Sikh History

12-04-2007, 01:13 AM

QUOTEHardcore Sikh bodies warn Congress for opposing Bhindranwale's portrait
Pioneer.com
Satinder Bains | Chandigarh
The radical organisations, including Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) led by Daljit Singh Bittu and hardcore Sikh organisation Damdami Taksal on Monday reacted sharply to the criticism of installation of portrait of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale inside Sikh museum in the Golden Temple complex at Amritsar.

These organisations have warned of dire consequences if the Congress and other outfits, mainly Shiv Sena, didn't stop interfering in the Sikh affairs.

The SGPC had installed a portrait of Sant Bhindranwale in the Sikh museum on November 29 after 23 years of his death during operation Bluestar in 1984.

PPCC president Rajinder Kaur Bhattal on the other hand met Punjab Governor Gen (Retd) JF Rodrigues and demanded to remove the portrait of Sikh militant leader from the museum. She also criticised Akali leadership for being a silent spectator to these happenings.

Daljit Singh Bittu while addressing a press conference here said that the Sikh community would not tolerate attempts to malign their martyrs. "If the anti-Sikh offensive continued, severe punishment would be given by Sikhs", Bittu said in a hard-hitting statement.

Bittu said the Congress and other parties have no business to meddle in Sikh affairs. This is for the Sikhs to decide who are their martyrs. He said the Congress and other organisations were pushing Punjab into circumstances that led to militancy in early 80s.

He said the Sikh reaction would be spontaneous if anybody tried to malign Bhindranwale.Â

Congress gave ticket to terrorist, now why they don't want Bhiderwalle in Museum.

12-07-2007, 02:02 AM

I am posting this in this thread because it is a major problem in Sikh community whether in India or abroad.
QUOTERich but barbaric 
puoneer.com
Punjabis who migrate to the West carry their gender biases with them, writes Anuradha Dutt

Punjabi immigrants in the UK, the US and Canada have for long been the symbol of the expatriate Indian success story, boasting of an affluent lifestyle, which stirs the envy of their cousins. Sadly, they seem to have retained the worst aspects of their cultural baggage in respect of gender and marital relations.

One now increasingly reads about the high incidence of female foeticide among Punjabi immigrants, especially Sikhs; of dowry related deaths and crimes; of females of the community being killed for the sake of family honour; and, forced marriages. These practices, typical of Punjab's land-owning feudal milieu, have all been transposed to the adopted land.

The well off immigrant Punjabi community in Britain has lately been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Some weeks back, there was consternation over a report prepared by the First Great Western Rail Company, dealing with the spurt in suicides on railway tracks. The most shocking part of the report was the claim that a "disproportionately high number" of victims were Asian women, with 80 per cent being Punjabi.

Apparently, one third of these suicides were found to have occurred along the rail track, which passed through Southall, an area dense with Punjabi Sikhs. Media reports indicate that the victims were compelled to end their lives because of family pressures and abusive practices such as victimisation over inadequate dowry and failure to bear sons.

The community is again being subjected to unflattering critical scrutiny in the wake of an expose of its penchant for female foeticide, conducted by the BBC's Asian Network radio station. The report states that pregnant women go back to India for sex-determination tests and to abort unwanted female foetuses. Compounding the ignominy is a revelation made by the population experts of Oxford University that at least 1500 Indian baby girls are missing from birth-related statistics in Wales and England.

The abnormal increase in the proportion of boys over girls led to the distressing inference that there was sex-selective abortion among mothers. And both Indian-born and British-born women were guilty of destroying female foetuses. Living in the West had failed to free them of abhorrent traditional biases. They were British merely in nationality, remaining strongly feudal in their social responses.

In Canada, where, again, Punjabis are in large numbers, advertisements for ultrasound clinics are reported to have appeared in Punjabi newspapers. A Washington-based clinic finds mention. Britain's Observer reports that after the alarm raised over selective abortions, Indian -- read Punjabi -- women are going to India for ultrasound and abortions as these are cheaper and safer there.

The practice of female foeticide is known to be rampant in Punjab, with the land-owning Jat Sikhs said to be the biggest culprits. In fact, the 2001 national census showed that India's most prosperous State also had the most skewered male-female ratio, with land-owning Jat-dominated Haryana following closely behind.

