Deconstructing Durga

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# 29
Kaurasach ji

Police commissioner of Delhi in 1984 was Subhash Tandon. So, this post about his hindu subordinate taking his revolover does not make sense.

Regards

``#80 by Urstruly on November 5, 2004 1:11pm PT

I would have taught you a good lesson in history, you hindu and sikh people, had I not been so busy. ``

Thank Allah you are busy. Were you also busy in 1970/71 by any chance? I mean so engrossed killing Bongs (who definitely were not muslims then). GEEs

May be you are busy helping Sudan defining what is .....

Yogiraj

Ref The Asli Masanamuthu #77

[#71
Unkalji, You should try to visit her in a more civilized and intimate setting than share a dip with her in sewer water as you did in Kumbakonam.]

Give me your address and I will ship you some water from the Zam-Zam spring in Mecca.

I dare you to call that sewer water on Chowk. Come on, show us you still have your cojones. What, you have got to search for them and it will take eons to find them?

You are a gutless wonder struck in the image of Doctor Artist Leader the Fund of Compassion. For you water from Lourdes and Zam-Zam would be holy water but water from the Ganges or the Cauvery would be sewer water. Why don`t you show your solidarity with Muslims and visit your local mosque on Friday for prayers. That ought to get you on the FBI`s watch list.

By the way, all of Chowk noticed how you had no answer to:

a) my explanation of HLA typing and its applicability to population studies after you questioned my understanding of the subject

b) my question of why all of you mufukkas so intent on erasing caste lines do not marry BELOW your caste in the caste hierarchy. What is so wrong with marrying a Dalit when you CLAIM to think that they are as good as yourself?

c) for that matter, any question that actually would REQUIRE you to use your subatomic particle-sized brain instead of referring to the Collected Writings of The Great Intellectual.

PS. You should be orgasmic at the thought that Tamil has been declared a Classical language by the Government of India. I am sure you look at the sign in Chennai that says ``Nakalagam`` (literally, Copy House``) over a Xerox shop and marvel at the wonderful ancient Tamil word used to represent the modern idea of copying a document without ever realizing that ``Nakal`` is a corruption of the Urdu word ``Naqli``, meaning ``duplicate`` or ``not original``. That would be the extent of your knowledge of Tamil.

Please do tell us that the use of the word ``Naqli`` is intentional and is used to show your solidarity with Muslims who have been kind to you over the last 1000 years while naming your son Ravana is intended to demonstrate your disassociation from the hated Hindus.

Ref The Asli Masanamuthu #79

[Hmmm. #77 is mine. How did get posted under someone else`s handle?]

Probably because you had been buggered by Dr Digital Rectal Examination.

jang #76

Mostly true, except in the case of some Sikhs. Ironically, she did not nurse even the smallest personal antagonism toward Sikhs. Neither did Sikhs always oppose her.

It`s amazing to see how things sometimes flow with their own momentum.

I would have taught you a good lesson in history, you hindu and sikh people, had I not been so busy.

Hmmm. #77 is mine. How did get posted under someone else`s handle?

Ref: Jang #76

``so while noone claims that we should install indira picture in the center and do a ``Garba-Dandiya`` dance around it, these anti-nationalist (please note that anti-nationalist are not traitors, but mere non-beleivers in the idea of indian nation) despise pretty much anyone who benefits modern indian nationalism..``

I agree.

Farzana thinks herself to be MA Jinnah`s sister. Moan and groan a lot about Hindus, BJP and RSS and watch the Indians twist themselves into pretzels in agony.

#71
Unkalji, You should try to visit her in a more civilized and intimate setting than share a dip with her in sewer water as you did in Kumbakonam.

#75 by mannyd
``OK, so you do not like Indira Gandhi but why?``

well manny, there are many folks who question, and dislike like the idea of a strong indian nation. they find more advanced ideals like the ummah, or the global workers comradery more appealing. they (sincerely) believe that the idea of (indian) nation is inherently despotic, childish, anti-minority etc. while other more advanced ideals have also demostrated these traits in abundance, they are more sympathetic regarding these are aberrations to work in progress, while the idea of a stronger indian nation is nver given such a lattitude.

so while noone claims that we should install indira picture in the center and do a ``Garba-Dandiya`` dance around it, these anti-nationalist (please note that anti-nationalist are not traitors, but mere non-beleivers in the idea of indian nation) despise pretty much anyone who benefits modern indian nationalism, which is a work in progress. this work was started by nehru and patel, supported technically by ambedkar, given a muscle and spine by indira, put some money in its pocket by narasimha rao.

the anit-nationalist believe that they are do-gooders, voicing minority causes etc. so, the nationalist thing they are evil commies bend on breaking the nation, and anti-nationalist think natinalist are murdering (hindu) fascist pigs.

that is why IG is disliked, and that is the real truth.

``Indira Gandhi has been voted the greatest woman of the past 1,000 years in a poll by BBC News Online.

India`s first woman prime minister had been running equally with Queen Elizabeth I in the first half of November but pushed ahead to top the poll by a large majority.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/543743.stm``

``As prime minster in 1971, Indira Gandhi led India in a war against neighbouring Pakistan which resulted in the creations of Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan.

Her role in the war was only one of her controversial actions.

She is remembered most for her campaign against Sikh separatists.

When Sikh extremists used violence to demand an independent state in Punjab, she ordered an army attack on their refuge, the holiest Sikh shrine, the Golden Temple in Amritsar.

The June 1984 attack killed an estimated 450 people, and left a legacy of bitterness.
Five months later, Indira Gandhi was shot dead by her Sikh bodyguards in revenge.

That incident was followed by attacks on Sikh communities in Delhi and elsewhere in India, in which several thousand people are believed to have died.

BBC News Online readers from across the world took part in the millennium poll and those who voted for Indira Gandhi praised her leadership skills and strength.

Khalid Ahmed said: ``She was a true feminist to the core, a woman of substance who helped the country through a testing phase, possessed all the virtues of a woman and fought valiantly for women`s rights in a man`s world.``
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/543743.stm

``...she had a bulldozer for a son, that she was a leader who chose her followers, that she did not even trust herself.....``
OK, so you do not like Indira Gandhi but why? Since when is it a crime to have a bulldozer or a rototiller for a son? She chose her followers? You mean the Danes wanted to follow her and she deeclined to lead them or was it the Finns?

She did not even trust herself? in what way and how would you know that? She would get up, decide to have a Samosa for breakfast one day and overrule herself the next minute and go for a Pani Puri instead.

``Operation Bluestar was based to a large degree on lies. `` That in itself is a bald faced lie or a product of enormous ignorance. The guillded temple had become a brothel, a den of vice and the seat of a defacto shadow government. I remember the picture of a Granthi running and being stabbed ib the back by a Kirpan. Firmans of murder, extortion, robberies were issued on a daily basis by Bhjindrawallah. The `Daily Trbune` was ordered to print dictated statements. Among the murder victims were Hindu/Sikh police officers, poliemen and their families, professors, editors, judges, students, businessmen, peasants, Bihari laborours etc. One of these victims was a college professors related to me who was shot in the back and had his scooter stolen. Bhindrawallah`s sermons on casette tapes ala Khomeini style openly exhorted sikh youths to get arms and attack Hindus. The police structure was thoroughly infilterated by the insurgents and no police action was ever possible without Bhindrawaalah knowing about it. The breakdown in law and order was of the same magnitude as before 1947 except that the Police were not completely communalized. Most probaby there were more Sikh victims than Hindus.

