Despite having a separate law to enable registration of Sikh marriages, couples are compelled to register marriages under the Hindu Marriage Act. Is this not a violation of fundamental/legal rights of the petitioners to force them to register their marriage under Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, the petition queries. 

File in the Bombay High Court, the petition states that, 
“The Sikhs in Maharashtra, despite having a separate legislation for registration of their marriages under Anand Marriage Act, 1909 are forced to register marriage under Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. Is it not a violation of fundamental/legal rights of the petitioners to force them to register their marriage under Hindu Marriage Act, 1955?”questioned the petitioners’ lawyers Satvinder Kaur and Amritpal Singh Khalsa. The couple married on October 24, 2021 by performing Anand Karaj at a gurdwara in Aurangabad. “ 

The origin of Anand Karaj marriage goes back to the early days of Sikhism. The ceremony is simple and inexpensive. Such marriages are performed by taking four lavans/phere around the Shri Guru Granth Sahib, in the presence of a Granthi and recitation of the Lavan Gurbani and concluded by Ardass ceremony,” the petition informs. 

Times of India reports that the plea that will now be mentioned before a bench led by Justice Sanjay Gangapurwala for a hearing date on September 28, states that the non-registration of Sikh marriages in Maharashtra under the Act is “adversely affecting couples” professing Sikh religion by infringing on their rights to equality, life and to conserve culture and also their freedom to profess and practice religion.
 
In a detailed background, the petition states that the Anand Marriage Act was enacted in 1909 and was specifically amended by Parliament in 2012 during the tenure of the UPA II government. This amendment, 103 years after the law was first enacted, added section 6 which made it mandatory for states to frame their respective rules to implement the Act. Then union law minister, Salman Khurshid had said, this was not just a symbolic gesture and “we should respect the sentiments of all communities …whether Bodos or any other group.” Sikh groups have maintained that members of the community face problems abroad as their certificates are issued under the Hindu Marriage Act. Besides Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists are issued certificates under the Hindu laws. 

The petition states that Section 6 requires rules to be framed to register Anand marriages and the state government is duty bound to do so. Incidentally, while such rules have been framed in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, MP, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal and Delhi, Maharashtra lags behind.’ “The state of Maharashtra for the past ten years has failed to notify the rules,” the petition laments. On September 1, the petitioners have written to the State chief secretary to implement the Act.

Supporting the bill during its passage in Parliament in 2012, Harsimrat Kaur (Shiromani Akali Dal-SAD) had said Sikhs face problems abroad because while they identify themselves as Sikhs, their marriages are registered under the Hindu Marriage Act. She had even thanked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for approving the amendments in a recent Cabinet meeting. P S Bajwa (Cong) said it was necessary to make it clear that the Act was never repealed as claimed by some writers in the recent past. Several other members cutting across party lines supported the Bill. Although the Anand Marriage law was enacted in 1909, there was no provision for registration of marriages which were required to be registered under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955.

Admitting that it had taken a lot of time to pursue amendments in the Anand Marriage Act, the amendment addressed “the long standing need” to register Anand marriages, by allowing Sikhs the option to register their marriages under the Act.
 
Sikh marriage ceremonies are known as ‘Anand Karaj’ (blissful event). According to the amendment bill, couples whose marriages have been registered under this Act, will not be required to get their marriage registered under the Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths Act, 1969 or any other law for the time being in force.

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Sikhs all over the world are celebrating the anniversary of the completion of their holy scriptures. Guru Granth Sahib was first completed in 1604. The Sikhs consider the holy text as their living Guru that remains their guiding light.

On September 7, the Indian Prime Minister extended his greetings on social media. Narendra Modi tweeted, “Greetings on the sacred occasion of the Parkash Purab of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, whose noble principles, the emphasis on compassion, justice and equality guide the entire humankind.”

But considering the track record of his government, such messaging sounds hollow and hypocritical. Not only have the attacks on religious minorities and political dissidents grown under his right wing Hindutva nationalist BJP government, the gulf between the rich and the poor has also widened. So much so, he has hardly shown compassion even as social injustice has become an everyday reality for the oppressed and the weak.

