947. The police would have been on a sounder footing had it built its theory on the history of the Hindu-Muslim conflict. But that would have been as politically incorrect as it tended to be factually correct. The pressure on the police to identify the perpetrators of the crime was increasing everyday. It needed scapegoats that could not retaliate effectively.
There were other factors facilitating the adoption of the current police theory on the subject of Shingar Cinema bomb blast. A Bihari Indian Police Service officer was heading the district in which the crime scene is located. From all that is known, it appears that he was equdistant from the Sikhs and the Muslims and as far from both as he was nearer to the Hindutava forces. It is widely understood that the position of the Bhartya Janata Party as a member of the ruling coalition in the Punjab, had its own impact. This party’s role in the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat and its fundemental stance of re-converting all minorities into Hindus (the essence of Hindutava), are well known to need any elaboration. This party perhaps also wants to take advantage of the world wide atmosphere prevailing against the Muslims.
Another factor that had immense impact on the present situation was the olive branch recently held out by the Pakistan government towards the Sikhs. The process started in a humble way by rennovation of Gurdwaras in Pakistan and by affording almost unrestricted access to them. This also included an offer of a corridor to the Kartarpur Shrine, so that the Sikhs from India could visit the last resting place of Guru Nanak at will and without the necessity passport or a visa. The Sikhs abroad, particularly from USA and UK were able to persuade the government of Pakistan to allow a Guru Baba Nanak International University to come up at Guru Nanak’s estate in Nankana Sahib. It is grand project of mind boggling dimensions, replete with far reaching implications and projecting visions of great expectations. This happened in July 2007. The next step, again of great importance, taken by Pakistan was the to adopt the Sikh Marriage Act. This happened in November-December 2007, though the final outcome is still awaited. The appointment of Sikhs in the army and the police in Pakistan, also fits into the recently initiated policy. This sent the signals to the Sikhs everywhere that Pakistan had nothing but the good of the Sikhs at heart. The eventual outcome of such a policy would naturally be the strengthening of the Sikh-Muslim ties.
The policy of the government of India since 1947 has been to promote enmity between the Sikhs and the Muslims. It appears to believe that the national interest of India is best served by tension prevailing all along the Indo-Pak border dividing the two Punjabs. This policy receieved considerable importance during the last BJP led government in India. The high point came during the visit of the then President of USA to India. The armed forces in Kashmir, celebrated the visit by a massacre of more than thirty Sikhs. It was to be blamed on the Kashmiri militants and was expected to harvest Sikhs-Muslims discord. This could not happen because, for once, the Sikh political and intellectual leaders saw through the sinister game in time and were able to expose the perpetrators and their intentions before the feeling of hatred could seep into their people. Apparently the attempts at achieving the same results have not been abandoned.
This will explain the adoption of the theory of Sikh complicity in the Shingar cinema hall bomb blast.
The sordid details of the pursuit of this theory in actual practise have appeared in the Media from time to time. For those interested in them, the matter is being presented in a separate assessment. The purpose of this analysis is to make the Sikhs in general and the Sikh leadership in particular aware of the grave danger of the policies being pursued by the fascist political parties and their agents. In this situation can be seen the repeat of what had begun in 1981-82 and had culminated in the massacre of Sikhs all over the country. The police, in pursuit of this false theory, has interrogated (read harrassed, humiliated and tortured) at least 500 young peole, have physically tortured quite a few, has arrested about 25 of them and is poised to legally prosecute them for the crimes of others. It has obtained blank signed papers from most of the key persons it proposes to eventually dub as ‘Sikh terrorists, agents of HUJI.’ Impression that will be eventually sold to the Hindutava forces in general and the unsuspecting, ignorant Indian masses will be that the ‘Sikh terorists’ are collaborating with the ‘Muslim terrorists’ and that both are bent upon destablising India at the behest of Pakistan.
