Sikhs Part of Hinduism, Says RSS Chief
By Our Special Correspondent
The Hindu
CHANDIGARH, APRIL 30, 2000. The chief of the Rashtriya Swaymsevak Sangh (RSS), Mr. K.S. Sudarshan, joined issue with right-wing radical Sikh organizations to assert that Sikhism is a panth of Hinduism. He quoted various scriptures and historical events to argue that Sikhs were created to defend Hinduism from the tyranny of Mughal rulers.
Launching a direct attack on Sikh hardliners while addressing an RSS activists' meeting here on Saturday evening, Mr. Sudarshan said that many of the hardliners had even questioned the authenticity of Dasam Granth, which had been accepted as the writings of Guru Gobind Singh, since they found it to be a hindrance in achieving their objective of creating fissures in society. On the same day, a number of Sikh organizations organized a protest march and public rally near the venue where Mr. Sudarshan inaugurated a three-day meeting of the national executive of the Rashtriya Sikh Sangat, an affiliate of the RSS. Various political and social organizations of the Sikh community have been stressing that Sikhs are not Hindus and have been pursuing to establish a separate identity of the community.
Seeking to allay fears that the RSS was working towards decimating Sikh identity and assimilating Sikhs into the Hindu mainstream, Mr. Sudarshan reminded that the Khalsa could not be wiped out during the period between 1717 and 1799, when extreme Mughal tyranny claimed the lives of 2.5 lakh Sikhs. He claimed that the Sikhs who were killed were originally Hindus and made supreme sacrifices to defend the Hindu faith. Mr. Sudarshan said since the RSS fully acknowledged that great sacrifices were made by the Khalsa Panth for India, it was committed to regaining Lahore - the capital of Khalsa Raj under Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Reiterating the RSS programme to regain the areas lost during the partition in 1947, Mr. Sudarshan said that at an ``appropriate time'' the various Sikhs shrines, such as Nankana Sahib, would be reclaimed under a greater plan of reviving `Akhand Bharat'. Mr. Sudarshan said that after accusing the RSS of being anti- Muslim and anti-Christian in the past, some forces had now launched a propaganda of dubbing the RSS as anti-Sikh. He said that despite adverse propaganda against it, the RSS had grown during the last 75 years since its inception and claimed that the tag of being anti-minorities was fast fading away.