Sikh freedom struggle and UN’s self blindness

The second phase of the global Khalistan referendum of Sikh freedom seekers is underway across the world while the latest polls were held on Sunday in Brisbane, Australia. According to the reports, more than 11,000 Sikh men and women took part in the voting amid recurrent cyber attacks by Indian hackers to disrupt the operation of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). However, Sikh Community shortly resolved the fault and completed their referendum successfully.

Presently, the Sikh nation in India and across the world striving hard to achieve independence from the unjust and brutal rule of India, as the Indian security forces and Intelligence agencies have not only squeezed its land for Sikh freedom seekers but the Indian government is actively haunting down Sikh dissidents across the world from Canada to Australia and South Africa to Malaysia. The Sikh Community residing in India and abroad demands a separate and independent Sikh State that encompasses the Sikh majority regions including Indian Punjab and Utter Pradesh with Shimla as the capital of Khalistan. The Indian government has not only revoked the NRI status of the Sikh diaspora abroad but also confiscated their properties and prosecuted their families/relatives in the country. However, Sikh sainiks displayed the utmost courage and resilience in the face of Indian inhumane atrocities, unjust killings, and unlawful victimization of Sikh youth in Indian-held Punjab over the past several decades.

Historically, Sikhs in British India started their freedom movement during the colonial period in the early 1920s. While Sikh leaders fell prey to Congress Chanakya politics and compromised to live with Hindus on the promise to be granted an autonomous state within India. However, shortly after independence, Hindus’ extremism and communal bias made them realize to reignite their struggle for sovereign independence and a free homeland. Sikh nationalism arose again in the early 70s when famous Sikh leaders Jagjit Sindh Chohan, Balbir Singh Sandhu, and Sant Jarnail Singh Bhandranwale led the Khalistan freedom movement and got unimaginable support from Sikh youths in Punjab as well as across India. However, India crushed the Sikh freedom movement through brutal force, and hundreds of Sikh activists including dozens of innocent religious devotees were killed in the notorious Operation Blue Star conducted by the Indian military inside the holy Sikh shrine Golden Temple in June 1984.

Presently, a worldwide referendum has been arranged by the Sikh Community living in India and across the globe to give its verdict regarding the independence of Indian-held Punjab. Millions of Sikhs raising in Canada, the US, the UK, Australia, and several other countries including Pakistan and India have massively supported the Khalistan freedom movement by exercising their right to vote conferred by the UN charter and other global and humanitarian laws.

Shamefully, India, the so-called self-claimed biggest democracy in the world, has now been turned into the biggest penitentiary in the universe, as millions of Sikhs, Kashmiris, Mousists, and Dalits are currently serving lifelong imprisonment in an open prison of Nehru’s so-called secular Bharat. The global community is not ready to support the voice of impoverished and suppressed minorities in India due to its vested economic interests. After the decades-long struggle for freedom, Sikhs around the globe have initiated a referendum campaign to raise their voice at the international level and sensitized the UN and powerful countries in the world regarding the Khalistan issue.

Realistically, the Sikh nation has paid a huge price for its intent for freedom which cost thousands of Sikh lives, while manhandling of Sikhs’ farmer protests by the Modi government was another manifestation of New Delhi’s hegemonism in recent history. The ongoing Khalistan referendum is an important milestone in the freedom struggle of the Sikh nation, which must be acknowledged and supported by the global community. It is high time that the UN come forward and play its due role in serving justice to the Sikh nation by supporting its right to self-determination through the creation of a separate and free Sikh homeland in the world.