Word: punjab
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...partition of India and Pakistan. Mrs. Gandhi's murderers were Sikhs, whose religious community of 15 million represents only about 2% of India's population but holds a disproportionately important place in the country's life. For the past two years, a Sikh rebellion has been smoldering in Punjab, their homeland on the Pakistani border. Last June, after failing to quell the Sikh agitation for greater autonomy and put an end to an extremist movement calling for an independent Sikh nation, Mrs. Gandhi had sent the army into Punjab and into the most sacred of all Sikh shrines, the Golden...
Last week, even as India went into mourning, Sikh communities both in Punjab and overseas made the mistake of rejoicing openly at Mrs. Gandhi's demise. The Sikhs were understandably angry over the storming of the Golden Temple and the continuing presence of troops in Punjab, though it is not easy to see how the central government might otherwise have dealt with an insurrection that was getting out of hand. But in the incendiary atmosphere that followed the assassination last week, the Sikh leaders should have known that such talk could have dangerous consequences...
...slaughtered 94 Sikhs with knives and iron bars. Said a civil servant: "The backlash is terrible. It reminds me of the days of partition." Indeed, the trains arriving in Delhi last week with the battered bodies of murdered Sikhs were reminiscent of the "trains of death" that rolled through Punjab in those fearful times. Finally, the government canceled train service between Delhi and the north after learning that 56 bodies had been found aboard trains arriving in the capital. Hundreds of frightened Sikhs took refuge in the Delhi railway terminal, unable to take trains home and afraid even to leave...
...Sikhs, though a small minority of the Indian population, live mostly in the northwestern Punjab province where they hold a slight majority. They currently demand political autonomy for the Punjab and a greater role in the Indian government
...explosive resentments in Kashmir, however, have added to the strain of other sectarian agonies in India: the rebellion that continues to disrupt neighboring Punjab, and the Hindu-Muslim animosity that has simmered for months in India's northeastern state of Assam. The question many concerned Indians are asking is whether Mrs. Gandhi is a bulwark against disruptive regionalism, or one of its principal causes...