~ Sikhs And Panjab Compared To Buddhists And Tibet~

[SAadmin]

source: found on this sikhsangat wanted to get views from members here:

Lately I've been watching all the drama over Tibet. One thing I notice is that all sorts of people, from different backgrounds and ages are willing to protest against China's treatment of Tibetans.

What is the difference between us and Tibetans that make the western world turn a blind eye to what has happened to Sikhs?

I sometimes get the notion that there is is some distrust and even hatred between the Anglo political setup and Sikhs. We all know that Sikhs were a powerful people prior to the British invasion of 1849, sometimes I think that many westerners in power would not like to see Sikhs in such a position again and are complicit in Sikh oppression, to make sure this is so. Also the economic relationship between Hindustan and the west would also make them turn a blind eye.

[Mithr]

I think that Buddhists represent the exotic east in the imagination of westerners which is why alot of these westerners support the tibetens. Sikhs on the other hand simply look very different from the westerners. To most westerners, we resemble Muslims, Arabs which I think is a huge reason why they don't trust us and even show hostility towards us.

Another thing is that since the 1980s many Sikhs have tried their best to distence Sikhi from Indic religions and even go to the extent of showing closeness to Abrahamic religions like Islam. The anti-Dasam movement is just an example by the likes of Kala Afghana. We need to come back to our spiritual roots and stop imitating others.

[shaheediyan]

Good points Mithr.

Personally I put it down to the Dalai Lama and his teams efforts to create political ties all around the world.

Also, Dalai Lama's personal audiences with Hollywoods A'lists.

Alongside Buddism being the current trend amongst westerners, and Tibet and Dalai obviously being seen as the most authentic facet of Buddism.

Dalai Lama has been made out to be some sort of spiritual world leader, whilst I believe him to possibly be a good person, I don't rate him even an iota compared to the likes of Bhagat Puran Singh Ji.

He is highly over-rated.

Sikhs situation and that of Tibet are not really comparable in my eyes, as Tibet has been completely surpressed of freedom - particularly their religious institutions which are totally controlled by China, where as there used to be over 1,500 monks in a main monastry, today there are only 80, and all vetted by the Chinese. Monks are on salaries, gur-shish system has become a joke, and religion is a money spinner tourist trade).

Sikhs on the other hand still had many freedoms and control of their religion, although there was definately injustice and oppresion by the Police.

[shaheediyan]

N30, China makes most products on our homes, there is no way western governments are going to stand up against China and it's human rights record, may be Bush will - last ditch attempt at correcting his reputation, but the bufoon doesn't the know the affect it will have on it's already declining economy.

Politics is a dirty game, and nearl all politicians are dirty.

India and china both stood quiet on Burma issue (remember that - everyone else seems to have forgotten) due to economic partnership.

Now India has decided to remember Human rights and is speaking against China (hypocrites) - purely down to age old dushmani.

West is just hypocritcal through and through in any case.

I really hope the Tibetans (the people not the religion) can salvage their country and culture back, or at least be able to live in peace and security and improve their relations with China.

[Mithr]

I really hope the Tibetans (the people not the religion) can salvage their country and culture back, or at least be able to live in peace and security and improve their relations with China.

The thing is, communists and Jihadi groups are unregotiable. You just can't reason with them. The Dalai Lama is not even asking for full independence. He has toned down and is only asking for a Hong Kong like status for Tibet. Even that isn't enough for the Communists. That is really unreasonable on the part of the communist Chinese. This is similar to how the Anandpur Sahib resolution was not acceptable for the Indian government led by the Congress party

BTW, I agree with you that the Dalai Lama is way too over rated. He is treated like he is Gautam Sidhart himself. No doubt, I bet there are Tibetan Monks/Lamas who are way more spiritually elevated then him.

The Burmese Buddhist monks who follow the Theravada tradition which is the closest to the original teachings of the Buddha have very high spiritual elevated monks who are either Bodhi Satvas or close to it.

[shaheediyan]

Interesting, if a bit fanatical.

