The following
KHALISTAN CALLING newsletter has been published in the leading Punjabi-English newspaper of the Sikh diaspora, Surrey Canada-based
CHARHDI KALA, (Issue of June 26-July 2, 2002 : Vol. 18 : No. 26). (http://www.khalistan-affairs.org/)
It was also published in the fourth week of April, 2002, in the
Vancouver-based PUNJAB 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, Africa, Asia and Australia. It can be viewed on the Khalistan Affairs
Centre web site: (http://www.khalistan-affairs.org/main/k_calling/kc06192002.htm) The Overseas Sikhs,
unlike their 20 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 Karay Ga
Khalsa; Sikhs will rule - to carve 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.
Khalistan
Calling newsletter
dated June 26,
2002.
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Musings on (Honorary) Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
alias 'Pundit' Abdul Kalam 'Iyer'
------
Kalam an RSS 'poster-boy Muslim'
or an eminent Indian scientist with an exceptional record
deserving to be Indian President?
BY
Dr. Amarjit
Singh
956-National Press
Building, Washington DC 20045 USA
Tel: 202-637-9210 ::
Fax: 202-637-9211
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Washington DC: June 26, 2002 : In India's Constitutional scheme, in which the Sikhs correctly refused to sign-up in the 50's, the President is a political office. He/she is not a decorative figure, but is called upon to counsel the Cabinet and exercise discriminating judgment on sensitive matters. By nominating Mr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, a Madrassi 'Muslim' with questionable credentials, (a 'Muslim' who prefers to read the Gita instead of the Muslim holy book - the Quran - every morning) the Hindu-fundamentalist Vajpayee government in India is trying to; a) intimidate the monotheistic Indian minorities - Christian, Sikh and Muslim - to change their ways and don a 'saffron Hindu robe' like the role model Kalam and; b) fool the world into forgetting India's internal wars like the still on-going state-sponsored Gujarat genocide of Muslims. A carnage in which over two thousand innocent men, women and children (belonging to the timid and peaceful monotheistic Muslim minority - mostly traders) have been systematically murdered todate a la the 1984 state-sponsored anti/Sikh pogroms when another monotheistic minority - the Sikhs - were targetted and butchered in the thousands by frenzied Hindu mobs lead by the Police, all over Northern India including Delhi. See the May 1, 2002 Khalistan Calling headlined, "Human Rights Watch Report indicts Indian officials for Gujarat Genocide : http://www.khalistan-affairs.org/main/k_calling/kc05012002.htm> and the March 13, 2002, Khalistan Calling headlined, "Is India's Sikh community the next target of the Sangh Parivar?:< http://www.khalistan-affairs.org/main/k_calling/kc03132002.htm>
Well known Indian columnist Praful Bidwai, an Indian patriot and a good and decent Hindu, (whose column appears regularly in many Indian and Pakistani newspapers) has commented in an article day before yesterday - June 24, 2002 - (published in the Kashmir Times, headlined, 'NDA's Presidential missile') about 'Pundit' A. P. J. Abdul Kalam's qualifications for the top job in India by asking the following two very pertinant questions: "Is Mr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam an eminent scientist with an exceptional record and worthy vision, a secularist of integrity, who personifies India's "composite culture", behind whom the entire nation should unite? Or is he merely the RSS' "poster-boy Muslim", a "Kalam Iyer" (as his colleagues call him), the kind who takes pride in knowing Sanskrit but no Urdu, and who plays the rudra veena and reads the Bhagwad-Gita every day?"Praful Bidwai answers his own questions about Indian secularism and raises doubts about Kalam's qualifications for the job by revealing that, "Mr Vajpayee proposed Mr Kalam's name to outmanoeuvre his own party colleagues. Thus, it is for cynical reasons that Mr Kalam emerged as an NDA candidate. The Opposition played its cards poorly. Rather than hold wide consultations and develop a fallback option in case President Narayanan refused re-nomination, it put all its eggs in one basket. The Congress did not use its 14 chief ministers to evolve a multi-party candidate. And the Left didn't apply its mind enough. Secondly, whatever Mr Kalam's other qualifications, he lacks experience in public life, government or Parliament." Says Bidwai, correctly, that, "the Indian President's office is a political office. The President is not a decorative figure, but is called upon to counsel the Cabinet and exercise discriminating judgment on sensitive matters. True, the President need not have a party background. But he cannot be uncoached in politics. Thus, Dr Radha-krishnan was an academic, but had served as ambassador to the USSR. Barring Gyani Zail Singh and V.V. Giri, all our Presidents have been men of learning, typically with high qualifications from world-class universities. But they were also experienced diplomats, administrators or legislators with a deep understanding of the Constitution and the peculiarities of our politics. Mr Kalam is an engineer who became a manager of cloistered defence-related programmes, with little exposure to the broader process of governance. He has an over-simple, untutored and at times unpardonably naive understanding of Constitutional issues, development priorities, and the relationship between military and human security." Mr. Bidwai goes on to reveal that Kalam has been pontificating that India is a, "developed nation and that it is among the top five in terms of GDP and our poverty levels are falling, our achievements are being globally recognised today. Yet we lack the self-confidence to see ourselves as a developed nation." But the man, says Bidwai, does not understand that underdevelopment is not just a function of GDP. Writes Bidwai, "even in nominal GDP terms, India is lower than Holland (pop. 15 million - area 13, 000 sq miles) and over half our population lives on less than $2 a day. The per capita income-differential between India and the developed world is roughly 1:40, higher than it was 50 years ago. What should especially shame Indians is not just poverty, but staggering income inequalities. Mr Kalam has no understanding of these or of the structural constraints, including hierarchy, caste and illiteracy, which keep India backward."
