Is Sikhism destined for dustbin of history?
By Moorthy Muthuswamy, April 2005
Introduction
The so-called confidence building measures between India and Pakistan are now underway. The proponents of these measures have not fully explained how this would diffuse tensions between India and Pakistan.
The background of the groups and individuals behind this push is disturbing. Some of them belong to established jihadi-fronts against India – this includes assorted variety of Indian Muslims and their organizations. Others are left-oriented “peaceniks” who have a strong record of apologizing for Islamic terrorism at the expense of its victims.
Going by the track record and the underlying ideology, one could argue that anything these two groups advocates is not in India’s national interests.
The United States State Department is also among the advocates of these confidence building measures. As I have published before, the State Department hasn’t been particularly well-advised when it comes to understanding the dynamics of South Asian Islam (American Policy Advice in South Asia: Fatal Flaws). In fact, America’s Department of Home Land Security has put Pakistanis on special terror watch list – not surprising when a recent poll in Pakistan showed over 60% showing admiration for Osama Bin Laden. But Manmohan regime is willing to allow many of them enter India without a visa!
In this paper I focus on the implications of these moves for East Punjab, a critical border state. This analysis shows that the Manmohan Singh’s regime has recklessly and without adequate study is pushing ahead with a process of normalization. Such normalization would lead to mostly one way transfer of Muslim populations into Indian Punjab, along with most western border states and will lead to a permanent displacement of Sikhs and Hindus residents.
For all the brave battles spread over many centuries waged by Sikh gurus against Islamic fascism, Manmohan Singh may be known as the Sikh who likely initiated blunders that led to the disappearance of Sikhism.
I am going to suggest steps Sikh communities within India and its extended diaspora can take to stop this potential blunder and put Punjab and the rest of India on a path of glorious revival.
How Islamic fascism is destroying East Punjab
There are very few Muslims still living in East (Indian) Punjab. Then how is it that Islam is destroying this region? What has happened is that due to neighboring Kashmiri Muslim’s jihad against India and due to Pakistan’s proximity, very few high-tech industrial investments could be made in Punjab. Due to population growth the lands inherited have been further divided, making many Sikh families increasingly impoverished. In order to destroy India Pakistan continues to implant anti-Hindu ideas in the minds of some Sikhs, making the state somewhat unstable.
Also, with Indian Muslims sucking the life out of India with expenses related to terrorism, subsidizes, and reservation, resources are being unfairly taken away from investing and developing many states, including Punjab.
Softer borders with Islamic Pakistan
The process of “normalization” or “people-to-people” interaction envisioned by Manmohan regime, along with increased trade requires much more porous borders. While Pakistan is likely to remain unsafe for non-Muslims due to hateful religious preaching in its mosques, a growing (at least on a short-term) and secular India would be a magnate for Pakistani Muslims.
Pakistan continues to be a nation among the highest rates of population growth -- many poor Pakistanis have been desperately emigrating. Only an adversarial relation and a closed border have stopped them from coming to India -- a nation where they can mingle easily given similar language and customs. India’s eastern border states have been systematically flooded by Muslims from Islamic Bangladesh with whom India has “normalized” relations. India is destined to lose these border states at this rate. In fact, successive democratically elected governments have no plans on how to stop this demographic expansion or drive out this Muslim population. Similar scenario will occur when India’s relations are normalized with Pakistan; India’s eastern borders will be flooded by Pakistani Muslims.
Softer border with India also makes it possible for Pakistani Islamists to extend Islamic borders in the easiest way possible – by exporting Muslims and occupying lands and then drive out the natives – the most established way Islam has conquered territory in South Asia.
If Pakistan wants India to “help” (get assistance from India in order to come out of militant Islam’s grasp) it by normalizing relations with it, then one has to conclude that “help” is needed because Islam is destroying Pakistan. Hence India is all the more justified in quarantining itself from Pakistan – a fully Islam “infected” nation, and work to first eradicate Islamic fascism within Indian boundaries (Soft Borders with Pakistan: A Certain Suicide, Prithiviraj, Again?). Saving Pakistan comes later!
