Growing Muslim Alienation In India

[proactive]

What an <banned word filter activated> Khushwant Singh is, he supports 'complete autonomy' for the Kashmiri Muslims and yet supported KPS Gill's killing of Sikh youth during the Khalistan movement.

Look at the present dispute rationally, The Kashmiri Muslims went hyper because the JK Govt gave some acres of land for TEMPORARY huts to be built during the yatra. How many Hindus protest that the Indian govt has given billions of rupees to Muslims in order for them to make the haj. Muslims also don't pay any airport taxes for using the airports when they go on haj. Sikhs using Amritsar airport have to pay airport tax! No wonder Kashmiris like all Muslims can't handle it when they are made to face the consequences of their actions, they managed to stop the land allotment to the Hindu shrine by using their power of protests and the Hindus quite rightly have used their power in Jammu to blockade the Kashmir valley. So what's the big deal here?

As for the Kashmir problem, the Sikhs need to be neutral, we've seen Pakistan using all it's power to support the Kashmiris and yet they've achieved nothing. The Pakistanis have been using Afghanis and other Jihadis similar to how they sent their tribals in Kashmir in 1948. These Jihadis like the Tribals of 1948 know that the Sikhs are their enemies as well as after they've got their independence see what happens to the Sikhs in Kashmir. In 1948 over half of the Sikhs of Kashmir were massacred by tribals with some of the local Kashmiris also joining in. If you don't learn the lessons of history you are condemned to repeat them!

[Mehtab Singh]

In India you have only 2 religions: the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak, the oppressor and the oppressed. One always crushes the other, and mask it with names of religion.

[mann_kaum_layee_qurbaan]

In India you have only 2 religions: the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak, the oppressor and the oppressed. One always crushes the other, and mask it with names of religion.

amen brother.

but delhi massacres proved that even rich businessmen, were not spared for being sikhs. so much so that, even bharat mata da bhagat khushwant singh received a call saying you need to get out, we can't gurantee your safety....

so true to a point...

peace.

[lsingh]

In India you have only 2 religions: the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak, the oppressor and the oppressed. One always crushes the other, and mask it with names of religion.

amen brother.

but delhi massacres proved that even rich businessmen, were not spared for being sikhs. so much so that, even bharat mata da bhagat khushwant singh received a call saying you need to get out, we can't gurantee your safety....

so true to a point...

peace.

Khuswant Singh hid in the Swedish Embassy during the massacre. He could not trust an Indian with his safety despite being a good friend of the Congress leaders and being a Congress member. He did not arrange any shelter for the thousands of Sikhs who were masscred by Indians.

[Saahiba]

they shud be deported to countires where people of thier own kind reside.

Gurfatehji,

PRECISELY.. these muslims say " we do not want land... but we want azaadi " ... imagine.. they're enjoying freedom to speach and every damn freedom that one can think of .. and yet they want " azaadi " ...

They cannot imagine their plight if their citizenship was to get cancelled and they were LIBERATED to go anywhere they want.. that would be the AZAADI these people deserve.. then they should be asked to leave india and go wherever and we could'nt care.. these people should not be given any sort of a facility to run business-es or get jobs.. and then ask them.. buddy... are you happy with the azaadi now?

[virk30]

India import about 75% of oil and in the next 5 years, India is going to face huge oil crisis. This crisis will only inflame the already existing hatred between hindus and muslims and that is going to lead to anarchy and a possible attack by pakistan.

first thing is first about the oil crisis and economy, what the india economy going through same with china and rest of the world is normal, economy's have up and downs inflation and other problems, but India has a free market system and some of the big buisnesses in india are leading the way in alternative feuls, cause they know alternative feuls is one of the few next trillion dollar buisnesses. World doesn't trust oil anymore they want to move away from it and within 30 years many economists have said it the world will have moved onto alternatives and with buisnesses from india out investing in alternatives is only going to benifit india

Have you heard of what happends to sikhs and hindus in pakistan, how they are spit on, pushed around, discriminated against in every sector, first pakistan treat sikhs better or i don't give a rats <banned word filter activated> about what happends to muslims in india