"Mr Kalam shows little comprehension of the complex, double-edged character of technology itself", writes Bidwai. "Technology can liberate. But it can destroy too that's what nuclear missiles, biological weapons and mind-control technologies do. Mr Kalam bemoans our 'negativism': 'We are the second largest producer of wheat [and rice] in the world.' But he doesn't reflect on the fact that we also have the second biggest population in the world and the biggest collection of the hungry, the crippled, the diseased, the deprived. Such attitudes do not speak of wisdom. Truth to tell, Mr Kalam's thinking is full of poorly constructed, half-baked or undigested ideas. For instance, he advocates such weird things as "bio-implants" for "deficient" brains (reminiscent of eugenics?), compulsory sterilisation, using nuclear fission (why?) to power short-haul airplanes, and combining the occult with modern science. He believes India is eminently capable of making anti-ballistic missile shields, when even the US has so far proved unable to master that technology which involves, among other things, reliably detecting launches in distant continents, and then accurately attacking incoming missiles akin to hitting a bullet travelling at 24,000 km/sec with another travelling at the same velocity!" Mr. Bidwai accuses Mr Kalam of, "dressing up even mediocre work with the Tricolour to pass it off as a great achievement. In his autobiography, Kalam says he reverse-engineered a Russian rocket-assisted take-off system, simply borrowing the crucial motors. Publicly, however, it was passed off as an 'indigenous development'. Here lies the crux. Mr Kalam is not a scientist. He has discovered nothing new about the physical world. He is an engineer who has manipulated aspects of the physical reality essentially to military ends. His doctorate is honorary, like Ms Jayalalithaa's. He, it bears recalling, refused to publicly condemn those culpable for the Gujarat massacre; he only said the events were 'very sad'. Is that the kind of presidential wisdom and candour we deserve?"
Another Indian writer Dr. Rafiq Zakaria, a friend of Abdul Kalam, writing in the June 22, 2002 issue of Asian Age, says very candidly, and we quote verbatim, that, "Dr. Kalam never reads the Quran but every morning he goes through the Gita and is enchanted by it. He is sincerely devoted to Krishna. He recites the Hindu mantras on every occasion. Namaz does not appeal him. He is a strict vegetarian and a life-long brahmachari. His roots are really in Hinduism and he enjoys all the sacred Hindu scriptures. Hence the credit for his elevation, in communal terms, should go to the Hindus; to give it to the Muslims would be wrong. In fact Dr. Kalam himself would be happy if he is not described as a Muslim President, and his name is not linked with (former Indian Presidents) Dr. Zakir Hussain and Mr. Fakhruddin Ali Ahmad. I wish him all the best; may God of whatever denomination Dr. Kalam believes in, be with him."
Mr. Bidwai and Dr. Rafiq Zakaria deserve a salute for educating the public by saying a book about the phony secularism of the world's largest Castocracy - India - and its Brahmin-fundamentalist rulers. By writing the above quoted articles which take off the 'burqa' from the face of a phony Muslim pseudo-scientist & 'Honorary Dr.' A. P. J. Abdul Kalam who it seems will now uncomfortably and awkwardly strut the lonely halls of the British-built Vicerical lodge, on Raisina Hill in Delhi, like a robot-President for the next five years. Kalam will be a visible example of India's socalled secularism. The two fearless writers from India, one Hindu and the other Muslim, have rendered a signal service to the people of the South Asian sub-continent. Thanks to Bidwai, Zakaria & Co., and other honest Indian opinion-makers the cat is out of the bag about Kalam.
Our readers should make it a point, after reading the above, to 'educate' any loquacious, honey-tongued, uppity Hindu-fundamentalist who may want to trumpet in your presence about the secularism of India and its minority 'Muslim' President. Some Muslim President! Some scientist! Some secularism!
KHALISTAN
ZINDABAD :
LONG LIVE KHALISTAN
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