Deconstructing Durga

#53 JANG

How about changing Indian constitution so when Sikh gets married they don`t have to declare that they are Hindus in order to get marriage certificate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#52 modern

we get G Nanak Jayanti and Buddha Purnima holidays in school. what concrete steps do you propose on those lines to increase hindu sensitivities towards separateness? how about the jain community and the mathurs and agrawals and iyers and palghatis?

kaurasach # 31

Confronting me is not the issue or the topic.

That is my point. I appeal to Hindus because they form a large majority in India. As such, Hindus must address their ignorance of the many current concerns of Sikhs and Buddhists.

Being ignorant, many Hindus dismiss even moderate voices within these communities. They fail to show appropriate understanding when confronted with opinions contradictory to their own. One smells an unstated haughtiness - an assumption of knowing Sikhs and Buddhists completely since these communities are `so close to their own.`

IMHO, this situation is undesirable from everybody`s point of view. It leads to blaming and labelling people (confronting them, in your words) rather than looking at some genuine issues.

#45 Beejay

many of the problems of backwardness in india are very simply identified as due to resistance to evolution. we are overprotective of our children and scared of outsiders (the biradari systems and close family bonds is actually a sign of high insecurity).

the biggest cause of lack of evolution is the fact that we arrange our childrens marriages. this allows incompetent genes to propagate. no-good duffers get to bring in children in this world due to ``family support systems`` which is morally repugnant. the sychophancy and corruptions sets in right at the beginning. then we glorify this stupidity by nice names like family ties etc. not allowing prospects to seek their mates is against evolutional chemistry (no endorphines in play if the phuphi brings in a proposal) and more akin to animal husbandary. when one does not participate in the most primordial of struggles honestly, moral corruption is but guaranteed.

end of sermon.

Harimau:

People south of the Vindhyas supported Rajiv Gandhi as well in 1984 and they were the ones who voted more in droves in 1989 for Congress.

The puropse of historic analysis is to learn from past mistakes and to avoid them in the future.

Indira Gandhi has been dead for 2 decades now. As with all rulers, anywhere and in any time, she must have made mistakes, acted in haste and anger, perhaps reaped in sorrow or left that to generations coming after her . . . but . . .

Let us take a look at the Indian political scene after Lal Bahadur Shastri`s demise. What choices did India have? Gulzari Lal Nanda? Morarji Desai? Yashwantrao Chavan? Where was the opposition to the Congress? What caused the great split in the Congress (the Kamraj Plan)? Why weren`t the splitters able to ``sell`` themselves and their wares to the Indian voters in the elections later on? What brought Indira back into power after the Desai intelude?

Indira, like her father, was repeatedly voted into power. Why?

And now, again, the Congress has been voted into power again (though it has a hue and complexion quite different from the Congress headed by Indira Gandhi), why?

These are some of the questions that needed to be asked and answered in Farzana Verseys article . . . or was she just out to publish an indictment of Indira Gandhi on the basis of selective historical vignettes and subjective ruminations.



Siddiqua Haqnawaa

Wonderful article! You are saying something that is well known by many people in their heart, but rarely acknowledged openly. However, I do feel that Indira, an opportunist, merely took advantage of the real underlying weakness endemic to the Indian subcontinent-- the trait of sycophancy. Indira was perhaps just one symptom, the disease has long survived that individual and has had other manifestations (both before and after Indira). I am not an expert, but it appears that the root of THAT problem can somehow be traced to the way we bring up our children, especially the ``obey your elders`` doctrine. In most families, we stifle independent thinking and the ability to question authority in our children at a very early stage. After all, ``the child is father of the man``, how can we expect the grown-ups to act different from the way they were conditioned to react from infancy? It just maybe that the reason that people in Pakistan accept the rule by the army so easily, and those in India accept Indira`s emergency without protest, are one and the same. We need more writers like you to change that mindset. The country will not be truly free until that happens.

[Isn’t it significant that Sanjay, despite his tragic and untimely death, is still considered some sort of hoodlum,....]

If Sanjay`s death was untimely, it is only because it came too late. And I don`t see anything tragic about someone collecting the ultimate Darwin Award for believing Nature`s laws don`t apply to him just because he could flout man-made laws as the son of the Prime Minister.

[... whereas Rajiv has always been seen as a scrubbed Mr. Clean?]

Folks north of the Vindhyas need to have their gene pool chlorinated periodically for they are the ones who believe that Rajiv was Mr. Clean.

Ref mshergill #10

[Mrs G used Bhindranwale to break the back of the Akalis, but soon realised that he had a mind of his own, and one needs to be careful of the snake that you feed milk to everyday that it might just bite you one day.]

Indira Gandhi was the snake fed by the Indian nation. We got bitten in return.

Simran

Given that you have a thin skin, and are a follower of a truly great religion, I hesitate to ask, but..really, does your stupidity know no limit?

Think hard. There is no need to rush into an answer. I will be gone for some days.

