Please, Mr. Editor, can I too have a say on P.M. Modi?
by Vish Murthy
From an aside on the many blaring headlines that came from Mr. Modi’s visit, what really caught my attention was a view that had come, a little earlier, from New York City. The Prime Minister had within a few hours of his touch down, sought out a meeting with the Sikh community, at large.
At the end of the meet, the
declaration that came from that membership, was just a happy vindication. A well know representative of the Sikh
community, speaking into a New York mic for the whole world to hear had said “The
Sikh community stands behind PM Modi. He has done a lot for the Sikh community
and India. We are very proud to have him here today. We are against terrorism,
that is why we have come here. India is working hard to fight terrorism."
This brought me to my own personal
feelings in dealing with the Sikh Community, which I had held for long, in a
bond of respect, but which due to certain events in the past, had cast a long
shadow forbidding any mention of it.
Growing up as a boy in India,
having come into the world at a time when the country had attained freedom, the
sight of a tall strapping and turban-ed Sikh, meant the world to me. They were
our warriors. They were our protectors, and I felt the country safe in their
hands. This view had gained further
strength in some personal ways.
In school, Harinderjit and I, had
become the best of friends. We used to look out for each other at lunch breaks,
spend the hour in circling around the school, munching up mouthwatering “tuck”
(an Irish/ British term for confectionaries from a bakery). Growing up, I had
not been the beneficiary of any pocket money in a long time till I graduated
high school, and it was he who had always divided everything that he would buy,
in an equal share between us. On a day, when someone had touched his turban
(and done so without a due apology), I had been stung deeply. You just cannot
do that. It constituted the entire fabric of a Sikh’s being. So, on another
planned day, both of us found ourselves into addressing that dishonor done by
the offender. Through my friend’s fisticuffs, in a backyard of the school, we
found ourselves settling the account in front of a jury of peers.
A lunch-hour walk in high school at St. Patrick’s, Asansol, India [Photo: Ankan Mitra 2017]
There were also those rare moments
of having enrolled as a student member of the National Cadet Corps (NCC), and
of being trained in the art of the rifle in a camp from those very Sikh
soldiers of India’s army (the soldiers used to be known as “Jawans” back then).
In a vintage piece, there were
the memories of none other than Air Marshal Arjun Singh, who in a touch-down
towards a landing at an Air Force Base, had thought it best to call an elderly
relative of mine. The relative had been a local civilian chief of the Home
Guards in the same town that had held the base. The call had sent a tingling
down the spine on hearing that the Air Marshal had intoned “I will be touching
down soon … and I am looking forward to lunching with you on some Idli and Dosa
at your home shortly.”
Finally, there was the
interaction with Mr. Khushwant Singh, the late great editor of The Illustrated
Weekly of India, whose ribald humor had opened up for me new imaginations from
the very staid days of A.S. Raman. On graduating from college In Bengal, and on
landing on my first job in Bangalore, I had written to Khushwant directly about
why I loved his writings in The Weekly. Little did I know that he would
surprise me weeks later with an autographed copy of his Train to Pakistan,
accompanied with a Thank You letter. Many years later, on a cold winter’s night
in Brooklyn, in a dorm, I had sought him out again through a letter. I had told
him of how much I missed home. His benevolent heart responded with a 6 week
paid subscription, and reading those copies warmed me up as much as a fireplace
on a cold wintry night.
Many years later, domiciled in
the US, I would be told to give up on those deeply in-grained feelings. They
were, now, to be held as distant ones, or to be shredded. The generations of
Sikhs in the California belt (from 1903) and in Canada (since Kesur Singh
landed in 1897), were now constituted in three or more generations of extended
mixed families, and not to be bothered by any understanding of a world of
strong connections to the land from which their forefathers had come. They had
all connected, exclusively, in terms of being together in their local
Gurudwaras, and open to an abetting by forces in a foreign land (their
homeland, was now, susceptible to different allegiances and to a different vibe
called Khalistan). They were, now, willing to sever Sikhism from any notions of
it being thought Indian, on account of a governmental mishap that had once
taken place. Gone were any old notions of an understanding, based on
forgiveness. The priesthood, and its influences too had departed from any
outlook coming from an integrated soil in India.
The breaking by forces was so
unforgiving, that they were even willing to hack mercilessly into the structure
of families, entwined together for long in marriages between Hindus and Sikhs.
Both had worshipped in a belief, together, at the Gurudwara and temples for
centuries. Even, the first born used to be baptized as a Sikh in an integration
and protection of either faith. Even in the quiet towns, of a Princeton suburb,
I could feel the palpitation of families, whom I knew had been enjoined in both
faiths. For me, in a personal understanding, I had taken to appreciating and
learning of the “Japji Saheb” (a revered Sikh Scripture) from a Sindhi Swami.
In interfaith meetings, it was painful for me to pick up the small booklets on
display, to discover that certain passages that had once appeared in the originals,
were now expunged.
It has now taken the many
millions of Sikhs all over the world, many years, to heal from those bitter
days.
I am glad that in these times
that Prime Minister Modi of India, has come to be acknowledged as that healer,
from that community itself. As late as in September 2022, it was a great
comfort to hear the words of a former Indian IPS officer-turned-BJP leader
Iqbal Singh Lalpura saying “Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a “better Sikh
than most of us.””
I am for once glad, that I can
now go up to my local gas station guy, and wish him “Sat Sri Akal-ji,”
and pronounce it in the very Punjab manner he has always been used to hearing.