Punjab's Fatehgarh Saheb district was found to have the lowest child sex ratio in India, with 754 girls for 1000 boys. Subsequent investigations suggest that the state government has failed to counter the malaise by trying to enforce the PNDT Act (Pre-Natal Diagnostic Technique Act, 1994), which bans sex-determination tests and lays down penalties for the offence. Ultra sound is allowed only for detecting genetic flaws. But ultra sound and abortion clinics, disguised as maternity clinics, continue to thrive. Britain's Daily Telegraph reports that the sex ratio has fallen to 600 girls for 1000 boys in Punjab.

The genesis of the problem lies in existing social mores, which deny girls a share in ancestral land and property while considering them a liability on account of the huge expense to be incurred on their marriage by the natal family. The dearth of females has rebounded on the Jat community, both in Punjab and Haryana, with a vengeance as brides for prospective grooms are falling short. There is now a flourishing trade in supplying girls of diverse castes from Bengal, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Assam and other poor States for a hefty price. The irony is that it is not dowry that is demanded but bride price that has to be paid by the groom's family.

Acknowledging the gravity of the situation, the Akal Takht on April 13, 2001, issued an ultimatum against female foeticide. The highest Sikh authority threatened offenders with ostracism, but with little effect. The SGPC, which governs Sikh affairs, recently declared that unwanted baby girls should be given up for adoption to gurdwaras instead of being killed. Old habits, however, die hard.

12-12-2007, 01:11 AM

QUOTESGPC removes O'Dwyer's portrait from Sikh museum 
Pioneer.com
Jagmohan Singh | Amritsar
In order to avoid controversy over portrait of Sir Michael O'Dwyer, former Lieutenant General of Punjab, the Shriomani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) on Tuesday acted swiftly and removed the portrait from the Sikh museum in Golden Temple complex here.

It may mentioned here that SGPC after uproar over installation of portrait of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindrawala in the Sikh museum, had landed in another controversy over the portrait of Sir Michael O'Dwyer. The portrait was hanging in Sikh museum since the days of British rule.

An NGO Shaheed-e-Azam Sardar Bhagat Singh Youth Front, on Monday vehemently opposed the presence of portrait of British ruler in the Sikh museum and issued an ultimatum to remove it within seven days.

Sir Michael O' Dwyer was Lieutenant General of Punjab at the time of Jallianwala massacre on April 19, 1919 when Brigadier-General Reginald Edward Harry Dyer had ordered to open fire at people. O'Dwyer was shot dead in Caxton Hall in the heart of London on March 13, 1940, by freedom fighter Sardar Udham Singh, to take revenge for the Amritsar massacre.

A veteran freedom fighter 105-year-old Bapu Shingara Singh who was the eyewitness of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre had also joined issue with the NGO questioned the logic behind installing the portrait in the Sikh museum.

Chairman of Shaheed-E-Azam Sardar Bhagat Singh Youth Front Gurmit Singh Bablu said that Sikh museum of Golden Temple was meant for the portraits of martyrs but not for the traitors.

Bablu said that it was shocking for the people of Punjab and country to see the portrait of O'Dwyer in the Sikh museum. Adding further while quoting the history Bablu said that Jallianwala Bagh, a monument in close proximity of the Golden Temple stand witness to the 1919 massacre.

SGPC president Avtar Singh Makkar said the portrait of O'Dwyer has been removed and facts would be verified that in which circumstances it was installed in the Sikh museum. Moreover, it was installed in the museum around many decades back not recently, he added.

Bharatvarsh · 12-13-2007, 05:25 AM

QUOTESGPC to remove Gen Dyerâs portrait from museum
Varinder Walia
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, December 10

The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee has decided to remove the portrait of Reginald Dyer , called the Butcher of Amritsar from its Central Sikh Museum, with immediate effect following an ultimatum by an NGO, here today.