``If there is anything blameless about Indira Gandhi, It is her stint as mother. ``

Forget about her stint as a mother. who gives a hoot? You really find nothing else blameless about Indira? Surely there must be something.

nice article

Ref FarzanaVersey #70

[Although I do think Jayalalitha has some wonderful qualities, it is stretching it a bit to call the AIADMK the only `national` party. Corruption charges against her and her attitude towards the Opposition, her opportunistic alliances speak a different language.]

Very Indira like, don`t you think? That is why she is also considered the only man in a cabinet of women! And there are pictures of her as Durga riding a tiger painted on the walls or as cut-outs along major roads. Did you read extracts of her conversation on changing the Governor of Tamil Nadu with your man, Shivraj Patil the Home Minister?

[Re. Veerappan, she sure took her own time, and here too both TN and Karnataka are fighting over who really managed the `coup`.]

It did take a while for the Special Task Force but they all agreed that she gave them her unstinted support and that there was no political interference. As I pointed out, the commandos of the Indian Army just camped out for a while and returned empty-handed. If I remember right, Vijay Kumar took control of the STF about a year ago. As to Karnataka, you must know that while noises were made about their help and support, the Karnataka policemen who were part of the STF were not even allowed to view Veerappan`s body. I wouldn` t think they had anything to contribute.

[Re. Marxist guerrillas, if they voice legitimate grievances, then the government must talk to them.]

Nobody gives a damn about YOUR or MY legitimate grievances so why should anyone listen to a bunch of rifle-toting murderers?

[PS: Planning a visit to Poes Gardens? :) ]

Actually, no. Quite difficult to get an appointment!

PS. Look at other choices for Durga. We have Sheila Dixit, Robbery Devi, Uma Bharti. Not a pretty crowd, is it?

#67 by harimau:

[The All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam headed by the the only strong personality in all of India, J. Jayalalitha.

What the Indian Army commandos couldn`t do, she got done by her police force: the killing of the bandit Veerappan, thus establishing law and order.]

Although I do think Jayalalitha has some wonderful qualities, it is stretching it a bit to call the AIADMK the only `national` party. Corruption charges against her and her attitude towards the Opposition, her opportunistic alliances speak a different language.

Re. Veerappan, she sure took her own time, and here too both TN and Karnataka are fighting over who really managed the `coup`.

Re. Marxist guerrillas, if they voice legitimate grievances, then the government must talk to them.

PS: Planning a visit to Poes Gardens? :)

Ref FarzanaVersey #61

[PS: This gem from harimau, “In fact, action should be taken NOW against the entire Congress party, CPI(M), DMK, etc. They are all anti-national.” No guesses for which party is ‘national’…]

The All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam headed by the the only strong personality in all of India, J. Jayalalitha.

What the Indian Army commandos couldn`t do, she got done by her police force: the killing of the bandit Veerappan, thus establishing law and order.

The pusillanimous Congress Party is negotiating with Marxist guerrillas calling themselves the People`s War Group in Andhra. Anybody who wants war should have the war taken to his doorstep.

This is my first post here. I have been lurking on this site for a while and see the same arguments being peddled again and again.

I agree with atheist that some of the pre-1947 offensive laws, such as the child adoption laws, should be done away with in India. One of my christian friends went through a lot of trouble adopting because non-hindus are not allowed full adoption - only gaurdianship.

But Urstruly`s (#59) comment is a joke. Considering the fate of even shia-, and ahmedi- muslims in today`s pakistan, and what happened in east pakistan (was it 300,000 or 3 million fellow muslims you guys killed), sikh`s fate in pakistan would have been sealed. Just look at the condition of few christians and hindus and sikhs in pakistan when they are not even a threat to anybody. And you (and Jinnah) want to promise paradise to a large number of sikhs where they would most probably be fully contesting for power if they had joined pakistan. By the way, howcome the gurudwaras in pakistan today are under the overlordship of a Muslim (from ISI to boot).

The solution to a lot of indian problems is more secularism, democracy, education and rationalism, and effective implementation of laws. More federlaism, state rights, and individual rights, equality. People who can`t live alongside and respect their neighbours rights will continue to be so, irrespective of the religion of the neighbour. And nations built on exclusion on whatever basis will turn on themselves sooner or later.

-anil

#65 by atheist

indian confusion regarding personal laws is legendary.

atheist you are right. if you want an instant marriage cert, (as signed by a priest), you have to declare your religion as hindu if its not muslim etc (as per personal law). else, you can always get a court marriage. re priest marriage, its a mere declaration of marrriage which you register at the regtistrar office.

i dont know about adoption laws, but i suspect the source of the problem is a ``hindu`` marriage.

my beef with zatka etc is that there are indeed areas in which practices of various communities merge. the purist will many times make a big deal out of how the other community is diluting my faith. there sensible ways of dealing with minor irritants in a multi-ethnic societies than making a faith-is-in-danger call about everything.

Urstruly

Bengalis deserved a genocide too eh? One million Bengalis raped, spliced, burnt and slaughtered like hogs by Pakistani Islamic psychopaths like you.

I hope the streets of Pakistan run with the blood of Shias and Sunnis bashing each others brains out. They will deserve it for birthing scum like you.

Jang

All I can is say is from my personal experience! I am not expert in Indian personal law. When I got married and wanted to get marriage certificate I had to sign on the papers that declared that I was a Hindu and marriage was performed according to Hindu traditions. When I objected I was told that under Indian personal law Sikhs’ fall under Hindu personal law. When I adopted a son in India again I had to swear that I was Hindu.

Government does not have any rights tell me that I have to swear that I was Hindu or Sikh in order to get my marriage certificate. There should be only one personal law………

As you probably can tell from my alias I do not believe in religion or God. If person wants to eat beef, halal or zhatka it is their personal choice.

Religion only puts shackles on people’s brain so they cannot think for themselves.

Urstruly

Do you really think if Sikh’s had joined Pakistan, it would be better for them. There would a been more bloodshed and both communities would have been at each other throats. It was Jinnah who divided India and Punjab. You are talking about your dharti maaN Punjab and you couldn’t even save its Punjabi language. If Punjab is your Dharit maaN then why do you people hate Punjabi language so much!!!!!!!! It was you who I read in one of the post that you were ashamed to call your self Punjabi.

Sikh’s are much better of being part of India then Pakistan. Only gripe I have with Indian people(including Sikhs) is that too many people go unpunished for their crimes. That is the only reason we see riots after riots in India …………..

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Urstruly (your gtem#59):

Are you really ignorant or you do not believe in facts coming in the way of a ``gem``?

When was Master Tara Singh promised a Panjabistan and how could a Gujarati Jinnah even do that? If you are suggesting that sikhs should have accepted a dhimmi status in an islamic state, you forget that they had been the rulers of Panjab not just a hundred years before then and would have never accepted the status of a second class citizen. The genuine grievances of sikhs notwithstanding, a sikh is now the prime minister of India. As you pointed out on another board, that would be impossible in your islamic state in which you are not responsible to anyone but God (and that too according to what you claim to be the word of God who made different rules for muslims, ahle kitab and kafirs!).

