Khalistan Calling newsletter dated March 05, 2003

The three million strong diaspora Sikhs, unlike their 21 million compatriots captive in India, are free and prosperous and they are determined - as they believe it is their destiny and pray for it every day; Raj Karayga Khalsa; Sikhs will rule - to create a sovereign, democratic, egalitarian Sikh buffer state of KHALISTAN in South Asia, stretching from the Jumna river on the East, to the Pakistan border on the West, China on the Northeast and Kashmir on the North, playing its God-given role of a granary for countries of Central Asia and acting as a 'bridge of prosperity' between Central and South Asia.

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is lobbying to make the drinking of Panchagavya

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Washington DC: March 05, 2003: So potent a symbol of Hindu identity is the cow, and so emotive is the issue of cow slaughter, that it has become an instrument of realpolitik in India as the Hindutva-Fundamentalist Sangh parivar ideologues (read Saffron-robed trishul-carrying thugs) now see it as a necessary assertion of Hindu rights in India (and one more plank to fight their battle for the Hindu Rashtra). This could effect the security, well-being, health, self-respect and future of the Christian, Sikh, Muslim and Dalit and other minorities living in the world's largest Castocracy - India - who may have to prove their loyalty and patriotism (a la swearing in ceremony in vogue these days to uphold the Indian constitution) by drinking the Panchagavya a mixture of five cow products - curd, milk, ghee and cow urine and cow dung.

The year 2003 began, as readers may remember, with riots over the killing of a cow in Ganj Basauda in MP (Madhya Pradesh), which quickly snowballed into a game of political one-upmanship between the Congress party and the BJP. Even the Prime minster of India, Pundit Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had to deny (and look ridiculous before the world) when he tried to explain in public the charge carried on some Madhya Pradesh Youth Congress banners reading "Maas ka vyapari, Atal Behari (Trader of beef, Atal Behari)" and "Gau hamari mata hai, Atal Behari khata hai (Cow is our mother; Atal Behari eats her)". Following his denial a shaken Prime minister Vajpayee quickly tried to placate the protestors by announcing that he would move a bill in parliament to ban cow slaughter in India which announcement was made without consulting the hundreds of millions of Dalits, Muslims, Christians, meat-eating Hindus and the tribes of the remote seven states of Northeastern India, (including muscular Christian-majority Nagaland the home of the longest armed insurgency in India) for whom beef has been a staple meat for thousands of years. Some Democracy!

The issue of the COW (and its slaughter) has become so overpowering - and it is gaining ground every day in Indian polity - that it has become the symbol of a competitive 'I'm-a-better-Hindu-than-you' politics between the two major political parties, BJP and the Congress. The Madhya Pradesh Congress party Chief minister Digvijay in a one-upmanship bid even announced publicly that he drank cow urine daily which (he helpfully informed the media) was available in Bhopal at Rs 6 per litre projecting himself as a gau-rakshak (cow protector).

The COW 'crusade' is being led by none other than India's septuagenarian Minister for Science and Technology, Murli Manohar Joshi, who had as a child, to quote him verbatim, "witnessed the amazing spectacle of people drinking cow urine straight from the source," writes India's most prestigious and widely-read English language news magazine OUTLOOK-INDIA in its next issue (March 10, 2003) which will carry half a dozen articles on the 'almighty' Indian cow. The Otlook magazine also reveals that "Science minister Murli Manohar Joshi made the above revelation before a stunned audience at an Indian National Science Academy meet last year. He had also declared then, and we quote him verbatim, that, "years of academic training and ideological proximity to the RSS/VHP has clearly convinced him that such 'ancient practices' have a strong scientific basis."

The OUTLOOK magazine investigating the COW mythology writes that "the chanting of Vedic scriptures, the cow, fire and the mediating agency of the priestly caste of Brahmins constitute the four crucial corners of the holy spectrum. All these 'sacred elements' are compulsory in the performance of the elaborate rituals of the religious yagna. Since ghee (butter-oil) is essential to this Hindu ritual and symbolises vitality, good health and long life, the cow constitutes a crucial cog in this circular logic of divinity and material life. Traditionally, the one who performed the yagna had to purify himself by drinking the Panchagavya, a mix of five cow products - curd, milk, ghee and cow urine and cow dung."

If the highest caste Brahmin purifies himself by drinking the Panchagavya, (ask some hot-headed gungho members of the Sangh parivar) why can't the minorities, who want to live in India, do the same to prove their loyalty to Bharat Mata (Mother-India) and show their respect for the majority by drinking a peg or two of the holy Panchagavya elixir? Our sources tell us that Joshi's HRD (Human Resources Development) ministry is drafting a law to make drinking the holy Panchagavya brew a part of the swearing in ceremony for any office in India.

Juxtaposing the new ditty being sung by the RSS (Jai Shri Ram; Wahe Guru Ji da Nam) with this new Cow-urine/Panchagavya drinking craze which could become the law of the land in quick time, (both riding on the back of the Fundamentalist-Hindutva Frankenstein now freely roaming the halls of power in India) should give pause to our Sikh compatriots. Specially those Sikhs who are 'sitting on the fence' on the question of an independent sovereign buffer Sikh state of Khalistan which would separate the two warring nuclear powers of South Asia and act as a bridge of peace between the oil and gas of Central Asia and the exports of the subcontinent.

Khalistan Calling weekly newsletter can be viewed on the South Asia Tribune site at: > http://www.satribune.com >

by clicking on the 'SIKH CORNER" on the Front Page. It can also be seen at: > http://www.khalistan-affairs.org/Main/K_Calling/kc03052003.htm <. The above newsletter has been published in the leading Punjabi-English newspaper of the Sikh diaspora, Surrey Canada-based CHARHDI KALA, Issue of March 05 - 11, 2003 :: Vol. 19 : No. 10. Last week's Khalistan Calling is available on the Khalistan Affairs Centre website at: ( > http://www.khalistan-affairs.org/Main/K_Calling/kc02262003.htm <) The Khalistan Calling newsletter was also published in the first week of March 2003, in the Vancouver-based PUNJAB GUARDIAN, and Akal Guardian, Toronto-based SANJH SAVERA, Calgary-based SIKH VIRSA and numerous other Punjabi/English weekly and monthly publications which cater to the three million strong Sikh diaspora in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and Australia.

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