Bhindrawala vs. Bhindranwale: What is in the name?
Finally, this word is popping up in my backyard and I can’t help but comment on the use of this word.
This is a an abhorrible incident especially when religious places are targeted. The question is who is doing this and why would anyone be motivated to deface places of worship. To understand the motivation, one needs to spend some time digging into the origins of the words “Bhindranwale” and “Khalistan”.
The word Khalistan means land of the pure. This word was initially used pre-1947 India-Pakistan partition. British were leaving India and they were trying to carve out India on the basis of religion. Muslims were getting Pakistan, while Hindus and secular Muslims were getting India. There was an option explored by Sikhs for securing their own separate country, but eventually Sikhs decided to align with secular, federal India. This led to formation of Secular India and Muslim Pakistan. What followed was mass migration and mainly Punjabis were impacted because Punjab was divided between India and Pakistan. Millions of migrating people lost their lives in the bloodbath that followed.
Post 1947 partition, the Sikhs were aspiring for their our state where they would control governance. This is where the problem started, and the grievances started building. Whether it was formation of Punjab on linguistic basis or division of river waters based on the Riparian rights, Sikhs started to feel that Center was discriminating against them. It did not help when during the 1952 language census, many Hindus declared their mother tongue as Hindi, while lead to Chandigarh becoming a Union Territory and many “historically” Punjabi dominated land becoming part of newly formed Haryana. Some disgruntled politicians like Jagjit Singh Chohan, started aspiring for Khalistan. It was demand of “few” folks who were not representative of the Sikh community and were outside the mainstream politics. Towards the end Jagjit Singh acknowledged his mistake, before his death in 2007. He also acknowledged that he was hoodwinked by Pakistani political elites.
By the time Indira came to power, the use of religion-based vote banking was becoming a norm. For the sake of power, Indira’s coterie devised a plan to wrest power from Akalis, the then ruling party in Punjab. Zail Singh devised a plan, in conjunction with Sanjay Gandhi, to gain Hindu Punjabi voter sympathy. They propped up Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a fire spewing orator, to create a wedge between Hindu and Sikhs. This strategy backfired because Jarnail Singh figured out the plan and started openly challenging Indira Gandhi. The mistake that Jarnail Singh made was that his men got involved in skirmishes with Nirankaris, another Sikh sect. Along with adopting violence, against his political opponents, Bhindranwale also moved into Akal Takht, that was part of Sikh holiest shrine Golden Temple. Indira seized this opportunity to label him as a separatist Khalistani, though there is not even a shread of evidence that Bhindranwale had ever asked for Khalistan. A viscous state sponsored web of fake narrative was weaved to justify the attack on Golden Temple in 1984.
The Bhindranwale word itself means “from the village Bhindran”. To a discerning eye, the word “Bhindrawala” is close but not equivalent to “Bhindranwale”. There is no place of village “Bhindra” in Punjab. Also the use of word “wala” is pejorative in nature because it lacks respect that is given to Jarnail Singh amongst some Sikhs. The graffitied words, on the walls of temples in Australia, Canada and now US, also suggests that folks involved in graffiti exercises do not know the spellings of Bhindranwale, as shown in the image below. Australian police has concluded that Sikhs have been target of misrepresentation, by some Hindutva agents, who devised this genius plan to falsely project Sikhs as marauding Khalistanis.
The question is why would anyone carry out such activities to defame Sikhs? This effort of misrepresenting Sikhs started during the Farmers Protest in December 2020. BJP lead Indian Government tried to implement poorly crafted farm laws without taking Indian farmers into confidence. Many farmers in North India took to the streets to protest these ill-conceived laws. Majority of the farmers from Punjab are Sikhs and with their turbans they standout. To discredit the protesting farmers, the media arm of BJP tried to malign the farmers by labeling them as Khalistani separatists with the hope that they will capitulate. This backfired and the government had to take the laws back in 2021. But in the whole process Government of India had resurrected the dormant boogieman. The Khalistan movement, that was long dead, got a second life. This was a boon for the Pakistan Government who was given the opportunity on a silver platter by Modi led government. And many Sikhs in the West, who never got the closure from the two decades of suffering in the 80s and the 90s, got an opportunity to launder their past grievances.
Now that the Khalistan issue is on the front burner in the West, Government of India had to go on a counter offensive to bring the situation under control. The Government of India has been accused of targeted killing of a Khalistani separatists like Harjit Singh Nijjar in Canada. Recently, US Government also exposed a plans by India’s Secret Agency, namely Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW), to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannu, head of Sikhs for Justice. The vandalism of temples, and blaming Khalistanis, “could” also be part of elaborate strategy to try to tame the boogieman. With the election season around the corner, it goes along well with the Hindutva narrative of BJP to garner Hindu vote bank.
Alas, all is fair in the name of vote-bank politics.
