Killing of Afghan Sikhs

Afghanistan is no stranger to lethal bomb blasts snuffing out the lives of unwary innocents and so it was when a bombing killed mostly Sikh leaders and some Hindus on their way to meet President Ashraf Ghani in the provincial capital of Jalalabad. It was an odd moment for a blast targeting allies of the government in Kabul: the Ramzan ceasefire with the Taliban had been extended after Eid and violence was at a low ebb, limited to signalling the militant organisation’s resilience and the ability to strike in order to remain relevant on the negotiating table. But the province Nangarhar, where Afghanistan’s soon-to-be Sikh MP and others were killed, has a political texture different from rest of the country.  

It was in Nangarhar that the US dropped an 11-tonne mother of all bombs (MOAB) over a year back and claimed the deaths of 100 Islamic State (IS) militants. It is obvious the problem is bigger than Trump’s one big symbolic gesture that satiated and hushed up the hawks in Washington but did little else on the ground. The unfortunate killings of the Sikhs and Hindus appears to be the IS’ biggest headline in its brief existence that is laced with mystery: no one has satisfactorily explained how the IS managed to entrench itself despite a vigil of the skies and terrain by the world’s technologically most advanced armies. But what is clear is that the killers of the Sikhs and the Hindus, besides a far larger number of their co-religionists, could not have settled down in Nangarhar without outside support.

The participation by Afghan diplomats in the protest by Sikh community in Delhi ought to have been a heart-warming gesture although the current Afghan leadership they claim to represent is divided at the top and politically at its weakest. The Sikhs and the Hindus paid for their lives for a war no side is keen to end; such is the imperative of a conflict economy. As it happens in Afghanistan, the wider clan of the killed will seek retribution but the deafening silence of the Sikh Referendum 2020 wallahs needs to be noted.