On the claim of the author of Punjab Congress manifesto Manpreet Badal that the party would promise to “destroy all colonial vestiges that glorify the subjugation” and display these as “reminder of justice”, Shiromani Akali Dal secretary general Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa said that Manpreet should first prepare a dossier of atrocities committed by his adopted party against Punjab and Punjabis.In a statement issued here today after going through selective leak on the thrust of the Congress manifesto which is authored by Manpreet Badal, Dhindsa said that before digging the past, Manpreet Badal should first recount what Congress had done to Punjabis in the past 70 years. To begin with, the Congress dubbed Sikhs as “criminal tribe” and subsequently denied a separate Punjab state for ten years till 1966 while all other states were reorganized on linguistic basis way back in 1956. Moreover, Punjab continued to be deprived of its capital, river waters and some of its Punjabi speaking areas till date and to accomplish anything and Punjabis had to launch struggles and morchas, averred Dhinsa.The Akali leader told Manpreet in no uncertain terms that rewriting of history won’t be complete till the misdeeds and discriminatory policies of the successive Congress government were highlighted.
AS per reports Manpreet has mooted to enact a legislation “ Punjab Law of Historical Memory” which should identify specific period of prosperity and decline- epochs of greatness and misfortune” and also reasons for the same. The proposed Act is to condemn British Raj as “’the single most unfortunate cruel and humiliating phase of Punjab history”. “But why should the history stop with exit of British?”, ask Dhindsa arguing that if Jallianwala Bagh was a low in Punjab history, genocide of the Sikhs in 1984 where thousands were entrapped and killed was perhaps the abysmal point which should be remembered as the “greatest injustice” to the community. Similarly, if Manpreet wants the Sikhs to remember that Ahmed Shah Abdali’s demolished Golden temple, then the destruction of Akal Takht by Indira regime too should remain fresh in the collective memory of the community, said Dhindsa.Not only British Raj was “unfortunate, cruel and humiliating” phase but the Congress regime too was equally callous, barbarous and anti- Sikh phase of Indian history, he added.