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Demspotis -> RE: Border Officials Baffled by Surge of Indians (2/10/2011 10:50:10 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: DCWoody
Also......religious/political persecution......in India? I don't buy that.
No need to buy it. The history books and current media can give it to you for free.
From what the articles about this current wave of migration via Mexico say, the majority of these migrants are Sikhs from the Panjab and Gujarat states of India. Sikhs have been under persecution ever since (if not before) the Partition of India upon Independence from the British Empire. While it was worst, particularly in Panjab in the 1980's and early 1990's, it is still going on.
There's a lot of history behind this, and perhaps I'll post more detail later. I think that for now it suffices to say that the Congress Party of India, which is currently in power, and has been in power for most of India's post-Independence history, is a socialist and distinctly secularist party which to some extent is against all religion. It persecutes Sikhs brutally (the fact that the current Prime Minister belongs to the Sikh religion is a smokescreen: he has not fixed his party's anti-Sikh practices). They are also not especially friendly toward the majority religion, Hinduism. In short, there most certainly is religious and political persecution in India. It is a democracy, and is certainly much better than many other nations, but there is still corruption and tyranny, persecution and torture, to be found as well.
Side note: It is important to explain what Sikhism is, though: it was founded by Guru Nanak, a contemporary of Christopher Columbus. Guru Nanak was born a high-class Hindu, but as a result of a spiritual experience rejected the identity of any existing religion, including those two most prominent where he lived, which were Hinduism and Islam. At the end of the vision, he declared, "No one is Hindu, no one is Muslim." (Koi na Hindu, koi na Mussulman., sometimes also translated ,"There is no...") Sikhism is sometimes described as a "mixture of Hinduism and Islam". This is false and directly contrary to that defining statement. Guru Nanak's (and his successors') teachings were in the same stream as other Indian spirituality, but he taught people from all backgrounds, and he preached to his audiences according to how they would best understand: he referred to Muslim concepts and Names of God when talking to Muslims, and referred to Hindu concepts and Names of God when talking to people from Hindu backgrounds. The social teachings of Sikhism, however are distinctly modern and "Western": freedom of religion, equality for all (regardless of gender, race, religion, social class, wealth, etc.), right (and duty) to bear arms in defense of freedom and justice for all, etc.
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