Timing of Akal Takht decision to honour militant leaders is multi-dimensional, provides another level of legitimacy to struggle

Akal Takht provides yet another legitimacy to Sikh militant struggle by honouring activists

 

Ground Zero

 

The memorial to Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his associates in the Darbar Sahib (Golden Temple) complex symbolizes the Sikh militant struggle.

This memorial commemorates the martyrdom of Sant Bhindranwale and his associates who died while confronting the army during Operation Bluestar in June 1984.

The Akal Takht has now extended  legitimacy to that struggle at another level by deciding to honour three of its activists, one of them posthumously while another in absentia as he is stateless. Not that this has happened for the first time. Similar honour has been bestowed earlier on martyrs like Beant Singh, Satwant Singh, both assassins of Indira Gandhi and Harjinder Singh Jinda and Sukhdev Singh Sukha who gunned down General A. S. Vaidya to avenge Operation Bluestar. It is the timing that is significant.

Two of them Gajinder Singh and Harsimran Singh happen to be the founders of Dal Khalsa, the organisations that now advocates the establishment of Khalistan democratically. A stateless person, Gajinder is presently the Patron of the Dal Khalsa.

Baba Charan Singh who headed a dera in Amritsar district was brutally tortured to death.

The list to be hpnoured that was decided at a recent meeting of the high priests was carried by Daily Ajit today.

What influenced the decision making is not known immediately.  The Sikh clergy has been coming under attack over years for functioning as a tool of the political bosses. In theory, the Akali Takht is the supreme religion-political institution symbolizing the Sikh sovereignty and the state power. It is not a court to which it is being reduced to.

It may be mentioned that Akal Takht acting Jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh has been taking some important decisions that appear to be dictated by Panthic approach rather by the political bosses.

Harsimran Singh was one of the five members of the presidium constituted in 1978 while Gajinder Singh was inducted as replacement of one of them after a short time. In a way both are among the founders of this organization.

Gajinder Singh was among the Dal Khalsa militants who hijacked the Indian Airlines plane to Lahore on September 29, 1981 to protest against the arrest of Sant Bhindranwale in the case of killing of Lala Jagat Narain, owner-editor of the Jalandhar based Hind Samachar group of newspapers.  Gajinder  never returned to India. His  name has been on the list of the most wanted.

Harsimran turned to academic and religious field later at Anandpur Sahib. He has contributed several books to the Sikh religio-political thought.

Gajinder Singh: The Stateless Militant (From Rivers on Fire-Khalistan Struggle)

 

Gajinder Singh was among the twenty terrorists in the list that was submitted by India to Pakistan after the attack on Parliament in December 2001. He is among the founders of the radical Sikh organisation Dal Khalsa that continues with its agenda of sovereign Sikh state of Khalistan. Although living in Pakistan, Gajinder is stateless as Pakistan does not acknowledge his presence in that country.

He became part of the Sikh Homeland narrative for the first time when he shouted slogans at  a rally addressed by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1971 at Dera Bassi about 20 kms from Chandigarh. He was an activist of the All India Sikh Students Federation at that time. The protest by his group was against backtracking of the ruling Congress at the centre from the promises made to the Sikhs before partition of the country. His family had shifted to Chandigarh in 1960.

He was arrested in 1972 and framed under the Arms Act. He started penning poetry while in jail the anthology was named “Panj Teer Hor” (Another five arrows) in Punjabi advocating Sikh Homeland. (Footnote: When Guru Gobind Singh, the Tenth Sikh Guru, deputed Baba Banda Singh Bahadur to Punjab from Naded in Maharashtra during his last days, he gifted him with five of his signature arrows as symbol of his authority. Baba Banda Bahadur subsequently defeated the Mughals to lay the foundation of the Sikh Rule).

When a group of young Sikhs decided to float Dal Khalsa in 1978 borrowing this name from the Sikh history, Gajinder was among its five founding members.

He hit the limelight when he and his associates hijacked the Indian Airlines plane to Lahore on September 29, 1982 in protest against the arrest of Sat Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. All the five hijackers faced trial in Pakistan and sentenced to life imprisonment. They were released in 1994.

Out of jail, his life entered yet another phase. His option was to return to India and pass all the legal hurdles as two of them had done, only to face another trial years later. He decided to stay back in Pakistan. Pakistan, however, refused him asylum and denied travel papers.

He took a flight to Germany in July 1996 on fake documents but was caught. He was deported to the point of his embarking the plane and the country was Pakistan. India wanted Germany to send him to New Delhi while the Indian Diaspora campaigned for his asylum there.

When India handed over the list of twenty wanted terrorist leaders to Pakistan after the Parliament attack, his name was on the list. Pakistan denied his very existence in Pakistan. However, that is a technicality.

A section of the Sikh Diaspora active in radical political domain has lobbied hard with Pakistan for getting Gajinder political asylum. As his very existence has been denied, he can’t get travel papers to leave the country. He continues to be stateless.