Portrait of Shaheed Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale in Sikh Museum

Recent unveiling of Shaheed Sant Bhindranwale's portrait in the Central Sikh Museum located in the Darbar Sahib complex triggers an orchestrated disinformation campaign in the Indian media by various anti-Sikh Hindutva elements 

Twenty three years after the June 1984 martyrdom of the greatest Sikh of the 20th century, (Shaheed Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale) a harmless event like the recent unveiling of his life-size portrait on a wall of the Central Sikh Museum, located in the Darbar Sahib complex, Amritsar, on 29 November 2007, has unearthed latent fears of the muscular Sikhs, which still linger among polytheistic India's Hindutva ruling elite. This condition might result in some state-sponsored jingoistic unrest in the future. Sikhs better beware.

The unveiling of a life size portrait of Shaheed Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, arranged by the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, (SGPC) which organization under the Law of the land is a representative body to look after the religious affairs of India's 22 million strong monotheistic Sikh minority community. The SGPC also manages the Darbar Sahib complex where the Central Sikh museum is located. The Indian ruling elite, dominated by an evil nexus of the morally repugnant crafty Brahmin and the usurious Bania, also controls the media in that unhappy caste-ridden land, which is all squalor and misery, as far as the exploited 80% majority is concerned. These Neo-fascist critters of the Indian ruling elite have no shame or courage in their dealings! Their reaction, nay wicked outbursts, currently being splashed and editorialized, in the Indian print media, over the innocent exhibition in the Sikh museum, by the SGPC, of a portrait of the late Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale reminds one of a line, written many years ago, by that famous English satirist Jonathan Swift (1667-1745 AD) in 'Thoughts On Various Subjects' which reads, “I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.”

Interestingly, among the first vicious attacks on the subject of the Sant Bindranwalle portrait was launched, by none other than the Chandigarh-based English language newspaper, Tribune, which was founded by a Sikh but is now infiltrated, and controlled, by Sikh-hating Neo-Nazi Hindutva elements. The Tribune in a wicked editorial dated 01 December, 2007, headlined, “Portrait of appeasement - Badal must not have succumbed to pressure,” pontificates that the simple act of unveiling the portrait of Shaheed Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, by the SGPC, in the Central Sikh Museum will do nothing but bring harm to Punjab and the Sikhs. The Tribune editorial did not say how a lifeless portrait of a popular and respected figure in the Punjab will bring harm to the Sikhs and the Punjab? The editorial goes on to make an exaggerated claim that unveiling a portrait of Shaheed Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale by the SGPC was, “a thoughtless move, which was certainly not in the interest of Punjab which is just coming on a track of economic reconstruction the state badly needs.” The Tribune editorial also accuses the SGPC that it has succumbed to pressure from radical Sikh organizations and has disappointed 'most of the Sikhs.' Did the Tribune editors take a vote?

Another standard bearer of this orchestrated campaign against the memory of Shaheed Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale is the Congress party state president, Mrs. Rajinder Kaur Bhattal. Her party has called an all-secular-party meeting to chastise the Badal government on the installation of the portrait in the Central Sikh museum which incidentally, was rifled by the Indian Army in June 1984 during the military operation 'Blue Star'.. Despite numerous requests over the past 23 years the central government in Delhi has not returned the stolen museum items nor provided a suitable explanation or accounting. According to the Hindu newspaper of 3 December, 2007, Opposition Congress party in Punjab has asked the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal to, “clarify its stand on the installation of a portrait of slain 'Khalistani' militant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale at the Sikh Museum in the Golden Temple in Amritsar.”  Senior BJP leader and in-charge of Punjab BJP party affairs, Balbir Punj, is also reported to have joined the fray. He has asked the SGPC to 'review installation of the portrait of Sant Bhindranwale in the Central Sikh museum.'

... Daljit Singh Bittu today said anti-Sikh forces had become active in the state of Punjab and that they had started interfering in the internal affairs of the Sikhs. Addressing a press conference in Chandigarh on Monday Daljit Singh said that the installation of the portrait of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale at the Central Sikh Museum was an internal matter of the Sikhs and others should not feel agitated over this issue. He warned that if any one dared to burn the effigy of Sant Bhindranwale or remove his portrait from the Central Sikh museum in the he would be punished.

Shaheed Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, as all Sikhs know, was a simple devout Sikh, blessed with great vision, integrity and knowledge of the Sikh religion. In June 1984, Sant Bhindrawale made the supreme sacrifice, after volunteering to defend the historic Akal Takht Sahib, the temporal seat of the Sikhs, located inside the Darbar Sahib complex in Amritsar. He died fighting, on 06 June 1984, near the Central Sikh Museum, while performing his religious duty as a Sikh defending the Akal Takht Sahib, against thousands of invading Indian Army soldiers mounted on tanks, sent on the command of the then Indian Prime minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi to attack the Darbar Sahib complex. Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi, an evil incarnate, was the daughter of the founder of India's Nehru dynasty, Prime Minister Pundit Jawahar Lal Nehru, a crafty Brahmin. She was also the mother of that mass murderer of the Sikhs, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and grandmother of the young pretender to the Indian prime minister's 'throne', the dim-witted high school dropout, currently strutting around on the Indian political stage, under the guardianship of Prime minister Manmohan Singh, the 37 years old swishy bachelor, Rahul Gandhi.

Surely the 25 million Sikhs (22 million captive in India and living behind India's barbed wire 'Berlin Wall' which seals the Western border and the three million FREE Sikhs prospering in the Diaspora) have every right to honor the memory of the much loved historical figure, Shaheed Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, any way they like and where they like. This long-delayed gesture of unveiling a life-size portrait in the Sikh museum in the Darbar Sahib, on 29 November, 2007, near the spot where he fell to a volley of Indian bullets, was preceded by a religious service held in the Darbar Sahib, in the courtyard outside the Akal Takht Sahib, which declared Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale a martyr on 07 June, 2001, after years of dezinformatsiya by the Indian government and its minions that he was still alive.  In the closing days of the 20th century, on 27 December, 1999, the Sikhs organizations representing the 3 million strong Sikh diaspora, had made another gesture of respect for the great man when they elected Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, as 'the Greatest Sikh of the 20th Century.' When asked as to what factors contributed to the choice of Sant Bhindranwale, the organizers explained that, “this was due to the political consciousness awakened by Sant Bhindranwale in Sikhs; for sacrificing his life in defence of the Golden Temple (Darbar Sahib) in Amritsar when the Indian Army attacked the place in June 1984; and for being true to his convictions and resisting Operation Bluestar.”

An appropriate response from the Punjab government to the current orchestrated controversy over the Sant Bhindranwale portrait should be to demand that all places and memorials named after mass murderers like Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, and built with tax payers money, should be renamed. The Punjab government can also demand forcefully that the Indira Gandhi Canal which carries water-short Punjab's stolen river water to the non-riparian state of Rajasthan, free of charge, should be renamed, and Rajasthan should be made to pay for the water as the present name Indira Gandhi Canal and the gratis arrangement rankles every Sikh. Last but not the least, every Sikh should hence forth make it a point to buy photographs and posters of Shaheed Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale and make a sustained effort to respectfully display them every where - in the house, in the office and in their cars.