Punjab Election Quotes

The Sikh Gurdwara Act of 1925 which passed the control of Sikh temples to an elected body called the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) defined a Sikh as one who believed in the ten gurus and the Granth Sahib and did not believe in any other religion.

In 1991 the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won many seats in India’s general election. These were gained by a clear religious appeal to Hindus to make India a Hindu nation. This has often been accompanied by criticisms of Christians and Muslims for being aliens, not true Indians. Sikhs are fearful of the rise of Hindu militancy for two reasons. If the Hindus tell them that they are really Hindus (as the Vishnu Hindu Parishad, a Hindu religious and political group, suggests, calling them ‘Keshdhari Hindus’) their distinctive identity is threatened. If churches and mosques are attacked they fear that gurdwaras will be the next chosen targets. Some Sikhs have moved to the Punjab from other parts of India, anxious to avoid this danger. Occasional Sikh attacks on Hindus in Punjab should be seen in the context of creating an exclusively Sikh state de facto by forcing Hindus to flee, if the Hindu government, as they see it, will not grant them one de jure. This is a form of ethnic cleansing. In every respect it goes against the teachings of the Gurus.

Beginning with 1 August 1920, titles were returned, thousands of students across India left the Raj’s colleges, hundreds of lawyers turned their backs on the Raj’s courts and, in November, prominent politicians boycotted the elections to the new provincial councils.

elections held during the winter of 1945-46 accelerated polarization across India around the INC and the League,

Dr. Jagjit Singh Chauhan, a Sikh leader of Punjab with not much following, went to the UK, took over the leadership of the Sikh Home Rule movement and re-named it the Khalistan movement. The Yahya regime invited him to Pakistan, lionized him as the leader of the Sikh people and handed over him some Sikh holy relics kept in Pakistan. He took them with him to the UK and tried to use them in a bid to win a following in the Sikh diaspora in the UK. At a press conference at London in September, 1971, he gave a call for the creation of an independent Khalistan. He also went to New York, met officials of the United Nations and some American journalists and voiced allegations of the violation of the human rights of the Sikhs by the Indira Gandhi Government. These meetings were discreetly organized by officials of the US National Security Council Secretariat then headed by Kissinger. With American and Pakistani encouragement, the activities of Chauhan continued till 1977. After the defeat of Indira Gandhi in the elections of 1977 and the coming into power of a Government headed by Morarji Desai, Chauhan abruptly called off his so-called Khalistan movement and returned to India. After Indira Gandhi came back to power in the elections of 1980, the US suspected that India supported the presence of the Soviet troops in Afghanistan and that the Indian intelligence was collaborating with its Afghan counterpart. Chauhan went back to the UK and resumed the Khalistan movement.