SGPC chief Avtar Singh said though the portrait of Dyer was put up with the intention he was killed by Shaheed Udham Singh who took revenge of Jallianwala Bagh massacre after 21 years , even then it (SGPC) did not want to get embroiled in any controversy over this issue . He , however, said a three- member sub committee, comprising three Sikh scholars, including Balwant Singh Dhillon , Jasbir Singh Sabir and Balwant Singh Jaura had been constituted to verify whether the portrait of Dyer conveyed the proper sense . He said the sub- committee would also study other pictures in the Sikh Museum . Any portrait which was not as per Sikh Maryada would be removed . He said if the portrait of Dyer would be conveying the correct sense then it would be re-installed. He , however, said the SGPC employees told him the caption of the portrait was self-explanatory , it was installed to project the bravery of a Sikh who killed the âbutcher of Jallianwale Baghâ.

The NGO - the Shaheed Bhagat Singh Yadgari Front has threatened to organise strong action against the SGPC if it failed to remove the portrait of Dyer in a week.

Earlier, the SGPC was embroiled in the controversy following installation of the portrait of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale . Though , Congress , BJP and certain Hindu organisations had been demanding removal of the portrait of Bhindranwale,but the SGPC and Akal Takht had described him (Bhindranwale) a âgreat Sikh martyr of the 20th centuryâ .

The portrait of the assassins of Gen A.S. Vaidya , a former Army chief , Bhai Amarik Singh , a former president of the All- India Sikh Students Federation and Maj Gen Shabeg Singh who had done fortification of the Golden Temple and Akal Takht before Operation Bluestar were installed in the Sikh museum much before the portrait of Bhindranwale .

Dyer is infamous for the orders which he gave on April 13, 1919 in Amritsar. It was under his command that 90 troops all armed with rifles and the Gurkhas additionally armed with khukris opened fire on a gathering of unarmed civilians, including women and children gathered at the Jallianwalla Bagh in what came to be later known as the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/2007121...ab1.htm#15

01-13-2008, 09:10 AM

Anyone who believes that Sikhism is apart of Hinduism is delusional and needs education. This is probably one of the first times i have ever heard of this and i am laughing my butt off right now.

There are absolutely no similarities between the two religions, the fundimental beliefs are different. One God vs. so many gods, no ritualistic beliefs in Sikhi, worshipping statues as god vs. getting help from the guru(phrophet) teacher to find your way to the one god who we worship; no caste vs. caste; The Khalsa as the pure who help the needy, protect the weak against tyranny and for the truth, and are not hesitent to give up their lives to protect the weak and the innocent and for the truth as the will of Guru Ji, just as so many Sikhs have done in Indian history so that we Sikhs could be here today practicing our religion. Etc etc etc i can keep going on and on about the fundimental differences.

If there are any Sikhs as stated on here a minority of Sikhs that beleive they are Hindus, then they have been misguided and brainwashed by certain Hindu groups(not all Hindus, Hindus are good people, but there is a minority that will do that just because of their ego and they want to dominate only with their culture and religion, so they make up stuff like Sikhism is apart of Hinduism or whatever else. There are many other examples around the world of people making up lies and Bullshit to their own ideas to try to brainwash people, weak people because they are threatened, insecure, and jelouse of them.

This is not uncommon around other religions as well, Christianity started from Jeudism in terms of thats where people converted from, before Christianity there was Jeudism, so some Jewish people consider Christians to be Jews, and Islam came from Christianity, before Islam Christianity was the religion of converted muslims, so some people say that the Quran is a lot like the Bible in many ways. Even though these are different religions created by God as different paths to God. So this may be the reason i think some misinormed and uneducated people part of the Hindu way of life think that everyone is apart of the Hinduism. They used to think before Bhuddists were Hindus LOL! another comletely different path of spirituality from Hindu beliefs. I think also because these different religions such as Sikhism, Bhuddism, Jainism etc all originated in India that a minority of people from the Hindu population might think/believe since Hindus are a majority in India they want everyone else to be Hindu too, and try to use false and their own information to make people denounce their faith, and some peole are dumb enough to beleive them. (Keep in mind i am talking about a minority of certain people, not the entire Hindu population, because good people are always in the majority). These other religions such as Christianity, Jeudism, and Islam all orginated in the middle east around the Jeruselm area, and they are all fighting for their own land there as well, Christians think that it is their holy land and none of it should be given to arabs (Muslims), and Muslims believe it is their land (Isreal) and the Jewish people are occupying it. So this tension between different people and religion is common in both holy religious lands ( the Middle east and India).

