Rahul Gandhi kicked off a political storm as he appeared to suggest that Sikhs in India might not be allowed to practice their religious faith freely, a charge that drew immediate condemnation from both the government and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) back in Delhi.
During his three day visit to the US, speaking to the diaspora in Virginia at an event organised by the Indian Overseas Congress on Monday evening eastern time, Gandhi said that the fight in India was not about politics. Turning to a Sikh member of the audience, Gandhi asked for his name and then said, “The fight is about whether he, as a Sikh, is going to be allowed to wear a turban in India; or whether, he, as a Sikh, will be allowed to wear a kada in India; or whether he, as a Sikh, is allowed to go to a Gurudwara. That’s what the fight is about, and not just for him, but for all religions”.
Union minister and BJP leader Hardeep Singh Puri hit back and termed Gandhi’s comments “sinister” with the aim of spreading “dangerous narratives” in the diaspora. Puri said that Gandhi’s comments don’t reflect Indian ground realities. “I condemn in the strongest terms the statement he has made about Sikhs not being able to wear turbans and kadas.”
Puri also referred to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, which took place under Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress government, and said, “If there has been one time in our history when as a community, we have felt anxiety, a sense of insecurity and existential threat, it has been the times when Rahul Gandhi’s family has been in the seats of power. In 1984, a pogrom was carried out against the Sikh community. As many as 3,000 innocent people were killed. People were dragged out of their homes, tyres were put around them, and burnt alive.”
{{/usCountry}}Puri also referred to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, which took place under Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress government, and said, “If there has been one time in our history when as a community, we have felt anxiety, a sense of insecurity and existential threat, it has been the times when Rahul Gandhi’s family has been in the seats of power. In 1984, a pogrom was carried out against the Sikh community. As many as 3,000 innocent people were killed. People were dragged out of their homes, tyres were put around them, and burnt alive.”
{{/usCountry}}Gandhi’s comment was in line with his broad political position where he has sought to frame India’s domestic political competition as one between his vision based on respect for diversity of all religions, languages, and regions and commitment to the Constitution, and the BJP’s vision that, Gandhi claims, is based on a hierarchical social order and against the Constitution and diversity.
But Gandhi’s specific allusion to Sikhs and implicit suggestion that their religious faith was in jeopardy in India comes at a time when Sikh political alienation has grown in the diaspora, there is a revival of sentiment and violent activities associated with the Khalistani movement, there is a separatist narrative that India’s government disrespects Sikh sentiments, and there is a controversy around India’s alleged actions against individuals Delhi considers as terrorists who are citizens of the US and Canada.
The BJP, for its part, has emphatically pointed to PM Narendra Modi’s consistent outreach to the Sikh community, visits to gurudwaras, homage to Sikh religious gurus, the freedom available to all Sikh citizens to practice their faith, and has, in its official comments, often sought to make a distinction between Sikhs at home and abroad and extremists in the diaspora.