In the famous words of Shaheed Bhai Jaswant Singh Khalra – ‘if nothing else, Ankhila Punjab (the spirit of Honour & Self-Respect in Punjab), is the light that challenges the darkness and I pray to the Guru that this light forever remains lit.’ Shaheed Bhai Jaswant Singh Khalra was a human rights activist who uncovered thousands of false encounter killings by the Punjab police between 1984-1995. Mother’s sending their son’s out to water the fields and never seeing the glowing faces of their womb again. Wives’ sending their husband’s out to earn a truthful living only to lose them and spend the rest of their lives in the falsehood of poverty. The nail in the coffin is the fact that throughout all of these disappearances & killings, no bodies or death certificates were released to the family members. Imagine that; your loved one’s randomly taken away from you and you didn’t even get to see their corpse or get an official document stating they had been killed. That was what happened in our Punjab; our homeland. It has since been described as ‘state-sponsored terrorism’ as hardly any of the officials involved have been punished. In addition to that, to this day, hardly any of the families have yet to receive death certificates. The Indian government still doesn’t recognise the Sikh faith as a separate faith from Hinduism & still doesn’t recognise the systematic decimation of our young brothers & sisters. They took out a young and upcoming generation of hard-working, honest & loyal Singh’s and replaced them with drug addicts who couldn’t care less about what happened to their people. Shaheed Bhai Jaswant Singh Khalra uncovered over 2000 unlawful disappearances and killings in Amritsar alone and claimed that the actual figure was around 25,000 across Punjab.
We are not talking about ‘militants’, we are talking about our little brothers who would innocently walk around with the thought that the world was fair. We are talking about those sons & husbands who just wanted to provide for their families & retain the right to be equal citizens. We are talking of them wives & sisters who would hide their beloved ones to keep them from getting killed. They had no involvement in any political movements or fights. For becoming the voice of the voiceless, for identifying the unidentified, Bhai Jaswant Singh Khalra was also disappeared and killed in 1995. Our sister’s and mothers not only lost their beloved (and often, their lives), they were also raped & tortured. How can a mother ever forget the life that came out of their very soul? How can a wife forget of the man she was meant to spend the rest of time with? The pain that a mother must feel when she is separated from her offspring, only she can know. On the outside looking in, it looks like she loses all will to live. Their eyes have this glaze over them as if there is nothing left inside. When the mothers & sisters would repeatedly ask for the whereabouts of their beloved ones, they would get repeatedly raped & tortured to keep them quiet. The Punjab Documentation & Advocacy Project (PDAP) continued the work of Shaheed Bhai Jaswant Singh Khalra in 2007 & have recently released a documentary of their findings. In addition to the 2000 unlawful killings in Amritsar that Shaheed Bhai Jaswant Singh Khalra uncovered, they have uncovered 8000+ disappearances and killings in Punjab. This further cements the claims made by Shaheed Bhai Jaswant Singh Khalra in 1995. They have only checked 14 of the 22 districts of Punjab and even within those, they admit themselves, they have not covered fully. The extent of the damage & trauma is still unknown. One striking aspect of the documentary was when a mother who lost her son says to the police ‘you have taken the light away from our family’, the police response? ‘Lights like yours are better off.’ The truth is, this light belongs to the Guru, and can never be turned off. The thing is, throughout all of this tragedy, we always had our honour. Our brothers, sisters, mothers & fathers death with genocide & disaster but never gave up their honour and love for Sikh. It’s what led Shaheed Bhai Jaswant Singh Khalra in 1995 to call Punjab ‘Ankhila’. The blatant genocide & oppression may have stopped but what is Punjab today? It’s full of youngsters who want to spend their lives intoxicated and addicted to drugs. It’s full of educated, aspiring Sikhs who want to leave Punjab for America, Canada or the UK. Our villages are emptying by the day & our hard-working youngsters who choose to stay, continue to get stifled by the remnants of a policy designed to target Sikhs. The laws and policies are not optimised in Punjab, there is a lack of emphasis on real education & youth empowerment. Our water is being drained from our rivers and given to neighbouring states & we are no longer the ‘bread basket’ of India. Farmer suicide and toxification rates are at their highest as is the levels of diseases (such as cancer) due to the overuse of pesticide/insecticides. Can we call Punjab, ‘Ankhila’ today?
We highly commend the efforts of the PDAP team who are continuing the search and documentation of a missing Punjab and have done so in the backgrounds without fuss. Along side tackling the issue lawfully, they are also providing rehabilitation to the families that they find showing the sangat there is hope and something we can do. A very pragmatic response to a community outrage and a community heart break. We urge all to get involved by watching and sharing the progress of the project and contact relevant people to volunteer further. Real Sikhs are measured by their efforts in times of need. Wherever we live in the world, we are united by one thing; Punjab. We all have Punjabi blood coursing through our veins and represent our ancestors with our DNA. Punjab is a mess and quite frankly, it needs us. It needs its sons & daughters that it has scattered across the world to solve its problems. When Punjab needed Shaheed Bhai Jaswant Singh Khalra, he stood up and made a stand; we are forever indebted to his work. Let's hope hundreds more like him come along. To see the work Punjab Disappeared do click on the link.
We highly commend the efforts of the PDAP team who are continuing the search and documentation of a missing Punjab and have done so in the backgrounds without fuss. Along side tackling the issue lawfully, they are also providing rehabilitation to the families that they find showing the sangat there is hope and something we can do. A very pragmatic response to a community outrage and a community heart break. We urge all to get involved by watching and sharing the progress of the project and contact relevant people to volunteer further. Real Sikhs are measured by their efforts in times of need. Wherever we live in the world, we are united by one thing; Punjab. We all have Punjabi blood coursing through our veins and represent our ancestors with our DNA. Punjab is a mess and quite frankly, it needs us. It needs its sons & daughters that it has scattered across the world to solve its problems. When Punjab needed Shaheed Bhai Jaswant Singh Khalra, he stood up and made a stand; we are forever indebted to his work. Let's hope hundreds more like him come along. To see the work Punjab Disappeared do click on the link.
