SAD leader and MP Naresh Gujral | Photo Credit: ANI New Delhi: Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader and Rajya Sabha MP Naresh Gujral has said that the 'Referendum 2020' campaign by pro-Khalistan groups in the UK was an attempt by Pakistan’s ISI to “foment trouble in Punjab”. He added that Indian Sikhs were completely against such campaigns. `Referendum 2020' is a campaign by the Britain-based Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) for a separate state. “It's an attempt by ISI to foment trouble in Punjab. It is financed by ISI. Pakistan and ISI have been trying hard for a long time to create problems in Punjab,” Gujral said, as quoted by news agency ANI. “They failed in Kashmir and want to move the stage to Punjab.” He said a “very minuscule” number of Sikhs living abroad were participating in this. “No Sikh in India has sympathy for this as Sikhs are loyal Indians,” Gujral said, adding that Sikhs had made more sacrifices for the nation than any other community. On Sunday, Indian-origin British nationals and Indians living in the UK took out a protest rally in London against Referendum 2020 Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has also slammed the organisers of the so-called referendum, saying such people had no support in Punjab. He said the pro-Khalistani protesters were “playing into the hands of the ISI” which had an “open agenda” to create trouble in Punjab and India. "If these elements think they can come and disturb the peace in my country and my state, they are mistaken,” Amarander Singh told reporters a few days ago as quoted by news agency PTI. India has raised the issue with the UK too, but London has maintained there is no bar on people protesting on an issue as long as they were not breaking any laws of the land.<doc-sep>A day ahead of the controversial 'Referendum 2020' rally in London organised by the NGO Sikhs For Justice (SFJ), Punjab based Sikh radical political groups-Dal Khalsa and SAD (Amritsar) have questioned the move. In a letter to SFJ, leaders of Dal Khalsa and SAD(A) have asked SFJ to clear all ambiguity in its 2020 referendum proposal. Dal Khalsa spokesperson Kanwar Pal Singh has called SFJ's referendum proposal mischievous and a mere survey or opinion poll. The letter has alleged that the exercise is creating false hope among the Sikh diaspora since unilateral secession referendums are hardly implemented. The Sikh case is further complicated that so far no political body in Punjab is talking of any unilateral secession referendum and there is no thought or mechanism in place regarding involving the Sikh Diaspora. In such a situation, the talk of online voting by SFJ is far-fetched and unworkable even if it is unofficial and non-binding. Dal Khalsa and SAD(A) through their letter have posed the following questions to Gurpatwant Singh Pannu of SFJ over Referendum 2020: They have asked Pannu to clarify how Referendum 2020 will be done in Punjab and who would do it. They said the term referendum is a misnomer and that Referendum was always carried out under the guidance of the United Nations, which is not the case in the present scenario. In view of the above, it was fraudulent to propagate or allow this kind of propagation to spread and that a separate Sikh state will come into existence soon after the Referendum in 2020. They asked whether the referendum, whenever held, will be limited to Sikhs or for all Punjabis. They asked how an authentic voter would be determined. Another question they put forward was deciding who the voter would be and on what basis will the decision be made. In addition to this, what would be the authority and legitimacy of the individual or organisation who will decide so? To counter SFJ's London rally on Sunday, Dal Khalsa has announced that it would hold a protest rally on August 15 at Moga against the atrocities, and denial of justice and rights to Sikhs in the last 7 decades. Chief Minister of Punjab Captain Amarinder Singh has already trashed the idea of Referendum 2020 calling it a sham exercise by few disgruntled elements based abroad to make money. Punjab Police is also keeping a close track of the online activities and social media posts related to Sunday rally. Also read: Anti-Khalistan protesters rally outside British High Commission Watch: Who is funding Referendum 2020?