THE SIKH SITUATION

IT is no use disguising the fact that at the present moment the Sikh situation is one of extreme gravity. We do not remember any other period in recent history when so large a body of Sikh opinion was so arrayed against the Government as has been the case during the last few months, and more particularly during the last few days. The very fact that the Government has arrested two successive Presidents of the chief Gurdwara Committee, three Secretaries and a good many other persons connected with the Gurdwara movement shows to what a sorry pass things have come. There is no need to discuss the merits of the question. For our part we lack even the competence to do it. When a large number of Sikhs, including some of their foremost leaders, persist in asserting that the movement they have been prosecuting so zealously is solely religious, while the Government of the Province, which, by the way, includes one Sikh member, persists in calling it political, it is not for outsiders to offer an opinion. There can be no two opinions regarding the essential unhealthiness of a position in which the Government of a Province finds itself resisted by so large a body of the followers of one of its principal religions. With the Khilafatists alienated from the Government, the position was already difficult enough. If there is statesmanship in the Province, now is the time for it to assert itself. It is futile to denounce the whole body of men with whom the Government finds itself in conflict as “extremists.” Such denunciation does not solve the problem nor does it help anyone, least of all the Government, the successful working of whose machinery depends upon the maintenance of amicable relations between itself and the several communities which compose the people of the Province.