Word: sikhs
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Nine years ago, he was an anonymous yoga teacher who owned little but a suitcase full of beads. Today he earns over $100,000 a year in lecture fees as Yogi Bhajan, the "Supreme Religious and Administrative Authority of the Sikh Religion in the Western Hemisphere." Thousands of American disciples in his Healthy-Happy-Holy Organization ("3HO") revere the robust, bearded Bhajan as the holiest man of this era. With equal fervor, opponents denounce him as a charlatan and a heretic...
Less visible than the cymbal-clanging Hare Krishnas, the 3HO disciples rival them in devotion. Men and women alike follow the Sikh traditions of not cutting their hair and bearing symbolic daggers, combs and bracelets. Ashram members rise at 3:30 a.m. to practice yoga and meditate, sometimes while staring at a picture of Bhajan. They often work twelve hours a day on low salaries and skimpy diets at 3HO small businesses, such as landscaping companies, shoe stores, and quality vegetarian restaurants. Full-fledged initiates follow Bhajan's every dictum on diet, medical nostrums, child rearing, even orders...
...following year, on the very day Mrs. Gandhi declared a state of emergency and detained thousands of her opponents without trial, Fernandes went underground. For almost a year, until his arrest in Calcutta last June, he traveled the country disguised as a Sikh, with a flowing beard and turban. Gradually, he organized a resistance movement, published a clandestine mimeographed newsletter and-according to the prosecution-staged a number of bombings. If found guilty, he will face a sentence of life imprisonment...
...18th century, the Mogul Empire was in decline, and rebellious armies under Hindu and, later, Sikh leadership had begun to pull it apart. The British finished the job, and as they began to annex great swatches of the old Mogul Empire, England's soldiers and administrators unwittingly opened the way for a dramatic Hindu renaissance. The first British conquest was the vast state of Bengal, or what is now India's West Bengal state and East Pakistan. As shrewd and energetic traders, Bengal's Hindus had close ties with the British, and they naturally found positions...
...problem is that many Indians, too, are thinking of gun power. Even Swaran Singh, India's normally phlegmatic Sikh Foreign Minister, felt compelled to warn M.P.s of the ruling New Congress Party during a meeting at week's end: "Unless there is a political settlement, India will be compelled to take action...