<doc-sep>Punjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh said the 'Referendum 2020' rally in London is nothing but an attempt by a handful of "frustrated ISI-backed Sikhs" who are trying to foment trouble in India. (File photo) Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh has asserted that in Punjab, there are no takers for the 'Referendum 2020' campaign that aims to demand a separate nation for Sikhs. Taking a dig at the proposed rally that is scheduled to be organised under this banner at Trafalgar Square, London, on August 12, he said it is nothing but an attempt by a handful of "frustrated ISI-backed Sikhs" who are trying to foment trouble in India by raising divisive voices. In a statement issued on Friday, Singh said he is not worried about the fringe elements behind this campaign and their proposed August 12 rally in London. "They have been at it for long and have been playing in the hands of the ISI, which has an open agenda to foment trouble in Punjab and India," he said, adding that he will not allow anyone to disturb peace in his state. "If these elements think they can come and disturb the peace of my country, they are mistaken," Singh said. Meanwhile, the chief minister has asked the police to deal any attempts of reviving terrorism in Punjab with a "strict hand". He said, in the past 15 months under his chief ministership, the police have cracked down on several terror modules and seized sizeable number of arms and ammunition, along with narcotics. "We are prepared to deal with Kahlistani elements. If they come with arms, my advice to them is to lay them down or they would be dealt with accordingly," he said. Questioned on the British government's refusal to stop the rally, the chief minister said, "It does not bother me."<doc-sep>While this is not the first such event held by diaspora Sikh groups, it might be a crucial one since it seeks to lay the foundation for a 'non-binding' referendum This weekend, all eyes and ears in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs will be on a rally happening 4,000 miles away, in the heart of London. Various Sikh groups, both UK-based and global, are congregating at Trafalgar Square on Sunday to kickstart the campaign to petition the United Nations (UN) and demand the right to self-determination for an independent Punjab. The ‘London Declaration on Punjab Independence Referendum 2020’ as the organisers call Sunday’s rally, will seek to bring out the declaration that will then be presented to the UN and 'its member countries to let them know that the independent state of Punjab that once existed seeks to be re-established', according to Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the legal advisor to the organisers, a group called Sikhs For Justice. While this is not the first such event held by diaspora Sikh groups, it might be a crucial one since it seeks to lay the foundation for a 'non-binding' referendum to be conducted in 2020 among Sikhs across the world about carving out an independent Punjab from India. Sikhs For Justice, the New York-based advocacy group, says that the event is likely to draw thousands of Sikhs from all over the world. News reports have even quoted the organisers to be offering ‘sponsorships’ to Sikhs in order to attend this rally. The rally follows an intense strategy of mobilising support through social media and ground activities, especially in areas of Britain where Sikhs reside in large numbers. The rally has drawn the ire of the Indian government, which has called it a 'separatist activity, which impinges on India’s territorial integrity.' However, it isn’t Indian authorities alone who are being critical of Sunday’s rally. Even Sikh Khalistani groups have raised doubts about the rally and the credibility of the organisers, distancing themselves from the campaign. In fact, Dal Khalsa and the Shiromani Akali Dal Amritsar (Mann), both pro-Khalistani groups based out of India, have refused to support the referendum and instead, have asked searing questions of the campaign and its effectiveness. On social media, many, including Sikhs, are critical of the campaign with many quarters even alleging that the rally and the referendum campaign have been backed by foreign agencies to stoke tensions between the Indian State and the Sikh community. Trees, not the woods Irrespective of the outcome of Sunday’s rally and the questions that surround it, a closer look at the Sikh diaspora within the UK would reveal that dismissing the mobilisation around the campaign might be missing the trees for the woods. It is crucial to understand the larger context which surrounds relations between the Sikh diaspora and the Indian State, in the UK, one of deep antagonism, historical hurt and mistrust. Over the last two years, some sections of the Sikh diaspora in the UK have intensified their demand that Sikhs no longer be identified as ‘Indians’ in the UK Census surveys. Instead, they have demanded that there be a separate ‘Sikh’ ethnic category in the UK Census to facilitate this. The influence that these groups and the campaign exert can be gauged from the fact that nearly 140 British Members of Parliament (MP) backed this demand in a letter to UK’s Office for National Statistics, in charge of conducting the Census in September last year. This came after it was revealed that nearly 83,000-odd Sikhs had refused to be identified in the UK Census of 2011 with any of the existing categories and had, instead, marked themselves in the ‘Other’ category to be ‘Sikhs’. The opinion over this demand, though, is mixed since the British Sikh Report, 2018, an annual report on the Sikh community in the UK, in a survey said that an overwhelming majority-87 per cent-of British Sikhs continue to identify themselves as ‘Indian’. This notwithstanding, the campaign