Word: goldens
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...catanulted Indian political and religious issues into the limelight of the international public. Most notably, the current rampant violence between Sikhs and Hindus throughout the country, but particularly in the Sikh-majority state of Punjab, has focused discussion on Gandhi's controversial decision to send the army into the Golden Temple in Amritsar last June to flush out the Sikh extremists there. But such debate has--at least in this country--typically lacked a deeper understanding of India's religious, political and historical traditions and has, as a result, misjudged Gandhi's actions toward the Sikhs...
...group of Sikh extremists composed largely of the unemployed, youths and criminals. He grasped initiative away from the collaborating Akali Dal, a political party of right-wing Sikhs. Wanted for arrest due to his directives to kill given Hindu leaders and Sikh moderates. Bhindranwale sought protection in the Golden Temple. There, he sent out directives to kill more individuals, organized military training exercises preparing the extremists for war, and converted the sacred shrine into a veritable fortress, with sophisticated weapons and supplies smuggled in from outside sources (some of these sources have allegedly been connected to India's neighbor...
...overstating the inevitability of Sikh, Hindu antagonism, then, Western observers have misrepresented the true nature of the Golden Temple controversy. The conflict was not simply one of conflicting groups, but of a radical seet of Sikhs committed to violence. The Sikhs who had been using the temple as their base were gathered under the fanatical but charismatic Bhindranwale, an extremist leader who was killed in the Golden Temple fighting. His Khomeini-like messianic appeal included public speeches glorifying violent means aimed at acquiring a separate Sikh nation. "It should be clear to all Sikhs...that we are slaves and want...
GIVEN Bhindranwale's radical calls to violence, it is seemingly the extremist Sikhs, not Gandhi, who bear the burden for the escalation of violence in the Sikh separatist movement. Moderate Sikhs had, until the Golden Temple incident, disowned Bhindranwale's extremists as fanatics and madmen, but in their united anger at the army takeover of their shrine, they came to look upon the same fanatics ar martyrs. Such a view betrays the fact that the moderate Sikhs had had no real voice prior to the Temple confrontation, due not to the doings of Gandhi and her party, but rather...
Thus, in the wake of rampant killings, mounting fanaticism, and reports of the alarming military build-up of the Golden Temple, Gandhi and the center can hardly be accused of intentional brutality in calling in the Indian army. Sikhs and Sikh supporters loudly condemned the army move, outraged by the government's desecration of their holiest shrine. But does this not skirt the sacriligious behavior of the Sikhs in using a place of worship revered by millions as an arsenal and sanctuary for murderers. Furthermore, the charge made by some of Western observers, the New Yorker for example, that Gandhi...