A lot has been written about Jinnah`s offer to Tara Singh. The fact is that there was no written offer of any kind, just some empty promises. Here is an extract from a bio-sketch of Master Tara Singh from a sikh website [http://allaboutsikhs.com/person/mastertarasingh.htm]:

``Plans were made to have Master Tara Singh and Jinnah talk together. A meeting took place in Delhi on April 2, 1946, at the house of Sir Teja Singh Malik, a retired chief engineer who had also been minister in the princely states of Jaipur and Patiala. Besides Master Tara Singh and Jinnah, Maharaja Yadavinder Singh of Patiala, his prime minister, Sardar Hardit Singh Malik who was the host`s brother, and Giani Kartar Singh joined the meeting. Malik Hardit Singh was assigned to presenting the Sikh viewpoint as the principal spokesman. Jinnah`s one overriding concern was to have the Sikhs rescind theiropposition to Pakistan and lend his demand their support instead. He was prodigal of assurances, and told the Sikh leaders that the Sikhs would have a position of honour in the new State. But he refrained from elaborating. Malik Hardit Singh tried to extract from him a more specific enunciation and raised some concrete issues. He said that in Pakistan there would presumably be a parliament, a cabinet, armed services, and so on. He wished Jinnah to say what exactly would be the Sikhs` position in these and other instruments of State. Jinnah dodged by inviting the Sikhs to set forth their demands in writing and by citing the instance of Zaghlul Pasha of Egypt. Zaghlul Pasha, he said, asked the Copts, the Christian minority, to give him their charter of demands. Without having a look at what was written in document, Zaghlul Pasha signed, ``I agree.`` `` That is how I shall treat the Sikhs,`` said Jinnah. Hardit Singh continued his thrusts and said, ``You are being very generous, Mr Jinnah, but how about your succcessors? What is the guarantee that they would implement the assurance given by you?`` ``My friend, in Pakistan my word will be like the word of God. No one dare go back on it,`` replied Jinnah. ``

Since these meetings were private and there was never promised anything on paper, Sikh leaders did not trusted the Promised given to them by Jinnah and were vindicated of their foresight when Pakistan`s army launched an attacked against Bengali Muslims in Bangladesh with mass destruction and gross human rights violations. Considering the current pathetic state of minorities like Hindus and Christians, Sikh leaders like Tara Singh did indeed had a great foresight by not believing in the private concessions of Jinnah.``

``More than sikhs, it is Radcliffe and Congress to blame who unjustly demarkated the Muslim dominating district of Gordaspur to side with India. Muslim League protested, and Congress for the fear that Radcliffe may change its position under Muslim protests ignited the communal riots using sikhs, to attain an irreversible position on the Gordaspur.``

The riots had started long before the Radcliffe award. They started in March 1947 in Rawalpinidi. BTW they were anti-sikh and not anti-hindu in which 59 of Tara Singh`s relatives were killed.

``Today, the sikhs who betrayed their motherland, have been given the sweet gift of three more triforcated limbs of Punjab maaN, by their Hindu friends.``

The Hindu government in Delhi had in fact strongly resisted the demand to further divide Panjab. The Akalis insisted that not dividing Panjab on a linguistic basis was a discrimination against it as other provinces in India had already been divided on that basis, as they indeed were. It was in fact Tara Singh who led the demand for a Panjabi Suba by dividing Panjab in such a way as to create a Pajabi Suba with sikh majority districts. Indira Gandhi conceded to that demand only after an akali (Pheruman Singh?) took a fast unto death to achieve that demand. [That the origin of the demand for a panjabi suba was the refusal of panjabi hindus to learn gurmukhi is a separate issue].

When I read comments like, leaders make mistakes and yet return to power, I wonder why there is a problem to raise such issues. Bush is back. He made mistakes…Why? But people will still indict him, as they must…

The process of learning from history does not mean forgetting the flaws…every event has an impact. And as one can see in many interactions, there are people who have recalled experiences of their own…

Dost-mittarji: Khushwant Singh was, alas, quite a siyasatdar at one time. Frankness is not to be confused with honesty and uprightness. He was one of Sanjay Gandhi’s great supporters. I do believe, though, that his book on the history of Sikhs is regarded with respect.

Amit: I take exception to your post #21…

[How many times have you heard feminists sighing that if only the world was run by women, there would be peace and happiness all over? Well, Indira Gandhi certainly proved to be an absolute counter-example to that. She was a cunning, manipulative, vicious, spiteful woman who loved to play games with everyone in her life. Most women tend to play games with the men in their personal life. Indira decided to extend these practices to her profession and indulge in it at the national level in the administration of the country.]

An exception does not diminish the rule. The adjectives you have used for her (and they are not wrong) would apply to most men in power, too. What exactly do you mean by saying that most women play games with men in their personal lives? This is such an old stereotype.

Yes, the question about feministic beliefs does come into the picture. Most women in such positions are so surrounded by men that they try to mimic them or they cop-out. Remember IG was called “goongi gudiya” at one point in time…

As has been pointed out, she was a complex person and I have touched upon only a few aspects of those complexities.

Thank you all for your comments and adding your perspectives.

Regards,
F

PS: This gem from harimau, “In fact, action should be taken NOW against the entire Congress party, CPI(M), DMK, etc. They are all anti-national.” No guesses for which party is ‘national’…

Nonsense # 58 is not mine.

Gems in #59 are mine.

Sikhs have no one else but themselves to blame. Or they should blame Master Tara Singh whose twelveth hour decision to play in the hands of Hindu extremists cost millions their lives and other damages as well and resulted in perpetual hostility between two nations that haunt them even today. Lets be honest here. More than sikhs, it is Radcliffe and Congress to blame who unjustly demarkated the Muslim dominating district of Gordaspur to side with India. Muslim League protested, and Congress for the fear that Radcliffe may change its position under Muslim protests ignited the communal riots using sikhs, to attain an irreversible position on the Gordaspur. They succeeded. But at what cost? To this day humanity has bloody scars on its face.

Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, my leader in his wisdom and foresight, made an offer to Master Tara Singh to join with Pakistan, which is an undeniable historical fact. Had sikhs accepted Quaids, advise the Punjab would have never divided. But sikhs, because of their inherent anti-Muslim bigotary, hatered, greed to occupy Muslim property and more than that their mere stupidity divided our dharti maaN Punjab into two. Nature has its own way of getting even with the injustice that man does to himself and others. Today, the sikhs who betrayed their motherland, have been given the sweet gift of three more triforcated limbs of Punjab maaN, by their Hindu friends. Today the sikh is broken, demoralized and neutered and lost any hope or will to fight for what is rightfully theirs. Even Haatu Kashmiris have proven to be tougher than Sikhs; with a sacrifice of 100,000 lives and countless rapes by their Hindu oppressors they stand tall and still prove to be force to be reckoned with for the baniya. Sikhs on the other hand have no hope, no land to call their own. Sikhs are the renegades who betrayed their own dharti maaN Punjab and they deserved 1984.

Tahmed:

A is irrelevant. Better trade relations with any country means that wealth will be increased for the business community. Let us look at overall benefits of trade with India rather then saying who wins individually.

B. In fact Pakistan had to concede much less during Lahore compared to Islamabad. Unlike Lahore, Islamabad declaration binds Pakistan to give up on its only leverage in Kashmir: Tthe Jehadi forces. In both cases, India agreed to include talks on the dispute over Kashmir. In either case, India has not said Kashmir is disputed territory. It has accepted that a dispute exists over Kashmir. There is a difference. For us to say Kashmir is disputed means weakening our own position up front. Rather, by saying a dispute exists, we mantain our position while acknowledging that Pakistan does not agree with us hence we will talk about it.

I will google the Lahore declaration and see if Ii can find more details.

C. Stronger Consensus: But that is my point. Why a consensus exists over an agreement less less beneficial to Pakistan whereas it did not exist over one that was?? Why?