Taken from panthic.org

China ought to smile at the Sikh movement for Khalistan...

(Op/Ed)

Thursday 3rd of April 2008

Dr. Amarjit Singh, Khalistan Affairs Center

China ought to smile at the Sikh movement for Khalistan & support the aspirations of Christian Nagas for Nagalim which steps will immediately end India’s anti-China subversive activities in Tibet, Dharamsala & around the world long before the XXIX Olympiad Former Defence minister George Fernandes talks

of plans to‘ambush’ the Chinese Olympic torch relay in India on 17 April, 2008!

How come ‘His Holiness’ the Dalai Lama, the Human Rights activist, chose to remain silent, unlike His Holiness the Pope, about the 1984 Indian state-sponsored pogroms against the Sikhs?

Washington D.C. Wednesday April 02, 2008: India’s leading English language newspaper, the Times of India, in an expose on March 30, reports that, few groups on this planet can match the ability of the Dalai Lama and his cohorts, in the Tibetan diaspora, to network, make friends and milk the power of naïve Western sympathy for ‘harmless-looking purple-robed’ monks who skillfully supply the Western media with gory tales and images of Chinese ‘oppression’ and ‘aggression’ in Tibet, which are floated on several hundred websites, the authenticity of which information cannot be verified independently.

The above mentioned Times of India report shows how a few Tibetan activists, trained in securing support from the most improbable corners of human conscience, began a signature campaign in Mumbai recently. Within a few hours, thousands of Dalits, (‘Untouchables’) who were protesting nearby about the suffocating socio-economic discriminations against them in caste-ridden India, signed a petition pledging support ‘without having expanded their constituency’. The signatures were turned into a memorandum, by the Tibetan protesters, which was later forwarded to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Likewise, ‘His Holiness’ the Dalai Lama and members of his Tibet-government-in-exile living in Dharamsala, India, since 1959, have also learnt the art of telling their side of the ‘Tibet’ story while refusing to recognize or empathize with gory events that took place in their Indian neighborhood. For example, the Dalai Lama, a ‘holy man’ did not acknowledge even once, (unlike His Holiness the Pope) the cruelty of the June 1984 Indian Army attack on the Darbar Sahib, the holiest Sikh shrine in Amritsar, located only a hundred miles away from Dharamsala; or, condemn, even once, the November 1984, state-sponsored bloody pogrom which took place in Delhi, located two hundred miles from Dharamsala, in which over ten thousand Sikh men, women and children were murdered, in three days, after a ‘wink and a nod’ from none other then the then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi; or, raise his voice in sadness and human sympathy at the murder of thousands of Sikh Youth who were hunted down and murdered in ‘false encounters’ in the Punjab by Indian armed police, in the dark decade of the 1980’s, when a whole generation of Sikhs was eliminated by the Indian rulers; or, even once empathize with the beleaguered Nagas by taking a public stand against the bloody Indian state-sponsored genocide, which has been carried out by the Indian Army for over half a century, in Christian-majority Nagalim and other parts of North Eastern India inhabited mainly by fellow-Mongoloid people of Tibetan ancestry who seek freedom as they do not want to live in a caste-ridden Indian colony.

The Dalai Lama and his henchmen, it is quite obvious, are well aware that as the dates of the August 2008 World Olympics approach, the global media’s interest in China is highly ‘cashable’. Dalai Lama & Co., therefore, see the disturbance they seem to have covertly engineered in Lhasa, as a great opportunity to embarrass the ‘Middle Kingdom’ – China – which it seems has made the mistake of underestimating the soft-spoken Dalai Lama’s reach and propensity for ‘mischief’. Beijing also seems to have ignored the deep involvement of India’s numerous Intelligence Agencies in subversive activity, against China, inside Tibet, in India and rest of the world, while overestimating the soothing effect of massive Chinese investments which have resulted in outstanding economic progress in the Tibetan economy which has maintained more than 12% development growth rate for seven consecutive years – one of the highest plus rates in the world.

