What follows below is just the ramblings of my confused mind... So read them only if want some food for thought on figuring which side we are on "the oppressor or the oppressed".
My friends keep telling me why don't Sikhs forget this?
I have no formal answer for them. Since in an ideal world we would not need to remember anything that happened in the past. Every thing would in the moment & good.
But in the world we live in, I think, no one should forget any atrocities committed by the many on the few. As Howard Zinn the historian would say "always stand by the victim", if we want to build a better future.
So this June as we remember the planned genocide by the Indian Army- Let us remember the genocide we Indians are unleashing right now on the original inhabitants (Adivasi's) of middle india by labeling them as separatist Naxal's. (You can see the difference in the views of oppressing many & the oppressed few in comments & what Arundhati has written) .
And this is just one instance of killing dissent by a country trying to emulate the western distorted version of capitalism- "Growth for growth's sake".
Hopefully we live up to our potential & find the enlightened way to move forward, as we have been known to do from the times of Buddha & Nanak.
**Disclaimer: I do not want to get into the discussion of wether Jarnal Singh was a millitiant etc. etc. If hew was or was not...there were many ways of arresting him. (And he had been previously). Killing thousands of innocents in a planned attack is a different thing.