Anyone who wants to know any truth to anything needs to read the great Sri Guru Granth Sahib if they want to learn about the Sikh religion, the teachings and the words of God is available in english and www.Sikhnet.com. All this Bhuddism is Hinduism, Sikhism is Hinduism is all political propoganda put out by fools who are uneducated and are bias towards their beliefs and are not accepting of other religions such as Sikhism, Bhuddism, and even Christians and Muslims are not accepted by many people in India.

In regards to the Hindu paintings that were inside certain Gurdwara Sahibs, that is because when the British were controlling India, they put people who they wanted in charge of Gurdwaras, there were many masands running Gurdwara Sahibs and they installed these pictures of Hindu "Gods" and they were taken out(for obvious reasons) when the Gurdwaras returned to Sikh leadership. The only place where this is happening is in India where there is tiny uneducated minority that believes that Bhuddists and Sikhs are Hindus for reasons i listed above, but for the millions of Bhuddists and Sikhs living in the west nobody believes such a thing, and thats because there arent those kind of people here who are threatened and brainwash people to believe their belief.

Our Gurus gave us teachings from God, as a way to get to God, and the sacrifices they made will never be forgotton, they did so much for us so Sikhs can be here today and did so much for other religions as well the Great Sri Guru Teg Bahadur Ji gave up his head to save the Kashmiri Hindus so that they can practice their religion even though Guru Ji did not agree with those Hindu teachings. Thats how great our Gurus were. Everyone should have the right to believe in their own religion.

Your never going to convince people that are creating these lies and false information to stop because they have nothing better to do and have no life. The sane people anywhere just need to know that 99 % of the world knows Bhuddism and Sikhism are compltely different religions from Hindu beliefs, just as Christianity is different from Islam and Jeudism, and to ignore the 1% idiots who think that these religions are the same in any way.

Bharatvarsh · (This post was last modified: 01-14-2008, 02:46 AM by Bharatvarsh.)

Sukhpreet Singh, I quite agree, since sikhs want to be seen as a separate religion, that is their choice.

Now besides that, a lot of what you wrote is rubbish including why the Gurudwaras had paintings of Hindu deities, most of them were older than the British (who only took control of Punjab in the 1840's) and were mostly painted by sikhs themselves, if some sikhs want to whitewash their own heritage then that is their problem not mine.

No rituals lol, what exactly is baptism into the khalsa if not a ritual or how about the sikh marriage rites?

NO religion is without rituals and that is the unplatable truth for some people.

I can go on and on refuting all that nonsense about having no caste bla bla bla, but i will stop.

As for accepting Muslims and Christians, we are quite ready to accept them when they stop trying to convert us or exterminate us as "kaffirs" or "heathens" (their self designated terms for Hindus). If I may ask if you feel so strongly about it, why didn't sikhs accept Muslims in 1947 then, instead they were kicked out of East Punjab?

01-14-2008, 09:22 AM

Sukhpreet,

QUOTEAnyone who wants to know any truth to anything needs to read the great Sri Guru Granth Sahib if they want to learn about the Sikh religion, the teachings and the words of God is available in english and www.Sikhnet.com. 
and I'll wager you haven't read Granth Sahib.

Granth Sahib invokes the name of
Krishna over 10,000 times
Rama over 2000 times
Parabrahma 550 times
Omkar 400 times
invokes authority of Vedas, Puranas, Smritis - 350 times

Names of Nirguna Absolute - Jagdish, Nirankar, Niranjan, Atma, Paramatma, Parmeshwar, Antaryami, Kartar - are invoked 2600 times

Saguna deity - Gobind, Murari, Damodar, Vasudev, Mohan, Banwari, Madhusudan, Keshav, Chaturbhuj etc - 2000 times.

Can post a lot more, but you get the gist.....

Sukhpreet, we don't intend impose any religion/teachings on anyone. If your greivances are of personal or political in nature, that's a different matter. As far as history or spiritual arugment goes, it's a open-shut case.

Now you could argue if the mention couple thousand times of Hindu thought/dieties/Gods etc found it's place in Granth Sahib without any englightenment or inspiration to the authors (Gurus)
or
they just plagiarised it for the fun of it.

Those who want to deny their own Gurus are free to do so - but that empty (khali) rhetroic will not find place on this forum.