I get surprised with UK sikhs either they hate muslims then demand they have rights in india while hating them when conversion issues come up, make a stand either your against them or for them

Also cause of these problems with inflation with America dropping interest rates which is hurting the world economy, and hurting the world economy cause american dollar keeps dropping, the scary thing is if bjp party comes into power, congress are just bunch of criminals but smart buisness men but criminals, and then you have bjp they are hindutva they hate congress but they also hate sikhs and christians and if they win modi will most likely become prime minister in the future and take over he's also rss king

[lsingh]

they shud be deported to countires where people of thier own kind reside.

Gurfatehji,

PRECISELY.. these muslims say " we do not want land... but we want azaadi " ... imagine.. they're enjoying freedom to speach and every damn freedom that one can think of .. and yet they want " azaadi " ...

They cannot imagine their plight if their citizenship was to get cancelled and they were LIBERATED to go anywhere they want.. that would be the AZAADI these people deserve.. then they should be asked to leave india and go wherever and we could'nt care.. these people should not be given any sort of a facility to run business-es or get jobs.. and then ask them.. buddy... are you happy with the azaadi now?

Sikhs have asked for the same including the current CM Badal.

In April 1992 about a dozen Sikh leaders representing the Sikh nation, presented a memorandum to the visiting UN secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali at New Delhi, seeking UN intervention for a plebiscite among Sikhs on the issue of Sikh State in Punjab. The top leaders included Gurcharan Singh Tohra, chief of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), Parkash Singh Badal, former chief minister of Punjab, and Simranjit Singh Mann.

The 11-page memorandum appealed to the secretary-general to intervene on behalf of Sikhs. This historic document charged the Indian government with violating human rights, denigrating the "Sikh religion, language, culture and values" and "enforcing draconian laws in Punjab".

[xHarinder_singh]

this is a GREAT article. PLEASE READ IT. It will be nice if the mods can put it in some sticky topic may be in the "sikh politics" section.

source: https://www.ihro.in/?q=node/162

Religio-political Discrimination of Sikhs in India: An Approach Paper presented to Ms Asma Jahangir, UN

Submitted by dsgill on Thu, 2008-03-06 05:16. Events Religio-political Discrimination of Sikhs in India

An Approach Paper presented to Ms Asma Jahangir, the visiting UN Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on Freedom of Religion or Belief, at Circuit House, Amritsar, on March 3, 2008

Sikhs surfaced predominately on the international scene in the wake of Indian army's invasion of the Golden Temple, Amritsar, in June 1984. The invasion was timed to coincide with the anniversary of the Fifth Sikh Guru, Guru Arjan Dev's martyrdom in Lahore in 1605. The milling crowd of thousands of Sikh pilgrims was fired upon indiscriminately. According to the Indian government's figures, 3,374 were killed in the military action. Sikh estimates vary between 5,000 and 15,000. It's a measure of India's inhumanity towards its ethnic minorities that no commission or human rights agency has investigated these licensed killings that included a large number of old men, women and children. In living memory, this is the first time that state authorities have, as a matter of deliberate policy, assailed and demolished the holiest shrine of a religious minority, the Sikhs. Not even tyrants like Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Ceaucescu did that.

For the first time it dawned on right thinking Sikhs that they can never live in dignity and honour in India. The rise of Bhartiya Janata Party, Shiv Sena, Rashtriya Sawyam Sangh, Bajrang Dal and others of their ilk are sounding the death-knell of Indian secularism, unity and integrity. Ethnic nationalism, amongst India's minorities, is a by-product of the degradation, frustration and humiliation in life suffered by their members. Such is the paranoia let loose that a simple demand for protection of the fundamental human rights and freedom of a minority is dubbed as anti-national. Little wonder that the minorities feel and are treated as second class citizens.

