IJSA May 2010

THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SIKH AFFAIRS JUNE 2010 Volume 20 No. 1 Published By: The Sikh Educational Trust Box 60246 University of Alberta Postal Outlet EDMONTON, Alberta T6G 2S5 CANADA E-mail: <[email protected]> http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/IntJSA ISSN 1481-5435 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SIKH AFFAIRS Editorial Board Editorial Advisors Dr S S Dhami, MD Dr B S Samagh Dr Surjit Singh Prof Gurtej Singh, IAS New York, USA Ottawa, CANADA Williamsville, NY Chandigarh J S Dhillon “Arshi” M S Randhawa Dr Sukhjit Kaur Gill Gurmit Singh Khalsa Malayasia Ft. Lauderdale, FL Chandigarh AUSTRALIA Usman Khalid President, LISA Editor in Chief: Dr Awatar Singh Sekhon The Sikh Educational Trust Box 60246, University of Alberta Postal Outlet EDMONTON, AB T6G 2S5 CANADA E-mail:<[email protected]> NOTE: Views presen in Chief, the Editorial Advisors, or the publisher. SUBCRIPTION: US$ 80.00 per anum plus 5% GST plus postage and handling (by surface mail) for institutions and multiple users. Personal copies: US$30.00 plus 5% GST plus postage and handling (surface mail). Orders for the current and forthcoming issues may be placed with the Sikh Educational Trust, Box 60246, Univ of AB Postal Outlet, EDMONTON, AB T6G 2S5 CANADA. E-mail: [email protected] The Sikh Leaders, Freedom Fighters and Intellectuals To bring an end to tyranny it is a must to punish the terrorist -Baba (General) Banda Singh Bahadar Sikhs have only two options: slavery of the Hindus or struggle for their lost sovereignty and freedom -Sirdar Kapur Singh, ICS, MP, MLA and National Professor of Sikhism I am not afraid of physical death; moral death is death in reality Saint-soldier Jarnail Singh Khalsa Martyrdom is our ornament -Bhai Awtar Singh Brahma (General) We do not fear the terrorist Hindu regime. We are tireless: we shall return home before freedom of Khalistan -General Labh Singh The coward Hindu regime will never achieve our surrender -Baba Gurbachan Singh Manochahal One must have superior morality and lifestyle than the person he is going to punish -Bhai Harjinder Singh Jinda and Bhai Sukhdev Singh Sukha My real life will begin from the moment of my martyrdom for the Panth Bhai Amrik Singh Khalsa The siege of Darbar Sahib is the siege of the Sikh Nation -Justice Ajit Singh Bains No power on the earth can stop the freedom of the Sikh Homeland - -Simranjit Singh Mann, MP Even they dismember my body, I will not surrender before the terrorist police chief KP Gill -Bhai Kanwar Singh Dhami We are alive, we are awakened, we are struggling and we shall surely win -The Declaration of the Sikh Nation The lessons of Guru Gobind Singh ji must be followed. No Sikh, whether a politician, sarpanch or jathedar, should be followed if they do not openly and unequivocally speak out for a free and sovereign Khalistan and encourage a peaceful movement -Dr Gurmit Singh, President, Council of Khalistan, Washington DC The goal of Khalsa Panth is sovereign Khalistan. The Akali government has backed away from it. It has lost its credibility with the Sikh Nation. Do not let these Akali leaders get away with it. It is our responsibility to liberate Khalistan. -Dr Gurmit Singh Aulakh Freedom is never given, it is won through preservance and struggle by peaceful means -Dr Gurmit Singh Aulakh Akali Party id dead -Dr Harjinder Singh Dilgeer The top priority of the Sikh Nation is to “Re-establish the Sovereignty of the Sikhs' Holy and Historic Homeland, Punjab, Khalistan, by peaceful means.” -Dr Gurmit Singh Aulakh, President, Council of Khalistan, Washington DC PRINTED IN CANADA ISSN 1481-5435 i INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SIKH AFFAIRS 34 ii International Journal of Sikh Affairs 20, No. 1, 2010 ISSN 1481-5435 What is the meaning of "Hindu"? Dr Baldev Singh (Deceased), USA Introduction www.voiceofdharma.com/books/htepmles2/app3.htm In his column “Who is a Hindu? Who is not?” published in the India A close study of literary and epigraphic sources shows that the word Tribune (September 28, 2002), Mr. Niranjan Shah made the “Hindu” has appeared in our indigenous languages and popular assertion that like Jains and Buddhists, Sikhs are also Hindus. In my parlance in a comparatively recent period, keeping in view the long response, I pointed out that Guru Nanak rejected all the essentials of span of our history. We do not find this word in any indigenous Hinduism; therefore, it is absurd to regard Sikhs as Hindus and language prior to the establishment of Islamic rule in the thirteenth Sikhism as a sect or an offshoot of Hinduism. Besides, I made brief century. Even after that, the word was used rather sparsely in the comments on the meaning of the word Hindu. But the India Tribune local literature. Monier-Williams who compiled his famous editor published