After recently reading the news item on vandalization of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s Statue, the painful memories of ramifications of the partition of the country in August 1947, became fresh again. Incidentally, this is not the first time but the third time the statue has been vandalized after its installation in 2019. This incident is happening right on the heels of Taliban’s overrunning the country of Afghanistan without a resistance.
The gory act of vandalization and that of overrunning of a country, geographically separated by few hundreds miles, are two unrelated events on the surface, yet the underlying cause is common. The genesis of both these incidents were the direct result of indoctrination of children of poor families. The indoctrination process is seeding of the thoughts that everything we associate with is right and superior, while the other person or his ideas are not equal but inferior.
Many a time this is gift wrapped as providing education, food, and shelter to uplift the marginalized impoverished segment. The peril of this model is that the youth are being raised on dogma, without any productive work skills, or independent cum rational thinking, coupled with the inability of carrying out any critical evaluation. The results are gruesome, and we witness them unfold repeatedly.
These ground realities bring out two major challenges from the Sikh perspective now:
- How to save Sikh religious, spiritual, architectural, and intellectual assets that will be left behind in Afghanistan, and safeguard those in Pakistan. A major issue in Pakistan is that heritage sites are spread out and there is a very limited Sikh population which provides opportunity for land grabs. So, the issue is how to save, protect, maintain, and preserve those historical relics. Nonetheless, PETPB has been managing and maintaining the Sikh historical shrines in Pakistan reasonably well despite encroachments and efforts to erase them. However, the overall bigger problem remains, which has been exacerbated by the recent events in Afghanistan.
- The evacuation of the remaining Sikh population along with their families out of Afghanistan to safety and their resettlement has become a high priority. The insecurity being experienced by them is frightening. They need our help today. Already the vivid images of chaotic situations with citizens there trying to escape from the country are making shocking news.
By understanding the ground realities of that geographical area, we need to think of comprehensive preservation plans for our vulnerable, historical relics there. Making explosive, charged statements can garner some prime-time media coverage and some accolades, but will they help in preserving our historical relics or lives of our vulnerable members there? We have a delicate job of safeguarding, protecting these fledgling tangibles as well as intangible assets for our future generation. Let us pray and make some concrete efforts to safeguard those.