#54 by atheist
i dont get your !s. are you claiming that sikhs have to decalre themselves to be hindus since according to indian personal laws, all non (muslims, christians and parsees) can choose hindu personal law or the secular law? i dont believe that this is what the sikhs want, they want hindus to stop assuming that they are hindus..the gripe as i understand is somewhat emotional and not legal.

one thing that distinguished hindus from muslims is the beef-eating. also, hindus want zhatka mutton while muslims want halal. where do sikhs stand on this (discarding those in the west)?

while the majority community should make no overt attempts of trying to overwhelm sikh identity (which i dont believe to be the case), we need to understand that its a big country with a lot of minorities. a lot of us are kind of suspicious of minoritism getting hijacked by voilent fringes.

Ref stuka #44

[.... 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.]

By the same token, action then should have been taken against Indira Gandhi and the entire Congress party.

In fact, action should be taken NOW against the entire Congress party, CPI(M), DMK, etc. They are all anti-national.

Ref stuka on #50

[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.]

It took someone from south of the Vindhyas to send Rajiv to kingdom come.

#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.

#27 by Modern_Dharma
//.... Hindus have no option but to finally learn to speak and understand the `language of religion.`...//

``Learn to speak and understand language of religion``??? What the heck does this mean :))
But never mind. I am not out here to have some comparative study of hinduism and sikhism or whatever ... or what vivekanada said or what Arya Samaj does. If you think these folks were anti-sikh - hey, hang them from the high pole!!! I don`t give a damn!!!

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. Thats why I am particularly disappointed to hear such stupid slogans from somebody like Kaura. I expected better from him.

But I digress. This not the time or place to dissect why Kaura said what he said - rather , this is the time to reflect on what happened to fellow sikhs some 20 years back. How the moth@fukkas called Gandhis massacred thousands of people and yet lived happily ever after - donning the mantle of secularism and what not!!

Indira in many ways was like George W. Bush, with a privileged background, education at an elite school, an unjustifiably immense ego, ascent to power through connections and fake populism.
Knowing what we know now, it is clear to me that Indira was justified in suspecting a foreign hand in the tumult that led up to the declaration of emergency. The US had just caused the overthrow of a popular government in Chile and the administration`s distrust of Indira because of the `71 war and their hatred for her were out in the open. Seymour Hersh has alleged that Morarji Desai was a CIA mole. True or not, it nevertheless sheds light on the uneasy relationship between the US administration and Indira. The way the protest movement quickly gathered momentum is puzzling and in many ways resembles what the CIA had advocated in Chile prior to the overthrow & assassination of Allende. Recently declassified CIA documents on how to go about fomenting unrest in Chile foreshadowed what was to come in India.
With Bhindranwale, she sowed the wind and reaped a whirlwind. However, I believe the assault on the golden temple was unavoidable given the circumstances. You had the Akal Takht that had pretty much ceded control of the Temple to Bhindranwale and the government had no choice. It was to Indira`s credit that she retained Sikh bodyguards. Her quarrel was not with the Sikhs as a whole but only with certain individuals.

Appreciate your writing this article Farzana. The number of sikhs killed was much higher than the one you quote.

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

Communicating with general Vaidya, during Operation Bluestar, Mrs. Gandhi says, ``I don`t give a damn if the Golden Temple and whole of Amritsar are destroyed, I want Bhindranwale dead.`` Talk about being irrational, insecure, unintelligant, insensitive, and, plain stupid.

Dost-Mittar, Khushwant Singh is no authority on the Sikh persprective on Indira Gandhi, or anything for that matter. He is certainly an authority on the popularisation of the image of Punjabis being crude and on the commercialisation of Sikh jokes.

Harbans Singh and many like him make me very thoughful about the state of Sikhism in India. As Jinnah interestingly said to the Sikhs in 1947, warning them against joining India, ``You have seen the Hindus as co-slaves and you will know when they will be your masters and you (the Sikhs), their slaves.``

Simran

English Translation of
F.I.R. of Indira Gandhi Assassination case - 1984

Police Station : Tughlak Road District : New Delhi
No.: 241 Date and hour of occurence : 31.10. 1984 / 9.10 a.m.



1 Date and hour when reported DD No. 6A dt 31.10.84 at 11.25 a.m.
2 Name and residence of informant or complainant Head Constable Narayan Singh 527/Security and Inspector Rajendra Parkash, Crime Branch
3 Brief description of offence (with section) and of property carried off, if any u/s 307/120 - B, I.P.C. and 25, 27/54/59 Arms act.
4 Place of occurence and distance and direction from Police Station T.M.C. gate P.M. House No. 1, Safdar Jung Road, New Delhi about 12.00 noon
5 Name and address of the criminal
6 Steps taken regarding investigation explanation of delay in recording information Special messenger
7 Date and time of depatch from Police Station

Statement of Head Constable Narayan Singh, s/o Shri Bagh Singh, No. 527 / Security resident of Village Akhori Police Station Okhi Nath, Disrict Chamoli, U.P. aged 35 years.

I am a resident of the above address and in Delhi I stay at 25, Ashoka Lines. I am posted as a Head Constable at the Prime Minister`s house since 1980. I am with the Isolation Cordon. Today also I was posted at the same place and was doing the 7.30 a.m. to 8.45 a.m. shift in the porch. The Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi had to meet an Irish delegation at 9.00 a.m. at 1, Akbar Road and I was standing in front of the pantry in this connection only. At around 9.10 a.m. Mrs Gandhi along with Mr. R.K. Dhawan, S.A. to P.M. of India came out and started walking towards 1, Akbar Road to meet the delegation. I started walking with her, umbrella in my hands trying to shelter her from the sun. Apart from us, Nathuram, personal attendant to the Prime Minister was also present. When we were approximately ten feet away from the entrances of 1, Safdarjung Road and 1, Akbar Road, I saw Sardar Beant Singh at T.M.C. Gate Duty. Alongwith him in the orange coloured booth was Constable Satwant Singh, in uniform carrying a sten gun in his hands. The moment Mrs Gandhi reached the booth, Beant Singh drew his government revolver from his right side and started firing at Mrs Gandhi. While he was firing at her, Constable Satwant Singh started firing at her from his sten gun too. Mrs Gandhi was injured in the front portion of her body by the shots and fell down on the ground. Even Assistant Sub-Inspector Rameshwar Dayal got injured in the firing. I threw away the umbrella. Beant Singh and Satwant Singh were apprehended by Mr. B K Bhatt, Assistant Commissioner of Police and personal security officer alongwith the men of Indo Tibetan Border Police and myself. Their weapons fell down from their hands. Then I went to call Dr R Opeh. In the meanwhile a car and a Docotor had reached the spot and Mrs Gandhi was rushed to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and admitted. This incident was witnessed by Mr D K Bhatt, Mr R K Dhawan, Nathu Ram Lawang Sherpa (Sore man), Sub Inspector Ramjee Lal and Rameshwar Dayal. The two had conspired to kill Mrs Gandhi. I learnt that they had also been injured by the firing of the I T BP officers. Legal action may be initiated against them. Statement heard. Correct.



Sd
Narayan Singh / 31.10.1984



Attested.
Rajendra Prakash, Inspector / 31.10.1984
PS Tughlak Road.

From the contents of above statement an offence under section 307/120B/IPC & 25, 27/54/59 Arms Act has been committed, under instruction of senior officers I reached AIIMS where Head Constable Narayan Singh made the above statement. The complaint is forwarded through Sub-Inspector Vir Singh of Police Station Tughlak Road, who had also come to the hospital in connection with Daily Diary No. 5 A dated 31.10.1984 Police Station Tughlak Road. Please register a case and send the file to me for investigation, place of occurence T.M.C. gate, Prime Minister`s house, time of occurence 9.10 a.m./31.10.1984 time of sending complaint 11.00 a.m./ 31.10.1984.

