A CALL TO ACTION

I have heard nothing of this either in the Canadian media (currently obsessed with the Olympics) or the American media (as always, obsessed with America).  I did find this collage of news stories on YouTube.



I am annoyed. Why has not some unilateral action been taken by the Sikhs? These shaheeds are our brothers, this is our fight. We are absolute idiots if we expect satisfaction either from the government of Pakistan or from our dear friends in the government of India.

Truthfully, I expect nothing of the Akal Takht or the SGPC, but where is Damdami Taksal and Hazoor Takht. They boast of their weapons and their Sikh spirit. They kill innocent goats for their "Tilak of Blood," but seem as unwilling as the rest of the Sikhs of the region to actually do anything.

Do I have to jump on my winged horse and fly to Punjab and rally the troops myself?! I certainly hope not, as I have no winged horse and with my partially paralysed vocal chords can hardly speak above a whisper. 

 Earlier, I wrote

 THE SIKHS ARE BACK!!!

I pray I am right.

As a lone individual with grave physical disabilities, there's little I can do myself. 


 
I ask my sisters and brothers to rise up as one to end this menace once and for all. Let us forget our differences and stand united against these earthly demons and handle the situation as our forefathers and foremothers would have.

We can always go back to our infighting after the battle is won.

First published in Sikh Philosophy Network. 

Wings courtesy of rubyblossom

THE SIKHS ARE BACK!!

"When your enemy has you flat on your back, his boot on your face, his knife at your throat and his gun cocked at your temple, you laugh at him.  "Ha!  You can kill me, but you can't defeat me."  That's chardi kala.  That's what it means to be a Sikh."

By now we have all heard about our Sikh brothers being beheaded by the taliban in Pakistan.  The more it changes, the more it stays the same.

Perhaps they will next start bricking up young children?

First published in Sikh Philosophy Network.

From this latest article it seems that they really could have saved their lives by converting. And they refused. Let's let the world know:
 

THE SIKHS ARE BACK!

Three Sikhs beheaded by Pak Taliban

Mon, Feb 22 06:08 AM

Three Sikh men were said to have been beheaded by Taliban groups in the FATA area of Pakistan and their heads sent to a gurudwara in Peshawar.

According to information available with India late this evening, one of the Sikhs has been identified as Jaspal Singh. He and his two friends were residents of Badi near Peshawar.

(Late tonight, a PTI report from Pakistan quoted sources as saying there was confusion on the exact numbers, that two men had been beheaded and others were being held hostage. It said the body of Jaspal Singh was found in Khyber while that of Mahal Singh was found in Orakzai Agency. Gurvinder Singh and Gurjit Singh, the sources said, were among those being held captive.)

The men had gone to the FATA area for some work but were held by Taliban groups who apparently asked them to convert to Islam. Sources said the information so far suggests that the men resisted the order and were then beheaded.

Later, their heads were sent to Bhai Joga Singh Gurudwara in Peshawar. The incident has shocked the small Sikh community in Peshawar.

This attack, sources said, comes in the backdrop of repeated threats to the Sikh community there to convert if they wanted to stay on. India has in the past taken up the issue of security of Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan. While the Pakistan government has been committed to providing security to minority groups, this incident has certainly made matters far more dangerous and sensitive.

The Haqqani group and factions of the Quetta Shura along with the Pakistan Taliban are active in these parts of Pakistan which border Afghanistan.

Last year, Taliban militants took over shops and homes of 35 Sikh families and arrested community leaders in Ferozkhel, Orakzai Agency.

Express news service

So we climb into our Time Machine and go into the future: 

Vaisakhi, 1041 Nanakshahi (2510 CE):

Children , let me tell you about the ancient days, 500 years ago. It had been a difficult time for us Sikhs. Only about 25 years earlier, the army of India had attacked Harimandir Sahib in Amritsar - No, no, Inderjeet, this was before Khalistan had been freed and Amritsar was in the old country of India - Anyway, untold numbers were killed then and later that year, Mrs. Gandhi had been executed by us Sikhs.


This was followed by the genocide of the Sikh Quam all over India (except in Bengal, but that's another story). So it was a difficult time. There followed years of persecution in Punjab and I'm afraid many Sikhs were much disheartened, their chardi kala hibernating. Then one day in 541, a couple months before Vaisakhi, some Singhs were kidnapped by a group of Mughals called Taliban. They were offered the choice: Convert or die!


