Word: hindus
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Agitation by both moderate and extremist Sikh factions over the past two years had brought violence in Punjab to alarming levels. In the past months alone, more than 300 people had died in Sikh-inspired violence. At the same time, tensions from last month's rioting among Hindus and Muslims in Bombay had built to such a degree that politicians began questioning Mrs. Gandhi's control over the country. There was speculation that further instability could cause her governing Congress (I) Party to suffer a serious setback in the national elections scheduled to be held by next January...
...Sikhs to end their agitation. She outlined a framework for a settlement. "Let us sit around the table and find a solution," she pleaded. She had already agreed to most of the Sikh demands for religious autonomy and was willing to amend the constitution to distinguish Sikhs from Hindus. But Mrs. Gandhi felt that if she gave in to the Sikh demand for political autonomy, she would risk a Hindu backlash...
...holy places as sanctuaries and military training grounds for Sikh fundamentalists rallying around him. The tall, lean leader always wore a sword as well as a .38 Smith & Wesson revolver on a gun belt with silver bullets. He preached that Sikhs were a religious group apart from Hindus and Muslims, with a divine destiny to rule themselves and escape the corrupt influences of Hindu and Western values...
...animosity that persists between India's 500 million Hindus and 80 million Muslims has been centuries in the making. Though generally suppressed during 200 years of British rule, it surfaced to divide the subcontinent in 1947. British India was divided into two sovereign states, India and Pakistan. A massive exchange of 12 million people followed, with most Hindus opting for India, many Muslims for Pakistan. Partition unleashed an orgy of religious bloodletting in which an estimated 500,000 people died...
Deep scars remain. More than 3,000 people died last year when a wave of killing surged over the northeastern state of Assam. Last week Sikh gunmen killed 35 people, many of them Hindus, in separate incidents, bringing to more than 200 the number of victims in the northwestern state of Punjab over the past four months. Government officials are concerned because such violence is on the rise. Said a senior civil servant in New Delhi last week: "Communal clashes are almost becoming a form of alternate government in our country, and what makes it worse is that they strike...