This has happened before and has taken a toll of many thousands of innocent lives. This time it is more sinister, because the last time it was confined to the Punjab more or less. This time the Muslim massacres are expected to take place all over India or at least in those parts dominated by the Hindutava forces. If we understand the current history correctly, then it is going to be a permanent feature of Indian political life in future. Logically, the pursuit of the underlying philosophy and the policy based on it, can only end with the total reconversion of both the Muslims and the Sikhs to Hinduism. Alternately it will end with slavery coming back to India. In any case, this will be a long drawn out affair, with many periods of lull and escalation. This will periodically make the Hindutava forces greatly nervous and prone to inflict more and more gruesome violence upon the victims. In view of the history of involvement of the governments in such activity (Rajiv Gandhi government in Delhi, UP government in Ghaziabad and the Modi government in Gujarat), an immeasurable amount of misery will be inflicted on the people of India.
The purpose of this analysis is to bring home the gravity of the situation to all concerned. This is being done with the fond hope that the sinister design can be aborted by the collective effort of the many although it is a David versus Goliath situation.
There is something in these circumstances that all of us can do to help those slated to be the victims of the police conspiracy. The following course of action is suggested:
1). Please bring this writing to the notice of as many effective people as you can. Since it sums up the common feelings of us all, it will make no difference under whose name you may want to spread it. If you can think of a better known or more effective name that will cut more ice with the person you want to communicate this to, then please feel free to send it under his/her name. Those who care for truth, wherever they are, must know our perceptions. They will figure out the rest and make their own conclusions.
2). Those who think that they are able to reach out to our political leaders in India and other countries, must recommend this analysis strongly to them. They can perhaps be persuaded to form a common ‘Anti-repression Machinery’ or some such body capable of meeting the disinformation challenge. It could consist of two persons each from all the factions headed by our ‘great and the only honest Sikh leaders.’
3). Those living abroad can think of moving the available human rights bodies. If these organisations take note of what is happening, it may be comparatively easier for us to defend the young people who are likely to fall victims to the pursit of false philosophy by the forces of Hindutava in India.
4). Those who are in a position to do so may think of recommending the analysis to the journalists with the aim of preventing them from swallowing the police propaganda hook line and sinker.
5). Those who have access to some of the many magazines and papers being published globaly for the benefit of the Sikh people, may consider sending this analysis to them in the hope of publication. Please remember it is all about saving young lives and saving a lot of people from harrassment and torture.
6). Those who would like to pursue the implications of this analysis more seriously, may consider forming human rights groups and may take measures to protect the victims the best they can.
No great wisdom or spiritual understanding is necessary to perceive that the Lord of the Blue Steed, on whose birthday this is being written, will afford immeasurable comfort (so nihal) to those who respond (jo bole) positively to protect his childeren from tyranny of the worst kind.
On October 14, 2007, an explosion took place in the Shingar Cinema Ludhiana. As a result of it 6 people died and about 40 were injured. It was a Muslim festival day and most of the dead and the injured were Muslims. For a long time afterwards, the police were clueless about the criminals and was proceeding on the assumption that the explosion was caused by ‘Islamic terrorists of the HUJI or the SIMI’ group. It had no clues and was just groping in the dark. It assumptions were based on the activity, supposedly, that of the ‘Muslim terrorists’ elsewhere in the country. The Punjab Police did not bother to find out to what extent the police elsewhere in the country were right in blaming the Muslims for explosions in the Mosques and other places where Muslims worshipped. The theory was that the foreign (read Pakistani) terrorists were causing bomb blasts among the Muslim population in an attempt to force them into violent activity against India. (If Pakistani Muslims were to do that, they would be inviting state repression on their co-religionists who are in no position to respond with violent resistance).