Simran:

A good site, though some places there is a need for clarification. For example, it says the Army took control of Gurudwaras which is against Penal Code Section 295-298 which prohibits occupation of a religious place. The reality is that Punjab was placed under Armed Forces Special Powers Act which gives the Army freedom to arrest and detain and lifts normal restrictions. This Act has been in place in Kashmir since the past `14 years and the Army has a standing policy to enter any mosque where there may be militants or weapons.


WRT Blue Star, no one whose primary loyalty is to India the country (not to be confused with Indira) would deny the need for action against Bhindranwale and his followers. Any self respecting republic would do that. What is rightly criticized is the modus operandi. You will not see similar criticism for Operation Black Thunder. The Riots are ofcourse a blot on the GOI as well as the Hindu community at large for voting in a congress government after that.

But what of the future? Tell me where you stand on that?

Simran:

Saw the ``quotes`` there but nothing to prove their veracity. Besides, the site itself is one sided, not objective. Not to say that it is all lies, but it gives only one side of the story. Reality was so much more complicated.

Stuka,

I have lived the majority of my life in India. The quotes are from www.saintsoldiers.net. As for the appeal of Indira Gandhi, I`m sure she must have made an effort to reach out to the dispossed, whether she accomplished anything for them or not is I guess, a separate issue. When I mentioned her popularity, I meant among the middle class where most of my interaction, unfortunately, has been.

The comments about Khushwant Singh were in response to an article posted by Dost-Mittar. Those are my opinions from my reading of Khushwant`s literature.

Simran

Mohar11:

``But I do see a red flag whenever somebody says ``(put-your-religion-here) is under threat``. I am very wary of slogans like ``Hinduism is in danger`` ... or ``Sikhism is in danger`` ... or ``Islam is in danger``. Because - we have already seen the consequence of such slogans and such demagoguery.``

And one is quite justified in seeing that. Religion is not the business of the state. Problem is when religious sentiment is manipulated. Historically there wasn;t a Sikh grievance in Punjab. There was a Punjabi grievance, those suffering were agricultural based people, mainly Jatts. These Bhappas were sideliners during the whole time.

Infact even when the troubles ended in Punjab it was basically an internecine warfare pitting Jatt Sikh versus Jatt Sikh. Both Punjab Police and militancy was Jatt dominated.

Simran:

````I don`t give a damn if the Golden Temple and whole of Amritsar are destroyed, I want Bhindranwale dead.`` ``

What is the source of this quote? I have read extensively on Blue Star and have never come across anything like this.

``It is a pity that many Indians still hold Indira Gandhi in reverance although I will never understand why``

Quite easy actually. However much oone may dislike the fact, truth is that Indira Gandhi`s hold on the imagination was bigger than individual problems. She went over the middle class and appealed to the dispossesed. Same reason Laloo is popular and same reason Bush gets 50% of the US vote.

Khushwant Singh is not and has never claimed to be an authority on Sikhism per se. He is a good translator and compiler of facts. His History of the Sikhs was quite well recieved by the Sikh community and they turned against him only when he spoke against Bhindranwale. If anything Khushwant Singh is consistent. He abused Bhindranwale openly and does the same to the BJP/RSS/VHP combine today. For the same reason.

Simran, have you ever lived in India? I don`t mean 5 month visits, but really lived there?

http://www.gulfnews.com/News/2004/1101/default.asp

Gulf News, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Monday, November 1, 2004

EDITORIAL
Indira Gandhi`s legacy lives on

It`s no accident that India`s current Congress party president deliberately imitates her mother-in-law, in her speech, dressing and the furious pace she adopts when she walks.

Sonia Gandhi may be a pale imitation of the original `Mrs G`, but she knows that twenty years after her death, Indira Gandhi, India`s first and only female prime minister continues to have an almost iconic status in the heartland. And in voting for Sonia, the vast majority of voters are still voting for an Indira that they both loved and feared.

Her charm was legendary. She won over then French president Georges Pompidou with her fluency in the language. Her collection of silk sarees, woven specially for her by India`s craftsmen, were the talk of the style capitals on her tours abroad as was her signature streak of white in her carefully coiffured hair.

But underneath it all was unalloyed steel. India`s biggest challenges as a nation came when Indira`s steady hand was at the helm. The Indira that took on the US under Richard Nixon was unfazed by the Sino-US detente that tilted towards Pakistan.

Carving out Bangladesh in the teeth of opposition from the Nixon administration won her the status of a goddess in Indian political lore. More so because she gave the green signal knowing the Seventh Fleet was steaming towards the Bay of Bengal.

But in victory, the magnanimity she showed Pakistan`s prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto brought the Simla Agreement into being, when it was accepted that both countries address their problems bilaterally.

Most Indians today judge her by the short-lived emergency powers she grabbed which turned power over to a small coterie led by her thuggish younger son Sanjay. It was an aberration. It was Indira who called for elections. And sat in the opposition when she lost.

Ruthless opponent, unprincipled politician, yes. But India`s most enduring democrat nevertheless.