It is pertinent to mention that Guru Granth Sahib includes the hymns of saints belonging to different faith groups, including Hindus and Muslims, besides those considered as “untouchables” within the orthodox Hindu society. The teachings of the scriptures take everyone into its embrace and encourage its followers to stand up against repression. Modi’s government has failed to respect any of those values.

On the contrary, the supporters of his party believe in a brutal caste system and openly discriminate against Muslims and other non-Hindu groups. Thanks to the heartless economic policies of the BJP government, the poor have become poorer.

Even if that is not enough, those questioning the people in power are either being killed or thrown behind the bars. The September 7 events coincided with the death anniversary of a daring journalist Gauri Lankesh, who was assassinated by the suspected Hindu extremists on September 5 four years ago. Her murder was rejoiced by those allegedly followed by Modi on Twitter. Likewise, when an Indian photo journalist Danish Siddiqui had recently died in the line of duty in Afghanistan during an ambush by Taliban, the pro-BJP trolls celebrated his killing. That was because Siddiqui had covered the ongoing farmers agitation against Modi’s unjust farming laws and scores of Covid-19 deaths. He was accused of maligning the image of India by the BJP supporters. All this goes against the principles of compassion taught by Guru Granth Sahib.

The Modi government has refused to release the jailed scholars and teachers who are being incarcerated under inhuman conditions. Among them is former Delhi University Professor GN Saibaba, who is disabled below the waist and suffering with multiple ailments. Saibaba was not even given a bail to see his mother when she was on her deathbed. He was arrested and convicted on trumped-up charges for raising his voice against repression of Adivasis (the Indigenous peoples of India) who are facing forced eviction from their mineral rich traditional lands by the extraction industry with the alleged backing of the Indian government. This is despite the fact that Modi had also tweeted on the Teachers’ Day on September 5 to shower praises on the educators.

Modi should either change his ways and do what he says or just stop fooling the people and himself by indulging in such tokenism.

*Opinions expressed are the author’s own.

More by Gurpreet Singh:

Sikh priest’s suicide exposes double speak of the ruling BJP and its apologists  

If Modi really cares about Nanak’s teachings, he must treat farmers with respect

The post Modi should show greater commitment to minority rights before talking about Guru Granth Sahib appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The post Booklet on Modi’s “special relationship” with Sikhs misleading appeared first on SabrangIndia.

When Balbir Singh Sr, breathed his last on Monday, May 25, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi left immediately tweeted his condolences to the family of the deceased and his well-wishers. After all, Singh was a towering field hockey icon. A triple Olympic gold medalist, he was awarded with Padma Shree, the fourth highest civilian award of the Indian republic for his contribution to the field of sports.

Singh died at a Mohali hospital in Punjab. Some of his close relatives live in British Columbia and he had a huge following in Canada. Singh had a home in Burnaby. The North Delta MLA and a former field hockey player Ravi Kahlon is one of those in Sikh diaspora who were influenced by him.  

What was ironic about Modi’s message was that Singh had faced discrimination for being a member of a minority community in Hindu-majority India. This was despite the fact that he brought many laurels to the country. His supporters have always believed that he deserved the highest civilian award of Bharat Ratna considering his performance, but he was neglected allegedly because of his religious background in a country where polarization has grown ever since Modi came to power in 2014.

Modi is the leader of currently ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which is known for its anti-minority prejudices. A book on Singh, authored by a Canadian journalist Patrick Blennerhassett looks much deeper into this question. Titled as “A Forgotten Legend: Balbir Singh Sr, Triple Olympic Gold and Modi’s New India”, the biography goes into the history of India and links it with the present where attacks on religious minorities have grown under BJP government. Published in 2016, the book reveals how Singh also felt the pain of being constantly ignored. 

Although Modi cannot be singled out for what happened with Singh as the country has long been ruled by Congress party that claims to be secular, he had enough time to at least get him the highest civilian honour during the past six years. This can be partly blamed on Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), the mainstream Sikh regional party of Punjab which is an alliance partner of the BJP.  

