Ranjeet01

Sikhi has not grown in number as we do not go out to convert. We do not claim exclusivity and then go out to conquer and subjugate. We do not have some emperor of some large empire that becomes Sikh and then converts everyone to Sikhi. Nor are we between two empires who are too busy wiping each other out along with climatic change that enables you to capitalise and convert by force.

How can you take back something you never had in the first place?

The big part of the problem is the foreign NGO's who are targetting people for conversion. It definitely needs to be combatted one way or another

The girl made her choice, as long as she does not blame the "evil controlling Sikh patriarchal system" for her choice.

There is no gender inequality in Sikhi, plenty of women have done Kirtan in the gurdwaras. In the case of punj pyare, has there been any women that have stepped up and offered? If it is in the SRM, there is no problem, job done.

They do have a strong presence in Beas, but people in the Baba Bakala tehsil are not big fans of the Dera. In a lot of ways, they are like Walmart/Tesco. I agree that Beas has a lot of facilities due to the Dera, another reason is that there is an Army Depot there so there is a military presence there. SGPC will not do anything as RS does have a lot of tacit govt backing. The reason why Waraich pind sold up is because the first houses that sold their land got very good offers but after that the offers were not as lucrative but also the Dera were digging out the land around the homes which meant a lot of the homes were left on edge of the cliffs which meant they had to accept the offers from the Dera otherwise their homes would have subsided. However, Waraich benefitted from 24 hour electricity unlike other villages and they were the least affected village during the false encounters in the 1980s and early 90s due to their proximity to the Dera. I cannot understand why RS wants to expand into other villages, what is there to gain We should focus on our own, but there is no harm in looking at what is happening in the wider world.

Myth of the Caliphate. Those British Young Muslims are mostly subcontinentals, ancestors converted by the sword from by Aurungzeb, did they really follow the Ottoman Sultanate, what happened afterwards when Khalsa Raj reigned supreme, did they follow Caliphate? Was Sharia followed? When the British took over, did their ancestors follow Caliphate. What about when WW1, when the Ottomans allied with Germany and Austria, many Indian Troops (contained Indian Muslims) must have fought in Gallipoli in 1915 against Ottoman troops, where was thid Caliphate then? What about the Arab revolt that the British help to instigate (Laurence of Arabia) against the Ottoman Turks who were the Caliphs.

Has there really been a Caliphate, what does it mean really, having a Muslim Pope. When the Ottoman Empire had this "Caliphate", did Aurungzeb and the other Moghuls bow down before them? What about the Safavids of Persia? Like hell they did.

RS are nothing more than a cult. They are not very popular in Beas and the surrounding areas. They are like a large real estate corporation buying up people's land. They have judges and bigwig politicians in their back pocket. More people come to the Dera from outside Punjab. If you talk to people of Waraich pind whose village has been engulfed and now longer exists and have now have been scattered all over the local area will tell you how much they regret losing their village. Now the same thingis beginning to happen to the other villages as well. It was known that when Waraich village allowed RS to enter their village over 100 years ago,they were warned that it would be a decision that they would regret.

I think that a lot of different Sikh orgs focus on different things, such as SOPW on Sikh Prisoners and Seva84 (I think) on the victims of 1984. KhalsaAid seem to focus more on natural disasters and war torn areas. Maybe there is an opportunity for another Sikh org to step up to the plate or even another new Sikh Org to solely focus on Sikh issues whatever they maybe (prisoners, refugees, disasters,massacres etc)

K Phull The title "Minister of Faith and Communities" really means Minister for Muslims, just like the term "Community Cohesion" really means not upsetting the muslim community.

I guess the BNP teaming up with the Pro-Israel camp is the same way the Left Wing who are against homophobia, pro women's right can team up with homophobic, mysoginist Islamists when it comes to Jews and Israel.

WLS I do not think the fact that Arabs citizens being barred from IDF is a correct, there have been Arabs, whether Bedoiun or non Bedouin or Druze that have served. Further not every Jew is conscripted to be in the IDF, in particular the Ultra Orthodox.

The old misinterpretation of Islam chestnut again. What if the ISIS/Taliban/Wahabbi interpretation is the correct interpretation and the moderates are lying. It could very well that the peaceful muslims know this very well and are actually very uncomfortable with passages of the Koran and choose to ignore those verses and concentrate on the Mecca chapters. However, it is well known that the later more violent verses abrogate the earlier verses. This is why moderate faction do not stand up to the extreme element because Koranically they know they arein the wrong and the ISIS types are correct.

WLS I wonder how our children would feel about this Islamic appeasement in the decades to come. The problem with us Sikhs (at least most of us) is that we do have an instinctive understanding of the muslim psyche and we instinctively understand that the Israel-Palestine is not really a land issue, it is really a Islamic supremacist issue. What do you think will happen if there is a two state solution, do you really think it will end there? If we Sikhs are showing indifference here, at least we are being consistent because there are plenty of genocides hapoening in Iraq, Syria,there was a massive genocide in Rwanda, Darfur, we kept out out of it. All the people who are wailing about Gaza are very selective about their outrage, because they have not shown any outrage of any other genicides that have taken place.

From what I remember about the origins of Rakhri, it started when a King was going to battle, his sister tied the thread around his wrist to give him "Shakti" Which would mean the sister tied it "to protect" her brother. I don't think you are going to stop girls tying rakhri on their brothers. A cheap tacky piece of thread which costs 50p and you get £20 in return, the more brothers you have the bigger the bumper pay.Spend a few quid and get a few hundred pounds back with some suits from your Bhabi as well.

Just imagine all those western born Muslims who are part of ISIS will do when they go back to their respective countries.

Johnny101 You have misunderstood what I have said, of course the Sikhs of Saharanpur should get help from other Sikhs. What bothers me is the waiting for approval from our Sikh institutions. These places are bogged down by politics and buerocracy.

Good Point Chatanga It would be good to have back up. However, these are political organisations and will only provide support when it is favourable for them to do so.

Why do we need to bother whether this taksal or that taksal or whatever Sikh organisation to pull their fingers out. The aam janta Sikh needs to organise themselves, what is stopping them setting up their own defence forces.

Innocent people get killed everyday in different parts of the world, not just in the Middle East. The holy war in the holy middle east has seen plenty of bloodshed, what makes you think it will stop?

There have been several wars in 1948,1967 and 1973 - if you read up, it will explain more

I have seen that map shown all over social media, but it is inaccurate. Palestinians got beaten by Jordan also, read up about Black September.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordanian_occupation_of_the_West_Bank

The jpg map is inaccurate because between 1948-1967, Gaza was occupied by Egypt and West Bank by Jordan.