Amritsar: Trashing the RSS theory that all inhabitants of Bharat are Hindus, the Dal Khalsa today declared that Sikhs were neither Hindus nor were they followers of Indian culture.
Rejecting Hindutva’s theory of “one nation, one culture”, the organization said there were many nationalities living in India that have different cultures, histories, traditions and way of life.
Mohan Bhagwat, while addressing RSS volunteers at Arya School in Panipat, has remarked that “Everybody living in Bharat is a descendent of Hindus and followers of Indian culture.”
Chiding and rubbishing the RSS chief, party spokesperson Kanwar Pal Singh said that unlike Hindus, Sikhs worship One Akal Purakh and believe in the concept of a formless God -Shabad-Guru.
While speaking at a monthly meet of Sikh Youth of Punjab (SYP) at the party headquarters, he said Sikhs have their own traditions, history, scriptures, language and culture. He said though born in the Indian sub-continent, our religious leanings may have some affinity with Hinduism and Islam, but there is no denying that ‘Sikhs are a separate nation’. He said the sectarian lines between Indians and non-Indians must be drawn and we were clear beyond doubt that Sikhs are on the other side.
Remembering the party founder Bhai Gajinder Singh on the occasion of his 65th birth anniversary, the Dal Khalsa leader said, in an international parlance Singh is a stateless person forced to live in self-exile.
He said the case of Gajinder Singh was a befitting case for political asylum in a country of his choice as he is a person who cannot live in his homeland Punjab despite having undergone life imprisonment for hijacking in Pakistan and despite the fact that he was entitled to legal defence of not to be tried for the same offence twice under the notion of ‘double jeopardy’.
The government of India has downgraded the legal provision of “double jeopardy” by levelling fresh charges against him and his four colleagues in a Delhi court few years back.
He said Gajinder Singh was not a terrorist. He is a revolutionary poet; a rebel who wanted to unchain his people from the shackles of the corrupt and the shameless discriminative Indian political system. He told media that their Europe representatives would soon contact the leadership of the country of his choice to file a petition seeking an asylum for him.