Afghan Sikhs feel abandoned, ponder their future

sep 30th, 2007

is manmohan singh losing sleep over the afghan sikhs' plight?

i doubt it. he has no cause except: dhimmitude, sycophancy, strange love of nuclear deal.

and how does a group of 100,000 get reduced to 2,000 in 10 years? answers: a) murder, b) forced conversion, c) ethnic cleansing.

but if the number of refugee aghan sikhs/hindus in india is only 9,000, what happened to the other 89,000? obviously they have been liquidated. isn't this a genocide? who's protesting, though?

and this character sood below, see his dismissive attitude? now if it had been some mohammedan under pressure anywhere, he would have jumped through hoops. we saw this in the story of how the indian government was falling all over itself to get a release for that shabeel (or whatever -- how easily we forget!) -- i mean that doctor in australia who was, i presume, a good terrorist (ie. one focusing on killing not indians but other people).

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: venkat

Note: I am sorry but when Muslims are majority and in control -- this is the net result. Kuffars have no right to existence according to Islam. Minorities are simply extinguished -- be it Pakistan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and the process continues in Kashmir today.   Afghan Sikhs and Hindus are indigenuous to Afghanistan, since prior to the barbaric Muslim invaders -- Afganistan was 100% Hindu/Buddhist ! And today???  see below

**There were an estimated one lakh Afghan Sikhs and Hindus till a decade or more ago but their number has dwindled dramatically. Today, their population is expected to be not more than 2,000. **

Afghan Sikhs feel abandoned, ponder their future
http://www.asianage.com/presentation/leftnavigation/news/india/afghan-sikhs-feel-abandoned,-ponder-their-future.aspx

By RAMESH RAMACHANDRAN
Kabul, Sept. 28: Angry Afghan Sikhs marched down the streets of Kabul a week ago after locals prevented them from cremating a community elder. Tension was resolved after the police chief intervened but the embers have not died down completely.

Mr Autaar Singh, one of only two representatives from the Afghan Sikh community in Parliament, cannot understand the opposition to cremation as per Sikh rites.

He wonders why anyone should want to dissuade them, when even the Taliban did not see it as a sacrilege and stop the practice.

Mr Amrik Singh, a small trader who peddles his wares near a gurdwara in Kabul, in turn, feels the minuscule Afghan Sikh community is still trying to come to terms with the downturn in relations with the majority population. Their womenfolk live in perpetual fear.
Children cannot attend school regularly. Families are beset by financial worries.

He is certain that if the situation deteriorates, the only option of the community will be to migrate to India, the spiritual homeland of the Sikhs. What is not certain is whether they can afford to pay for the journey.

The ambassador of India to Afghanistan, Mr Rakesh Sood, says the government of India is seized of the matter but there is only so much it can do. "We cannot support migration of people to India merely because they share a faith with us," he said in an interview to this newspaper. "India," he hastens to add, "does not support financially in any case."

Mr Sood explains: "First of all you must understand that these are not people of Indian origin. These are Afghan Hindus and Afghan Sikhs who've been here for centuries. So I mean this is not going back. It's not as if it's not like you know you had Indian labour that migrated to Mauritius maybe even two centuries ago and therefore wants to go back [but] they've always been here. They are Afghans. So it is not a question of going back [to India.] If they want to migrate they can migrate ... that's a different matter."

Mr Sood dismisses turf war between the ministry of external affairs and the ministry of overseas Indian affairs. "We have the ministry of overseas Indian affairs [which] looks at problems of overseas Indians ... like Indian labour going to Gulf ... that is whole different ballgame but here it is a question of these people who are Afghans finding their rightful place in Afghanistan," he says.

The ambassador points out that Afghan President Hamid Karzai is extremely conscious of the need to keep the Afghan Sikh and Hindu community in his country and not allow them to leave. "He is very sensitive to this. One reason of course is that he speaks Hindi and has studied in India and therefore, he always holds India's multi-ethnicity as something which is an important asset and a requirement in democracy," he says.

Mr Sood feels that the Sikh community could be offered an alternative land for cremation in order to resolve the issue.

The genesis of the dispute, according to him, can be traced back to 60-odd years ago when a community elder, who was a diwan in the king's rule, received land as gift. He decided to give a part of that land for a dharamsala (as temples and gurdwaras are known in Afghanistan). The community never put up a boundary wall around it although the inner complex has one. The land near the inner complex was used for cremation.

"What has happened is there is pressure on land after 2002. That land is now being encroached upon or occupied by Afghans ... nobody seems to have a title to it, so when they took body for cremation recently the locals objected [saying it was] unhygienic," Mr

Sood says. "I do not foresee any difficulty in terms of their either getting an alternative site or because ... I doubt ... if the dharamsala does not have a clear title to this piece of land which is now encroached upon or occupied, then they'll probably get an alternative piece of land [for] cremation which they can then enclose and use it."

There were an estimated one lakh Afghan Sikhs and Hindus till a decade or more ago but their number has dwindled dramatically. Today, their population is expected to be not more than 2,000.

Ironically, there are more Indians in Afghanistan today than Afghan Sikhs and Hindus. About 4,000-odd Indians are engaged in the reconstruction of the war-torn country. There are over 9,000 Afghan refugees in India under the mandate of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. An overwhelming majority of them are Sikhs and Hindus.