On October 31, 1984, two Sikh bodyguards assassinated Indira Gandhi. In the aftermath of her death, state-organised Hindu mobs murdered thousands of Sikhs in Delhi, Lucknow, Bombay and other Indian cities. Several hundred Sikh girls were raped and there was pillage of Sikh properties running into billions of Rupees. Compare this with the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by Nathuram Godse, a Maratha Brahmin, and of Rajiv Gandhi by a group of Tamil Tigers, another Hindu group. Not a single Hindu civilian was killed in the aftermath of these assassinations. Little wonder, therefore, that the Indian minorities think that there is one law for the Hindus and a separate for the minorities.

Indian Army's attack on the Golden Temple in 1984 and the demolition of the Babri Masjid (Moslem mosque) by Hindu fanatics are evidence of neo-Fascism and a shift towards a theocratic Indian state.

Punjab and the Sikhs

The history of Punjab during the last 500 years is primarily the history of the Sikhs. The culture of Punjab is the Sikh culture. It's the seat of Sikh religion (with its spiritual home at Amritsar) and the land of the Sikh Gurus and Sikh martyrs. Sikh Gurus and Sikhs generally have made the largest contribution in its economic, social and cultural development. They made disproportionate sacrifice in men and material in the cause of Indian independence. According to figures given by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who became the Education Minister in India's first cabinet after independence, these were as follows:

1.Out of 2125 Indians killed in atrocities by the British, 1550 (75%) were Sikhs.

2.Out of 2646 Indian deported for life to Andaman islands (the place where the British exiled political prisoners and hardened criminals), 2147 (80%) were Sikhs.

3.Out of 127 Indians sent to gallows, 92 (80%) were Sikhs.

4.In the Indian National Army founded by Subhash Chandra Bose in Japan, out of 20,000 ranks and officers, 12,000 (60%) were Sikhs.

The transfer of power in India from the British took place in 1947. The leading Moslem party, the Moslem League, contended that since India had been seized from the Moslems, they were the natural heirs to the political power after British withdrawal. The Indian National Congress claimed India on behalf of all the communities. The British, as the colonial power, recognised three political groups- the Indian National Congress, the Moslem League and the Sikhs, as having the locus standi to negotiate Indian independence. This reduced the status of the Congress as a party representing the Hindus only. In order to induce the Sikhs to side with the Hindus, Hindu leaders made all sorts of promises and thereby persuaded to allocate to India a larger portion of the Indian sub-continent than would have been the case if it was to be a tripartite division. Seduced by Hindu assurances, Sikhs decided to throw in their lot with the Hindus (Sohan Singh Sihota: Future of the Sikhs in India, Amritsar, 1970, pp 6-7).

In the month of July, 1946, the All India Congress Working Committee met at Calcutta, which reaffirmed the assurances already given to the Sikhs, and in his Press Conference held on the 6th July, there, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru spelt out the concrete content of these solemn undertakings in the following flowery words:

"The brave Sikhs of the Punjab are entitled to special consideration. I see nothing wrong in an area and set up in the North wherein the Sikhs can also experience the glow of freedom" (Statesman: Calcutta, July 7, 1946).

In these words, an autonomous State to the Sikhs, within India, was promised.

While the gullible Sikh leaders, placing complete reliance in this solemn undertaking given to them by the majority community, resisted and refused all offers and proposals made to them by the British and the Moslems- whom we now prefer to call, the Moslem League- proposing to accord the Sikhs a sovereign or autonomous status in the areas constituting their ancestral home-land between the river Ghaggar and the river Chenab.

Soon after the partition in 1947, the Indian authorities decided to come down heavily on the Sikhs and to curb their political power. In October 1947, secret instructions were issued to all the Deputy Commissioners in Punjab in the following terms:

"Sikhs as a community are a lawless people and are a menace to the law abiding Hindus of the Province. Deputy Commissioners should take special measures against them."

Sirdar Kapur Singh was a Deputy Commissioner at the time. He refused to comply with the illegal instructions and was eventually expelled from the Indian Civil service (Kapur Singh: Sachi Sakhi (True Story), Delhi, 1979, pp 4-5).

