The ruling Brahmin-Bania combine in India has reduced statecraft to a un ideological, unethical and unprincipled commercial affair. The compulsive hold of the socioeconomic legacy of centuries has left an indelible impression upon the psychology of these two castes. They instinctively follow a behavior pattern that is characterized by pretense, duplicity and dishonesty.
The disparaging generalization made by a senior Indian diplomat in Toronto (Canada), describing Sikhs as a “mercenary community” is a typical illustration of the “pot calling the kettle black.” Bania’s love for Mammon (Lakshmi) is proverbial and Brahmin’s greed stretches to the depth of collecting the clothes of the dead. Yet these self-proclaimed ‘philanthropists’ have the audacity to call Sikhs as mercenaries, knowing full well that a Sikh can be anything but a mercenary.
It is on record that during the last 37 odd years of Indian independence, not a single Sikh compromised his conscience and betrayed his*country by selling its secrets to others. On the contrary scores of Brahmins and Banias have been charged and quite a few have been convicted for indulging in spying activates for countries that are hostile to India. Highly sensitive and codified information from the offices of the Prime Minister and Defense Minister was sold to outsiders by members of these two castes. They are known to wine and dine with the enemy fifth columnists, while Sikhs sacrifice their lives at the borders to protect the integrity of the country. Yet Sikhs are castigated as “mercenaries’ while these traitors remain ‘privileged patriots.
It would also be pertinent to remember that Sikhs are chiefly responsible for making India self-sufficient in food grains by their hard work and resourcefulness. Still millions of Indians do not get two square meals a day, thanks to these profit hungry Brahmin-Bania hoarders who keep the grains piled up in their well protected god owns and release in measured quantities to make maximum profits.
Besides, the comment in itself is in bad taste as it casts an aspersion upon one of the most volatile of the Indian communities. And coming from a responsible person of the status of a senior diplomat, it tears apart the myth of Indian secularism and unmasks the rabidly communal postures of the rulers from the majority community who are incapable of accepting minorities as equal partners in shaping the destiny of India.
The comment cannot be dismissed as an off the cuff casual remark. In fact, it points to a carefully planned policy of keeping the minorities in subjugation by putting them on the defensive. Any protest by them against such unjustified aspersions is instantly branded as communal, separatist and antinational. The minorities must assert themselves and must retaliate to all such motivated attacks in a determined and befitting manner. Communalism can be effectively combated only by a greater dose of communalism. Gone is the time to feel guilty and apologetic. Let us tell the majority community that our communalism is born out of a reaction to theirs and we feel no qualms about it.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 27, 1985
