:dateline:Alleging that the absence of Sikh Regiment from this year’s �republic day� parade was a grave omission, Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) president Capt Amarinder Singh today slammed Indian government.
“Particularly when President Francois Hollande of France, where the turban is banned at the public places, was the Chief Guest, there could not have been a better occasion to convey the importance of the turban to him”, he said, while talking to reporters before holding an interaction with the youth and farmers of the area.
He also held the Punjab government responsible for lack of ‘Sikh presence’ as the state�had once again failed to send its cultural contingent to present the glorious culture of the state during the parade. “The Akalis actually have no idea about the significance and importance of such occasions”, he added.
The lack of Sikh representation at the republic day parade has been much discussed over social media.
https://www.facebook.com/balbir.singh.355
It is a big deal when sikh reigment didn’t praded on republic day, im not a congress man, but the guy who speaking about this, maybe he not talkin about politics, because he was an ex army man too….
SIKH REGIMENT ….NOT ENTERED IN THE INP PARADE..IT SHOULD BE OUR “HINDHU” BROTHERS RAISING INEQUALITY IN A VERY FAIR COUNTRY. ..SO MUCH FOR BROTHERHOOD! !!!
If Amarinder is really so outraged perhaps he might raise the question as to why no Sikh regiments were allowed to enter the Punjab or Delhi in 1984 when his beloved Congress was in power? No, his matron Sonia Gandhi won’t want those questions being raised let alone answered because they thoroughly implicate her mother-in-law and husband. Congrees leader Amarinder is just the other side of the same double-headed (read two-faced) coin as Badal as he too owes his patronage to someone other than Waheguru.
What is the big deal about Sikh regiment not being paraded. Politicians are just making political hay out of the whole thing. Why do these Sikhs raise the issue of changing the Indian constitution calling Sikhs a Hindu sect? Hindu nation represented the Hindu very well, stop crying over nothing, as a Sikh I don’t want to participate in a parade of a country which, doesn’t recognize my religion
You need to look at the op/ed article asking whether Sikhs were shunned on republic day to fully understand this issue. It matters because you cannot have a republic day parade without the most valorous regiment on display. The Sikh identity � defiantly and gloriously turbaned and bearded � serves to constantly remind the Indian people (and they need this reminder as they have engaged in and tacitly supported injustice against the Sikhs since 1984 with this perverted �collective punishment� amnesia they have) of the debt they owe the sovereign nation of Sikhs for their liberty. Jasjyot kaur gives some statistics on this matter: ?1907 to 1917 � 47 were hanged out of which 36 were Sikhs. ?During Kalapani-29 were hanged out of 26 were Sikhs. ?During Independence 121 were hanged out of 93 were Sikhs. 2646 were granted Umar qaid(ajivan karavas) out of 2147 were Sikhs. ? In Year 2015 Sikh Regiment got best marching contingent.
?In Year 2016 Sikh Regiment was not allowed to take part in parade .
The Sikh identity � defiantly and gloriously turbaned and bearded � serves to constantly remind the Indian people (and they need this reminder as they have engaged in and tacitly supported injustice against the Sikhs since 1984 with this perverted �collective punishment� amnesia they have) of the debt they owe the sovereign nation of Sikhs for their liberty. Sikhs were deliberately excluded. This was not an omission but a calculated decision to remove the public sight of Sikhs on the biggest national (and with France President there) international stage. Indians outside of the Sikh homeland Punjab, have degenerated to the point of only seeing Sikhs as Santo Banto buffoons and NDTV reported �militants� need the wake up call to remember the Sikhs are the greatest heroes this country has ever had. If Sikh martial prowess and its historical context is airbrushed from public consciousness we become more vulnerable to attack as our detractors can then dictate to the majority population of India a sanitised ‘acceptable’ version of what a Sikh is – whether that be reinforcing in the public mind a comedic caricature of a happy-go-lucky, portly man in a turban who is good hearted but simple-minded (and so easily misled) and/or a modern progressive laid-back person who is hampered by outdated religious customs (such as struggling with the need to stick with a turban because hey, after all that hardly is a distinguishing feature of spirituality, right?). When you allow somebody to portray what a Sikh should ‘ideally’ be and what they should ‘really’ be standing for you then give them the power to reasonably and legitimately (both these terms are of course oxymorons when you are talking of Indian jurisprudence) attack any Sikh who differs from that cynically received wisdom (created and perpetuated by politicians and the media such as NDTV) as being ‘orthodox’, ‘radical’, ‘extremist’, ‘militant’, ‘anti-national’, ‘separatist’, ‘and of course the final damning sanction ‘terrorist’. The general public will go along with the extreme measures the Government then tells them they need to ‘combat this militancy’ (even though such measures are illegal and unconstitutional) because the general public has been reared to believe that a real Sikh is ‘not like that’ and those who are are obviously ‘trouble makers’ rather than being representative of true Sikh sentiment and identity (and having thus some genuine grievance that needs to be fairly addressed rather than violently subjugated). That is why we must never allow the public image of a Sikh to be decoupled from his martial legacy which also serves to remind the wider public of the disproportionate historical sacrifices Sikhs have made for the creation and sustenance of India despite the ingratitude, bad faith and attempts made to stigmatise Sikhs and reject/ repudiate their obvious distinctiveness and separate identity from the majority Hindu population. That is why it is big deal that the Sikh regiment is prominently paraded in any military tattoo front and centre – a position they have earned by the shedding of blood, sweat and tears.