New Delhi, June 6: Some 500 Sikhs exiled for their alleged involvement in the 1980s Punjab insurgency may now hope to return to India after two decades.
The National Commission for Minorities has asked the government to revoke a post-Operation Blue Star ban that prevents these Sikhs — widely referred to as “Blacklisted Sikhs” — from entering India.
Unlike hardcore militants or those accused of plotting the 1985 Kanishka (Air-India) bombing, these 500 are not on a “wanted” list but merely exiled. They are mostly charged with indirect involvement in the insurgency, such as demonstrating in front of Indian embassies abroad, delivering anti-India speeches or sheltering militants.
“It’s true they were engaged in various degrees of anti-national activity at one point of time. But they were mostly victims of circumstances,’’ said H.S. Hanspal, who represents Sikhs in the minority commission.
“They are not even allowed to attend the last rites of their parents (in India). It should not be so.”
Hanspal, a former Punjab Congress president, said he had met Union home minister P. Chidambaram, who promised to look into the matter favourably. The commission is collecting details about these exiled Sikhs and will submit them to the home ministry to establish they pose no danger to the country any more.
Most of the blacklisted Sikhs had fled India after Blue Star. Most now live in Canada; some are in the UK or the US. Delhi drew up the blacklist between 1985 and the late ’80s.
Technically, the 500 should be able to return since they had been banned individually for three to 15 years.
But successive governments have shied away from scrapping the list, and its existence means Indian embassies refuse to grant these Sikhs visas.
All the exiles are desperate to join their families in India, said sources in the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) and the Shiromani Akali Dal, who have offered to stand guarantee for these Sikhs if they are allowed to return.
“This (the blacklist) will only create distrust in the minds of (some) Sikhs,” DSGMC president Paramjit Singh Sarna said.
The issue has been gathering momentum in and around Punjab. Last month, state BJP president Rajinder Bhandari demanded a review of the blacklist and criticised the UPA for doing nothing despite having a Sikh Prime Minister.
No such list exists relating to the ongoing Northeast and Kashmir insurgencies, home ministry sources said. And even a hard-line Sikh separatist like Khalistan movement founder Jagjit Singh Chauhan was allowed back in 2001 after he repudiated violence.
Hanspal agreed that the blacklist was alienating a section of Sikhs in Punjab. “Now that normality has returned to the state, there is no reason to continue with the ban.”
A home ministry source, who wouldn’t be quoted, said some Khalistanis were still active abroad, and continuing with the blacklist could help swell these separatists’ ranks.