DiscoverSikhism

These recruits didn’t change their names to escape past crimes. They were men and women who knew that serving under Britain’s colours was a noble calling. That is still true today. Gurkhas, West Indians, Fijians, and other Commonwealth citizens apply regularly to join the British Forces. We don’t press-gang men who failed school. Our soldiers, of every rank, regular and reserve, are seen for what they are: determined professionals who volunteer to serve.

Sikhs have a long tradition of serving the crown in Afghanistan. They stayed loyal during the Indian Mutiny then distinguished themselves in the Second and Third Afghan Wars. In 1897 at the Battle of Saragarhi, 21 Sikh soldiers died defending a British Army post against 10,000 Afghans. Ten Sikhs have won the Victoria Cross.

So I’m not surprised that Sikh leaders are keen for their young people to follow their grandfathers into the Armed Forces. Nor to hear that the Chief of the General Staff is considering creating a Sikh unit.

Through a shared history and culture, regiments sculpt men into fighting units as varied as a surgeon’s instruments. Serving on operations alongside Royal Marines, Paras, Guards, Yorks and many others, I’ve seen the different options their styles of soldiering offer a commander.

Adding to that range can only be welcome, particularly today. As Vladimir Putin is showing in Ukraine, integrating with local forces is a vital tool of war. His men are pretending to be Ukrainian rebels to conduct covert warfare. Such capabilities are as important for good as for ill. The same adaptive integration the Russians are showing in Donetsk is needed to build nations as well as undermine them.

In Afghanistan, we used local knowledge when we could. Pashto speakers, me included, spent hours sitting with villagers discussing the actions we should take. We invested heavily in relationships and did our best to change minds and outcomes without fighting. Among the best soldiers for this work were Gurkhas. Brought up on Bollywood movies, they could get by in the Urdu that acts as a common language for the region. Nepali villages weren’t so different from Afghan ones, giving the Gurkhas an understanding of the Afghans that Britain’s Xbox generation could never reach.

A Sikh officer of the Royal Navy, whose turban and gentle manner broke down barriers, gave us access to the wealth of knowledge contained in Lashkar Gah’s small but important Sikh community. For Britain, the global diaspora of Sikhs makes recruiting from the Gurdwara (temple) even more important. Wherever we go in the world, wherever we train or partner, there is likely to be a community of Sikhs.

Having the ability to interact with at least some of the population on equal terms gives a reach modern armies might otherwise struggle to achieve. Satellites, drones and night vision goggles alone can’t give the basic understanding required to rebuild a society.

Our British Army imam allowed us to talk to the religious authorities and show that we were not enemies of Islam. One British Muslim intelligence officer was unique. Having spent his gap year as a medical assistant to a Taliban group in the early Nineties, he understood how small groups of Pashtuns organised to fight. He would never tell me his nom de guerre, “in case I ever need it again,” he said.

Organising for future wars means rethinking our structures. The Army has brought together regulars and reserves into single formations, expanded intelligence units and is thinking hard about how we partner with friends and allies. A new Sikh unit could be a useful part of this mix.

This would not be the echo of a long-dead imperial past but an innovation worthy of a modern battle-ready army. Just as Irish, Scots, Welsh and English units attract men with regional affiliations, and sappers, signallers and logisticians draw men and women with specialist skills, a new Sikh unit would allow the common ethos essential to seeing strong fighting spirit develop.

Sectarian recruitment is inappropriate, but recruiting based on skills or to give cultural depth to a unit – infantry, engineers, or intelligence – seems entirely right.

This is, after all, what a regiment is all about – men of similar backgrounds serving together to create the ferocity and compassion required to build a combat unit.

Not all Sikh recruits would wish to join. Some might prefer the panache of the Guards, though that would mean swapping the bearskin for a turban, as at least one serving Scots Guard does. Others might prefer a specialist career in, say, the Army Air Corps. But for those young men who, like many other Britons, want challenge and a chance to serve their country, an infantry unit of like-minded British Sikhs would offer a home their grandfathers would recognise and welcome.

6:20AM GMT 25 Feb 2015

Tom Tugendhat served as the military assistant to the Chief of the Defence Staff and is the Conservative candidate for Tonbridge and Malling

More than 13,000 people have contracted the H1N1 virus

Swine flu has claimed 38 more lives in India, taking the total nationwide death toll to 812, according to the latest figures released by the country’s health ministry on Sunday.

The total number of people affected by the H1N1 virus has now crossed 13,000..

The new numbers represent a significant jump from the 774 deaths and 12,963 affected individuals cited by the ministry just a day earlier, but a senior health official said there has been an overall dip in the number of fresh cases.

Earlier, private doctors in the north Indian state of Haryana had accused the government of downplaying the number of swine flu cases there and discouraging laboratory testing for the virus.

However, the president of the Haryana Civil Medical Services Association said that private hospitals are forcing patients to pay large sums of money for swine flu testing.

