Chandigarh: Panth Sewak Collective have released a joint statement to express their views on situation concerning the Sikhs after the US Department of Justice unsealed and released an indictment in a New York district court. The indictment has revealed a thwarted plot by Indian officials to assassinate a Sikh political activist, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in the United States of America.
Hardeep Singh Nijjar (L) who was assassinated in Canada in June and Gurpatwant Singh Pannu (R) whose assassination bid was thwarted by US Authorities. | File Photo
Joint statement by Panth Sewak Collective reads, in verbatim, as follows:-
Sanjha Biaan (Joint Statement)
Recent events, from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s revelation about India’s role in Bhai Hardeep Singh’s murder to the US rebuke against India’s attempted assassination of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, have exposed India’s state terror alongside its coordinated transnational assassination campaign against Sikhs around the world. These incidents demonstrate that the genocidal impulse underlying India’s genocide of Sikhs and its crimes against humanity in Punjab is still very much alive.
Sikhs have continually maintained that the Indian state is moving towards a fascist Hindu rashtr (nation) under the guise of secularism. The supposed federal structure of the region is further evolving into a unitary state.The legislature, judiciary and executive are all being manipulated in anti-constitutional ways to erase the unique existence of different nations and communities of the region in order to ultimately absorb them into Hindutva by wiping out their freedom, unique identity, and autonomy.
Given Punjab’s pivotal geostrategic position, our principles of ‘sanjhivalta‘, our collective history of implementing a just society-polity, and our current capacity to lead a unified mass struggle–most recently exemplified in the Kisaan Andolan (farmers protest)– Sikhs represent a major challenge for India’s fascist regime. Terrified of this capacity, the Indian state has embarked on a strategy of aggressively attacking Sikhs.
The examples of Bhai Nijjar and Pannun make clear that the Indian state is recruiting and paying criminal elements to target Sikhs while simultaneously vilifying the Khalistan sangarsh (struggle) by connecting the movement with these very same criminal elements.
The patshahi dava, claim to sovereignty, of Sikhs is our natural birthright and a blessing from Guru Sahib. In order to establish a sovereign raj (polity) and exercise our internationally acknowledged right to self-determination, it is the right and responsibility of every Sikh to carry on this struggle through mass mobilization and other means in accordance with our principles and traditions.
The South Asian region is quickly becoming the flash point of competition and conflict between multiple world powers, and Sikhs and Punjab are at the epicentre of this. Recent events have made Sikhs the centre of attention of international media, while the Khalistan struggle has become the central node of diplomacy between various Western countries and India. In this dynamic environment, the establishment of a sovereign Sikh homeland will play a pivotal role in ensuring “sarbat da bhala” and international stability.
In this context, Sikhs must build up mutual trust internally, in order to squarely confront India’s nefarious designs. Central to this is reinvigorating our internal organizational structures according to gurmatta-based decision-making and panch pradhani leadership. We are striving towards this objective ourselves, and we humbly call upon all sincere Sikh factions to recognize the gravity of our current situation and actively engage in trust-building measures in order to create unity in the struggle to secure our future in these volatile times.
Bhai Daljit Singh
Bhai Narain Singh
Bhai Lal Singh Akalgarh
Bhai Bhupinder Singh Bhalwan
Bhai Satnam Singh Khandewala
Bhai Rajinder Singh Mughalwal
Bhai Satnam Singh Jhanjian
Bhai Sukhdev Singh Dodd
Bhai Amrik Singh Isru
Bhai Hardeep Singh Mehraj
Bhai Manjit Singh Phagwara
About the Panth Sewak Collective:
The Panth Sewak Collective emerged from a long process of internal discussion amongst key Sikh figures, activists, and former guerrillas that participated in the Sikh struggle for Khalistan in its first phase during the 1980s and 1990s. This process began in the Spring of 2022, taking particular note of the increasing volatility of India’s Hindutva regime and the looming tensions between various global powers in the broader South Asian region. The process coalesced around eleven Sikh leaders who have been involved in various forms of Sikh activism. This includes political struggle through mass mobilization, human rights advocacy, as well as participating in and leading the armed struggle for Khalistan–several of them having spent decades in Indian prisons as a result.