Meanwhile, India’s National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan, it seems, has made a Freudian slip during a telephone conversation the Chinese State Councillor Dai Bingguo had with him, last week, when Narayanan is reported to have wished a ‘complete success’ of the Beijing Olympics while asserting that, “India will always stick to this position as it has been doing all along.†This loaded remark has been interpreted to mean, (by observers, like this column, who know the devious Chanakiyan mindset of the Indian rulers) that India’s 50-years long subversive activity in Tibet will continue as is evident from the plans by Indian Intelligence agencies to ‘ambush’ the Olympic Torch relay when it arrives in India this month (on April 17) from Pakistan. A former Indian Defence Minister, George Fernandes, has let the proverbial ‘cat out of the bag’ when, according to the HINDU newspaper, he told Karan Thapar’s “Devil’s Advocate†program on CNN-IBN, last week in Delhi that, “the Olympic torch should not be allowed to come to India and that he had asked his‘ colleagues’ and others to make ‘whatever effort’ was required to prevent the Olympic flame’s run in this countryâ€. No wonder a so-called copy cat Tibetan ‘Independence Torch’ has been suddenly unveiled in Dharamsala, on 25 March, (where the Dalai Lama, and his Indian financed government-in-exile are based) according to a report in the Khaleej Times a Dubai-based English language newspaper. This ‘Tibetan torch’ is reported to have reached New Delhi last Sunday on its journey around the world to highlight the Tibetan cause and bring the Tibetan protests to world attention before the start of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad being held in Beijing from 8 to 24 August, 2008.

Interestingly, a senior Indian diplomat, one Kanwal Sibal, a former Foreign Secretary of India, in an article headlined, “Tibet Is Our Best Card To Settle Borders With China†(published in the latest issue of the popular OUTLOOK news magazine - of 7 April, 2008) has suggested that, “Unless shaken, Beijing will have no incentive to deal with the issue.†The article indicates the level of suicidal jingoism prevalent in the thinking of senior Indian decision-makers and the depth of Indian involvement in the disturbances in Tibet as well as worldwide protests. The OUTLOOK article also explains India’s suicidal policy on Tibet and the Dalai Lama as the article goes on to assert that, “While giving asylum to the Dalai Lama in 1959, India imposed the condition that he would not engage in any political activity on Indian soil. In 1959, there may have been some logic in putting restraints on the Dalai Lama in the expectation of reaching a peaceful border settlement with China. But the 1962 conflict, the occupation of large tracts of Indian territory by China since then, and the enormous damage to India’s security inflicted by China’s policies towards Pakistan in particular should have convinced us to revise our thinking about the political utility of the Dalai Lama card.†It is obvious that Mr. Kanwal Sibal’s above opinion piece, in OUTLOOK news magazine about India using the Tibet ‘card’ against China, is written with an eye to Western applause for such a stance. ‘Khalistan Calling’ dated March 26, 2008, (headlined, “What can India do if China diverts the Sutlej river in Tibet or fires non-nuclear missiles at Dharamshala in anger & hits the Bhakra Nangal dam instead?NOTHING!†provided an honest educated analysis of the hopeless military/geographical situation that exists, a la 1962, for India if it ever chose to confront China in the Himalayas over Tibet or the Dalai Lama or any other issue.

India’s neighbors perhaps do not realize that the world’s 26 Million muscular Sikhs (3 million free and prosperous in the diaspora and 23 million captive in Indian occupied Punjab) all of whom recite a daily prayer for the return of Sikh rule (‘Raj Karayga Khalsa’) are India’s ‘Achilles heal’. The Indian rulers, an evil nexus of the minority Brahmin and Bania castes (hardly 4 % of India’s population) know that, and are therefore, terrified of the day when a neighbor of India (China &/or Pakistan) decides to ‘smile’ at the Sikhs by noticing their aspiration for a buffer state of Khalistan. An economically viable, water and food rich, buffer Sikh state East of the Pakistan border (and West of the Chinese border) a la the brave Nagas who are also fighting for an independent oil-rich buffer state of Nagalim, West of Myanmar, East of Bangladesh and South of the Chinese border. There is no doubt that a friendly Chinese interest in acquiring more information about the proposed buffer state of Khalistan would electrify the Sikhs and terrify the Indian rulers into putting a quick end to Dalai Lamas provocative theatrics and Indian covert activity in Tibet and Dharamsala pronto, long before the start of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad being held in Beijing from 8 to 24 August, 2008.