“The private sector has been creating panic in society just to exploit the situation to make more money,” he said. “The public advisory issued has been in the wider interests of people.”

There are more reports of vaccines and facemask shortages.

~ Sri Guru Arjan Dev Ji

The 24 hours following the assassination saw little violence or death. The pogrom took a night and morning to orchestrate and it was cousin Arun Nehru MP who came to the rescue as maestro and supreme-conductor of the carnage to come, when the killing was to begin, in what manner innocent Sikhs would be killed and what the police’s role would be.

Rajiv role was to ensure his cousin’s project had enough time to bear fruit by keeping the army confined in their barracks for a whole three days and when they were eventually dispatched, they were given no orders. 8,000 burnt Sikhs and gang-raped women later, he justified the violence in his infamous ‘When a mighty tree falls, it’s only natural the earth around it does shake a little’ speech. Following the killings, he was quick to promote the perpetrators of the violence to high office for their efficiency, including the new Information Minister, HKL Bhagat, in whose constituency whole Sikh neighbourhoods disappeared overnight.

For me and others this is the crux of the Cabinet papers. The current Coalition may have sidestepped the issue by stating there was no UK involvement in the June 1984 Amritsar attack, but they will find it hard to avoid questions relating to post-November 1984, their appeasement to a genocide ‘enabler’, the absence of any condemnation of his actions and a lack of any compassion for the November victims.

The final act - 12 September 1985

The Cabinet meets to ensure everything is done in their power to ensure Rajiv Gandhi’s visit takes place without incident.

‘There are major British contracts in India. It is highly desirable that the visit is a success.’

@DiscoverSikhism They [Conservative Cabinet] even tried to ban a sporting event in my constituency. Remarkable.

NEW DELHI: Kashmiri Pandits would be provided with "good quality" 1,000 apartments built at a cost of Rs 40 lakh each near Srinagar, a far cry from the shabby two-room transit accommodation provided to them in Jammu, to motivate them to return to J&K.

The government is also reaching out to the other refugees in J&K, the 5764 families who migrated from West Pakistan to Jammu Division and still do not have voting rights in the State Assembly though they have the same in the Parliamentary elections. A senior Home Ministry official said a letter has recently been sent to the state to expedite the process of granting these persons the Permanent Resident Right in J&K so that they can vote in the next state elections, buy property in the state and get recruited to state services and jobs.

"The Kashmiri Pandits were quite unhappy with the two room tenements built for them near Jammu which were only meant to be transit accommodation. Learning from that experience, the new apartments will be of a good quality and each will cost Rs 40 lakhs. The NBCC has approved the architecture and design of the said flats and will construct the same," the official said. Jobs with monthly salaries up to Rs 30,000 and an Rs 10 lakh grant for those who want to rebuild their damaged houses is also a part of the package. "Rs 500 crore was provided in this year's budget for rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits. A bulk of it will be spent on building the new 1000 flats near Srinagar," the official said.

Today in history, the Sahibzade (young sons of Guru Gobind Singh) were brutally bricked alive at a very young age.

Deceived by a hindu, the two sons of Guru Gobind Singh were arrested (with their grandmother) and offered safe passage only if they became muslims. Both refused, and so Wazir Khan sentenced the young children to death.

Mata Gujri, daughter-in-law to Guru Hargobind Ji, wife of Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji , mother to Guru Gobind Singh Ji is one the most prominent female figures in Sikhi and truly inspirational.

The Sahibzade and Mata Gujri Ji showed Sikhs how to live and how to die.

The library contains comprehensive information on Crimes Against Sikhs (Crimes Against Humanity), State Terrorism and Sikh Genocide with associated articles, books and reports.

There is a list of persons killed with a map showing locations of victims and police stations.

India needs you to keep silent. Learn the Truth.

http://www.discoversikhism.com/sikh_genocide/1984_delhi_genocide.html

We leave it to the Sangat to decide how to use the information.

The library contains comprehensive information on Crimes Against Sikhs (Crimes Against Humanity), State Terrorism and Sikh Genocide with associated articles, books and reports.

There is a list of persons killed with a map showing locations of victims and police stations.

India needs you to keep silent. Learn the Truth.

http://www.discoversikhism.com/sikh_genocide/1984_delhi_genocide.html

We leave it to the Sangat to decide how to use the information.

US needs to decide whether it supports Sikhs and stands for truth and justice.

Or, whether it will be like the UK and betray Sikhs, placing economic benefit in front of moral values.

Gregory H. Stanton, formerly of the US State Department and the founder of Genocide Watch, lists denial as the final stage of genocide development:

"Denial is the eighth stage that always follows a genocide. It is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres. The perpetrators of genocide dig up the mass graves, burn the bodies, try to cover up the evidence and intimidate the witnesses. They deny that they committed any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims."