Census of farmer suicides

The Punjab government has finally allocated funds to assess the breadth of farmer suicides in the state.

The Punjab Government seems to have finally woken up to the need of having a census on farmers’ suicides in the state. The state government, it is learnt, has the [sic] entrusted the arduous task of completing the census to the Punjab Agricultural University. As per Dr R.S. Sidhu, head of the Department of Economics, PAU, “The state government has asked us to do the work and we have taken it up as a research project. Though whole of Punjab is to be covered under the study, the state government has asked us to do a pilot project in two districts of Punjab, Gurdaspur and Sangrur initially.

The census will be conducted by the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), based in Patiala Ludhiana. During the first phase of the survey, PAU will conduct a door to door survey in about 1,500 villages in Gurdaspur and about 575 villages in Sangrur out of the 12,000 villages in Punjab. The report from this initial phase is set to be completed in four months from the beginning of the survey, which is set to begin in the next couple of weeks.

The census will take into account farmer suicides occurring after April 1, 2005, excluding suicides of farm laborers.

Rising pesticide and fertiliser costs, shrinking land holdings, declining soil fertility and heavily-subsidized farming in wealthier countries are some of the factors blamed for these suicides.

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Avneet And Her Bandook

As some of us shoot rifles as a recreational activity, while others view them as a defense plan or just admire the way rifles look, it was nice to come across a Punjabian, Avneet Kaur Sidhu, an international rifle shooter, who excels at using them as part of a sport!

According to the The Tribune, she recently “… won a gold medal in the women’s individual 10m Air Rifle event of the Australia Cup Shooting Championship held at Sydney International Shooting Centre (SISC)” in 2006 (yea this news is kinda old, but I thought it was still worth highlighting since it’s a Punjabian Sikhni in sports).

Hailing from Bathinda, Avneet has earned a bearth for the Beijing Olympics, representing Team India! Congratulations! Watch out for the eye and steadiness of this Sheerni!

According to her facebook group (all of you can join now: “Avneet Kaur Sidhu”), Avneet is a 2001 alumnus of Dashmesh Girls College, Badal (Muktsar) with an English Literature degree and currently an Assistant Manager at Air India. You go girl … an affection for books and guns, while promoting the hawayee jhahajaz (i.e. airplane)!

Wishing you the best of luck in Beijing Avneet! It’s wonderful to see a Punjabian excelling in sports and representing us on the world scene!

Establishing ‘knowledge’

Another university endowment has been gifted. This time it goes to the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins (SAIS) for “India studies,” and comes from Mohinder P. Sambhi, a Ludhiana-born hypertension specialist.

A prominent Indian-American has donated $2 million to establish an endowment for India studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. The endowment is the first of its kind in Washington…The fund supports student fellowships, a professional lecturer and eventually a professorship to be held by a scholar or practitioner whose eminence and promise in the field deepens Indian scholarship and instruction at SAIS, the institution says.

SAIS is reknown for its programs in international affairs. In the past, it was also reknown for its neo-conservative tilt, home to faculty members such as Francis Fukuyama who was an important figure in the rise of neo-conservatism and a key contributor to the Reagan doctrine of containment. As the Iraq debacle has unfolded in recent years, Fukuyama has backed away from the neo-conservative agenda.

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Rise of the Great Khali

Other bloggers have discussed their convictions regarding manly men, but Dalip Singh Rana from Himachal Pradesh may have taken this concept to a whole new level.

At a mere 7 feet, 3 inches and 420 pounds, Dalip Singh is blazing a new trail into World Wrestling Entertainment.

He is the first Indian to be signed up by WWE, and enjoys top billing in the famous American showbiz circus alongside fighters such as Hulk Hogan and The Rock.

The WWE website says of Rana:

This enormous monster has walked the jungles of India unafraid of pythons and wrestled White Bengal tigers. Legend states that the Punjabi Warrior has “stared into the abyss and the earth trembled at his gaze.