Interestingly, the Modi establishment conferred Bharat Ratna on a highly controversial political figure Nanaji Deshmukh last year. Deshmukh was the leader of a Hindu supremacist organization, Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh of which BJP is a political wing. He had justified the Sikh Genocide in one of his writings.   

Thousands of Sikhs were murdered all over India in the first week of November, 1984 following the assassination of then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards who were seeking revenge for military invasion on the Golden Temple Complex in Amritsar in June that year. The ill-conceived army operation had left many pilgrims dead and historical buildings heavily destroyed. This act of sacrilege which the government boasted was aimed to deal with armed militants, who had stockpiled arms inside the shrine that was used as a hideout for insurgency that saw the murders of innocent Hindus in Punjab, had enraged Sikhs across the globe. For many in the community, it was designed to attract majority Hindu votes in the impending general election while other reasonable measures could have been adopted to prevent the conflict.

The mobs led by the slain leader’s Congress party with the help of police targeted Sikhs in different parts of India. The BJP supporters also allegedly participated in the killings to avenge the murders of Hindus in Punjab that were blamed on Sikh extremists. This explains why BJP lost the election that followed and Congress got a huge mandate. It was a clear indication of the shift of BJP’s hardcore Hindu vote bank to Congress in the aftermath of Sikh massacre.  
 
Singh himself survived the 1984 violence, as he was in Delhi at that time. Blennerhassett mentions in detail about this whole episode in his book and its impact on the sensitive mind of Singh who felt as an alien in his own home country. While we celebrate Singh’s legacy, we must also recognize the challenges faced by our heroes from minority groups and marginalized sections in a society that is unevenly divided with some more equal than others. 

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After authorities in Punjab said that so far 197 pilgrims out of the 3,500 brought back from the Nanded’s Takht Hazur Sahib Gurudwara in Maharashtra had tested positive for the coronavirus on their return to Punjab, the Akal Takht on Friday demanded a high level probe in the matter, reported The Tribune.

The 197 out of the almost 4,000 pilgrims who returned from one of the holiest sites in Sikhism make up a third of the 585 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Punjab. Taking into account the 20 deaths and people who have recovered, they represent about 40 per cent of the “active cases” in the state.

However, officiating jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh said, “Each of the pilgrims at Hazur Sahib underwent medical tests thrice and none was found to be infected. How could so many of them on their return contract the infection? I suspect that like the Tablighi Jamaat (Muslim sect), the Sikhs too are being defamed under a conspiracy. A probe should be held as I doubt the authenticity of ‘tests’ being conducted in Punjab.”

He alleged, “It is being propagated as if Takht Sri Hazur Sahib was the home to coronavirus and these people carried it with them to Punjab. It is a very big conspiracy. How come they turned coronavirus positive after they reached Punjab? This question comes to the mind of everyone.”

It has now been reported by The Times of India that as many as 20 staffers from the Nanded Gurudwara, majority of them associated with Langar, have tested positive for Covid-19 on Saturday. Two drivers and one attendant who were associated with the buses that transported stranded Sikh devotees to Punjab, have also tested positive for the virus.

The health authorities and Punjab government are still in conflict about the timing of the pilgrims contracting the disease.

Nanded district deputy collector Prashant Shelke on Saturday said that a group of gurudwara staff was serving over 3,700 stranded pilgrims, some of them were found to be positive only after they return to their native state, Punjab.

He said, “Majority of the staff was associated with Langar, which is a community kitchen at gurudwara. Together we had taken swab samples of around 97 gurudwara staff over a period of last two days till Friday of which 20 samples have been tested positive while another 25 have been tested negative for Covid-19 and results of remaining samples are still awaited.”

“The two drivers and attendants had travelled to Punjab and returned back during a period from April 23 to April 28. Their swab samples sent to the lab also turned out to be positive for Covid-19. We have traced 13 close contacts of the confirmed cases and put them under isolation at health facilities,” he added.