There exists no evidence that Islam or the Muslim religious establishment have changed their ways. Islam as a religion doesn’t offer any positive vision for its adherents in South Asia. In fact, it can only keep them under the fold by inventing grievances and engage them at a perpetual state of war with non-Muslims – towards first bringing entire India under Islamic fold (When are India and Pakistan ready for peace?). India’s own Muslim population is the standing example of what is so wrong with Islam in South Asia!
The evidence is all there. Among the most glaring is marginalization and massive ethnic cleansing of non-Muslims in every area of South Asia where Muslims have power – through majority status. Even in areas where Muslims are in a sizable minority – within India, their relationship with majority Hindus is conflict-prone and wrought with violence, mistrust and suspicion (For Hindus in Kerala it's now or never).
The border states, and in particular Kashmir and Punjab, will see their Muslim population swell due to illegal migration from Pakistan -- if Indo-Pak relations normalize. These Muslims, by simply being South Asian Muslims -- going by the track record -- will make life unsafe for non-Muslims, including Sikhs and will make Punjab even less of a desirable place to invest. Hence such a Punjab will have increasingly poorer Sikhs and financially better off ones will simply leave for states located deep within India.
Conclusion: Normalized relations with Pakistan will inevitably lead to a demographic takeover of East Punjab by Pakistani Muslims. Sikhs will become poorer and will be displaced permanently from their final ancestral land in South Asia.
Sikhs will convert to Christianity
Recently, it was reported that Christian soul harvesters had converted some impoverished Sikhs in Punjab to Christianity. As I discussed above this is already due to indirect consequence of Islamic fascism making Punjabi Sikhs poor. It is poor and uneducated that are ready victims of various “incentives” offered by soul harvesters. Financially better off and educated people know that religion alone is no salvation. After all, American blacks, who are predominantly Christian, remain in third world standards, while “pagan” Hindu or Sikh immigrants in America have done much better (Dynamics of Proselytizing).
In other words, economic development and modern education lead to capable and resource rich population that knows how to advance its interests and progress its civilization. On the opposite side, an India that is drained by Islam will not be able to defend its borders, and its poor, literate citizens will be easy pickings for Christian soul harvesters.
Current trends indicate that not just Sikhs, Hindus too will become history in India, with the region ravished by Islamic fascism and indigenous civilization never given a chance progress and simply exterminated religiously and culturally, if not physically. Is this what Sikhs want?
Once homelands for both Sikhism and Hinduism (India) gone, pockets of Sikhs and Hindus leftover around the world will not have infusion of much-needed reform coming into their religion. Increasingly outdated and isolated in an evolving world, both Sikhism and Hinduism will eventually settle into the dustbin of history, and their followers, mostly absorbed into Christianity.
That is why it is a must for India to slay the Islamic fascism monster permanently to free up resources to move forward as a civilization. When India makes economic strides, its indigenous religions too will progress. Hence it is in the self interest of diaspora of Sikhs and Hindus to work together to eradicate Islamic fascism within India, and defang it in the neighborhood.
In my mind eradication of various non-fascist cultures and religions without being given a chance to evolve is similar to eradication of plant and animal species due to human encroachment. This is not in the long-term interests of human civilization.
Old people as leaders
When I met with Advani and RSS leader Sudharshan and listened to them a few years ago in New York, I realized that they were of no leadership material. I am seeing similar traits in Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh that I saw in Advani or Sudharshan.
What are these traits? Inability to articulate a point of view that is in the interest of the civilization they represent and simply be outdated in their outlook and incapable of outlining a bold new initiatives or a vision to solve outstanding problems – such as Islamic fascism. Their age also makes them much less dynamic. This contrasts with Pervez Musharraf – among the most lethal adversaries Hindus and Sikhs have encountered in a thousand years.