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A Post-Partition Diary

Most people who lived through Partition are understandably hesitant to talk about it. A decade long Ford Foundation study says that one fourth of those interviewed about Partition so far have never even recounted their stories to their children. So I was pleased to find this diary type piece about Delhi in the aftermath of Partition. It’s personal.

When I was a little girl I was living in Sita Ram Bazaar in Gali Kulub Din which was at a twilight zone between Turkman Gate (an all Muslim area) and the temple of Chaurasi Ganta, the 84 bells, an all Hindu area. Both the communities met midway and had lived together happily for many centuries till the partition occurred in 1947. We had moved there in 1948, when I was four months old; however, my memories of the place date back to the time when I was four and my younger brother Ravi was about to be born in the year 1952. Several Muslim properties, belonging to the families migrated to Pakistan, were lying vacant in our street, the Gali Qutub Din. However, a sizable Muslim population had also stayed back.

It also invokes visuals. 2 things caught my attention. First was the mention of abandoned homes:

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‘Butcher of Punjab’, You’re Fired!

Poor KP Gill. The ‘butcher of Punjab’ lost his cushy government position, after having been President of the Indian Hockey Federation for fifteen years.

Bribery, corruption, and mediocrity – this is Gill’s legacy as President of the Indian Hockey Federation. After failing to even qualify for the Beijing Olympics in field hockey, for the first time since field hockey’s introduction in 1928, and then finding himself in the midst of an expose where his handpicked Secretary-General was videotaped(!) accepting a bribe to select a player on the national team, the calls for Gill’s dismissal had become too loud. Others had called for his resignation, but the ever prideful Gill has a track record of being unceremoniously dismissed.

Crying as usual, Gill responded:

“Am I to resign based on a concocted sting operation, or simply because some players or a section of the media wants me to? There is a rule of law, a democracy in the country, I am not going to resign when I haven’t done anything wrong,” he said. [link]

Really, what is he going on about? Was his cushy bureaucratic position an ‘elected’ seat? What does democracy have to do with anything in this context? Rule of law? The fact that Gill should ever utter the phrase ‘rule of law’ or appeal to it is beyond absurd. Unfortunately the tragedy upon those families he destroyed prevents me from laughing at the irony. Where was the rule of law for the tens of thousands he made ‘disappear’?

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A Rotting Harvest?

In keeping with TLH’s agricultural theme, the BBC reported today on the environmental health fallout of the Green Revolution in Punjab (I). The Green Revolution introduced industrial mono-culture farming to small farms. The result was a short and sharp growth in grain production. However, over time this has also resulted in declining harvests. Why? Because many of the “best practices” from industrial farming are also unsustainable. Without crop rotation, most stock grains (corn, soy, wheat, rice, and cotton) leach nutrients from the soil. The industrial solution to this is an over-reliance on both manufactured fertilizer (to re-fix nitrogen) and pesticides (since mono-crops are notoriously more vulnerable to weather or pest devastation). Now declining crops are paired with another negative outgrowth from devastatingly unnatural farming practice: increasing rates of cancer, and possibly pesticide poisoning, among Punjabi farmers.

In agricultural economics, public health, and agrarian studies, the links between pesticide use and health have been clearly documented in the local and international context (1, 2, 3, 4). We know, now, that many of these methods do not post the high crop levels that seemed never-ending in the past. And in the context of — arguably trade-driven — food shortages world-wide, this article raises questions about the disproportionate burden of agrarian “success.” Is it truly successful if it’s unsustainable? Is it “success” if grower booms later severely limit the quality or duration of life? How about the permanent ecological damage? The loss of biodiversity? Punjab has fed the subcontinent for decades, but what will happen if growth continues to fail while the population surges?

Previous coverage: “Nanak Kheti”… and Natural Farming, The Rights of Punjabi Farmworkers, Asian Americans and Rural Development, Farmer suicides continue…

NRI Women and “Grooms-For-Money-And-Visas”: What is Going On In Punjab And Abroad?

Recently on “The Langar Hall” there has been discussion about “Runaway Grooms” who with their immigration status abroad marry women from Punjab, only to abandon them after receiving the dowry. Along with being deserted by their husbands, these women’s “dreams” of going abroad are also shattered. These “dreams” were generally a primary reason many of the women were married to these men. Hasit Shah writes in his BBC news article,

“You can see it around you. There is a lot of foreign money in this city [Jalandhar]. The NRIs have been coming back and building huge houses and flaunting their success. The locals see this and want a better life for their daughters, but when the husband is unscrupulous, the women’s lives are ruined.”

Many Punjabi men in Punjab/India are also tremendously influenced by this wealth and have dreams of going abroad (a lot of it has to do with lack of job/economic opportunities in Punjab). NRI women’s green cards and citizenship status become routes for gaining permanent residency abroad. Interestingly, it is the “unscrupulousness” behavior of “husbands” and gendered power dynamics prevalent in “Runaway Groom” situations that translate into the predicaments faced by a growing number of NRI women who are also manipulated and abused by their Punjabi Sikh husbands from Punjab/India. Their “husbands” were not interested in a marriage … they really only wanted the money and permanent residency abroad. I completely agree that this is not the outcome of all NRI and non-NRI marriages. Many couples are very happy. Yes, I acknowledge that the circumstances are different for NRI and non-NRI women based on the power hierarchy between the US and Punjab, which influence the choices these women make. However, with these issues aside, in this post I would like to focus on the similarity of situations between NRI and non-NRI Punjabi Sikh women and highlight the unique circumstances of NRI women.

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Another Sikh Wedding Act?

Too often in the diaspora, Sikhs are discouraged from becoming involved with the politics of their homeland. While on certain occasions I have been critical of special ‘entitlements‘ and malicious effects the diaspora has had on the Punjabi homeland, sometimes our political workings can bring about great effects.

In an earlier post, I had mentioned what I believed to be the Top 5 Sikh Successes of 2007. At #2 I mentioned the Pakistani Sikh Anand Marriage Act. This certainly has been a long demand from the community. In fact it was due to the nullification of the Anand Marriage Act of 1909 and the lumping of Sikhs as “Hindus” in the Indian Constitution that Sikh representatives refused to ratify the constitution.

Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale often reminded Sikhs that if they believe they have an independent status within the Indian state, look no further than their marriage certificate that is signed under the ‘Hindu Marriage Act’ and compare that to the separate status of the Muslim and Christian communities. The efforts of the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee and the American Gurdwara Parbhandak Committee led to the announcement last year that Pakistan will recognize and enact legislation recognizing the Anand Marriage Act.

It seems that this political pressure may mark dividends for Sikhs in Punjab. This week, the Indian Law and Justice Minister HR Bhardwaj stated that the government of India is planning to bring in a special marriage act for the Sikhs.

He said the Government has taken note of demands in this regard from various Sikh organisations and “there should not be a problem” in introducing such an act.

“We will bring it soon,” he said replying to supplementaries.

Reality? An empty promise? We’ll find out soon….

A costly error by the Ministry of Women and Child Development

India’s Women and Child Development Minister, Renukha Chowdury recently unveiled an expensive initiative to combat sex selection in India.

India has launched a dramatic initiative to stop the widespread practice of poor families aborting female foetuses by offering cash incentives for them to give birth to the girls and then bring them up.

Families can expect to earn around £1,500 per girl under a government scheme announced this week.

In many parts of India, especially in remote and rural areas, male babies have long been the preferred child of expectant parents. Such is the perceived cost of marrying off a daughter and the contrasting anticipated benefits of having a male child that millions of daughters are often killed before they are born.

Unfortunately, the plan suffers from a giant blind spot. The economic incentives that are at the plan’s foundation assume that it is primarily families in poverty who abort female fetuses. The incentives offered ($3,000 over the course of 18 years) will only entice families who do not own multiple cars and take vacations to hill stations.

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A jago for landless laborers and more on Int. Women’s Day

Punjabis (at least in East Punjab) love to protest. The cause is usually grim, the consequences leave one hoping for more, but the spirit and energy behind the gathering leave one (at least this one) with a sense of contentedness in belonging to such a proactive community. In honor of International Women’s Day, women from various groups were found on the streets highlighting the problems they face.

In Amritsar, a group of women burned an effigy in protest of the state and central government’s “anti-people” policies, according to The Tribune (I hope that journalists become a little more investigative soon- which “anti-people policies” did the burning effigy represent? We’ll never know. If only Mr. Vishal Kumar had bothered to ask a few follow up questions…)

In Nawanshahr, a Kavi Darbar and seminars were organized in honor of Int. Women’s Day where Punjabi poets read their works urging women’s empowerment. (Ironically, the poets were all male.)

Our neighbors to the West (in Lahore) noted that most efforts in their half of Punjab for Int. Women’s Day did nothing for the most vulnerable women- those struggling to survive. Expressing dissatisfaction, some women called the efforts of Ministers, NGOs, and government organizations “ploys to attract foreign donations.”

Perhaps the most interesting celebration of Int. Women’s Day was in Shahkot (Jalandhar area), where dalit women put a new twist on Jago, the traditional dance meaning “wake up” performed by women before a wedding. They ingeniously took out a Jago to highlight the sham free electricity that had been promised to landless laborers by politicians during election time. I would love to hear the boliyan they came up with for the occasion…

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Breakthrough for HIV+ women in Punjab: a self-help group

We’ve discussed AIDS in Punjab and its impact on women before. An impressive and inspiring update has since taken place.

…a small group of HIV positive widows from rural Punjab has taken to a path that may prove to be a major initiative in making people living with HIV/AIDS self-reliant…

12 women in Anandpur Sahib have created a self-help group.

“We look at the formation of this self-help group as a rebirth. Our group wants to be financially self-reliant so that we can tell our relatives that we are no longer at the mercy or doles of relations for travel to a medical centres or to buy emergency drugs”, says Avtar Kaur, democratically elected president of the Bhai Ghania Self-Help Group.

The group is being assisted, interestingly, by Ambuja- a cement company responding to the alarming rates of infection of its truckers. The company has teamed up with the International Finance Corporation, a branch of the World Bank, to “proactively prevent and manage HIV/AIDS from affecting the Ambuja communities in eight manufacturing locations of the company across India.”

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Update: Hook a Sikh Punjabi Brother Up

Update:

Who knows if the “Langar-ite Leap” helped Rohanpreet gain the maximum number of votes last weekend, but it surely did help. If you voted last week, make sure you vote again. If you didn’t vote last week, make sure this week you do.

It is down to the final 3. After an acrimonious elimination last week, Rohanpreet has advanced out of the Final 4. The quest to number 1 continues. His talent brought him this far, it’s our job to bring it home. If you forgot how to vote, scroll down and remember. VOTE OR DIE! (Thanks, Puffy)

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Rohanpreet needs your help. We have featured Rohanpreet, the Prince of Patiala on this blog before and now he desperately needs your help. He needs your vote. Atleast for this weekend, forget Hillary, Obama, and even McCain, think Rohanpreet. (Yes, we are usually against group identity blocks, but sometimes we make exceptions)What you need to do – VOTE FOR ROHANPREET.

1. Go to this website
2. Click on the ‘Sign Up’ blue tab under the password entry area
3. Fill out the registration. (Yes, it’s lame, but this one is easy, JUST DO IT!)
4. Vote as many times as possible (There is no limit! Stop being lazy, you have nothing better to do, c’mon just a few more times)
5. If you do it, leave a comment here. Let’s see how many we can get to vote Rohanpreet!

Voting ends Monday morning 10:30am IST, thats Sunday night 9:00pm PST.

Do it for love. Do it for music. Do it for Punjab. Do it for Rohanpreet. Just DO IT. Ok enough of this bakwas, back to your regularly scheduled broadcasting….

Updated: Failed Assassination Attempt on Dera Sacha Sauda Cult Leader

Earlier today, Gurmeet Ram Rahim narrowly escaped an assassination attempt when someone from a truck passing by his motorcade threw an explosive object.