Responding to the claims of the Punjab government that the Sikh pilgrims had contracted the disease in Maharashtra and was not noticed by the local administration, concerned authorities said, “We had carried out total three health check-ups of all the devotees at regular intervals and none of them showed any symptoms such as fever, cough or cold during any point of time. We had requested gurudwara authorities to strictly follow social distancing and hygiene related norms. We had also asked them to immediately contact us if any health issues were found among stranded devotees. We will investigate whether any lapse has taken place on any front.”

The gurudwara has been closed for devotees and public movement and the services of Langar have been suspended till further notice, he added. It was reported that all 90 staffers from the Nanded gurudwara have been shifted to a dedicated Covid-19 care centre and health authorities have taken a massive contract tracing operation.
 

Related:

Medical negligence, apathy and ostracisation kill more than Covid-19

BJP members target Tablighi Jamaat for spread of coronavirus

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The questions asked for data on number of Sikh and Hindus refugees who entered India in the past 3 years from these two countries, the number of these refugees granted citizenship and asked for a timeline as to when the rest of the refugees will be granted Indian citizenship.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) stated that 391 Afghani and 1595 Pakistani migrants, have been granted Indian Citizenship in the last 3 years i.e. from 2016 to 2018. Further, the Ministry also provided data of the current year stating that 40 Afghani and 712 Pakistani migrants have been granted citizenship in 2019 until December 6.

The government further said that in 2018 they have started capturing citizenship data pertaining to migrants belonging to minority communities such as Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian. Since this system was introduced in 2018, (total of) 927 Sikhs and Hindus from Afghanistan and Pakistan have been granted citizenship. If this data is being maintained for each community, it is unclear why the MHA has not provided separate data on Sikhs and Hindus.

The government, however said that it does not centrally maintain data regarding Sikh and Hindu refugees who have entered India from Afghanistan and Pakistan and consequently it cannot provide data on how many such refugees have not been granted citizenship yet.

Evidently, much before the Citizenship Amendment Bill could be passed by the Parliament, the government has started collating data on migrants categorizing them into their religions to use such data for their own benefit in the future. It may be used to prove its point that so many people belonging to these communities have faced religious persecution and the government has done the noble deed of giving them asylum and citizenship rights.

The Bill, however, provides for granting citizenship to migrants who entered India on or before 31^st December 2014, yet the government is maintaining this data for migrants being granted citizenship after this period, the reason for the same, one cannot ascertain at this moment.

Related:

Don’t show anti-national content: I&B Ministry
PIB’s #MythBuster attempt busted
Assam engulfed in smoke as protests rage on
Massive Protests against CAB in Aligarh
Calls for Civil Disobedience against CAB
Citizenship Amendment Bill: Unconstitutional and Divisive

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The post Commercial establishments around Sikh Mangu mutt demolished in Odisha appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Indian government’s decision to commute death sentence of a convicted Sikh militant and release eight Sikh political prisoners on the occasion of the 550^th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Devji is a pure political stunt full of hypocrisy.

Even from human rights perspective preached and practiced by the founder of Sikhism, the announcement made by the Ministry of Home Affairs is problematic.

When Guru Nanak Devji was arrested for standing up against tyrants and was later released, he ensured that all those detained in the same prison also be liberated.

So the question is why only the Sikh political prisoners are being released and not all political prisoners, including physically challenged Delhi University Professor, G.N. Saibaba who is ailing with numerous diseases. Saiababa who is being incarcerated under inhuman conditions for merely defending the rights of minorities and the oppressed communities has received tremendous support from everyone, including the members of Sikh community and yet the government remains adamant to persecute him. And the by the way, why only these particular eight prisoners while there are more Sikh political prisoners languishing inside the Indian jails?

If the government of India really cares for what Guru Nanak Devji taught, it would have been wiser to release Saibaba and other political activists being held indefinitely. Such selectivity goes against the spirit of Sikhism that takes into its embrace entire human race. Also, do we need to remind this government that it’s time to free all Kashmiri leaders being detained since August 5? The entire Kashmir has been turned into an open jail, so what is there to celebrate anyway?

Likewise, the decision to commute the life sentence of Balwant Singh Rajoana, a convict in the assassination of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh’s assassination in 1995 raises several critical questions.

