When the Golden Temple turned blood red

Way back in 1982 I had the good fortune to feast my eyes on the Golden Temple in Amristar, India, a wonder of wonders, glistening in golden glory. It is duplicated in the shimmering mirror of a lake on which it is built articulating ingenious human endeavour. Ignorance is bliss, they say and perhaps in haste to reach the Waga border beyond, partitioning India and Pakistan, the party became oblivious to a very significant historical fact on the place ie. that this Sikh centre of worship is considered as where the first spark ignited the Indian National Movement.

Going through the daily newspapers in a house-bound state, I noticed that the resplendent and sacrosanct centre of worship, built some 400 years ago is enjoying some limelight these days. Actually, it was this media info that gave the above news. Why the sudden spurt of interest? All because the British Prime Minister, on a trade mission to Delhi decided to visit the place.

Actually it was a brave thing to do, for some nearly 400 Indians had been massacred in this place by the British forces in 1919. But now nearly a century has passed and perhaps memories faded somewhat of this bloody event that even shocked Winston Churchill, the then British war secretary cum "Iron Gentleman".

But like elephants, Indians do have long memories and there had been an outcry that the British PM should apologise to the Sikhs , now that he is there with his head swathed in a blue scarf in reverence to the grand edifice. But he did not apologise nor did he condescend to meet the descendants of those who sacrificed their lives for India's freedom in 1919.

They were all freedom fighters like the followers of Puran Appu (Francis Fernando) and Gongalegoda Banda and Keppetipola Nilame of our island. Of course, they played their part about a century earlier and was the British PM to come here it would be difficult to locate their descendants for a hostile demonstration.

Reluctance

The British Prime Minister's reluctance to apologise raises questions as to why he did so especially as during this particular time of his visit, photos were appearing in the media of the Australian PM embracing the leader of the aborigines and almost admitting that "The Land Belongs to them". Perhaps India's own intellectuals seem to have helped his stand. They did not directly make the outrageous statement, "Now that they are in control of India they had the perfect right to murder a few of them amounting to 400 in a rash bombardment of one military officer". In a circuitous way these writers seem to have played the defender's role during the PM's visit.

One writer headlines his article with an almost explosive title, which is "The history of India is a history of colonialism" thus justifying the British colonialism. Travelling miles and miles back in time, he knits the argument that the world's developed nations today all have got wrangled in the game of colonisation, either as conquerors or the conquered.

"For what is colonialism but the imposition of one group's ideas on another by force?"

Developing his argument he says the Aryans themselves who came to India were colonisers, who came in from the North and imposed their ideas on local tribes or Adivasis, a feat glorified in such epics as the Mahabharatha. Adivasis, is the very word used by this foreign writer and this rings a bell.

Aryans

Can the Aryans who came from the North to this island be called colonisers who due to their superiority imposed their ideas on local tribes or Adivasis? Perusing the early sagas of human civilisation almost leads to dangerous ground.

Charles Allen says, "The ideal ruler of the Vedas and after, was a conqueror, whose duty was to expand his kingdom or Janapada into a Mahajanapada or great kingdom by conquest. That is imperialism in my book".

Even Britain was subject to the spectre of colonialism at one time, the Roman Colonialism. According to my books once perused in the campus, Britain profited by this imperialism. Roads, mansions, more civilised modes of living and learning were the result including the Roman alphabet.

History is sprinkled with conquests of one race by another, of one country by another. Only thing is the degree of good and bad, the 'conquered' undergoes seems so different. We shudder when we remember the Ferenghi conquest and the atrocities they staged along the coastal areas of ours destroying many a shrine.

Even genocide of the locals came natural to them as their own writers like Father Queroz admits. Believe it or not, but the demonic General, Azavedo had stood in the balcony of his Palace at Malwana (now getting a face lift) and watched with glee men and women and children being thrown as food for the crocodiles that swam in the Kelani. These innocent humans were those who refused to be baptised.

Monstrous ventures

That was colonialism's ugliest picture made more wretched for behind these monstrous ventures stood the Papal head, said to represent God in all his mercy for the humankind. So, colonialsm played its part in one phase of world history - a boon in some states, a curse in others. So, when advisers were cooing into the ears of David Cameron, "Apologise to India at this holy and beautiful place" he would not have done it for a flow of mental currents going through him such as. If I start to apologise for the crimes committed by the colonial regime of Britain, there would be no end to the process.

The precedent set would make me go round and round the globe apologising endlessly leaving little room for other work. Such a process should be accompanied by the presentation of bouquets to us for the positive work done in these colonies that would have just languished in under-developed and stagnant cocoons if not for us.

They say there are two sides to a coin and this issue of colonialism is one of these, just a musing. Just to make a light end to this messy bombast, there was the British diplomat who when accused of crimes committed by the colonial regime tried to get away by informing in all earnestness that he was not born at the time that all these things happened and hence cannot be blamed. Did anybody laugh? No. The audience was not sure whether to laugh or cry in their astonishment.

Even David Cameron with his baby face would have been thinking defensively before the mighty Temple, "Four hundred Indians murdered here! But I would have never done it or ordered it. Even the great war hero had not ordered it. It was an irresponsible lesser officer who had been behind the atrocity do. So why should I apologize and set unwarranted precedents?" It is indeed a weird world.