~~Pandyan~~ · (This post was last modified: 01-15-2008, 09:39 PM by Pandyan.)

It seems as if most of these sikhs have self-esteem issues because I've noticed that even before they engage in a conversation with you, they will state their non-Hinduness. Their identity is essentially a rejection of Hinduism. How pathetic.

QUOTEno caste vs. caste
Yea ok....Khatri sikh will marry Khatri Hindu before even thinking of marrying the lowest caste sikh. I would actually say that the caste system is more pronounced and visible amongst sikhs than hindus. These sikhs do pretty much the opposite of everything they say they don't do. Equality for women, look at Punjab's gender ratio. Killing of unborn female children, caste based gurudwaras...list goes on.

So sukhpreet, don't barge in here with all that nonsense, I don't want anything to do with your abrahamic meme of a religion and I could care less if it completely dissappears tommorow, which will happen eventually anyway.

01-16-2008, 12:34 AM

Punjab sikhs have highest percentage of drug, alcohol addiction, bigamy, female feticide, eve teasing, school drop out. DHarma had disappeared long time back, now it is just a facade left. Decline in population along with dharma is pretty rapid.

ramana · (This post was last modified: 01-19-2008, 12:57 AM by ramana.)

In a robe of mingled verses

Nice pictures of early Sikh history. Download and save.

dhu · 02-11-2008, 06:49 AM

Indian scholars intrigued on European outlook on Indian Religion

New Delhi, Jan.22 (ANI): The ongoing conference on Rethinking Religion in India in the capital, despite commencing on a promissory note on Monday, is making many Indian intellectuals skeptical about the outcome.

Many feel that the European scholars were finding it difficult to understand Indian religion in its true perspective.

Its just a beginning. We hope from next year of the conference, the discussion will intensify. The whole discussion needs to take a proper shape in the due course of time only after that the structure and framework of discussions could be properly understood, said Prof. K.D.Tripathi of Benaras Hindu University.

These people seem quite anxious about understanding India and perhaps thats why they are eager to rethink about religion in India. They are worried about the exterior of religion and its repercussions. They are comparatively less concerned about the internal aspects of religion in India, said Prof.K.D.Tripathi of Benaras Hindu University.

The route to our experience of Indian religion goes through language, art, music and literature. We can realize the significance of our religion from within, Prof. Tripathi said.

The debate they are having today was all started in the 16th century by Sikh Gurus. In Granth Sahib, there is a distinction made between Dheen which is used in Islamic context. And, the word Dharma which is used in traditional Indian context, said Jasdev Singh, Director of the Sikh Human Rights Group in U.K.

Indian academicians look more obsessed about proving to the white European about his grasp of European philosophy. They should instead spend more time studying the Indian reform movements, said Singh.

It is a sad indictment of the colonization process of India that no conference is considered credible without the white European participants. he added.

Prof.Rajeev Ranjan Sinha, Head of the Department of Sanskrit Vidya and Dean Faculty of Shramana Vidya at Sampoornanand Sanskrit University, Varanasi said:

We cannot be expected to understand our religion through European eyes or viewpoint. Without understanding the intrinsic examples and sources of Hinduism it cannot be covered by European concept of religion.

Hindu Dharma is not a mere ritual. In Europe, the belief and rituals are centralized and monistic. But Hinduism is diversified and it believes in pluralism. We must try to discover some alternative aspect in its own ocean, Prof. Sinha stressed after attending the first roundtable session I Janapada Sampada, said.

Hinduism of Gandhi and of a native farmer both are covered by the word Hinduism in Indian perspective he added.

At the end of the second days discussions, many felt that as of now the participants are trying to project their scholarly achievements but the visiting scholars are still far away from understanding Indian religion.