Sd.
Inspector Rajender Prakash,
Crime Branch 31.10.1984

I did not remember yesterday that it was Oct 31st...until my father who after lsitening to Punjabi radio told me that today India also celebrated Indra`s death day as ``anti-terrorism`` day....he said why this day? The day that has reference to sikhs...why not the day when Mahata Gandhi was killed? or the day when Rajiv was killed? or other hundreds of days when thousands of minority community memberw have been killed in the Independent India?

I was reading the preview of an ucoming books on Gadhar party movement against British and Independence movement of India....the book is published by Ghadar Memorial trust or something...one of the things that book is highlighting is that 1857 was not the first event for the independence of India...in 1948, some Ram Singh and his group fought and purged the British out of Kanghra(now Himachal) area and established an Independent State.

Re:#28

Your post makes me hang my head in shame. This was absolutely despicable. And we have the gall to lecture Pakistanis on religous tolerance?

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mohar11,Modern_Dharma

May be you want to read Arya Samaj movement from Sikhism prespective.........

http://www.info-sikh.com/SabhaPage1.html

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mohar11 # 22

It will be judicious of Hindus to pay more attention to Kaura`s opinions. IMHO, Hindus have no option but to finally learn to speak and understand the `language of religion.` They would then be more prepared to confront what Kaurasach has to say. That would be much better for both Hindus and Sikhs. Best regards.

From Rediff.com

Light a candle for 4,733 Sikhs slaughtered by Congress hoods

November 01, 2004


This week, light a candle in your window. And whisper a silent prayer in memory of more than 4,000 Sikh men, women and children slaughtered by Congress hoodlums 20 years ago. In Delhi alone, 2,733 Sikhs were burned alive, butchered or beaten to death.



Women were raped while their terrified families pleaded for mercy, little or none of which was shown by the Congress flag-bearers. In one of the numerous such incidents, a woman was gang-raped in front of her 17-year-old son; before leaving, the marauders torched the boy.



For three days and nights the killing and pillaging continued without the police, the civil administration and the Union government, which was then in direct charge of Delhi, lifting a finger in admonishment. The Congress was in power, and senior Congress leaders, perhaps for the first time in their political careers, led from the front while the prime minister, his home minister, indeed the entire council of ministers, twiddled their thumbs.



Even as stray dogs gorged on rotting human entrails, gutters were clogged with charred corpses and wailing women, clutching children too frightened to cry, fled baying mobs armed with iron rods, staves and gallons of kerosene, All India Radio and Doordarshan kept on broadcasting blood-curdling slogans of `Khoon ka badla khoon se lenge` (We shall avenge blood with blood) raised by Congress party workers grieving over their dear departed leader, India Gandhi.



Rajiv Gandhi, having ensconced himself as prime minister, later sought to justify the terror unleashed by his party. Addressing a rally at Delhi`s Boat Club to celebrate his mother`s birth anniversary, he thundered: `When a big tree falls, the earth will shake.` And shake it did!



In mid-morning on October 31, 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two Sikh guards posted at her home. The assassins, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, later said they had killed the prime minister to avenge the Indian Army`s assault on the Golden Temple -- Operation Bluestar -- at her explicit instruction on June 5 that year. Beant Singh was killed by the Indo Tibetan Border Police soon after Indira Gandhi`s assassination. Satwant Singh and an alleged accomplice, Kehar Singh, against whom there was thin evidence, were executed for the crime.



Indira Gandhi`s death was officially confirmed by All India Radio and Doordarshan at 6 pm, after due dilligence had been exercised to ensure Rajiv Gandhi`s succession. By then, stray incidents of violence against Sikhs, including the stoning of President Zail Singh`s car, had started trickling in at various police stations.



That night, the Congress party machinery went into a rumour-mongering overdrive: in colony after colony (Delhi, the seat of India`s colonial rulers, is a sprawling conglomerate of `colonies,` some upmarket, most little more than shanty towns), rumours spread like wildfire, describing in graphic details how `Sikhs were distributing sweets to celebrate Indira Gandhi`s assassination,` how `gurdwaras had been lit up as if it were Diwali,` and, how `Sikh terrorists had infiltrated the city.`



By the morning of November 1, hordes of men, shouting Congress slogans, had started running riot in south, east and west Delhi. They were armed with iron rods and carried old tyres and jerry cans filled with kerosene and petrol. Owners of gas stations and kerosene stores, beneficiaries of Congress largesse, provided petrol and kerosene free of cost. Some of the men went around on scooters and motorcycles, marking Sikh houses and business establishments with chalk for easy identification. They had been provided with electoral rolls by their political masters to make the task easier.



By late afternoon that day, hundreds of taxis, trucks and shops owned by Sikhs had been set ablaze. By early evening, the killing, loot and rape began in right earnest. The worst butchery took place in Block 32 of Trilokpuri, a resettlement colony in east Delhi. Scores of families were killed over November 1 and 2: most of them were despatched by putting burning tyres around theirs necks.



The pogrom continued with the active abetment of the police. On November 1, some residents of Lajpat Nagar took out a peace march to thwart the violence. The police stopped the march because the participants did not have `official permission.` In many places, police asked Sikhs to hand over their kirpans, took them away forcibly if the Sikhs refused, before the marauders descended upon them.



To prevent Sikhs from taking refuge in gurdwaras, most of Delhi`s 450 gurdwaras were sacked in the early hours of the violence. The expedient means of setting houses ablaze was used to get at Sikh families who had taken refuge on the roofs of their homes. Entire families were roasted alive.



A sort-of curfew was imposed in south and central Delhi at 4 pm on November 1. But no action was taken in east and west Delhi and the outlying area of Palam where the massacre of Sikhs was being carried out with macabre ferocity and astounding impunity. Curfew was imposed in east and west Delhi at 6 pm, ensuring that the killers had an extra four hours.



P V Narasimha Rao, who was the home minister and responsible for maintaining law and order in Delhi during those dark days, was fully aware of what was happening. But he chose not to deploy the army in time which could have prevented the pogrom. In his affidavit submitted to the G T Nanavati Commission, inquiring into the pogrom, Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Aurora, much decorated hero of the 1971 war, has said, `The home minister was grossly negligent in his approach, which clearly reflected his connivance with perpetrators of the heinous crimes being committed against the Sikhs.`



The army was alerted at 2.30 pm on November 1; when the General Officer Commanding went to meet the lieutenant governor for orders, he was kept waiting for an hour. The first deployment of army jawans took place around 6 pm on November 1 in south and central Delhi, which were comparatively unaffected, but in the absence of navigators which should have been provided by the police and the civil authorities, the jawans found themselves lost in unfamiliar roads and avenues. The army was deployed in east and west Delhi in the afternoon of November 2. But, here, too, jawans were at a loss because there were no navigators to show them the way through byzantine lanes.



In any event, there was little the army could have done: magistrates were `not available` to give permission to the jawans to fire on the mobs. This mandatory requirement was kept pending till Indira Gandhi`s funeral was over. By then, 1,026 Sikhs had been killed in east Delhi, the majority of the dead were residents of Block 32 in Trilokpuri.



The slaughter was not limited to Delhi. Sikhs were killed in Gurgaon, Kanpur, Bokaro, Indore and many other towns and cities across India. In a replay of the blood-letting in Delhi, 26 Sikh jawans and officers of the Indian Army were pulled out of trains and killed. There has been no effort to compute the death toll in these places, but the most conservative estimates have placed it at 2,000.



After quenching their thirst for blood, the brave leaders of the Congress and their foot soldiers retreated to savour their deeds of revenge. The flames died, the smoke from smouldering shops and homes lifted and the winter air blew away the stench of death. Rajiv Gandhi`s government, in a casual aside, issued an official statement placing the death toll at 425.



Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was then president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, had instructed party leaders in Delhi to organise relief camps and provide succour to the survivors of the pogrom. Madan Lal Khurana and Vijay Kumar Malhotra had braved the marauders to move from colony to colony, giving whatever help they could. Vajpayee contested the official death toll and asked his colleagues to collate figures. Their total added up to 2,800. `The BJP is an anti-national party,` responded the Congress.



There were demands for a judicial inquiry to fix responsibility and add up the casualties. Rajiv Gandhi stonewalled these demands. Human rights organisations petitioned the courts. Rajiv Gandhi`s government declared that courts were not empowered to order inquiries.



Meanwhile, Rajiv Gandhi dissolved the Lok Sabha and went for an early general election. The Congress launched a vitriolic hate campaign through advertisements and posters (`Can you trust a Sikh taxi driver?`). In Rajiv Gandhi`s constituency, Congress party workers raised a rather telling slogan against his opponent and sister-in-law, Maneka Gandhi: `Beti hai Sardar ki, qaum hai gaddar ki` (She is the daughter of a Sikh, a community of traitors).



Rajiv Gandhi rode the crest of a gigantic `sympathy wave.` The Congress won 401 seats in the Lok Sabha. The BJP was reduced to two seats, punished for sympathising with the Sikhs.



By 1985, Punjab was fast slipping into a bottomless spiral of secessionist violence and Rajiv Gandhi was desperate to show a breakthrough. He mollycoddled Akali leader Sant Harchand Singh Longowal into agreeing to sign a peace accord with him. Sant Longowal listed a set of pre-conditions; one of them was the setting up of a judicial inquiry into the anti-Sikh pogrom. Political expediency made Rajiv Gandhi concede this and other demands (it is another matter that the accord foundered and Sant Longowal was assassinated by terrorists).



Thus was born the Ranganath Mishra Commission that shall remain known forever for white-washing official complicity and political patronage without which the slaughter of Sikhs would not have been possible. Submissions and affidavits were surreptiously passed on to those accused of leading the mobs to facilitate their defence. Some of these documents were later recovered from the house of Sajjan Kumar, one of the Congress leaders who had been accused by victims in their signed affidavits. Gag orders were issued, preventing the press from reporting in-camera proceedings of the Commission.



For full six months, Rajiv Gandhi refused to make public the Ranganath Mishra Commission`s report. When it was tabled in Parliament, the report was found to be an amazing travesty of the truth, an exercise that was dedicated to drawing a bizarre distinction between Congress party workers and the Congress party -- the former were guilty, but not the latter; no responsibility was fixed nor were the guilty named.



Subsequently, three other committees were set up: the Jain-Banerji Committee to find out why cases were not registered by the police and, if registered, why was it not done properly; the Kapoor-Mittal Committee to look into the role of the police; and, the Ahuja Committee to compute the number of deaths. The findings of the first two committees are gathering dust in some corner of South Block.



The key finding of the Ahuja Committee is of relevance -- a total of 2,733 Sikhs were killed in Delhi. There is no record of an apology being offered by either Rajiv Gandhi or his government for placing the death toll at 425, leave alone for their description of the BJP as `anti-national` because it had placed the figure at 2,800.



In these 20 years, nine commissions and committees have been set up to look into different aspects of the anti-Sikh pogrom. Much bluster has been heard about bringing the guilty to book. What we have seen is inertia, political intervention and tardy prosecution. Overwhelming evidence against Sajjan Kumar, Jagdish Tytler and H K L Bhagat has been set aside by skulduggery and gerrymandering.



Two thousand seven hundred and thirty-three men, women and children killed in Delhi, another 2,000 killed in other towns and cities, scores of women raped, property worth crores of rupees looted or sacked. Families devastated forever, survivors scarred for the rest of their lives.



After 20 years, all that we have to show as justice being done is the conviction of six men, who did not have the requisite financial or political clout to manipulate their way to freedom and are serving sentence for `murder.`



Sajjan Kumar is back in business as a Congress member of the Lok Sabha; Jagdish Tytler is minister for NRI affairs in the UPA government.



Those who survived the pogrom of 1984, haunted by nightmares of a genocide the world has forgotten, wipe their tears in silence.






by Kanchan Gupta

Kaura
//...Sikhism has been under threat from Hinduism as early as the founding of Arya Samaj ...//

Yup - these snake-worshipping hindus are a threat to a lot of people. Jeez man - any other gems of wisdom you are hiding?

RSS says hindus are under threat from christians and muslims ... sikhs say they are under threat from hindus ... muslims say they are under threat from everybody else. Last time I checked they all are breeding like f88king rabbits and growing in numbers by thousands a minute or something.

Is everybody going nuts here , or what?

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kaurasach #8

``-Vivekanand had said some controversial remarks about Nanak.``

Dear Kaura, that is so very out of character for Vivekananda. On numerous occasions, Vivekananda reaffirms his complete reverence for Sikh gurus. In one of his speeches he exhorts everyone to combine in himself the qualities of Guru Gobind Singh. In another, he takes pride in being from the land in which Nanak preached his message. In Vivekananda`s eyes, he appears to asssert, an ideal `Hindu` would actually be a Sikh!

If you have any actual quotations, I am very interested in seeing any words from Vivekananda that are less than respectful toward all Sikh Gurus.

Ferzana,

How many times have you heard feminists sighing that if only the world was run by women, there would be peace and happiness all over? Well, Indira Gandhi certainly proved to be an absolute counter-example to that. She was a cunning, manipulative, vicious, spiteful woman who loved to play games with everyone in her life. Most women tend to play games with the men in their personal life. Indira decided to extend these practices to her profession and indulge in it at the national level in the administration of the country.

It is well documented how she propped up one party against the other and backstabbed everyone in her way. She is the reason that corruption and criminalization of politics has become endemic in India. If it were Pakistan, the army would have stepped in and finished her off. Unfortunately in India, we had to suffer her for years and years until our sikh brothers stepped up to the plate and did the needful. No wonder, we hindus consider them to be our sword arm!!

Kaurasach,

``Sikhism has been under threat from Hinduism as early as the founding of Arya Samaj -Vivekanand had said some controversial remarks about Nanak.``

Goofy boy :-)

Arya Samaj was founded by Dayanand and Vivekanad was the guy who gave fanastic speech in Chicago Dharm Sammelan.

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Few people knew Indira better than Khushwant Singh. Here is his views about her at Rediff.com:

The Rediff Interview/Khushwant Singh

October 27, 2004

Few journalists interacted with Indira Gandhi the way Khushwant Singh, doyen of Indian journalism, did. As editor of the now defunct The Illustrated Weekly of India and later The Hindustan Times, he was witness to some of the most historic moments in Indira Gandhi`s 16-year-long rule.

Now 90, Khushwant Singh`s door has a warning: `Do not ring the bell unless you are expected.` The years have not numbed his extremely sharp mind as he took a journey down memory lane with Deputy Managing Editor Amberish K Diwanji to recreate the life of Indira Gandhi.

The first of a series of interviews and features on rediff.com to mark Indira Gandhi`s 20th death anniversary.

Twenty years later, how do you look back on Indira Gandhi?

There are two aspects to Indira Gandhi: one as the politician and the other as a human being.

As a politician, it is common knowledge about her but as a human being, very few know about her, such as her family and her staff. The rest is conjecture and make believe.

How did you get to know her?

I first met her when she was still unmarried and came to Lahore on her way to Kashmir, and she was staying with friends who had brought her over.