One day later, their heads were delivered to the gurudwara in Peshawar. My children, that was the beginning of the Great Rebirth of the Sikh Nation, when we all woke up, reclaimed our chardi kala and returned to being Sikhs of the Guru once more...






So now we sit here in our capital each year and remember and celebrate and enjoy our great land.

6 June 1984-2009 If Ye Break Faith...

Another sleepless night. I had not intended to write a special post for 6 June this year, as there are so many others. Last night, however, as I lay awake, some thoughts came to me that I feel the need to share.

Again I saw the billowing clouds of smoke rising from Akaal Takht, choked on the acrid air, gagged at the smell of blood and decomposing bodies.




After Sohila, as I was logging off, this very famous picture flashed for a moment on my monitor:



and a poem that I learned in elementary school came into my mind:

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses [and Khandas!], row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.



— Lt.-Col. John McCrae (1872 - 1918)

[For the story of the poem and its historical context, click on the title]

I saw the saffron turbans of the shaheeds as those poppies growing "in Flanders fields" and thought about the meaning of those turbans and the kes they protected. I considered the meaning of our kes.



I know this is a topic that has been beaten to death, and you may well be sick and tired of it. Please indulge me and read on. My husband and son and other family members achieved their shaheedi protecting and honouring that kes; I am left alive to speak for them.

"If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep."

Those are haunting words, aren't they?

Is not dishonouring your kes breaking faith with these brothers who lie dead a mere 25 years ago? Please think about this, think very deeply. Does their sacrifice not serve as an inspiration to honour them by keeping your hairs unshorn? Is it really such a big sacrifice for you to keep your hairs, for my brothers to refrain from cutting and shaving, to tie a turban and walk proudly in the shadow of our Gurus? Is it really such a big sacrifice for you to keep your hairs, for my sisters to refrain from plucking and threading your eyebrows, for refusing to shave the hairs of your legs and underarms and "bikini line." We are all familiar with the picture of the scalping of Bhai Taru Singh, blood pouring over his body from his bleeding head. (If you aren't, here it is:)



Our mothers and fathers, our sisters and brothers, our daughters and sons, have willingly become sacrifices for this part of our bodies we Sikhs hold sacred. If it really is a sacrifice, is it not a sacrifice worth making?

"If ye break faith with us who die..."

Please, if you have kept kes and are considering shearing it, on this Day of Remembrance, think of this great sacrifice of our beloved shaheeds and make your own much smaller sacrifice.

"If ye break faith with us who die..."

And, if you have kept kes in the past and have stopped, today is a good day to reconsider. Words such as mona and patit are easily thrown around, I know, and I have found few Sikhs who want these words applied to them. These words can be left behind. Our hairs are very forgiving. Cut them or shave them, they grow back. Pluck them - it takes a bit longer, and they still grow back. Shearing is a deed that can, to a great extent, be undone.

If ye break faith with us who die..."

If you have never kept kes, today would be a good day to start. Yes, I know your friends, colleagues, co-workers might think you eccentric, strange, even silly, you might face ridicule and lack of understanding, it won't be easy. What in life that is worth accomplishing is easy? And who ever said being a Sikh is easy?

So...please consider the meaning of kes and start today becoming a "visible Sikh" in the tradition and footsteps of our Gurus, our sants and our shaheeds. Tie a turban today. You do not have to wait until your hair are long to do so. If you don't know how, go to your nearest gurudwara; I guarantee that there are those who will be delighted, overjoyed to teach you. And, yes, this applies to girls/women as well as boys/men.

If you are still not inspired - or even if you are - take about ten minutes and watch this:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnWcEOYR3lE

From Raj Karega Khalsa

This Shabad is by Guru Nanak Dev Ji in Raag Raamkalee on Ang 941 of Dhan Dhan Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji Maharaj:

The Gurmukh lives in Fear of the True Lord.
The Guru's Bani refines the unrefined of the Gurmukh.
The Gurmukh sings the Lord's Immaculate Praises.
The Gurmukh attains the pure, supreme status.
The Gurmukh meditates on the Lord with every hair of his body.
O Nanak, the Gurmukh merges in Truth. The Gurmukh is pleasing to the True Guru; this is contemplation on the Vedas.
Pleasing the True Guru, the Gurmukh is carried across.
Pleasing the True Guru, the Gurmukh receives the spiritual wisdom of the Shabad.
Pleasing the True Guru, the Gurmukh comes to know the path within.
The Gurmukh attains the unseen and infinite Lord.
O Nanak, the Gurmukh finds the door of liberation.