Also, these old Indian leaders I have talked about were born in an India that was under the control of British. In their prime days they had only encountered an India that was NOT known for accomplishment even in one area, such software competence. They knew of an India that was timid, shy, inarticulate, poor and unaccomplished.
Such old people should never be in leadership positions for a young nation that is showing signs of accomplishment and confidence. Only a confident and articulate younger leader can take on Islamic fascism and defeat it, then put India on a fast-paced China-like economic growth.
The track record of these old men is one of total surrender and appeasement to Islamic fascism and they have no clue how to defeat this enemy (Slaves, Servants & Rulers).
After all, someone eventually did figure out how to eradicate smallpox, is it not? Younger people with established leadership and problem-solving skills can create new ideas and solutions -- I have published a series papers on how to permanently eradicate the Islamic threat (How can India Defeat Militant Islam? Islam’s Weakness, A Hindu Movement Born).
America and the asymmetric war
While America in general plays by the rules established under international conventions, the jihadi forces attacking it obey no rules. Such a war is called an asymmetric war.
America has enormous resources at its disposal. Also, a nation it is very capable -- it has taken on big projects before and executed them successfully. It is also nation with an excellent administrative setup that can enforce the rule of law; at individual level American citizens are among the most capable.
Even then, America is stuck with enormous expenditures. By many accounts America is spending several hundred of billions of dollars a year in its fight with Islamic fascism, with no end in sight – all the while running up huge budget deficits. In fact, due to the escalating and enormous costs of fighting the war on terror its civilization edge is eroding -- compromising the future generations.
American establishment appear to think that democracy will be the natural neutralizer of Islamic terrorism and conditions creating it. If American hypothesis is true then nations such as Pakistan which have strong bouts of democracy should have weakened roots of terrorism. Quite to the contrary Pakistan remains one of fountainheads of worldwide Islamic terrorism. In fact, American establishment is yet to understand that fundamental deficiencies in Islam must be first fixed before democracy can take root (The Art of War on Terror).
Conclusions: Only a nation such as America with its super power status and extraordinary resources can afford to wage an asymmetric war with Islamists, still obeying international laws. Even then, it is not clear how and when America is going to emerge victorious or what price it is going to pay at the end of the war on terror.
India can’t win the asymmetric war
When Islamic terrorist nation such as Pakistan butchers at least a million Hindus in East Pakistan in 1971 and gets away with it or sponsors ethnic cleansing of over 300,000 Hindus from India’s own Kashmir valley in 1989, or when Indian Muslims burn a train coach full of Hindu women and children in Godhra – the world appears to shrug and say that Muslims are expected to behave this way. However, the civilized world expects Indian state and its majority community to defend and retaliate in “civilized” ways – against Pakistan and segments of Indian Muslim population that wage an asymmetric warfare on them.
This has led to unfathomable brutality and killings of Hindus and Sikhs both on the part of Islamic states and by Muslim populations in South Asia.
However, India is a poor nation of meager resources; it needs all of them to invest to create wealth for its people to progress. It is also a poorly-governed nation where the rule of law is not well-enforced. Hence, expecting such a nation to respond in “civilized” ways to Islamists is almost equivalent to asking it not to fight back effectively while the Islamists destroy the country from within and without. Also, Muslim clergy who commandeer Indian Muslims in a jihad against the state are proven to understand only the language of force. Hence India doesn’t have the enormous resources or the governing ability to wage a civilized war and win it – and eventually, the end result will be India’s annihilation in the hands of Islam. Is this what America or rest of the civilized world want?