I have a photograph of her at our house. She was very shy and wouldn`t talk much.

I next met her when she was president of the Congress. It was at a meeting over which she was presiding and I was speaking on Madam Cama, I think. Then when she became information and broadcasting minister in (Lal Bahadur) Shastri`s government, I was asked to do an article for The New York Times on the possibility of her becoming prime minister.

The article was an adverse account because I quoted people saying her leading the country was not possible. India has never been led by a woman. We might have had a Razia Sultan but that was it. I also said she was not qualified except for being Nehru`s daughter and the fact that she had no political base except for having become Congress president by her father.

But she did become prime minister, with the second longest tenure till date?

The fact is after Shastri, people did not want Gulzarilal Nanda or Morarji Desai, and so she became prime minister, selected by a bunch who thought they could control her. But this bunch had not reckoned with her innate political sense or that being prime minister has its own power.

She soon sidelined Morarji Desai and others like Kamaraj. She really ruled a bit like a dictator. People would say the Cabinet has only one man (Indira Gandhi) and that the rest are all hijras (eunuchs), but the fact is she reduced them to that level.

How do you look back at her rule?
There is nothing spectacular about her rule.

She was incapable of tolerating any criticism and she picked up an aversion to some persons because she thought they were challenging her, among them Jayaprakash Narayan, a good, honest man. She couldn`t stand him because he was a challenge to her as the leader of the country, especially as people grew disillusioned with her rule. There were problems, droughts, challenges and Jayaprakash Narayan had emerged as a leader.

During her reign, corruption increased to enormous levels. She was really very tolerant of corruption, which was another negative mark against her. She knew perfectly well that some of her ministers were extremely corrupt, yet she took no steps against them till it suited her.

If she knew someone was corrupt, she tolerated him but if it suited her, she used the same corruption charge to get rid of him. She really had no strong views on corruption, which went sky high during her time.

Also, she felt uncomfortable with educated, sophisticated people. So you have the rise of people like Yashpal Kapoor, R K Dhawan, who was a stenographer who worked in her office, Mohammad Yunus, who just hung around her.

I believe this was because she had no real education.

She went to Shanti Niketan, then she went to Badminton School abroad, then to Oxford. Nowhere did she pass an exam or acquire a degree.

I think that bred a sort of inferiority complex of not being recognised as an educated person. She would pretend to have read a lot of books. She spoke French, which she picked up when she accompanied her ailing mother Kamala to Switzerland, which went in her favour. There were pros and cons but there was this sense of insecurity when it came to highly intelligent people and people with clear records. She felt more comfortable with second-rate people.

How did her insecurities, about which much has been written, affect India?
In her insecurity, she destroyed the institutions of democracy. She packed Parliament with her supporters with loyalty being more important than ability; she superseded judges; she corrupted the civil service. Favouritism became a great sport with her.

She also knew how to use people against each other and was quite a master of that. She would patronise somebody and when she thought he was getting too big, instead of appointing him to a senior post, she would appoint his close associate, knowing this would create a rift between them.

The best example is of V P Singh. It was his elder brother (Santa Bux Singh) who believed he would be made minister but instead she picked V P Singh, the lesser qualified of the two brothers, which only created enmity between the brothers. She would do this with calculated skill and in the bargain cause enmity between brothers, split up families.

In the long run it was not good for the country to play such games as she did.

What is her greatest achievement?
Her greatest moment, the triumph in her life, was the way she handled the Bangladesh crisis, where all her skills came together. She made a complete fool of the Pakistanis.

India faced a huge crisis with a flood of refugees entering the country. She tried to garner international support and went round the world telling them what was happening but got no backing except from the Soviet Union, which any way was with us.

Then, when she realised the crisis had to reach a climax, she proved very astute. For instance, an Indian Airlines plane was hijacked. Today we know that it was the Indians who manoeuvred to get the plane to land in Lahore. Then, in Lahore, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (then Pakistan`s foreign minister) proved stupid enough to have the plane blown up in his presence. This gave India the excuse it needed to stop flights between West Pakistan and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) over India, something that gave India a clear edge as the war drew nearer. Now, Pakistani planes had to fly all the way round India and refuel in Sri Lanka to communicate between the two wings.

I also think it was on her advice that the Indian Army built up the Mukti Bahini. And by the time (then Pakistan President General) Yahya Khan realised what was happening and declared war, the Indian Army was, I think, well about 100 miles inside Bangladesh. In less than a fortnight, the Pakistani army surrendered. The Pakistanis prepared to defend the towns but the Indian troops just avoided the towns and headed straight for Dhaka. It was by all accounts a master strategy and Indira Gandhi very deservedly got the Bharat Ratna.

But the problem of reaching a height is that you can only come down from there. And then we have the Emergency.
Yes, that is true. But when it came to the Emergency, I think the Opposition too behaved very recklessly. There was no doubt that the country was fast sliding into chaos. I recall schools not opening, colleges not opening, huge processions, riots.

I think Jayaprakash Narayan made a mammoth mistake when he led this huge rally in New Delhi where he told the people to gherao legislators, not allow them to attend office, like it was happening in Gujarat at that time (where the Nav Nirman riots were going on and crowds had mobbed the Gujarat legislature). He asked people to do the same to Parliament in New Delhi and not allow elected people to attend to their duties. Worse, he asked the police and the Indian Army personnel to remove (the legislators).

Now, there are limits to protests in any democracy and this was exceeding the limits altogether. There were the other leaders, you can name them all, who were thoroughly enjoying her discomfiture, thinking she would fall on her own.

I wrote a letter to Jayaprakash Narayan. I knew him and was very fond of him, but I wrote that he was transgressing the boundaries of limits in a democracy. He wrote back a long letter, which I published in The Illustrated Weekly.

But before anything else could happen, the Allahabad high court judgment came through and she clamped the Emergency. I believe she was right and there was no other choice.

Do you believe after all these years that the Emergency was justified?
I still believe that when she imposed the Emergency, she had every right then because leaders of the Opposition were behaving in a total reckless, irresponsible and anti-national manner, just enjoying the spectacle.

I recall very clearly that when the Emergency was imposed, there was a general sense of relief throughout the country. Schools reopened, colleges reopened, trains ran on time, and there was a sense of gratitude that the country was back to normal.

Of course, the freedom of the people had been taken away. I called on her and told her she must not gag the press. I told her there were people like me who supported her but that no one would believe us, saying you can`t say anything else or she will lock you up.

But she didn`t agree saying you can`t have (a state of) Emergency and freedom of the press because that would create problems. I thought she`d lock me up but she didn`t, maybe because I had defended her and her son, Sanjay, long enough.

Anyway, she lifted the Emergency because she was totally misled by the CBI into believing that she was hugely popular and would win the election. And when elections were held, she was surprised to learn that she had earned so much hatred throughout the country that she was defeated.

If I can step back a bit, you said when she imposed the Emergency, there was relief in the country, yet she lost the election? So what went wrong?

What went wrong was, I think, the misuse of power by some…

Sanjay Gandhi included…
When you say Sanjay, he had no legitimacy. He was only the prime minister`s son. What he had in mind was absolutely correct. All the family propaganda was not working so he made it the top priority. Then slum clearing. People took the cases to court and they went on for years. He said demolish the slums but give them alternative arrangements that were done. The family planning stories were vastly exaggerated: people being picked up from cinema line queues, from villages, etc… only a tenth of them was true but these stories spread like wildfire and she paid the price. The Emergency was made into a monster.