While members of his entourage were injured, the Dera Sacha Sauda leader walked away unscathed. The rumor mills are buzzing and expect the words “RDX” and “Pakistan” to soon circulate. What seems to be completely missing from the coverage in terms of the timing was the recent directive by the Punjab and Haryana High Court calling the state of Punjab not to file a chargesheet in the case registered against Gurmeet Ram Rahim at Bathinda a few weeks ago. Badal was using the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s directive to wiggle himself out of upholding the Sikh masses’ pressure after the Jathedars had to call an emergency meeting last year at Takht Dam Dama Sahib announcing that if the Punjab Government failed to act, the Sikhs would be “forced to act against the Dera” and would commence all social boycott.

From newspaper reports, GT Road has been flooded with his followers and closed down. Unfortunately, expect clashes and a brutal random round up by the police within the next three days. (See earlier “joke” about this issue)

Update!

Two men, Mohinder Singh and Swaran Singh, have been apprehended in connection to Saturday’s failed assassination attempt against the Dera Sacha Sauda leader. Another man, Bakshish Singh, has been implicated and it is not yet known whether the police have already apprehended him or if he is eluding their capture. (One is never quite sure with the draconian Punjab Police)

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Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?

Dedicated to “The man on the bridge in Modinagar and the victims of Air India Flight 182,” Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?, is said to be one of the recommended reads for Sikhs everywhere. While there are numerous historical accounts of the Partition, Operation Bluestar, and the Delhi riots – this is one of the few fictional accounts I have come across where the same feeling and emotions rise to the surface as they do when we think back to those events.

The author, Anita Rau Badami recalls,

[It was] just after Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two of her Sikh bodyguards. I’d been married two weeks. My husband and I were traveling back to Delhi after our honeymoon. In Modingar, a town close to Delhi, we saw a Sikh man standing on a bridge… his turban removed, his long hair unbound, his arms pinned to his sides by a car tire, surrounded by a group of hoodlums. Somebody tossed something at him and the next moment the man was on fire. [Link]

This event is the seed for the novel. The story spans over half a century, from the Partition in 1947 to the Delhi riots following the events of 1984 and finally to the explosion of the Air India flight in 1985. It’s the story of the intersection between personal concerns and larger ethical and political ones. Bibiji, Nimmo, and Leela are the three main characters of the novel – three women whose lives merge and diverge by chance yet are linked through the political turmoil and destruction in Panjab, first during the 1947 partition and then again during the events of 1984. Bibiji grows up in Panjab and as a teenager manages to steal her sister’s husband-to-be and moves with him to Vancouver. Leela, a half-German woman from Banglore, also follows her husband to Vancouver and befriends Bibiji. Nimmo, my favorite character, remains in Delhi and is a direct witness to the partition. She is also Bibiji’s niece and in a twist of fate, she reluctantly agrees to send her oldest son, Jasbeer, to live with Bibiji in Canada. It’s a heartbreaking decision that Nimmo will come to regret. Interestingly, Badami’s three heroines were partly inspired by a collection of survivors’ testimonies published by People’s Union for Democratic Rights in 1984 about the impact of the Delhi riots.

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Sikhi, Light, and Social Activism

Recently, when I was watching Shaheed Jaswant Singh Khalra’s speech that he gave at a Gurdwara in Toronto in 1995, I found his metaphor of Light and Darkness particularly inspirational for social activist. He said (English translation of Panjabi),

“There is a fable that when the Sun was setting for the first time, as it was completing its journey, light was decreasing and the signs of Darkness were appearing. It is said, lamentation was rife amongst the people that the Sun will set, Darkness will spread, no one will be able to see anything, and what will happen to us? Everybody was worried, but the Sun set. In order to show its strength, Darkness set its foot on the earth, but it is said – far away, in some hut, one little Lamp lifted his head. It proclaimed, “I challenge the Darkness. If nothing else, then at least around myself, I will not let it settle. Around myself I will establish Light.” And it is said, watching that one Lamp, in other huts other Lamps arose. And the world was amazed that these Lamps stopped Darkness from expanding, so that people could see. I believe, today when Darkness is trying to overwhelm Truth with full strength, then if nothing else, self-respecting Panjab, like a Lamp, is challenging this Darkness. And I pray to the Guru, who identifies with Truth to keep this light lit.”