As against the compassion being shown for him, the current government hanged Yakub Memon to death in 2015 despite many mercy petitions. Memon was awarded death sentence in connection with 1993 Mumbai bombings in spite of many gaps and holes in the story. Unlike Rajoana who has always desired to be hanged and has never asked for mercy. Memon petitioned for clemency. It’s the leaders of the Akali Dal, the Sikh political party of Punjab and an alliance partner of the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party who were asking for clemency on his behalf.

Clearly, the BJP has favoured their allies and chose to ignore the pleas of a Muslim prisoner. Nothing  surprising though considering their anti-Muslim prejudices.

In the meantime, people have not forgotten how eight under trial Muslim prisoners were mysteriously killed in Bhopal in 2016 under a BJP government. They were all part of the Students Islamic Movement of India. The BJP government not only brushed aside the allegations of staged shootout under the garb of jail break theory, but also tried to justify their killings accusing them of being terrorists, whereas it was clearly a case of cold blooded murders.

As if this was not enough, the government also simultaneously decided to release five Punjab policemen — who were convicted for human rights abuse during their battle with Sikh militants between 1980s to 1990s. This was clearly done to balance their decision of releasing Sikh militants on humanitarian grounds. This is a perfect example of false equivalency on part of the BJP government that does not want to appear soft on terror and national security either. How can a government give clemency to the custodians of law and order whose job is to protect people and not to kill them? Their actions cannot be equated with that of the militants who were functioning outside the constructional framework.

The Sikhs who have seen and experienced the barbarity of the state cannot be fooled by these hollow gestures. By using an auspicious occasion of the 550^th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Devji, this government is only trying to take political mileage while unable to hide its true colours.

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Rattan Singh Kalsi kept photos of all his grown children in his room at the seniors’ home, but one of them towered over the rest.

The photo anchored a kind of shrine to his daughter, Indira, who had died more than 30 years earlier, just as she was entering adulthood.

Indira had grown up in Canada and Rattan had bought her a plane ticket so she could see India, the country their family had come from, and spend time with the relatives she might not get to see once the responsibilities of work and adult life set in.

Naturally, Rattan, who had been middle-aged at the time of Indira’s death, was heartbroken when she was killed in the bombing of the plane. He never recovered. He was not responsible for what had happened, but he blamed himself and lived in quiet anguish for the rest of his life.

Not long before he died, he shared his story. I was there to record it, and it was unbearably sad for both of us.

Rattan had left behind a request to scatter his and his wife’s ashes (she had died some years earlier) over the same patch of ocean where the remains of the plane carrying their daughter had splashed down.

Bomb planted in Canada

All 329 people on board Air India Flight 182 on June 23, 1985, were killed, including 280 citizens or permanent residents of Canada.
They were lost to a bomb that exploded while their plane was in Irish airspace, en route from Canada to India. The bomb had been planted in Canada in an act of terror planned by extremists allegedly advocating for a separate Sikh state in the Punjab.

It was Canada’s worst mass murder, yet it is barely remembered in this country.

Today, Canadians commonly regard the bombing as an Indian tragedy, or at most an Indo-Canadian tragedy. They typically dwell on the terrorism, but rarely on the grief and hardship of fathers, mothers, wives, husbands, children, friends and neighbours left behind.

Why hasn’t this tragedy claimed a prominent place in Canadian history and public memory? Some now call it Canada’s 9/11, but until the attack in New York City some 16 years later, they didn’t call it much at all.

The Canadian families of the dead wonder year after year why no one but them seems to care, or why their grief is seen as less worthy than that of others who are more openly taken into the nation’s heart.

Yes, there was a long criminal trial, a public inquiry and an apology from the federal government for failing to prevent the bombing and for the mistreatment of the families thereafter.
The bombing was belatedly declared “a Canadian tragedy,” so Air India is part of the official record, but it does not appear to be part of the Canadian family album.

‘Broad indifference’

I have no personal connection to the tragedy, but our country’s broad indifference to it came to me as a surprise. A course I was teaching at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., 25 years or more after the bombing, called for a section on Air India Flight 182, but when I went to look up the scholarly research, I was astonished by how little there was.