only a small portion of my response and omitted dictionary from a large range of Sanskrit literature, could not find the bulk of the article and the comments on the meaning of the word any indigenous root for this word. He says explicitly that the word is Hindu. Later, I published the article on SikhSpectrum.com, derived “from the Persian Hindu”. Dictionaries of all indigenous November 2003 under the heading “ Indian Media and Minorities.” languages say the same. So also the dictionaries of European Recently, I received feedback from readers suggesting that I should languages. edit and revise my previous article to further clarify this subject. The word “Hinduism” has been added to our vocabulary at a still It is regrettable that a vast majority of Indians fail to know that the more recent stage. It has been contributed by the discipline of word Hindu is not recorded in any of the so-called Hindu scriptures Indology in the modern West. And the word gained wide currency in like Vedas, Upanishads, Mahabharata, Ramayana and Puranas etc. this country simply because the leaders of our national reawakening However, pseudo-historians as well as the Hindutva zealots claim in the second half of the nineteenth century espoused it as that the word “Hindu” is a corrupted version of “Sindhu”, the expressive of our national identity as well as our spiritual and ancient name for the river Sindh (Indus) that currently originates in cultural greatness. These leaders, down to Mahatma Gandhi, were India and flows through Pakistan. And mind boggling, absurd, and not prepared to concede that Hinduism did not include Buddhism, convoluted explanations are suggested to account for the phonetic or Jainism, or, for that matter, Sikhism. disfiguration of “Sindhu” to “Hindu.” Going back to the pre-Islamic period in our own country, we find Before I discuss this issue allow me to share with you some that our ancestors shared in common a name for their homeland. pertinent comments on this topic by other scholars: That was Bhãratavar” which comprised at that time the present-day 1. Harjot Oberoi, The Construction of Religious Boundaries, Seistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. They Oxford University Press, 1994, p.16 also shared in common a name for the spiritual-cultural complex to That term was first used by the Achaemenid Persians to describe all which they subscribed. That was Sanãtana Dharma, which covered those people who lived on or beyond the river Sindhu or Indus. Brahmanism, Buddhism, Jainism, and also what is now known as Therefore, at one stage the word Hindu, as an ethno-geographic Animism or tribal religion. But there is no evidence, literary or category, came to englobe all those who lived in India without any epigraphic, that they shared in common a name for themselves as a distinction. people. Some Purãnas say that “Bhãratavar” is the land of the 2. V. Jayaram, “The Meaning, Definition and the Origin of the Word bhãratî santatih. The expression, however, is found nowhere else in Hindu.” Taken from: the vast literature which has come to us from those times. In any www.hinduwebsite.com/hindu/h_meaning.asp case, this much is quite certain that our ancestors in those times did The word “Hindu” is not a Sanskrit word. It is not found in any of not use the word “Hindu” for describing themselves collectively. the thousands of native dialects and languages of India. Neither is it Hiuen Tsang who visited this country between AD 630 and 645 says a religious word. It is a secular word whose origin is rooted in the that while the word “Shin-tu” (Chine-se for “Hindu”) could be language of ancient Persians, who supposedly said to have shared heard outside our borders, it was unknown within the country. common ancestry with ancient Indians. It was practically unknown Of course, some scholars of Hindutva have tried to trace the word in India until the medieval period, although it was used in several “Hindu” to Saptasindhu which is mentioned in the Rigveda on countries outside the Indian subcontinent from earlier time. It is several occasions. They want this word to have an indigenous as well said that Persians who were familiar with the Indian subcontinent, as an ancient ring. The intention is understandable. But the exercise used to refer to the Indus River as Shindu, a major river that still has remained forced, if nor far-fetched. Firstly, it does not notice that flows in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, partly the expression used in the Rigveda is not Saptasindhu but in India and partly in Pakistan. However, due to language barrier, Saptasaindhvah. Secondly, it ignores the fact that the Rigveda is not they could not pronounce the letter “S” correctly in their native quite clear whether the expression stands for a country, or for a tongue and mispronounced it as “H”.

Load more