15 Reasons Why Some Will Never Celebrate Indian Independence Day - Sikh Activist Network

Reposting the original post with some edits to the images to make them less triggering:

Some observe Indian Independence Day as “Black Day”. Why? Because the notion of independence and freedom is a dream that has yet to be realized. From adherence to international law, democratic principles, human rights and social justice, some feel India cannot ignore her failures and that using Independence Day as an excuse to sweep all of India’s shortcomings under the rug of unquestioned patriotism, is simply unacceptable.

Every nation has shortcomings and while some celebrate Independence Days others take it as an opportunity for introspect and reflection.  Here are 15 reasons some may choose not to observe Indian Independence Day.

1. Two Farmers Commit Suicide Everyday

“The India Tribune estimated that an Indian farmer kills himself every 12 hours. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), between 1995 and 2009 a quarter of a million farmers have killed themselves”, yet no one seems to care. [source]

2. One Third of Indian Politicians Face Criminal Charges

“India’s most respected election watchdog Association for Democratic Reforms informed us that nearly a third of MPs – 158 of 543 – in the parliament faced criminal charges.” [source]

3. India’s National Hero was a Racist

“Gandhi was an unabashedly diehard supporter of India’s Hindu caste system, and would never mix with a lowly group or caste, and Lelyveld in Great Soul lays out Gandhi’s unedited views:

“We were then marched off to a prison intended for Kaffirs [offensive term equivalent to the n-word],” Gandhi complained during one of his campaigns for the rights of Indians settled there. “We could understand not being classed with whites, but to be placed on the same level as the Natives seemed too much to put up with. Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilized — the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live like animals.”

On white Afrikaners and Indians, he wrote: “We believe as much in the purity of races as we think they do.”” [source]

4. Nearly 70% of Indians live on less than $2 a day

Poverty in India is widespread, with the nation estimated to have a third of the world’s poor. In 2010, the World Bank reported that 32.7% of the total Indian people fall below the international poverty line of US$ 1.25 per day (PPP) while 68.7% live on less than US$ 2 per day. [source]

5. The 1984 Sikh Genocide

No one has ever been prosecuted for the 1984 Sikh Genocide and the killers of innocent Sikhs are protected with state impunity. [source]

6. 48 Thousand Cases of Child Rape

Marital rape is not a criminal offence in India and is still India’s most common crime against women. Since, 2001 there has been a 336% increase in the number of rapes against children. A report by Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) stated that 48,338 child rape cases were recorded during 2001-11. [source]

7. The Caste System

Statistics compiled by India’s National Crime Records Bureau indicate that in the year 2000, the last year for which figures are available, 25,455 crimes were committed against Dalits. Every hour two Dalits are assaulted; every day three Dalit women are raped, two Dalits are murdered, and two Dalit homes are torched. No one believes these numbers are anywhere close to the reality of crimes committed against Dalits. [source]

8. Irom Sharmila’s 13 year Fast

Irom Sharmila is a civil rights activist, political activist, and poet from the Indian state of Manipur. She has been onhunger strike to demand that the Indian government repeal the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958(AFSPA). The Indian government is currently force feeding her and has her on trial for attempted suicide. The irony is not lost here.

9. The Death Penalty

“The architect of the Constitution, Babasaheb Ambedkar, admitted in the Constituent Assembly that people may not follow non-violence in practice but “they certainly adhere to the principle of non-violence as a moral mandate which they ought to observe as far as they possibly can.” With this in mind, he said, “the proper thing for this country to do is to abolish the death sentence altogether…Last year 14 eminent retired judges wrote to the President, pointing out that the Supreme Court had erroneously given the death penalty to 15 people since 1996, of whom two were hanged. The judges called this “the gravest known miscarriage of justice in the history of crime and punishment in independent India.” [source]

10. Hindutva

The poster says it all.

11. Homophobia is legal

It’s true, google it.

12. Mass Graves

“In September, the state government rejected calls for DNA testing of 2,730 corpses that a police investigative team found in unmarked graves at 38 sites in north Kashmir in July 2011. Some of the gravesites are believed to hold victims of enforced disappearance and extrajudicial execution by government security forces dating back to the 1990s.” [source]

13. No Freedom of Expression

“In 2012, the central government used the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules to tighten internet censorship, raising concerns about restrictions on the right to free speech. Under the rules, intermediaries such as internet service providers and search engines are required to remove content within 36 hours that is deemed offensive. However, criteria for prohibited content are ambiguous and frequently used to stifle criticism of the government.” [source]

14. Sexism and Lack of Women’s Rights

As a result of infanticide and the killing female babies “In an alarming trend, girl child numbers in India have shown a sharper decline than the male children in the decade beginning 2001, leading to a skewed child sex ratio.”  [source]  Further, “Violence against women and girls continues… with increased reports of sexual assault, including against those with disabilities…” [source]