Sirdar Kapur Singh MP (Member Parliament) said in his Lok Sabha speech:

"I will, for want of time, skip over the story of the Sikhs' suffering during the last 18 years in an Independent India under the political control of political and Anglicised Hindus. I will merely refer to the reply which Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru gave to Master Tara Singh when the latter reminded him, in 1954, of the solemn undertaking previously given to the Sikhs on behalf of the majority community.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru calmly replied: 'The circumstances have now changed.'

If there is one thing that the Sikhs know too well, it is how the circumstances have changed!"

Instead of making Punjab a Punjabi speaking province, the Indian authorities, in 1966, divided Punjab into three parts: Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and the mini-state of Punjab. This came about because the Punjabi Hindus disowned their mother tongue, Punjabi, and instead voted for Hindi, a language a very small minority of the Hindus understand even today. Thus linguistic aggression was used to undermine the Sikh claim to a united East Punjab.

Sikhs articulated their fears of Hindu domination in the Anandpur Sahib Resolution passed at Anandpur Sahib, the birth place of the Khalsa, in 1973. In addition to propagation of the Sikh faith, the resolution called for the "creation of such an environment where Sikh sentiment can find its full expression." It also demanded the transfer of Chandigarh and other neighbouring "Punjabi speaking areas" to Punjab. The resolution also called for self-autonomy whereby Punjab would have control over all government departments and all areas of Punjabi life save for the portfolios of defence, foreign affairs, communications and transport and currency.

The resolution, in practical terms, seeks a Sikh homeland within India where the Sikhs can be master of their own destiny. Jawaharlal Nehru himself had suggested such a homeland in July 1946. It also seeks that in this region the paramountcy of Sikh interests should be constitutionally recognised. Nehru had given an assurance, endorsed by Mahatma Gandhi, that "the brave Sikhs of Punjab are entitled to special consideration." Hence the resolution was nothing but a document based on the promises made by Gandhi and Nehru to the Sikhs.

The second demand is that this autonomous region should include the adjoining Punjabi speaking areas of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan so as to constitute a complete Punjabi speaking region. This is in accordance with the pre-independence resolutions of the Indian National Congress which provided that in a free and independent India, Congress will recognise provinces on a linguistic basis. This principle has been implemented in the rest of India, for example Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, just to give two examples.

The resolution also seeks to bring the main contiguous Sikh population areas into a single Sikh region within the Union of India. In principle, one can see no objection to Indian rulers allowing Sikhs to converge on such a national or ethnic region if diversity of India and Indians is to be maintained.

Sikh struggle for Punjab rights-1982

On August 4, 1982, Sikhs launched an agitation from Akal Takht (the supreme seat of Sikh temporal authority within the Golden Temple complex), Amritsar. The main thrust of this Morcha (struggle) was economic deprivation of Punjab at the hands of the Indian government. As a matter of deliberate policy, Indian authorities have been looting Punjab of its wheat, grains, hydro-electric power and river waters, while refusing to site any major industry in the state. The Morcha thus derived its inspiration from the Anandpur Sahib Resolution.

The response of the Indian government, led by Indira Gandhi, was Operation Blue Star, on June 3, 1984. The Indian army, under the direct orders of Indira Gandhi invaded the holiest of Sikh shrines, the Golden Temple complex at Amritsar. Nearly 120,000 military men with helicopter gun-ships were involved. The battle lasted for five days, at a loss of 3,374 (government's version) Sikh lives including women and children. Simultaneous strikes were made at 38 other Sikh shrines, most of which are connected with Guru Gobind Singh. In total, all over Punjab, the army killed over 10,000 Sikhs to gain control of the Sikh shrines. The army thus devalued its military traditions and by attacking civilians' targets became a willing arm of the Indian politicians. It's no surprise that next to the Punjab police the Indian army is the most hated Indian institutions among Sikhs. In the attack, Akal Takht was demolished, the Sikh reference library deliberately set on fire and Sikh artefacts and Hukam-namas (edicts in Gurus' own hand-writing) were destroyed.

