Chandigarh: Unidentified miscreants attempted to vandalise a statue of Dr B.R. Ambedkar in Nangal village in Punjab’s Phillaur in the early hours of Monday. The statue, encased in glass, remained unharmed even as the miscreants wrote slogans on the glass encasing it.
The slogans, painted in black, read: “Sikhs are not Hindus”; “Trump Zindabad”; and “SFJ”.
Two flags, blue and saffron, were stuck on the glass with messages of a Sikh Referendum.
Banned organisation Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) claimed responsibility for the act. Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who heads SFJ and claims to run an advocacy group in the US, issued a video message showing the statue and claiming that it was the handiwork of his men.
“Ambedkar is a devil,” said Pannun, adding that SFJ holds Dr Ambedkar responsible for constitutionally labeling Sikhs as Hindus, citing Article 25(b) of the Indian Constitution, under which Sikhs are grouped as part of the Hindu faith for legal purposes—a move SFJ argues erased Sikh identity and laid the groundwork for the 1984 anti-Sikh massacre.
Pannun added that “Ambedkar’s statues must fall in Punjab…his statues honour a devilish figure who usurped Sikh identity and laid the foundation for the ongoing existential threats faced by Sikhs.”
The matter was reported to the police and an FIR registered under sections 299 (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings by insulting religion or religious beliefs) and 113 (terrorist act) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) against unidentified persons. “We are gathering information about the miscreants from CCTV footage of the area,” Naveen Singla, DIG, Jalandhar Range, told ThePrint Tuesday.
This was the second such incident in Punjab involving an Ambedkar statue this year.
On Republic Day, a man vandalised the iconic Ambedkar statue in Amritsar’s Hall Bazar. He was arrested from the spot and identified as Bhupinder Singh, a Dalit from Dharamkot.
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) general secretary Daljit Singh Cheema termed the latest incident an attempt to spread hatred among communities and disturb the peace in Punjab. “AAP government in Punjab and BJP government at the centre should institute a high-level probe into the deeper conspiracy behind such incidents,” he said in a video message Tuesday.
Former Member of Parliament Simranjit Singh Mann, who heads the SAD (Amritsar), said Tuesday that Pannun had no idea about what Khalistan would entail.
“Pannun might have been espousing the cause of Khalistan in the USA, but Khalistan is not about dividing people. It has space for the rich, the poor and people of every caste without any differentiation,” Mann said in a Facebook post. He added that Dr Ambedkar never did or said anything to the detriment of Sikhs. “The Dalits have played a significant role in Punjab’s history which was worth appreciating,” added Mann.
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‘Well-organised conspiracy’
Experts, meanwhile, see these incidents as a clear attempt to polarise. Professor Paramjit Singh Judge, formerly with the Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar, told ThePrint that the latest incident was part of a systematic attempt to destroy Punjab’s secular fabric.
“These are not sporadic incidents but part of a well-organised conspiracy. The grenade attacks outside police stations, incidents of vandalisation of statues of B.R. Ambedkar are interconnected incidents. There is a continuous attempt to show that the Aam Aadmi Party government is incompetent and cannot handle any situation,” he said. Adding, “Karl Marx once said major events in history tend to repeat themselves but first they take place as a tragedy and the second time as a farce. What we are seeing now is a farce.”
He also said that, if such incidents “elicit a strong reaction, they will be repeated; but if these are ignored, they will stop”.
Professor Manjit Singh, former head of the department of sociology, Punjab University (Chandigarh), was of the opinion that these incidents are the handiwork of the deep state.
“Aim is to polarise the population on the basis of caste and religion to benefit a particular political party. These incidents have in the past divided the population in states like UP and Bihar. But in Punjab such antics have only a limited reaction. Unlike other states, in Punjab, caste differences do not play out in day-to-day life and are rarely palpable,” he said.
Adding, “In the Amritsar incident,the person who vandalised the statue of Ambedkar himself was a Dalit. The focus of those who want to come to power in Punjab should not be religion or caste. They should focus on growing unemployment, poverty and drugs.”
Professor Harjeshwar Singh of the department of history, Sri Guru Gobind Singh College, Sector 26 Chandigarh, told ThePrint that while polarisation was clearly the aim, this time the location of the vandalism was thought-out. “This area already has sharp divisions between hardliner Sikhs, Hindus and Dalits. This is an attempt to exploit those fault lines using social media where reactions to such incidents tend to proliferate,” he said.
He added, “Such incidents are taking place because the political situation in Punjab is very fluid. No one really knows who will come back to power, who will rise and who will fall. When such a situation exists several non-political actors become active.”
Dr Kanwalpreet Kaur of the department of political science, DAV College Sector 10 Chandigarh, told ThePrint, “The number of Dalits in Punjab is the highest. But apart from the occasional war on social media regarding Jaat songs versus Dalit songs, these divisions are not easily observable on the ground. If anything the Dalit narrative in Punjab in the past 15 years has been about its resurgence, not oppression.”
“The 2009 incident when the Ravidassia sect Dera Sachkhand Ballan leader was attacked in Vienna had some repercussions in Punjab. There has been nothing since then. Anyone who is trying to exploit these statistical fault lines is not likely to succeed,” she said.
Adding, “What might seem as a tectonic fault line in other states is barely visible here. The highest places of worship of Sikhs are often headed by Dalits. Giani Harpreet Singh, former jathedar of Akal Takht, highest temporal seat of Sikhs, was from Scheduled Caste background and former SGPC president Bibi Jagir Kaur from Backward Class background.”
Paramjit Singh Kainth, president of the National Scheduled Castes Alliance, said in a statement Tuesday that the Bhagwant Mann-led AAP government had failed to deal with miscreants who were trying to insult the legacy of Dr Ambedkar.
“There is an immediate need to nab the culprits,” added Kainth.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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