15. Narendra Modi

Because alleged perpetrator of Genocide Narendra Modi, the leader of the BJP which is linked to violent Hindutva organizations is the Prime Minister of India. Modi has previously been denied a visa to the USA for his alleged role in the mass murder of Muslims in Gujarat. [source]

So in the past 24 hours I have received several hateful messages, been blocked and unfollowed by several people, and some people went as far as calling me a pathith (apostate) for sharing my joy over marriage equality in the US. I don’t know about you, but the Guru I know and love is about accepting ALL of humanity as our own kin. If that makes me an apostate, then I am happy to be one. However please do know that our Creator is too big and too loving for Their children to be so hateful and narrow-minded.

—

ਅਵਲਿ ਅਲਹ ਨੂਰੁ ਉਪਾਇਆ ਕੁਦਰਤਿ ਕੇ ਸਭ ਬੰਦੇ ॥ ਏਕ ਨੂਰ ਤੇ ਸਭੁ ਜਗੁ ਉਪਜਿਆ ਕਉਨ ਭਲੇ ਕੋ ਮੰਦੇ ॥੧॥

Aval Allah Noor Upaya Qudrat Kai Sabh Bande; Ek Noor Te Sabh Jag Upjaiya Kaun Bhale Ko Mande.

First God created light and from that light all of us servants were created. If from that One Divine Light the entire universe emerged, then who is good and who is bad?

-Bhagat Kabir Ji, Sri Guru Granth Sahib

Queerness and Sikhi

So yesterday I made a post about how some Sikhs are afraid to say the word “gay,” and I got several messages saying how it’s because “Sikhi doesn’t support homosexuality,” or “it’s unnatural,” or “God made men and women only” (inferring sexuality and gender are the same thing), or “Sikhi is about procreation,” and of course many linked to the videos of Basics of Sikhi talking about the topic.

There is a post made by another user on tumblr that sums up my response to the linked videos complete. You can find that post HERE. As for the other statements, I’m going to explore them in this post.

Let’s start with the “unnatural” part of it. To put it lightly, you’re wrong. There are HUNDREDS of species, besides humans, in which homosexuality is exhibited. Some of these species are bison, brown bears, cats, dogs, chimpanzees, horses, dolphins, elephants, and even lions. Gurbani tells us that all of nature acts in accordance to God’s Will. So if Akaal Purakh didn’t want homosexuality to exist, homosexuality would not be prevalent in these hundreds of species. Therefore, the claim that non-hetero sexualities are unnatural is baseless.

The idea that Sikhi focusses on procreation is, again, false. Nowhere in Gurabni does it command people to marry only to bear children. Such an importance on procreation can be found in faiths into which you can be born. Sikhi isn’t a faith you are born into. You can be born into a Sikh family, but you earn your Sikhi yourself with your own actions. Moreover, if Sikhi was only about procreation, then there would be prohibitions put on infertile people from marrying, or it would be forbidden for women past the stage of menopause, and men past the age of virility, to get married. That’s not the case. The truth is that Sikhi does not talk about these things, because at the end of the day they just don’t matter in comparison to the grandness of God. Guru Sahib explains in Asaa Ki Vaar:

With that precedence set, we can infer that when Gurbani talks about Husband and wife, it is talking about the allegorical marriage of our soul (in Sikhi all souls are said to be brides) with the Husband Lord. Therefore, the Gurbani pangtis that are brought up, such as the two bodies one soul one, are in fact talking about God and the soul, not a heterosexual relationship between a man and a women, because as Guru Nanak Dev Ji Maharaj said, these unions are a temporal realities that fade, and in the big pictures this makes them a falsehood. Therefore, Guru Sahib essentially tells us to look beyond what we do in our beds and look into what we should do with our Sikhi sidak.

The cold hard truth is that there is no mention of homosexuality in Sikh scripture. Not even once. It’s not like the Guru Sahibaan and the Bhagats and Bhatts that revealed Gurbani weren’t aware of homosexuality. Guru Arjan Dev Ji, who is known as Bani ka Bohithaa (Boat of Gurbani- due to the fact that he revealed the most Gurbani in Sri Guru Granth Sahib), actually had several encounters with homosexuality that NEVER get talked about. None of this is recorded explicitly, but when you connect the dots, you see that Guru Ji has in fact met queer people and has known of queer people.

