Author: Pradeep Dutta
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: March 26, 2001
Is the honour, security and safety
of the Sikhs in Kashmir secure under the prevailing circumstances?
If the answer to this question is
'NO', in that case, what steps should be taken to ensure the desired degree
or level of safeguarding their honour, safety and security?
Do you think Sikhs in Kashmir should
migrate from the Valley? If the answer to this question is 'YES', in that
case suggest the methodology of migration. Also specify as to which agency
should plan, control and execute the process of migration either in a phased
manner or en masse?
Excerpts from a questionnaire distributed
among Sikhs in Kashmir.
Caught in a dilemma over the issue
of migration from the Valley following the recent attacks on Sikhs, the
community leaders have distributed a questionnaire among Sikhs. The set
of questions, mostly aimed at the intelligentsia, seek to form an opinion
on migration of Sikhs from Kashmir.
This move is the first of its kind
initiated by the community in recent times. A grave indicator of how seriously
the community members consider leaving their homeland as the last option.
The underlying question is: When will the establishment wake up to the
impending crisis?
Besides distributing the questionnaire
among prominent Sikhs of the Valley, a letter by the Kashmiri Sikh leaders
has been sent to Syed Ali Shah Geelani. The letter is in response to his
statement where he had said that Kashmir is not a political problem and
had mentioned that Kashmiri Muslims will not ask the minorities to migrate,
but if anybody wants to do so, they will not stop them either.
The questionnaire is designed by
Sevadar, an apolitical organisation. Earlier, the organisation had conducted
a seminar on ''The future of Sikhs in Kashmir.'' The seminar was aimed
at bringing the Sikh intelligentsia and other prominent citizens together
so as to get their views on the subject. And now this is followed by a
questionnaire which, Harbinder Singh, one of the members of the organisation,
says will help in generating the positive response and invaluable inputs,
that would help in arriving at likely solutions to the vital problems being
faced by the Sikh community. ''And help in forging a new strategy to plan
and control the critical situation which has arisen after the Chittisinghpora
massacre last year,'' he adds.
The Sikhs are critical of the approach
shown by both the Central and state government to ensure safety of the
community in the Valley. They have discarded government plans of constituting
Village Defence Committees comprising Sikhs in the Valley.
He said, on the one hand, the government
is asking Sikhs to stay put in the Valley while on the other, they are
not keeping up their promise of providing jobs to the Sikh youth.
Alarmed by anti-Sikh violence and
angered by the government's failure on the security front, the Sikh community
is internally trying to form a consensus on the status of the community.
And this questionnaire, they feel, will act as one of the tools in this
regard.
''We want to live in peace and not
pick up guns to enrage our Muslim brethren,'' said S.S. Shant, a Sikh leader
from Baramulla.
''None of us want to leave our homes.
But tomorrow if we have to migrate, the government will be responsible
for that,'' says Major Sant Singh of Budgam.