This asymmetrical warfare imposed on an “infidel” India has already led to ever-increasing and enormous amounts spent ineffectively on security (with the security situation only getting worse!), and Muslim appeasing subsidies, reservations, with little left for infrastructure development. Due to an unabated demographic expansion from Islamic Bangladesh and fast-growing Muslim population, this problem will get only worse -- if not addressed adequately now. Not only India can’t manufacture certain products due to a lack of capable infrastructure, it can hardly afford to train its people to produce them. Instabilities created by Indian Muslims either directly or indirectly are making many parts of India undesirable places to invest. There will be a security markup on all of its products, making them expensive. Under these circumstances how can a nation such as India compete in global markets?
Undoubtedly, an India impoverished by an extended bleeding in the hands of Islam is seeing the birth of naxal movements in many regions. Resource rich Christian proselytizers are taking advantage of this to convert the locals. This is the classic case of a dying civilization that fights in terms set by the enemy!
Rules of engaging an enemy has to evolve with time and situation, that is common sense (New Ideas for a New War).
The American establishment, which in my opinion not only lacks a coherent and a workable strategy to win the war on terror quickly and efficiently, showed a lack of grasp of the threats facing India by revoking visa to Narendra Modi (An inside story of Modi’s visa revoke). For Indian Americans, including Sikhs, this shows the dire need to help educate the American establishment.
Musharraf -- a cosmopolitan jihadi
Musharraf is one of the few Pakistani leaders to realize that Pakistani embrace of extremism will lead to its doom and that it must embark on some form of modernization to move forward. To embrace modernism he also realizes the need to get help from the western nations, and in particular, the United States of America.
But he is also a Pakistani military officer who appears to believe in supremacy of a “moderate” version of Islam in South Asia. By implication, this necessarily means destruction of the dominant country of the region, India. India’s destruction will mean bleak future for non-Muslims of the region, including Sikhs, Jains, Christians and Buddhists -- in addition to Hindus.
Musharraf’s jihadi intent can be ascertained by the fact that he talks only about freedom of Kashmiri Muslims in India, but says nothing about non-Muslims who have been driven out of Pakistani part of Kashmir or from the rest of Pakistan.
To achieve India’s destruction he is using jihadi ideology and forces. He is a prime strategist and sponsor of Islamic terrorism in Kashmir. Under him Pakistan has intensified encircling of India by jihadi forces. Now a major thrust, including terrorism, is coming from Pakistan-Saudi Arabia’s client state – Islamic Bangladesh. He has also worked to establish jihadi cells within India and has sped up the jihadization of Indian Muslims.
Manmohan has no plans to rollback Islamic fascism
Manmohan is coming across as India’s Chamberlin, who could only appease Islamic fascism – the modern-day Nazism of South Asia. His track record and background is that of a man of essentially no leadership skills and no vision to roll back Islamic fascism.
As the opposition party leader Sonia Gandhi had given a lecture in November 2002 at an Islamic center in London with links to Bin Laden family. In this lecture she says: “What is striking and remarkable is that international terrorist networks do not seem to have a hold on Indian Muslims”. But this statement by Sonia was quite contrary to the obvious reality -- assisted by an international terror group Laskar-e-Taiba (LeT), India’s only Muslim majority state, Kashmir, had been waging a jihad against the Indian state and according to Indian intelligence LeT had managed to install Islamic terrorist cells in many parts of India! This shows that Sonia had little understanding of the extent of Islamic threat to India and hence she is unqualified to be the leader of Congress party.
Most of the ministers in the Congress-led regime, including Natwar Singh, Shivraj Patil, Arjun Singh or Mani Sankar Aiyar are all old-style bureaucrats/politicians with outdated ideas and are in no position to provide leadership or governing.
The Congress leadership under Manmohan-Sonia team has been escalating its appeasement of Islamic fascism, including the recent announcement of over 20,000 crores for Muslims of Kashmir – who want to suck India dry and still sponsor jihad (The woes of Jammu and Ladakh, India, the Kashmiri colony); more reservations for Indian Muslims, when Indian Muslims already have over 25% reservation (Muslim Reservation = Jihad)! The list is endless.