The invasion of the Golden Temple and the resultant killings in June 1984, the November 1984 Sikh carnage, the indiscriminate killings of Sikhs by the Indian security forces with impunity, and the collapse of the judicial and democratic process in Punjab brought home to Sikhs the true dimension and scale of Indian hostility and antipathy towards Sikhs. Every right-thinking Sikh rethought the Sikh leaders' 1947 decision to join Hindus in a united India. The general feeling was that the Hindu-Sikh partnership had failed abysmally and had been dissolved in favour of the Hindu. This feeling manifested itself in the form of a full-blooded declaration from the Akal Takht in January 1986 for the independent sovereign Sikh State of Khalistan. 1986-1989 represented the heyday of the Sikh struggle for sovereignty. In 1989 Parliamentary elections in Punjab, out of 13 MPs elected to Indian Parliament, no less than nine were committed protagonists of Khalistan. Pro-India candidates mostly forfeited their deposits.

On May 1, 1994, when several factions of the only Sikh political party, the Shiromani Akali Dal, unified themselves at the Akal Takht, the party in its historic Amritsar Declaration resolved the following:

"The Shiromani Akali Dal reiterates its commitment to work within democratic limits and renews its struggle for the creation of a separate region for the Sikhs where they as the avant-garde of Punjabi national culture, based on the holy Guru Granth Sahib, can enjoy the glow of freedom. The envisaged region, promised by the Indian National Congress before partition (of India in 1947) but never created, will fulfil not only the aspirations of the Sikh nation and Punjabis, but also help the minorities in it to realise their potential.

"The Shiromani Akali Dal is of the view that Hindustan (India) is a sub-continent of diverse national cultures, each with its own heritage and mainstream. The sub-continent needs to be reorganised with a confederal structure so that each culture could flower up according to its genius and add a unique fragrance to the garden of world cultures."

Whereas the Indian rulers have developed a notion that Punjab and Kashmir can be ruled by sheer force of arms. To believe that it is possible to subdue Sikhs in this way is to belie Sikh history and Sikh ethos. Ultimately India has to pay for this serious miscalculation.

On the economic front, 75% of Punjab river waters have been illegally and unconstitutionally diverted to non-riparian Hindu states, even though Punjab itself is in dire need of these waters. The World Bank has advised that diversion of these waters to distant desert areas is not justified on legal or economic grounds. The hydro-electric power generated at Bhakra-Nangal complex is likewise being looted and Punjabi factories have to suffer regular shut-downs because of lack of electricity. Punjab's wheat and grains are likewise used to feed India's starving millions. For obvious reasons, India would continue to exploit resources of Punjab. Hence, the Sikh struggle is likely to go on for a long time.

Thus the Sikhs in India are victims of human rights abuses, discrimination, population transfers, assimilation, deprivation of land and natural resources and the genocide.

So we are of the strong opinion that the Sikhs have the fundamental and inalienable right of self-determination by which they can freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development. Only then, the people of Punjab may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources based on international law. Moreover, in no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence. This is what has been affirmed by Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Human Rights as the term suggests are the rights that every human being is entitled to enjoy and to have protected. The underlying idea behind these rights is that such rights should be respected in the treatment of all men, women and children. These rights are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It covers Civil and Political rights besides Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

The Preamble to the UN Declaration of Human Rights, December 10, 1948, says: "Whereas it is essential, if a man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by rule of law."

Thus human rights must be protected as the foundation of freedom, justice and peace. And it is the responsibility of governments to protect the life, liberty and security of their citizens as proclaimed in the UN declaration and their Constitutions. The governments are expected to improve the living standard of their citizens.

We therefore urge the Special Rapporteur, Asma Jahangir, of the Commission on Human Rights on Freedom of Religion or Belief to do the needful to put pressure on the Indian government so that the regions populated by the religious minorities, especially the Sikhs and the Kashmiris, are liberated from the the above said discrimination and given justice to establish permanent peace in this subcontinent.

(Daljit Singh) (Justice Ajit Singh Bains)

Chairperson, Presidium Chairman PHRO

Shiromani Akali Dal Amritsar Punjab Human Rights Organisation

(Harinder Singh Khalsa Norway) (D S Gill) Advocate

Coordinating Presidium Member Chairperson IHRO

Shiromani Akali Dal Amritsar International Human Rights Organisation