This theory has several pitfalls. Firstly, it is based on mere guess work at best. It is also strongly suspected that it is a construct that smacks of camoeuflage. It ignores the thickly prevailing atmosphere of Hindu-Muslim hatred in the country as a whole. In recent times it has erupted into violent activity in Bombay, Gaziabad and particularly in Gujarat. In Uttar Pradesh, its expression was in the form of a police Battallion abducting young Muslim boys and youngmen at random and shooting them dead as a kind of collective punishment for perceived wrongs of the Muslim community. In Bombay the Muslims were retaliating for the destruction of the five hundred year old Masjid in Auodhya, said to have been built by the Mughal emperor Babar at the supposed birth place of the mythical Hindu incarnation – Sri Ram (who never appears to have existed according to an affidavit presented by the Union Government to the apex court). All evidence in Gujarat, collected mainly by independent agencies, such as the Press and based on confessional statements of the political leaders recorded on camera, points to the fact that the carnage was a politically sponsored and was a state supported pogrom . It only differed with Hitler’s total solution in this that a burning train and not the burning Reich building was made the excuse for the monumental crime which made the then prime minister and the then home minister of India hang their heads in shame at international fora.
The activity of the Hindu extremist organisations originating in zero tolerance of the existence of minorities, particularly the Muslims and the Sikhs, has a long history and has also been confirmed by direct evidence in the past three decades or so. Contrary to it, there is no evidence of Sikh-Muslim enmity prevailing in India since atleast 1947. The police would have been on a sounder footing had it built its theory on the history of the Hindu-Muslim conflict. But that would have been as politically incorrect as it tended to be factually correct. The pressure on the police to identify the perpetrators of the crime was increasing everyday. It needed scapegoats that could not retaliate effectively.
There were other factors facilitating the adoption of the current police theory on the subject of Shingar Cinema bomb blast. A Bihari Indian Police Service officer was heading the district in which the crime scene is located. From all that is known, it appears that he was equdistant from the Sikhs and the Muslims and as far from both as he was nearer to the Hindutava forces. It is widely understood that the position of the Bhartya Janata Party as a member of the ruling coalition in the Punjab, had its own impact. This party’s role in the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat and its fundemental stance of re-converting all minorities into Hindus (the essence of Hindutava), are well known to need any elaboration. This party perhaps also wants to take advantage of the world wide atmosphere prevailing against the Muslims.
Another factor that had immense impact on the present situation was the olive branch recently held out by the Pakistan government towards the Sikhs. The process started in a humble way by rennovation of Gurdwaras in Pakistan and by affording almost unrestricted access to them. This also included an offer of a corridor to the Kartarpur Shrine, so that the Sikhs from India could visit the last resting place of Guru Nanak at will and without the necessity passport or a visa. The Sikhs abroad, particularly from USA and UK were able to persuade the government of Pakistan to allow a Guru Baba Nanak International University to come up at Guru Nanak’s estate in Nankana Sahib. It is grand project of mind boggling dimensions, replete with far reaching implications and projecting visions of great expectations. This happened in July 2007. The next step, again of great importance, taken by Pakistan was the to adopt the Sikh Marriage Act. This happened in November-December 2007, though the final outcome is still awaited. The appointment of Sikhs in the army and the police in Pakistan, also fits into the recently initiated policy. This sent the signals to the Sikhs everywhere that Pakistan had nothing but the good of the Sikhs at heart. The eventual outcome of such a policy would naturally be the strengthening of the Sikh-Muslim ties.
The policy of the government of India since 1947 has been to promote enmity between the Sikhs and the Muslims. It appears to believe that the national interest of India is best served by tension prevailing all along the Indo-Pak border dividing the two Punjabs. This policy receieved considerable importance during the last BJP led government in India. The high point came during the visit of the then President of USA to India. The armed forces in Kashmir, celebrated the visit by a massacre of more than thirty Sikhs. It was to be blamed on the Kashmiri militants and was expected to harvest Sikhs-Muslims discord. This could not happen because, for once, the Sikh political and intellectual leaders saw through the sinister game in time and were able to expose the perpetrators and their intentions before the feeling of hatred could seep into their people. Apparently the attempts at achieving the same results have not been abandoned.
