laha@uicsl.UUCP (11/17/85)
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MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
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The brutal assassination of Indira Gandhi and the
bloody avenge by some irate Indians have triggered a net
debate which is gathering momentum as more of us are being
dragged into the vortex of this discussion. It is true
that the Indian army attack of the Golden Temple had
undermined the religious pride of the Sikh community but
definitely the temple was not in an impeccable holy state
when the 'sant' Bhindrenwala and his violent disciples had
converted it into a bastion of arms & ammunition and a
killing squad of the visiting police officials and others
who failed to see eye to eye with the 'sant'. Thus the
attack of the Golden Temple was an exorcising act, which
was inevitable, if not overdue, and it had the acquies-
cence of the majority of Indians. But it was grossly
unfair to make Mrs. Gandhi the target of the Sikh wrath
and vendetta. The death reward she was handed over by her
long trusted Sikh body guards had outraged most of the
Indians, presumably some of her party members, to espouse
a transitory and an unfortunate macabre. But the hue and
cry which was made and is still being made by the Sikh
community ironically twisting the main issue and cribbing
about the gory details of the violence, needs to be
ignored.
The post independent history of India is replete with
bloody riots. The massacre in Assam, the sporadic commu-
nal riots at Bombay, Bihar and other places, the attack on
harijan (a lower caste in India) at Maharastra, UP, etc.,
and the last but not the least the pro-Khalisthani gunmen
have spilled more bloods and claimed many more innocent
Indian lives than the gory Indira Gandhi episode. Just
because a large number of vociferous Sikhs are residing
abroad and Punjab wants to captivate the attention by hook
or by CROOK, let us not fritter away our time rationaliz-
ing the government action and the role of Indian media.
The Sikhs do have their religious, cultural and
linguistics rights protected in India like all other ethn-
ical groups residing there. The government of India has
also her rights to curb, if not exterminate, any seces-
sionist movement to maintain her sovereignty. In the past,
it had violently combated to abet the secessionist fac-
tions who operated under the pretext of political ideology
or the regional autonomy. This time the 'sant' and his
followers had maneuvered the secessionist movement under
the fortification of their holy temple and thereby aroused
the sentiment and passion of the Sikh community by and
large. The right minded Sikhs who left the hearth and
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haven at the West Punjab (which is now Pakistan) during
the turmoil of 1947 and migrated to India in a penurious
condition should acknowledge that they prospered and
entrenched their position at the different states of India
by the cooperation of the Indian government and the Indi-
ans - Hindu, Muslim, Christian and others. This evanescent
Sikh unrest is a parallax of their national spirit and may
be, in the long perspective, MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Mazumder, Pinaki
Coordinated Science Laboratory, U of I (U-C).
ihnp4!uiucds!uicsld
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