A place for the Sikhs

Press, 6 November 1984, Page 16

A place for the Sikhs

Because the guards who assassinated Mrs Indira Gandhi last week were Sikhs, the violence that has occurred in India has been directed mainly against the Sikhs. The Indian Army and police appeared to be slow about protecting some of the Sikhs. This raises the question of the safety of the Sikh minority and for that matter other minorities in India. One Sikh has been quoted as saying that the only place for Sikhs to go in India is to the Punjab, where Sikhs predominate. If Sikhs migrated to the Punjab the demands for Punjab autonomy, and even secession, would increase dramatically.

But will it be impossible for Sikh communities to live in India among the Hindu majority? The Army and the police are now being much more active about trying to restore order. The Indian Government managed to hold the funeral rites for Mrs Gandhi, protect the lives of the many Heads of Governments and other people who attended the funeral, and maintain order throughout. It may be expected that strong action will be taken against those who are attacking Sikhs. To fail to protect the Sikhs would be a denial of the belief on which modern India was established: that Indians, whatever their religion or caste, are Indians first and foremost. The Government is arguing, and will continue to argue, that if a Sikh dies an Indian dies; and it is the job of the authorities to protect the lives of all Indians. Other minority groups in India will be looking hard at the way in which the Government deals with the problem and wondering what would happen if the violence was directed against them.

Many Sikhs would consider that they could do better for themselves if they were not confined to the Punjab. In the Indian Army, for example, about 11 per cent, of the noncommissioned officers and 24 per cent of the commissioned officers are Sikhs. It was significant that during the storming of the Golden Temple at Amritsar, in the Punjab, no Sikh officer refused to take part. The attack on

the Golden Temple was probably far more traumatic for the Sikh officers than was the fact that the guards who assassinated Mrs Gandhi were Sikhs and violence against Sikhs erupted afterwards. The President of India is a Sikh and, although one observer failed to see any Sikh turbans in the crowd attending Mrs Gandhi’s funeral, a number of Sikhs took part in the ceremony. Once the violence unleashed by the assassination has passed its height, Sikhs and the rest of the Indian people should be able to find a way of living together again. After all, the feeling by Hindus against Muslims has been stronger than any feeling Hindus have had against Sikhs. Yet 80 million Muslims have managed to live throughout India. The whole situation could become worse if there were outside interference. The politics of the sub-continent have been gradually improving. Even India and Pakistan have been co-operating in the South Asian Forum. The cooperation has been mainly in technical fields. President Zia of Pakistan has commented that Mr Rajiv Gandhi, the new Indian Prime Minister, was born almost at the same time as the Independence of India and so did not have a legacy of bitterness. In fact relations between India and Pakistan have been improving slowly. Two years ago, for example, there were 20 telephone links between the two countries, today there are 20;000. The country most agitated by the death of Mrs Gandhi appears to have been the Soviet Union, but it will be anxious to maintain the strong links that it has had with India and is unlikely to try to make the situation worse for the Indian Government. In the next few days and weeks much will depend on the determination of the Indian Government, and particularly the Prime Minister, to contain the violence. The last volume of Paul Scott’s book of the Raj Quartet, which formed the basis for the television series, the “Jewel in the Crown,” was called, “A Division of the Spoils.” The Indian Government knows that if the violence of Hindu against Sikh is allowed to continue, the spoils will be divided still further.