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| India-Pakistan |
| Fundamentalism by any other name |
| 2023-09-28 |
| [Dawn] SEVERAL issues in the ongoing Canada-India spat over the murder of a pro-Khalistan Sikh man of Canadian citizenship ...such an anodyne description of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, head of the Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF) in Canada, whom India had long been trying to persuade Canada to extradite. He acquired Canadian citizenship despite arriving there under false pretenses and a false identity. India claims he died of Sikh inter-gang activities .... require us to look beyond the fog of nationalist fervour that impedes a clear view of the fray.To begin with, the idea of Khalistan has existed since the 17th century; it is much older than the idea of India as it evolved under British rule, and then since independence. According to the summation of the Britannica, the declaration of the Khalsa by Guru Gobind Singh in 1699 fired the Sikh imagination to pursue its God-given right to rule Punjab. In 1710, under the leadership of Banda Singh Bahadur, Sikh forces captured Sirhind, a major Mughal administrative centre between Delhi and Lahore, and established a capital in nearby Mukhlispur (‘city of the purified’). |
| Posted by:trailing wife |