Even though Shaheed Jaswant Singh Khalra was talking about all those individuals who make-up Panjab and were fighting against the Darkness of the lies prepuatated by the Indian State and were trying to spread the Light of Truth about the murders during the 1980s and 1990s, I would like to extend this metaphor to talk about local and global social activism. As Shaheed Jaswant Singh Khalra said about the Lamp, “I challenge the Darkness. If nothing else, then at least around myself, I will not let it settle. Around myself I will establish Light.” I believe our activism needs to start locally … we need to start with spreading Light around our local communities and preventing Darkness from engulfing them. Too often I have seen activism begin globally, but have little effect locally because we fail to understand how global issues take a unique form in the local context. Therefore, with little knowledge of the local context we try to implement global solutions that mean very little and let Darkness spread. Don’t get me wrong, I think the global and local should constantly be in dialogue and inform each other, but solutions are based on local implementation. As we become more strategic and effective at local implementation, I think we can inspire more Lamps to spread the light around themselves and begin to build local activism into a larger global social movement with practical solutions.

Also, as Shaheed Jaswant Singh Khalra spoke about how one Lamp arose and inspired other Lamps to also arise, I began to think how social activism is a form of seva which makes it a crucial component of our spiritual journey as Sikhs. To some degree, I kept equating the Lamp and it’s Light to the Divine Light that resides in all of us. As Sikhs, our spiritual journey is based on seeing the Divine Light (jyot) of Truth in others and ourselves. It is this recognition that makes us act. We act to fight the Darkness (i.e. injustice) that engulfs and dims the Divine Light in people and ourselves. As we allow this process to take place, our individual and communal Divine Light becomes more visible, larger, and stronger in fighting Darkness (i.e. injustice).

What does everyone else think?

Farmer suicides continue…

A couple of years ago, in the farmer suicide capital of Punjab (Sangrur-Mansa belt), the first People’s Tribunal on farmers’ suicides took place, organized by the Human Rights Law Network and the Voluntary Health Association of Punjab. Word got out about the tribunal by word of mouth and women traveled to Lehragaga, Sangrur by bus and foot to have their stories heard and recorded.

As people from 10 villages spoke of how their families had witnessed double, even triple, suicides in a year, everyone knew of the havoc debt and unsustainable agricultural practice had wreaked on farmers in the state.

So they spoke fearlessly, revealing shocking details. National Samples Organisation data shows “whereas the average annual loan taken by farmers in India is Rs 13,000, the corresponding figure for Punjab is Rs 40,000.” It also shows that around 40 per cent Indian farmers want to quit farming due to the cost it involves.

Why are farmers in such debt? Agriculture is no longer the profitable livelihood it once was, yet many do not have the skills or education to turn to other forms of livelihood.

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Bruised Body, Mourning Mind, Soaring Spirit

Some readers to this blog may be aware of the great work done by Ensaaf in advocating for human rights. Jaskaran Kaur, Sukhman Dhami, Jasmine Marwaha and the rest of their team deserve the community’s praise for their tireless work advocating for justice in Punjab and beyond. They are among a number of fearless warriors in our community including HS Phulka, Jaspal Singh Dhillon, and the late great Jaswant Singh Khalra.

However, in addition to their tireless efforts, they should be praised for bringing greater awareness to the wider community about the injustices perpetrated upon the Sikhs by the Indian State. One such example is in the latest edition of the Journal of Abnormal Psychology.