Manmohan Singh has outlined no plans to drive out illegal Muslim Bangladeshis in India. Instead of helping Nepal solve its insurgency problem, he is driving Nepal into the hands of China and Pakistan.
Islam as an ideology in South Asia comes across as corrupt, fascist and inferior one that can’t bring progress to the people under its flock and keeps them in an eternal conflict with others. Hence it is an ideology that must be eradicated and reaching “accommodation” or “coexisting” with it is no option (How were Srilankan Hindus United?).This also means that peace with Pakistan is not possible -- eventually Pakistanis too must be liberated from this ideology. But Manmohan-Sonia team has no such vision! This team can only appease Pakistan and Indian Islamists at the expense of India, all the way to India’s doom.
Congress didn’t come to power due to a mass support base. Most Indians had been fed up with NDA’s ineffective leadership under Vajpayee who failed to increase standard of living for most Indians and who also showed himself to be an appeaser of Islamic fascism. This anti-incumbent feeling meant that as a national alternative, by default, congress got the votes and came to power. Hence, the congress-led UPA regime can never claim mandate or even full-fledged legitimacy under India’s dysfunctional democracy.
Lacking credentials and immersed in incompetence the UP-led regime shouldn’t be allowed to reach any “compromise” with Pakistan over Kashmir.
My purpose here is not to insult congress leadership, but keeping the welfare of their children and grand children in mind, it is time for them to handover the government to someone with proven credentials for the role of India’s leader.
Narendra Modi – India’s Winston Churchill
Who is that leader India can look up to?
Just like elements Nazi leadership was afraid of Churchill coming to power in Britain in place of weak Chamberlin, Islamic forces in South Asia are afraid of India’s very own Churchill – a younger and dynamic visionary, Narendra Modi.
Administration and the people reflect the leader. A dynamic and capable Gujarat reflects its great leader Narendra Modi. A lethargic and timid India reflects the old and outdated Manmohan Singh and previously, Vajpayee.
The future of both Sikhism and Hinduism hinges on India achieving strong economic growth and opportunities for higher technical and professional education (A New Paradigm: Civilization through Wealth Creation). Only then Hindus and Sikhs will evolve into capable and resourceful populations that can progress their religion and learn to promote their interests. In both areas Modi has proven himself to be a giant visionary -- with Gujarat achieving over 15% growth rate in the past year – over twice the national average. Modi has also rightfully emphasized the importance of learning English to achieve excellence in technical education – by introducing English at an earlier age for school children.
Modi’s systematic efforts to neutralize Islamic cells in Gujarat who would like to wage jihad to destroy Gujarat is well-known.
At the moment the focus of Pakistan and Indian Muslims is on Gujarat and Narendra Modi as they realize that in order to destroy India and Islamize it, they must first remove Modi from power and convert Gujarat into a waste land.
Recently, chief jihadi thug of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf threatened India with yet another “Kargil” unless Indian settles the Kashmir issue (presumably in Pakistani terms). Inept leaders such as Manmohan, Sonia, Vajpayee or Advani could hardly respond to this thuggery effectively. Someone like Modi would have told Pakistan that Pakistan owes India one third of its real estate as a compensation for massive ethnic cleansing it conducted when it drove out its Sikh and Hindu residents to India. Hence annexing land from Pakistan as the rightful compensation becomes India’s strategic goal (Demanding Land From Pakistan). For instance, Lahore should rightfully belong to Hindus and Sikhs, and so are most of Muslim-free Sind and Kashmir.
We need leaders like that, right now!
No more old, inept, outdated and tired people as leaders!
Sikhs must work with Hindus
Being a small minority and with a history of being under the bloody sword Muslims, India is the last homeland of Sikhs. Besides, they are linked by language, religion, food and customs with Hindus.
It is now or never for both Sikhs and Hindus and they must work together to permanently eradicate the enemy. As I have listed above we do have a plan to make it happen.
Time is running out for Sikhs & Hindus