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Re: BETRAYAL OF SIKHS

 In article 8vr@cs.sfu.ca, kulbir@cs.sfu.ca (Kulbir) writes:
 Cross-Posted from SCPb **************
                                BETRAYAL OF SIKHS
   Revelations by late S Hukum Singh former speaker lok Sabha (Parliament), and
                          Former Governor of Rajasthan.
 Within a year after the independence, Punjab was to be betrayed and
 discriminated against, on the linguistic issue, while all the remaining states
 of India were given their constitutional right to their language within a
 linguistic state. To quote Pundit Nehru's remark in 1948. ... whatever the
 merits of such a proposal might be". While Nehru was known for his flexibility,
 on the Punjab issue he remained stubbornly dogmatic and negative. This became
 the future policy. Nehru stuck to it for 16 years. Shastri continued the same
 policy and Indira Gandhi has made no departure.
 "After denying this fundamental linguistic right for many years. prime minister
 Shastri appointed a Parliamentary Committee. in October 1965, under my
 chairmanship, to prepare a report on the Punjabi Suba issue. This was done in
 accordance with the fresh promises made to tho Sikhs during the September 1965
 war with Pakistan. The intention of the Government then was to use me against
 my community, secure an adverse report, and then reject the demand, even after
 18 long years of deliberate frustrating delays. When my report was nearly ready
 Mrs Indira Gandhi went to Mr Chavan and said she had heard that Sardar Hukam
 Singh was going to give a report in favour of Punjabi Suba, and that he should
 be stopped . . . Lal Bahadur Shastri continued the policy of Jawaharlal Nehru,
 and was dead against the demand of Punjabi Suba, as was Nehru. So, when he was
 urged by Mrs Gandhi to stop Hukam Singh, he did not waste any time. Mr Shastri
 called Mr Gulzari Lal Nanda, then Home Minister, to his residence, and conveyed
 to him the concern about the feared report. Every effort was made by Mrs
 Gandhi, Mr Shastri, and Mr Nanda to stop me from making my report. But when
 nothing succeeded, the Congress forestalled the Parliamentary Committee Report
 by agreeing to reorganise Punjab by a vague resolution dated March 9, while the
 committee report was signed on March 15, 1966, a week later. It was a
 deliberate attempt to by-pass this Committee, and undermine its importance.
 The Parliamentary Committee had come to these conclusions.
   1. The present State of Punjab be reorganised on a linguistic basis;
   2. The Punjabi region specified in the First Schedule to the Punjab Regional
      Committee Order, 1957, should form a unilingual Punjabi State.
 The Government bypassed the Committee and forestalled its report. The
 subsequent reference to the Shah Commission was loaded heavily against Punjab.
 Making the 1961 Census as the basis and the tehsil (instead of village) as the
 unit was a deliberate design to punish the Sikhs. The language returns in the
 1961 Census were on communal lines when Punjabi-speaking Hindus falsely
 declared Hindi as their language. Therefore, the demarcation had to be on
 communal rather than on a linguistic basis. Consequently merit was again
 ignored and justice denied. Naturally tensions between the two communities
 increased. If Punjabi Suba had been demarcated simply on a linguistic basis,
 and not on false returns of 1961, there would not have been any extremist
 movement. Tension between Hindus and Sikhs in Punjab is bound to continue
 unless the communal section of Hindus see wisdom and retrace their steps by
 acknowledging Punjabi as their mother-tongue. If the Punjabi Hindus had not
 disowned their Punjabi and isolated the Sikhs, then a sense of Punjabi identity
 would have grown and suppressed Hindu and Sikhs communalism. Those Hindus who
 lied in the census, betrayed their Sikh brothers, betrayed their language and
 culture and betrayed their own ancient land of Punjab and were responsible for
 its division on Hindu-Sikh basis.
 The present agitation was started by one section of the Akalis, but the
 coercive and repressive policies of the Punjab Government has united all the
 different groups of Sikh behind the morcha. The indiscriminate murders of
 innocent young Sikhs under the false pretext of encounters, and harassment of
 women and children, relatives of the hunted persons, wanted by the police under
 real or cooked up charges, pushed all these families into a mass satyagraha,

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