[Xylitol]

Gyani Thakur Singh once mentioned in katha that the khalsa is like an irritant that gets into eyes of the worldly rulers. Living for justice, standing firm to Gurmat principles, threatens them. And so they opppose the Khalsa.

[username]

i see similaritires between tibet/budhists and sikhs/panjab. just as the tibetans once ruled their own country and were a formidable force, they came to lose it and are now over-powered by the chinese. same as sikhs under King Ranjit Singh and now in a country where we have no political power.

the tibetans are hated by the chinese altho they portray themselves as caring for tibetans interest. same goes for india with the sikhs.

the chinese have flooded tibet so that they are becomng a minority in thier own country, sikhs are fast becoming a minority in panjab, partly becos they wanna move out to the western world and also other communites are willing to replace them in panjab.

chinese have tried to dilute the budhsits religion with thier own version of panchen lama, and the ravan hakoomat have interfered in sikh religion.

chinese have so ,much m,ilitry in tibet, as once india had in panjab. if a buddist disappears in tibet, it means nothing. if asikh disappears in panjab or india again it means nothing.

china claims to have brought prosperirty and culture to tibet. in reality they have brought bloodshed and hatred. india claims to have the intrests fo the sikhs at heart , whereas they have also brought murder and bloodshed.

china portrays people with legitimate requests as "splitists" whereas india portrays them as "extremists or separetists".

i only hope reaaly that india either dies quickly or that it relinquishes power to the people. same goes for china. and that those who killed the sikhs also face justice.

but on the realistic front, it probabaly wont happpen. still, they will have to face divine justice.

[unbreakable]

..

[Xylitol]

one thing about the buddhists, saw in a documentary many were prepared to take up arms. But out of respect for the dalai lama, they did not. a wise move as taking up arms may have ended up wiht them being crushed by the chinese military far worse then they have been thus far.

[username]

kinda like hitler ordered in poland after his deputy was killed by polish resistance, i guess.

Sant jarnial Singh did have a lot of support amongst the younger sikhs. however the elder akalis didnt really support him. they were too interested in their politcal careers, as today the younger sikhs are more interested in making money/becoming rich.

[Mithr]

Even today in Punjab, even though the support for Khalistan is almost non existant, but most people in the villages still regard Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindrawalay as a Sikh hero. The reason is as Khuswant Singh once said was that, Sant Jarnail Singh is not only a religious man, but also a warrior.

He represented what we used to be long ago. Completely fearless, manly yet very religious. He was unrivaled when it came to rehet and bravery. A true Sant Sipahi combo, which is a very rare thing amongst Sikhs for the last 100 years. Sikhs for the past 100 years are either completely Sant, or completely Sipahi. But Sant Jee was both. A real lion of Guru Gobind Singh Jee.

I should also add that in the recent controversy about the painting of Sant Jee, the Indian news media again did their best in demonising Sant Bhindrawalay. They portrayed him like he is some Dawood Ibrahim/Osama Bin laden hybrid. It made me really angry to see that, because I was in India at the time. The Hindus in the cities carrying our protests, and even threatened to carry out some kind of suicide mission in the Sikh museum to take down the painting(like that would happen!). What made me particularly angry was that, the Hindus did not feel guilty by naming Delhi Air port after Indira Gandhi, in addition to also having schools, colleges, steets, libraries named in honour of Indira Gandhi, yet if Sikh so much so as even want to put up a painting of Sant Bhindrawalay, they made a huge comotion about it. This is hypocrisy on the part of Hindus. But I do not blaim even Hindus for this. They have been brainwashed by the evil Indian media for years. It is only normal that they would think of Sant Jarnail Singh Jee as a villain.