This will explain the adoption of the theory of Sikh complicity in the Shingar cinema hall bomb blast.
The sordid details of the pursuit of this theory in actual practise have appeared in the Media from time to time. For those interested in them, the matter is being presented in a separate assessment. The purpose of this analysis is to make the Sikhs in general and the Sikh leadership in particular aware of the grave danger of the policies being pursued by the fascist political parties and their agents. In this situation can be seen the repeat of what had begun in 1981-82 and had culminated in the massacre of Sikhs all over the country. The police, in pursuit of this false theory, has interrogated (read harrassed, humiliated and tortured) at least 500 young peole, have physically tortured quite a few, has arrested about 25 of them and is poised to legally prosecute them for the crimes of others. It has obtained blank signed papers from most of the key persons it proposes to eventually dub as ‘Sikh terrorists, agents of HUJI.’ Impression that will be eventually sold to the Hindutava forces in general and the unsuspecting, ignorant Indian masses will be that the ‘Sikh terorists’ are collaborating with the ‘Muslim terrorists’ and that both are bent upon destablising India at the behest of Pakistan.
This has happened before and has taken a toll of many thousands of innocent lives. This time it is more sinister, because the last time it was confined to the Punjab more or less. This time the Muslim massacres are expected to take place all over India or at least in those parts dominated by the Hindutava forces. If we understand the current history correctly, then it is going to be a permanent feature of Indian political life in future. Logically, the pursuit of the underlying philosophy and the policy based on it, can only end with the total reconversion of both the Muslims and the Sikhs to Hinduism. Alternately it will end with slavery coming back to India. In any case, this will be a long drawn out affair, with many periods of lull and escalation. This will periodically make the Hindutava forces greatly nervous and prone to inflict more and more gruesome violence upon the victims. In view of the history of involvement of the governments in such activity (Rajiv Gandhi government in Delhi, UP government in Ghaziabad and the Modi government in Gujarat), an immeasurable amount of misery will be inflicted on the people of India.
The purpose of this analysis is to bring home the gravity of the situation to all concerned. This is being done with the fond hope that the sinister design can be aborted by the collective effort of the many although it is a David versus Goliath situation.
There is something in these circumstances that all of us can do to help those slated to be the victims of the police conspiracy. The following course of action is suggested:
1). Please bring this writing to the notice of as many effective people as you can. Since it sums up the common feelings of us all, it will make no difference under whose name you may want to spread it. If you can think of a better known or more effective name that will cut more ice with the person you want to communicate this to, then please feel free to send it under his/her name. Those who care for truth, wherever they are, must know our perceptions. They will figure out the rest and make their own conclusions.
2). Those who think that they are able to reach out to our political leaders in India and other countries, must recommend this analysis strongly to them. They can perhaps be persuaded to form a common ‘Anti-repression Machinery’ or some such body capable of meeting the disinformation challenge. It could consist of two persons each from all the factions headed by our ‘great and the only honest Sikh leaders.’
3). Those living abroad can think of moving the available human rights bodies. If these organisations take note of what is happening, it may be comparatively easier for us to defend the young people who are likely to fall victims to the pursit of false philosophy by the forces of Hindutava in India.
4). Those who are in a position to do so may think of recommending the analysis to the journalists with the aim of preventing them from swallowing the police propaganda hook line and sinker.
5). Those who have access to some of the many magazines and papers being published globaly for the benefit of the Sikh people, may consider sending this analysis to them in the hope of publication. Please remember it is all about saving young lives and saving a lot of people from harrassment and torture.
6). Those who would like to pursue the implications of this analysis more seriously, may consider forming human rights groups and may take measures to protect the victims the best they can.
No great wisdom or spiritual understanding is necessary to perceive that the Lord of the Blue Steed, on whose birthday this is being written, will afford immeasurable comfort (so nihal) to those who respond (jo bole) positively to protect his childeren from tyranny of the worst kind.
Source: Email From S. Gurtej Singh
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