And while we are at it, think of the blood of our shaheeds that was spilled on this day, the blood that turned the water of our sacred sarovar red, the blood that the army soldiers told our sisters and daughters to drink to quench their thirst, think of their blood, then go to the gurudwara sahib and give some of yours so that others can live.

We Will Never Forget

For a couple of years, I have been thinking about this twenty-fifth anniversary of the carnage of 1984. I have been fervently hoping that the Sikh community would wake up the world about the atrocities of that year in India, in fact the atrocities that seem to be a part of everyday life in that country, that legal fiction doomed ultimately to failure. I have been hoping we could awaken the masses of oppressed people especially in India and stir them to action. I have been looking forward to the chance of using this year as a springboard to accomplishment, a big step toward the establishment of our homeland from the rubble of what was India.

And I still am.

Imagine what we could accomplish if the various oppressed groups who cope with discrimination on a daily basis - the Dalits, the Tribals, the Christians, the Muslims, the Hindu Widows...I could go on and on...and, of course us Sikhs - imagine that we all worked together to end the injustices meted out to us by the corrupt Republic of India. It almost boggles the mind. India will disintegrate one day. The only question is, how will Bharata Mata fall? Will it be peaceful, as in the old Soviet Union, or will it be by horrible bloodshed as it was at the time of Partition when the Raj was divided and our Punjab was torn into two bloody pieces? Time will tell.

What I had not anticipated was the emotional toll that reliving, on a daily basis, the horrors of that time would have on me. Those events are so much a part of me, with me 24/7/365 that it is rather like being a woman; I am a woman, of course, it's always there, always a part of who I am, but I don't sit thinking about it all the time. I don't relive the oppression wrought upon my sisters throughout the ages, the oppression that continues even now, in both obvious and subtle ways. In the same way, I generally don't sit and relive all that happened. It's just there. Now, however, it has become very immediate to me. Looking at the old pictures, the candidacies of Tytler and Sajjan Kumar, remaking the pictures of the burnt Akal Takht, over and over, is taking its toll on me. I hope it doesn't show too much. And I most fervently hope that it will prove worth the effort and pain involved. I have great faith that the efforts of all of us survivors who have taken this burden on ourselves will be richly rewarded.

And now, yet another petition, an important one from the good folks at the 1984 Accountability Project. This one calls for a full international investigation into the role of that rascal rajiv gandhi as well as the culpability of the congress party in the slaughter of Sikhs in November 1984. If you care about the sacrifices of our shaheeds at that time, as well as the well-being of us survivors, please take a minute to sign this petition.

SOLIDARITY FOREVER!

http://www.nov1984.org/

The November 1984 Accountability Project seeks to obtain justice for the thousands of innocent Sikhs who were murdered, tortured, raped, beaten, and burnt alive during the massacres in Delhi and throughout India in November, 1984. During this carnage, Sikhs were burnt alive with petroleum in the streets, women were gang raped, some by police, and infants were put to death. To date, the people responsible for organizing this carnage are yet to be brought to justice.

We seek and an independent international inquiry into former Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi's and the Congress party's role in planning, organizing and executing the November 1984 anti-Sikh pogroms in New Delhi, India and the immediate removal of Rajiv Gandhi's name from all public monuments, airports, roads, stadia, parks, sports awards, and professorships.

Join the quest for justice. Sign the petition http://www.nov1984.org/petition/#Signdemanding justice for the victims of the 1984 pogroms.
November 1984 Accountability Petition Demands

• An independent international inquiry into Rajiv Gandhi's and the Congress party's role in planning, organizing and executing the November 1984 anti-Sikh pogroms in New Delhi, India and
• The immediate removal of the name of former Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, from all public monuments, airports, roads, stadia, parks, sports awards, and professorships.
  

"The blackened, stiff corpses lay against the walls… with their eyes open. The burn victims were Sikhs, identifiable only by the steel bracelets worn on their wrists."
(Washington Post, Nov. 3, 1984)

"Like being a Jew in Czarist Russia or Nazi Germany" Violence makes Sikhs fear for their future in India."
(New York Times, Nov. 11, 1984)

"When the history is written of the horrors that followed the assassination of Indira Gandhi, the 32nd block of Trilokpuri Colony will be remembered as a place where civilization disintegrated."
(LA Times, Nov. 6, 1984)

******************************

Petition

To: Justice Navanetham Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Cc: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, India
Cc: President Barack Obama, United States of America
Cc: President Hans-Gert Pöttering, European Parliament
Cc: Louis Moreno-Ocampo, Prosecutor, International Criminal Court

Respected Justice Pillay,

We, the undersigned, call for

An independent international inquiry into Rajiv Gandhi's and the Congress party's role in planning, organizing and executing the November 1984 anti-Sikh pogroms in New Delhi, India

and the immediate removal of the name of former Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, from all public monuments, airports, roads, stadia, parks, sports awards, and professorships.