The absence of research was consistent with the broader and more troubling fact that the bombing has never resonated as deeply with Canadians as the scale of the tragedy would suggest.

An Indo-Canadian woman shows her two-year-old grandson where the name of her husband and his grandfather, Daljit Singh Grewal, is located on a monument during a memorial marking the 25th anniversary of the Air India bombing in Vancouver, B.C., in June 2010. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

The mismatch between the tragedy itself and its significance in the public memory may have many explanations, including racism.

It could be that the bombing is regarded as an Indian issue, since it was apparently motivated by political conflicts rooted there, or as an Irish event, since the plane that had taken off in Canada exploded in Irish airspace. It may be that since most of the Canadian victims were of Indian ancestry, that their fellow Canadians discounted them as outsiders or minorities.

Whatever the reason, a great wound had been left to the families to tend to on their own, and history had closed it over, leaving barely a scar for the public to see. The wound represented not only the grief of losing one’s loved one, but the heartache of not being recognized as Canadians, and the loss not being viewed by the Canadian government and fellow citizens as a loss worthy of public mourning.

Since then, I have made it a personal and academic mission to haul this tragic event into the Canadian living room for a broader discussion, partly for the sake of the memory of those who died, and partly for the sake of those who have had to carry on without them.

Memorializing Air India

In 2016, toward the end of the 30th anniversary of the tragedy, my colleagues and I organized a two-day conference at McMaster featuring family members, scholars and artists in the hope of bringing the bombing closer to its rightful place in the Canadian consciousness.

(Khursheed Ahmed)

Last year, we published an anthology, Remembering Air India: The Art of Public Mourning that creates a different sort of public record of the bombing than official responses.

In the course of my research, I have had the difficult honour of interviewing dozens of relatives of those who perished on Air India Flight 182. They have taken me inside their pain, and I find their grief substantial, complex and palpable even after three decades.

My work has led me to understand what our country lost in the bombing, and also what we have lost by failing to include the tragedy and its living victims in our collective memory.

At the annual commemoration of the bombing in Toronto every year, Air India families come up to me and ask who I lost. To me, it’s distressing that they have come to expect that only other family members would care enough to come to a memorial service.

Slowly, I am assembling an Air India Flight 182 archive, the first of its kind, featuring families’ scrapbooks, poems, dance, kids’ paintings and recordings and transcripts of interviews with family members, to be housed at the McMaster University library and made available online for users around the world.

My hope is that it will preserve the memory of those who passed away, document the pain of their families and create resources for research that may finally connect this “Canadian tragedy” to Canada itself.

It’s high time.

This article was first published on THECONVERSATION.
 

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Image credit: Dailyo

A Lokniti-CSDS-APU/KPS first round survey report conducted among youth during 2016 focussing on the four states of Gujarat, Haryana, Odisha and Karnataka, published in the Indian Express Monday and Tuesday has thrown up some disturbing findings as regards perceptions about Indian Muslims.

According to the survey findings most non-Muslims considers Muslims as the least patriotic among Indian Muslims.

 
Interestingly, while Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs consider themselves the most patriotic, Christians think Hindus are more patriotic than their own community. Sikhs have the greatest doubts about the patriotic credentials of Muslims and Christians.  

Paradoxically, however, most also seem to agree that Muslims are falsely implicated in terror cases.

A majority of the Hindus, Sikhs and youth overall agree that Muslims are falsely implicated while Christians have a different view.

The BJP is unlikely to be very pleased with the finding that while they figure on top of the most preferred list, only 20% of the respondents gave them the thumbs-up.

As to their attitude towards religion, every third youth is either very highly religious or highly religious.

On issues of greatest concern to them, unemployment, poverty and economic equality and corruption are issues of greatest concern to the youth, in that order, while casteism and communalism find their place way down the list.

As regards the ideas and attitudes on related issues, most of the respondents disagree with what are considered liberal values.

What should be a matter of great concern is the finding thst more than 80% of the respondent youth are highly anxious or somewhat anxious about their future.

Read the full report of the first round survey published by the Indian Express on Monday here and on Tuesday here. 

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