In this era of materialism, consumerism and luxury, their lives a tribe of people who happily part with their possessions to run the World Sikh News which has created a record of sorts by being in business for eight years. The newspaper has rendered a unique service to the Sikh cause despite its meager resources. Thanks to this newspaper, politically alive people in the west understand the Sikh problem much more keenly than many so-called Sikh intellectuals in India do. Sikh Vichar Manch felicitates the WSN management for the contribution it is making to the cause of the Sikh nation.
We sincerely appeal to Sikh j institutions and individuals the world over if render a meaningful help to WSN Management in doing the newspaper in Content and coverage to genuinely make if World Sikh News.
Gurbhajan Singh Gill
President Sikh Vichar Manch, Ludhiang
Ayodhya Agitation as class war
The Ayodhya outrage has little to do either with religion or with HinduMuslim relationships. It is a manifestation of class war, waged upon the Constitution and its democratic, secular character on behalf of the traditional owners of privilege in Hindu society. The Babri masjid is a symbol of the enemy not just because it is Islamic but because its existence is a reminder of India’s constitutional principle of secularism. To the traditionally privileged Hindu, the idea of democracy is equally abhorrent. He is simply not prepared to accept the equality of all human being irrespective of caste, creed and sex, because it hurts his self-interest.
If people of all classes have to be accepted as his equal, he loses his right to exploit the castes lower than his own. Ramis the symbol of this right to exploit; he beheaded Shambuka the shudra for performing lapasya, for performing tapasya, (one meaning of which can be acquiring knowledge of the divine), Shambuka was simply asserting his right to education. Losing Privileges. The traditional Brahmin pundithada privileged positioning the Hindu hierarchy. He could say to society:” You Shall do as I tell you because I know what the shastras say.” This right he is in the inexorable process of losing, because his learning is no longer protected; it is printed and available to all. What does that do to the traditional privilege of the brahmin pundit? He becomes virtually unemployed.
The traditional mercantile community is in the same plight. It has, for thousands of years, made unethical profit by exploiting people who have no way of protecting themselves. The incentive structure of Nehruvian India drove the prominent ones among them into industrial entrepreneurship. In trying to compete with and in taking over businesses owned by the British or by “modern” Indians, they had to go to Harvard to get their MBAs.
Did that therefore, modernize their minds? Not necessarily. Many of them are unable to forget the simple joys of making easy money. Those aspects of social and cultural change that did not contribute to this process most of them shunned. What is more, the globalization program threatens modern privileges that the forward section of traditional mercantile society has acquired, Global competition may hold other problems for the country as a whole; but apart from them, it poses a threat to the continuity of traditional privilege that has been transferred from the village muhajan’s gaddi to the air-conditioned offices of the Indian industrials. Hence Ram becomes his bharosa in bringing back insularity. No wonder the BJP first supported globalization then awoke to its danger and started talking about swadeshi. One must now Lake a look at the kshatriya the third traditionally privileged class, made up of kings and warriors. In modem India, the British welded an any together out of heterogeneous lot by the force of their imperial discipline. In independent India that loyalty to the state regardless of caste, creed, language, region and other divides continues for one reason secularism. The day secularism is dismantled, the army will go to pieces.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 8, 1993