The conference is scheduled tolast till January 24.(ANI)

**acharya** · 02-14-2008, 04:59 AM

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/88aug/obrien.htm

A U G U S T 1 9 8 8
Holy War Against India
It is one of the grimmer and more ironic developments of the late twentieth century: religion, which is on the whole a benign force in Western societies, often combines combustibly with nationalism to fuel political murder in the Third World. In India, for example, the teachings of a militant guru are used to justify the atrocities committed by Sikh terrorists in their campaign to dismember the nation and establish "Khalistan"

by Conor Cruise O'Brien

INDIA, with 800 million people, is by far the largest democracy in the world in terms of population, and the second-largest secular state in the world, after China. When India became independent, just over forty years ago, and undertook to be a secular and democratic state, many people doubted whether it would live up to that commitment. Its experience of democracy, under the British Raj, was quite limited, and mostly confined to the generation immediately preceding independence. Secularism seemed to be even more improbable than democracy in the Indian context. Most Indians were, and are, firmly attached to a particular religion; relatively few Indians forty years ago could have grasped the nature of a secular state, or understood the need for such a thing. Extreme religious groups of one kind and another denounced the secular state as godless and therefore illegitimate.

The Indian state came into being amid the scenes of communal-religious carnage that accompanied the partition of the subcontinent between mainly Hindu India and entirely Muslim Pakistan. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, had resolutely rejected the idea of a secular state that could encompass both Hindus and Muslims. In his presidential address to the Muslim League at Lahore in 1940, Jinnah declared: "Islam and Hinduism are not religions in the strict sense of the word, but in fact different and distinct social orders, and it is only a dream that the Hindus and Muslims can ever evolve a common nationality.... To yoke together two such nations under a single state ... must lead to a growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built up for the government of such a state."
Return to Flashback: Indian Passages

Yet in the event, the fabric of India's secular state proved tougher than that of confessional Pakistan. Pakistan originally consisted of eastern and western sections, connected by a common religion but different in language and culture. The religious bond proved insufficient, and East Pakistan in 1971 seceded and became the independent state of Bangladesh. Secular India, however, has held together. There are now almost as many Muslims in India as there are in Pakistan. Muslims and Hindus in India may perhaps not have "evolved a common nationality," but they -- and Sikhs also, so far -- have managed to live together, within one state, for more than forty years now, whereas the "common nationality" of the Muslims of Pakistan burst asunder after twenty-four years.

03-10-2008, 09:23 PM

Govt to bring special marriage act for Sikhs

**shamu** · 03-11-2008, 12:30 AM

Another election preparation.

dhu · (This post was last modified: 03-24-2008, 10:12 AM by dhu.)

Prof. Jasdev Singh Rai

In Conversation with Jasdev S. Rai (UK)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=OEClQiLiO3I

- he says that Hindu Mahasabha never acquisced to an imposed religion paradigm.

additional videos
http://youtube.com/profile_videos?user=c...wetenschap

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Behind Behtzi
Jasdev Singh Rai

Colonial attitudes linger, finding their most xenophobic expression among liberal defenders of free speech

dhu · (This post was last modified: 04-05-2008, 09:57 AM by dhu.)

Sikh Nationalism is Sikh version of Hindutva.. lashing against the secular/religious imposition..

Rethinking Religion 2008: Platform Summary (Part 2 of 2)
Prof. Jasdev S. Rai
Transcript:
..
..there is an Indian academia, an Indian elite who's very much part of this discourse, but there is the Indian masses who's really not given a toss about this, in reality. This is why departments or religion don't work here.

If you qualify in a department of religion in, say, Britain, as a Christian, you could probably get a job as a priest if there's nothing else. If you qualify in a department of religion in India, nobody's going to give you a job in a mandir or a gurudwara.
..
The Sikhs have a very institutionalized system in the Gurudwaras, yet nobody qualified from any of the departments has ever been able to even get near to those institutions, because there isn't a receptions within the masses for the descriptions that they are talking about.
..
I feel that I've come to a discussion which is limited by its own discourse. and wouldn't it be easier for them to say let's see what they're saying, how do they perceive us, how do they perceive your limitations, the ones that you want to expand.
..
The tensions between, for instance, the Sikhs and the Indian state has never been about territory; it's about the secularity of the Indian Nation, that the Sikhs find very difficult to accept, find very uncomfortable.

And yet if you ask the Sikhs if they want a religious state, they would say no; they haven't quite articulated what they have been looking for, but whenever the secularity of the nation tends to hit them hard, they fight back. and there's a cycle here, about every 20 years, there's a tension, there's violence in the Punjab, because the secularity doesn't hit them.