But there must have been reasons for the Emergency to be demonised?
She had locked up so many people, including 85 year olds. Anyone who said anything was locked up. But it wasn`t her alone. It was Sanjay, his wife Maneka, his mother-in-law, Mohammad Yunus, who were running riot and anyone who said anything suddenly found himself in the lockup.

But if you have the Emergency and draconian laws, such excesses are bound to occur…
True, but I don`t think she realised it.

Perhaps the problem started from the fact that you had the Emergency in the first place, or that you had it for so long?

I think it could have been a short Emergency and she could have handled the situation better. She could have put her foot down when she realised that people were misusing the Emergency, and there were far too many people around her who were misusing it. Also, putting the maharanis of Jaipur, Gayatri Devi, and of Gwalior, Vijaya Raje Scindia, in jail with pickpockets and prostitutes simply revealed the vindictive nature of her character. It also created a large number of enemies in very important places. That all together created hatred for the whole family.

Don`t you think that when Justice Sinha passed the verdict against her, she should have stepped down?

It was a very dubious judgment: that she could sit in Parliament but she could not vote. (Nani) Palkhivala, who was her lawyer, told her that he would win the case for her in appeal. He said this verdict was a bit like locking up a person for a small traffic offence. But by then, she had become very nervous and people like Siddhartha Shankar Ray and Sanjay Gandhi advised her to impose the Emergency.

But I think if she had not done what she did, then she would have been a bigger figure. After she imposed the Emergency, Palkhivala refused to fight her case in court. Then they (Mrs Gandhi`s cronies) harassed Palkhivala, he was removed from various Tata boards. And that kind of vindictiveness followed, which only created more enemies all along the way, which they needn`t have done.

But then she came back to power. Now was this because the Janata Party was inept or was it also because the people said, `Okay, we punished you, but now we want you back!` Or was it a combination of both?

Yeah, I think you are right. The anger and rancour against her had mitigated by then. Morarji Desai and Charan Singh proved totally inept in handling the situation and people said she was better than this lot.

But was not her next few years in power her worst? None of the strength of purpose that she had earlier seemed to be there.

I think that can be timed from Sanjay Gandhi`s death (barely six months after she took office in January 1980). She lost her moorings when he died because he dominated her. He was a very dominating figure and she was certainly building him up to be the prime minister, totally ignoring Rajiv who she thought was a buddhu (lacking in intelligence).

After Sanjay died, she dithered, she couldn`t make up her mind, she became a nervous wreck… She wouldn`t sleep at nights, walking around the lawns of her residence, there was this permanent tick in her eyes, and I think it showed in the way she bungled over (Operation) Bluestar.

You believe she erred in Operation Bluestar?

I believe she was misled. I think her own judgement would have been right. She had no prejudice at all, not against the Muslims, not against the Sikhs or anyone. She consulted the people and got contrary advice from different people. She didn`t trust (President) Zail Singh because he was playing both sides, sometimes supporting (Jarnail Singh) Bhindranwale against Darbara Singh (the then Congress chief minister of Punjab).

Operation Bluestar, 20 years on

So she turned to the Army and I know for certain, despite what they (the Army) say, that she was assured by people like General (Arun) Vaidya and (then Lieutenant General K S) Sundarji that once the army went in and surrounded the (Golden) Temple, no fight would be put up and Bhindranwale would surrender. I think they even said the operation would be over in two hours. It was a total miscalculation.

Bhindranwale was a thug, a fanatic, and he fought like a fanatic and didn`t give in. The battle instead of two hours lasted two days and nights. And with a heavy toll.

I know that when she went to the Temple two or three days later, she was horrified because bodies were still floating in the Sarovar, there were bloodstains that were being cleaned up. She turned to [then Major General K S] Brar and asked, `What is all this?`

She had believed the Army when it told her there would be no fighting

Dear Farzana:
Indira was a complex personality. For India, she was more harmful than helpful. Even her crowning achievement, the creation of Bangladesh, was a mixed blessing. As we say in Panjabi, Kabbe noon lat kaari aa gayee! (the kick proved beneficial to the hunchback!). It also created a bad example of cross-border interference in a neighbour`s affair.
I dont think that she hated the sikhs. I have never read anywhere that she opposed Sanjay`s marriage to Maneka, a sikh. And she did not remove sikh bodyguards despite warnings. She basically became a victim of her own machinations vis-a-vis the sikh politics of Panjab and made matters worse by ordering the attack on the Golden Temple. His son completed the task of self-destruction by presiding over the sikh massacres in Delhi.
She imposed the Emergency to save her skin, although one must admit that India was indeed in a mess at that time and governance of the country was perhaps a bit better during the emergency.

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NB:

Great post. Very perceptive.

NB:

Great post. Very perceptive.

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Mrs Gandhi`s life was too varied to be discussed here.

Mrs. Gandhi`s death became India`s first post-independence reminder that politics and religion do not mix well, ever. Not even under the watch ful eye of a shrewed and able administrator like Mrs. Gandhi.

She paid the ultimate price, as did thousands of innocent Sikhs, as did all Indians, in the form of unhappy memories of those very unhappy days.

Ironically, the only party that came out the biggest and happiest winner was Pakistan. That was the country`s first major attempt to avenge the memories of 1947 and 1971. But Sikhs, Hindus, and the Indian government combined to hand them a chance. So we can`t really blame them.

This was a battle that all Indians lost.

Hi Farzana,

Great topic once again. Mrs G was at the height of her popularity after the 71 war, compared to the Goddess Durga. (As u have correctly implied) There was only one way for her after that, downwards.

I will never ever forget the riots,(1984) since this was the first riots that I actually witnessed (Till then they happened in poor areas or other cities) it before my eyes with mobs stopping our car, and burning overturned cars lying on their side. Having a Sikh father, and a Hindu mother, I was lucky that I had short hair and did not wear any religious symbols, else I would definately not be writing this peace right now.

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.

I am happy that the impossible has happened and that Punjab is once again in peace with itself. For people who suffered and lost loved ones, the horrific memories will remain, but for the vast majority of people it was just a bad dream, which happened a long time ago.

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Not read the article yet.

I would just like to thank Shaheed Satwant Singhji and Shaheed Beant Singhji for removing this evil woman from the face of India.

Indira was nepotism, corruption and arrogance personified. A cancer on the Indian body politic. The people who sent her on did a favor for the Sikh panth as well as the Iindian nation.

Now I shall go and read the article.

And this was published in StarDust or CineBlitz?
Sorry Farzana too disjointed and nothing new. I`ll quitely go away before the usual bunch of suspects comes rushing in.

Right now there is another discussion going on at Chowk which seems quite relevant to this piece too. The one on freedom.

Autocracy? How free is the autcrat to act out his/her will and whims?

Operation Bluestar and/or the Emergency singly or even together cannot be treated as the defining attributes of Indira Gandhi`s long rule, nor of the person Indira herself. There was much more to either than just these.



Siddiqua Haqnawaa

Thank you for writing this article Farzana.

regards

Interesting article, Farzana.
I never remember the death anniversaries of my own grandparents, but I remember every 31st October exactly what I was doing when I heard the news, even though I wasn`t even in my teens.
Poor Harbans, but he might be right, at least a little, about the Gandhis.
I shudder when I think of those bad old days, when we lived in our make-believe, pseudo-socialist world, where there was no money to send any but the best to foreign universities, but the grandchildren of the nation went, even without the capacity to achieve their degrees.( By the way, I remember that when the millionth passenger, an mid-western American woman, landed at New Delhi airport,she was given a book by Mrs G. Who wouldn`t want to return with a gift like that?) Narasimha Rao onwards, India has been uglier, but at least, I think, less hypocritical.