For a long time, the central government has been pinching Punjab and Sikhs to see whether Punjabis and Sikhs are sleeping or awake? Sometimes it issues a new agricultural marketing draft to re-implement the agricultural laws withdrawn due to a long struggle, sometimes it appoints a commissioner in Chandigarh. Sometimes it includes Chandigarh employees in the UT cadre. Sometimes it allocates land in Chandigarh to form a new Vidhan Sabha for Haryana. Sometimes it tries to abolish the rights of Panjab University and Punjab. Many historical Gurdwaras in the country are in dispute, there is no hearing. The government is taking possession of them by forming a board. Despite the freedom of Sikhs to wear kirpans across the country, orders are issued to ban airline employees and Sikhs working at airports from wearing kirpans. Preventing Amritdhari employees working at airports in India from wearing kirpans is indirectly tantamount to depriving Sikhs of various services in the country, while it is a direct and intolerable attack on the religious and constitutional freedom of Sikhs.
In November 2024, Jathedar Akal Takht Sahib had directed the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee to immediately write a letter to the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Minister of Civil Aviation of India, apprised of the feelings of the Sikh community against this ban and to soon hold talks with the Government of India in this regard and send a high-level delegation to provide the right to Amritdhari employees working at airports to wear kirpans. The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee had sent a letter to the relevant department of the Central Government, but so far there has been no response from the Central Government.
Even Sikh children are being forced to sit for exams. Efforts are underway to exclude Punjab from the Bhakra Management Board. Recently, a video on social media showed that the forces that crushed the farmers’ movement had forcibly occupied the rooms of the gurdwaras. Liquor bottles and tobacco were also recovered from those rooms. Sikhs have also expressed their protest over this incident.
If the Dera Sauda Sadh can get parole leave on time, then why not Jathedar Jagtar Singh Hawara, who is serving his sentence despite completing it. Other Sikh prisoners are not being released.
Sometimes Sikh MP Tanmanjit Singh Dhesi and wealthy Sikh Darshan Singh Rakhra are stopped at the airport. But later, perhaps under this pressure, the same Rakhra Saheb becomes extremely close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP.
The Indian government should not play any conspiratorial game with the sentiments of a border state and a patriotic minority in its own country, as the results will not be good.