seems to have achieved what it set out to — news reports last month have said that ONS is said to be seriously considering listing ‘Sikhism’ as a separate ethnic category. While Sikh groups insist that a separate category is needed to ensure better policy-making towards the Sikh community, others are much more sceptical. “This demand is very much driven by some groups wanting to distance themselves from India. They have admitted it themselves,” says Sunny Hundal, journalist and editor of Barfi Culture news magazine, which reports on South Asians in Europe and North America. He believes that such a move will negatively impact the Sikhs living in Britain, an effect that the campaign does not seem to have considered. Even as this campaign was playing out, in November last year, a British Sikh, Jagtar Singh Johal, was arrested in Jalandhar under the country’s anti-terror laws on charges of being involved with a series of killings, including that of an RSS leader. Soon after, 225 of the 270-odd Sikh gurudwaras announced a ‘ban’ on the entry of Indian officials into these gurudwaras. This became a larger global campaign through Sikh groups in the UK and North America, which followed suit and announced similar restrictions for Indian diplomats. The arrest was greeted with mass protests and outrage in the Sikh diaspora in the UK, with organisations pressuring the British government to take this up with the Indian government. A 2017 report quotes a survey which had found that many of the Sikhs who came to the UK as asylum seekers in the 1990s from Punjab had claimed that they had been incarcerated or tortured by the Indian police. Little wonder, then, that the circumstances of Johal’s arrest spooked many in the Sikh diaspora — he was in India to get married and was arrested weeks after he got married. For many in the diaspora, Johal’s incarceration is a reminder of the persecution that Sikhs faced in the 1980s, especially in 1984 around Operation Blue Star and the Sikh genocide following the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, which saw over 3,000 Sikhs, mostly men, killed by rampaging mobs. Not just in the present<doc-sep>
Punjab CM Amarinder Singh Punjab CM Amarinder Singh A day after the ‘Referendum 2020’ organised Sunday by Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has targeted the UK government, saying that by allowing the protesters to use Trafalgar Square, instead of Hyde Park, it had shown its “total complacency” on the issue. In a statement issued here on Monday, Amarinder stated that “the UK government should have put its foot down and not allowed its soil to be used to propagate anti-India campaign.” The rally was organised Sunday at 7:30 pm IST. Taking a dig at the rally, Amarinder said, “As expected, it turned out to be a damp squib, participated by a handful of elements.” The statement also quoted Amarinder citing ground reports that “several Kashmiris were made to wear turbans to make them look like Sikhs.” READ | Sikhs for Justice’s call for Referendum 2020 misleading, says Dal Khalsa Calling it a “no-show rally”, Amarinder said it had exposed the total lack of ground support for ‘Referendum 2020’ even outside India. He dismissed the entire affair as a futile exercise by a sham organisation to create trouble in India, particularly Punjab. “The Sikhs For Justice are just a group of fringe elements that are playing into the hands of Pakistan’s ISI to divide India, but they have failed, and will continue to fail in their nefarious designs. The presence of Pakistani politicians at the rally confirms that it was out-and-out an ISI plot, which fell through, just as their attempts to create trouble in India have been failing all these years”, he added. There was virtually nil local support for the rally and whatever little support they had managed to garner was of similar fringe elements from various countries, said the Chief Minister. The presence of Pakistani leaders, including Nazir Ahmed who openly spoke of dividing India and splitting Kashmir, Punjab and Nagaland from it, made it clear that the rally was a game plan of the ISI, a fact further endorsed by the presence of separatist Kashmiris living in UK, said the Chief Minister. Describing the SFJ fringe elements as mere social media tigers, who are trying to create a hype even when they have no support, both in India and abroad, the Chief Minister said the Sikhs were a patriotic community who have always stood for the unity and integrity of the country. As many as 90,000 Sikhs are serving in the Indian army, defending the country’s borders, he pointed out, adding that SFJ could never succeed in misleading the community into falling for their selfish designs. The Chief Minister warned the SFJ and all other such anti-India forces to stay out of the country and refrain from any attempt to foment trouble in Punjab, or any other part of India. Their efforts will backfire on them and his government would deal with such elements with an iron hand. Nobody would be allowed to disturb the peace and the communal harmony in the state, he said.