A team of researchers, including Dr. Andrew Rasmussen of New York University School of Medicine and Bellevue Hospital, Dr. Barry Rosenfeld, Kim Reeves, and Allen S. Keller, secretly entered Punjab to conduct their research on Sikh torture victims. Evading the Indian Government’s efforts at censorship, the research team, invited by Ensaaf, documented the trauma suffered by these victims of state violence.

The article titled “The Effects of Torture-Related Injuries on Long-Term Psychological Distress in a Punjabi Sikh Sample” sheds light on the psychological ramifications of torture. The findings of the study are those typical of a scientific journal.

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A Sikh’s Rights

Lately there has been numerous stories affecting Sikhs around the globe, and an interesting number of them concern our innate rights as Sikhs. Sarika Singh, a 14 year-old Sikh girl living in Wales, was excluded from her school for wearing a Kara. Last November a legal fight began for Sarika to be allowed back into her school, whom say she was “legally” dismissed due to violating their policy of “No Jewelry” to ensure equality for students. The school’s governing committee have yet to research the importance of the Kara  and appreciate the significance it holds for Sikhs. Sarika has now filed her case in a High Court. 

Another ongoing issue concerns the French law passed which bans students from wearing “religious headgear” in schools.  A great number of students have been expelled from class for not abiding with this ban, which in fact means Sikhs cannot wear turbans and Muslims cannot wear headscarves.(The Sikh schoolboys lost their appeal in a French court). I felt great disappointment and anger when this was passed in France, and I thought where are the rights of these individuals as Citizens of this country? Then I remind myself how Sikhs in the U.S. must have felt when the TSA was allowing the searches of their Turbans in public. Thankfully with the perseverance of the Sikh community, and organizations like Sikh Coalition, SALDEF, and United Sikhs, we were able to “educate” people and facilitate an addendum to their policy.  In 1969 Sohan Singh Jolly, a 66 year-old Sikh man living in the U.K., won a fight to wear his Turban on duty as a busman. I am amazed that we are still fighting for our rights as Sikhs, and yet we feel we have come such a long way.  Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been urged to bring up the issue of this ban with French President Sarkozy, when he visits India later this month. Sikhs held a peace march to protest against the French turban ban earlier this week in New Delhi. (Now with India being tagged as one of the emerging economic powers of the world, maybe Sarkozy will feel the need to make relations better with the Indian community, like Gordon Brown did earlier this week).

Tejinder Singh Sidhu was denied entry into a Calgary court earlier this week due to wearing a Kirpan. He had been summoned by the court to testify as a witness, and was not allowed to fufill his civic duty and testify.  Our rights as Sikhs to freely practice our faith are continuously being violated. I am thankful that we have a great number of Sikh organizations that work incredibly hard to maintain and fight for our rights every day. But something is wrong in the world today where we are allowing such laws to be passed that discriminate, and are unjustified.

Maybe we fight more passionately for our rights because Sikhi instills values in us like equality amongst all people, respect and live by positive ideals, and fight for justice and fairness for all? 

Rocket Roger and Raging ‘Roids in Rural Raikot

* (the asterisk)
This symbol should be assigned to most of the professional baseball’s records over the last two decades. From Barry Bonds to now Roger Clemens, most of the greats of this baseball era have had their images tarnished by allegations of cheating. Whether the baseball owners and media are accomplices will be left for another post.

However, the steroids use hits closer to home. Although this article (you may need to register for a free account) is over 4 years old, recent visits to Punjab makes me believe that the problem has gotten even worse. A more recent article from only two weeks ago discusses how steroid usage is now common among school children for athletic competition.

Steroid usage has become normal throughout village ‘health centers.’ In rural areas, unemployment is high, alcoholism is high, mix that in with steroids and you have a volatile mix. Chris Benoit’s heinous murder of his wife and son and subsequent suicide was largely based on the neurological damage caused by prolonged steroid usage. Will we be reading more reports in the future about ‘roid rage violence against women?

Bringing the issue to the diaspora, there are many Punjabi males that take steroids. Bodybuilding and gym usage is popular. This phenomenon is nothing unique in our community, but are there any specific pressures or attributes within our community that many males to take to steroids?