One of these examples is Sarmad. Sarmad was a devout follower of Sai Mian Mir, a Sufi saint. Any Sikh would know that Guru Arjan Dev Ji and Sai Mian Mir had a very close relationship, and it was Sai Ji that laid the foundation stone of Harmandir Sahib (now known as the Golden Temple- also called the “Sikh Mecca”). In Sikh belief we do not believe that the Guru Sahiban were regular human beings, we believe that the Guru Sahiban were antarjami. They could read us completely in the blink of an eye, every single detail. So, when Guru Arjan Dev Ji would hang out with Sai Mian Mir, he would know of Sarmad either through Sai Mian Mir talking about him, or because of his antarjami capabilities. Either way, Guru Sahib would know that Sarmad exists, and that he was in a loving and consenting sexual relationship with another man, Abhai Chand. Despite knowing of Sarmad’s existence, there is not Gurbani written against homosexuality.

However, forget degrees of separation. What if I told you that Guru Arjan Dev Ji came FACE TO FACE with a gay man? Well that is exactly what happened. In the Suraj Parkash Granth, a manuscript that is a source of Sikhi history, tells the story of Guru Arjan Dev Ji’s visit to Lahore. During this time, Guru Arjan Dev Ji as compiling Aad Granth Sahib (which would later be coronated as Sri Guru Granth Sahib), and hearing that Guru Ji had included Bani from Muslims like Sheikh Fareed Ji and Hindus like Bhagat Ravidaas Ji, poets and bards from all over the subcontinent would visit Guru Arjan Dev Ji in hopes that their poetry would be included in Aad Granth Sahib. However, the poetry was most often not accepted by Guru Ji, as that’s all it was- poetry. Guru Granth Sahib only contains Bani revealed from Sachkhand by Akaal Purakh, and while the poetry presented was beautiful, it was inspired by the human mind and therefore not Gurbani. When Guru Ji was in Lahore, four such poets visited him, and if you read that section of Suraj Parkash Granth, you will read that there was a man by the name of Shah Hussain, another Sufi saint, who visited Guru Ji.

The Suraj Parkash Granth doesn’t give much detail into Shah Hussain’s life aside from the fact that he had poetry he wanted to present to Guru Ji. However, if you read up on his life, Shah Hussain, like Sarmad, was in a sexual relationship with another man named Madho Laal. The love between Madho Laal and Shah Hussain are often recounted at Shah Hussain’s urs (death anniversary), and hundreds throng to his dargah, where Shah Hussain and Madho Laal are buried side by side.

Anyway, so Shah Hussain, who we know to be madly in love with Madho Laal, comes to Guru Sahib and the encounter they have is honestly quite beautiful. Shah Hussain was the last of the four poets to meet Guru Maharaaj, and present his work. Suraj Parkash Granth says that the entire time Shah Hussain recited his kalaam, Guru Arjan Dev Ji Maharaaj lovingly gazed towards him and praised his work, and was moved by the bairaag and love in his poetry. Here is an excerpt of the work Shah Hussain presented:

Moved by the poetry Guru Arjan Dev Ji blessed Shah Hussain and Shah Hussain left in happiness and bliss. While Suraj Parkash Granth doesn’t go into the details of the history of these Bhagats, as the focus is on Guru Arjan Dev Ji compiling Gurbani for Sri Aadi Granth Sahib, searching the history of Shah Hussain, you will see that he was in fact gay or bi. 

Guru Sahib in his Sakshaat Saroop met with Shah Hussain. As Guru Sahib is antarjami, wouldn’t he have known that Shah Hussain was gay or bi? Of course he did! Yet, he didn’t write anything against it when he had every authority to do so. That speaks for itself. The fact that the Gurus knew of homosexuality, and did not speak against it like they spoke against other vices humans commit, says something. 

No about the whole gender thing. Gender and sexuality are two completely different concepts. One is who you are programmed to get down with between the sheets, and the other is who you are and what you identify with. Being gay or bi is a sexual identity, not a gender identity. On top of that, Sikhi does not hold rigid genders. First of all, Sikh scripture (especially Dasam Granth Sahib) acknowledges the exiestence of varying gender idenities, such as the kinnar (also known as hijras or khusras). Even then, gender is not shown as something rigid, but rather as something fluid. In a shabad that explains the powers God has to transform things, Bhagat Kabeer Ji states:

Thus, Sikh scripture sets to foundation to not only reject the binary, but also reject the idea of rigid genders. (I am not an expert on trans* related things, so please let me know if I am making any blunders in the way I said that. Apologies.)

At the end of the day, Sikhi is about love, support, and standing up against oppression. Don’t let your mind’s rigidity turn you into the oppressor. Please share this message, and remember that our Guru is too big and too vast for his Sikhs to be narrow-minded and shallow.

Trigger warning.

This is absolutely heart breaking. I'm glad this person exposed this because parental violence against LGBTQ children often goes unheard.

To think that there are people out there that yearn for children and can't conceive, and these bigots are beating up and disowning their kid just because of who he is. I don't give a shit about what any book says, a human being should not be treated like that.