By conservative estimates, 4000 Sikhs were killed in the first week of November 1984 on the streets of India's capital. Organized armed groups, equipped with lists of Sikh households, overtook the city, as a curfew was imposed, and law enforcement was either absent or facilitated the atrocities.

These organized massacres followed the assassination of Rajiv's mother, the Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, by two Sikh bodyguards, who were avenging the attacks against Sikh shrines in June, 1984. On June 4, 1984, a major Sikh religious holiday, Indira Gandhi had ordered Indian troops to storm the holiest of the Sikh gurdwaras, Darbar Sahib, and 31 other gurdwaras, resulting in the brutal deaths of thousands of innocent pilgrims.

Rajiv had been sworn-in as the new Prime Minister immediately after the assassination, and very soon thereafter, the carnage against Sikhs ensued. For four days following this, Sikhs were killed with complete impunity in New Delhi under express orders from many prominent politicians such as H.K.L. Bhagat, Sajjan Kumar, and Jagdish Tytler – of Rajiv's political party.

In the April 26^th, 2009 edition of the Indian Express, an eye-witness quotes Tytler as telling a crowd, "I had assured you that you kill Sikhs and nothing will happen to you. I had given a promise to the Centre. Despite this, by killing least number of Sikhs, you have lowered my prestige." This on-the-spot involvement of high ranking party members, and inaction and worse on the part of the police, complete with names of perpetrators in many cases, was first documented by a group of human rights activists (all non-Sikh) in the report, "Who Are the Guilty?," within a month of this massacre.

Shortly afterwards, Rajiv commented at a rally, "But, when a mighty tree falls, it is only natural that the earth around it does shake a little." Not only that, Rajiv promoted politician Bhagat to the rank of cabinet minister, and rewarded Tytler with an appointment as minister of state. The assiduous efforts made ever since then by the Indian state to shield the guilty of 1984 are now fully documented in the book, "When a Tree Shook Delhi," by Manoj Mitta and H. S. Phoolka. We submit that such an extensive and intensive cover-up, which still continues as the Indian Express article of April 26, 2009 cited above clearly shows, would have been impossible to initiate, and sustain for so long, unless Rajiv was deeply implicated in these mass murders from the very beginning.

International criminal law recognizes the primacy of holding the one with the maximum responsibility most guilty in order to break cycles of impunity. "Command responsibility" holds a superior legally responsible for human rights violations by subordinates if the official knew or should have known about these violations but failed to prevent them or punish those who committed them.

We therefore call for an inquiry into Rajiv Gandhi and the Congress party's responsibility for the November 1984 massacres. The dozen odd kangaroo courts and commissions set up by the Indian government over the past 25 years have served to do nothing more than insult the intelligence of the Sikh community in general, and the surviving relatives of the victims in particular, who still continue to suffer due to the carnage that was unleashed on the streets of Delhi. This partisan record of Indian courts and the inaction by the government in the past 25 years necessitates that such an inquiry be held by an international body, one that is acceptable to Sikhs world-wide.

We also call for the immediate removal of Rajiv Gandhi's name from all buildings, awards, monuments, etc. This rampant and tasteless glorification of a very doubtful political character is a constant daily re-victimization of the Sikhs, and a reminder to them of the justice that has almost totally eluded them so far.

That "history repeats itself" couldn't be more true than in the parallel between the Sikh massacres of 1984 under the Congress party leadership and the Muslim massacres of 2002 under the Bhartiya Janta Party leadership. Narendra Modi should similarly be indicted and tried for his instigation and planning of ostensible pogroms that left thousands of Muslims dead. We call for justice to all, regardless of which Indian party is in control, and regardless of the faith or class of the victims.

Rajiv Gandhi's heirs are deluding themselves if they think that they can make the Sikhs forget the facts about 1984. At the very least, they should have desisted from naming even small-town parks in the Punjab after him. Unless their objective in so doing was not to let the Sikhs forget 1984? For, they are only succeeding in constantly reminding the Sikhs of their humiliation, by confronting them, day in and day out, with the name, and often the picture, of the person whom the Sikhs hold the most culpable.