Punjabia
Just as I was beginning to be able to translate freely from Delhi English into English English, the itchy feet propelled me Punjabwards. Inadvisedly, I failed to get out of Amritsar after the first day, and am now looking at a second night of (albeit air-conditioned) hell in the dusty nightmare of the north-west. Amritsar is host to the very beautiful Sikh enclosure of the Golden Temple, but the Sikh religion is one of spectacular morbidity and unwarranted fanaticism. The ethos of the the creed is constructive, but for a religious group that worships a piece of paper, one cannot help feeling that the Sikhs take themselves a little too seriously. And in light of the seemingly slight differences between between their faith and the predominant Hindu inclination (they share the same objectives and the same notion of a formless/everyshaped deity, although Sikhism is without the perceived idolatrous clutter of Hinduism), and the lack of hostility on either side of the religious divide, the call for an independent nation of Khalistan seems about as reasonable as a Dorset secession movement...can you imagine: 'We will not rest until we have claimed our right to a freer, stronger, independent Dorset!'
3 comments:
I think you overestimate the connection between Sikhism and Hinduism. As for the Khalistan issue, for you to dismiss the religion because of the very small percentage who agitated for independance would be akin to you dismissing Dorset because a minority of its inhabitants wanted independance.
'Dorset, it's a fanatical, overblown county'.
I dismiss nothing and no-one. I only sikh to challenge the claim to an independent Khalistan. Sikhism - as I'm sure you already know - was partly born out of Hinduism, and seems only to constitute a different approach to the same end. The differences seem to have been largely manufactured by the Sikhs, who go to great lengths to isolate their religion and pervert the course of history in their favour. I would, however, re-think the independence issue if the premise were to be that India is big and ungovernable and could perhaps - I haven't looked into it very closely - do well to downsize a bit.
Dogtooth: these seem very slapdash observations. Khalistan has been a non-issue since the early nineties.
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