Thirdly, someone talked yesterday about, I think --what's in a word if the concepts are going to be the same-- why call it a Dharma, instead of, religion. The point is that, we are in this century and most of the last century in the nation state reality of politics. It doesn't serve the Indian state or the Indian administration to have a whole new paradigm which is going to occupy the public space. .. It has to be marginalized within the personal domain, otherwise, it challenges, as we the Sikhs continue to challenge in the Punjab.

I mean that is the tension in us and the Indian state which hasn't arisen in the rest of India in that forcefully.

So Imagine if that occurs in a wider aspect, will the Indian state allow you to have a description which is wider than the concept of religion; maybe you might choose to the word -Dharma- so what? You might be able to study it a bit more flexibly. Are you conceptually going to change the whole state system in India.

An lastly, if you do, let's say you manage to shift it without the alternative concept of what the state form this, the politics form this emerges, are you not going to walk into the trap of Hindutva, this is what they're looking for. They're challenging the secular state and to anchor the whole thrust on something...... the Hindu Mahasabha has been here for hundred years.. so they've never really walked, got into this discourse about Hinduism being a religion; they've always seen it as something more than a religion.

But as someone pointed out this morning, that, or yesterday, that they haven't really been great intellectual, there's Arun Shourie and people like that, but they haven't quite intellectualized or articulated what they are, what the alternative is, and you might walk into, give it on a plate them.

so and, those are sort of ..

and lastly coming back to the Sikhs, i thinks there is, there's a telling thing that .. one of the sad things that what Indian academics is,.. they can be very good experts on some obscure philosopher in Europe, .. you can talk to them and they can tell you everything about some obscure philosopher in Europe, but they can't tell you about things in India

In the sixteenth century, the Tenth Guru said ..- Teesar Panth - the Third Panth, He wasn't talking about some mixture between Islam and Hinduism, as Buddhism was there, Jainism was there, Islam was there, and He'd already met Christianity; He'd already recognized there were two very alternative systems. There was a third system that he had created.

So solutions, .. that maybe just the Sikhs, but there's the Kabirs, there's so much stuff here within India maybe you should start looking within your own history, your own civilization, maybe you should start spending more time within India you might discover what the answers..

04-09-2008, 07:21 PM

Sotheby's withdraws Sikh armour from auction

04-14-2008, 07:57 PM

Sikhs celebrate World Turban Day

Apr 14, 2008
Amritsar

Sikhs observed World Turban Day here on Monday, the beginning of the harvest festival of Baisakhi.

Both the young and the elderly wore colorful turbans and took part in a mini-marathon through the streets of Amritsar before concluding the event outside the Golden Temple.

The event also included folk dances and popular Punjabi tunes. Girls wearing colourful scarves were the cynosure of all eyes.

"We want to spread the message that Sikhs and the turban are one entity. They cannot be seen in isolation. We want to bring back the Sikhs who have given up the turban and make them a part of the larger (Sikh) community," said Jaswinder Singh, one of the organizers of the event.

The event is organized annually to help the Sikh youths connect to their culture and religion.

Among the Sikhs, the turban is an article of faith that represents honor, self-respect, courage, spirituality, and piety. The Khalsa Sikhs, who adorn the Five Ks, wear the turban partly to cover their long, uncut hair (kesh). The turban is mostly identified with the Sikh males, although some Sikh women also wear turban.

The Khalsa Sikhs regard the turban as an important part of the unique Sikh identity. They are easily recognizable by their distinctive turbans. Some Sahajdhari Sikhs do not wear turbans. It is not uncommon to see Hindu males from Punjab wearing turbans signifying their close relationship with Sikhism.

05-12-2008, 07:12 AM

Apologies if posted before....

An exhibition on Sikh History inaugurated by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

Sikh Blog

Capt M Kumar · 06-21-2008, 02:04 PM

<img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/specool.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='specool.gif' /> While talking to ANI, Dr. Rajwant Singh, Chairman of The Sikh Council on Religion and Education, thanked Bush for extending these greetings to the Sikh community, said: âThe Sikh community is pleased with President Bushâs greetings and we appreciate this gesture by the President. Bush Administration and the White House has always stood with Sikhs since 9/11 tragedy and its negative impact on the community.â

Mega events will take place in Nanded, Maharasthra.
http://nri.in.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-do...id=1493990

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