Srijan Foundation

     Sotheby’s: Sikh relic doesn’t belong to Guru Gobind Singh

Following Sotheby’s clarification on Thursday that the steel armour going under the hammer on April 9 in London does not belong to Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh guru, the community is breathing easy, but not enough to let the auction house off the hook. 

        Avtar Singh Makkar, president of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), has called a meeting of its newly constituted committee of historians and academics on Saturday to verify the armour’s origin. “Regardless of the auction house’s claims, we want all the details about the armour and whether it can lead us to other relics of our Gurus,” Makkar said.
        Meanwhile, reports from London state that the wealthy British Sikhs, who were preparing to bid at the event, are now winding up their plans after Sotheby’s clarification. A statement by Sotheby’s on Thursday said: “It’s important that you know that Sotheby’s doesn’t consider the Sikh armour plate to be a relic of Guru Gobind Singh, as our cataloguing and estimate clearly indicate,”
       “We believe that complaints about the proposed offering are based on a misreading of Sotheby’s cataloguing, which points to a stylistic similarity to a full set of armour in the possession of the Patiala royal family, which it attributes to Guru Gobind Singh,” it added.
        The auction house also promised to add a sale room note for clarity: “Sotheby’s has undertaken due diligence to verify the provenance of this piece, believed to date to the 18th Century. Sotheby’s hasn’t found or been given any evidence to indicate ownership of this piece by Guru Gobind Singh and we, therefore, do not deem the piece to be a relic of the Guru.”
        British Sikhs, who were making inquiries about the armour auction, included Sikh industrialist Kartar Lalwani. Meanwhile, Makkar continued to hold Sotheby’s responsible for the confusion.

      “Their catalogue clearly states that ‘the existence of this plate points to the possibility that the Guru commissioned more than one such set’. Now they have come out with the truth, but we’d still like an independent verification of the piece and whether it could lead to other belongings of the Gurus,” he stated.

     How can a few thousand simple unarmed God fearing souls withstand  a fully armed Imperialist China?  

      Imperial China throughout its history has always swamped conquered territory with Han Chinese till they formed the majority. They ensured the destruction of local language and culture.

      In Tibet of today Tibetians have been reduced to a minority, just a third of the population. Two thirds are Hans Chinese ‘resettled’ by the Chinese government.

      Teaching of Tibetian is prohibited. Only Chinese can be spoken in schools, and offices.

An extract from TOI

      Rebellion crushed? Over 1,000 Lhasa protesters in jail

Beijing: More than 1,000 people have either been caught by police or have turned themselves in after deadly unrest in the Tibetan capital Lhasa last month, state media said on Thursday.
   Lhasa police have seized over 800 “criminals” since the violent March 14 unrest in the city, the Tibet Commerce newspaper reported, citing the deputy chief of the Lhasa communist party, Wang Xiangming. This is nearly double a figure of 414 people caught by police reported by the state media earlier this week.
   In addition, more than 280 people had turned themselves in, Wang was quoted as saying, confirming a previous figure of 289.
   Trials will be carried out before May 1, a national holiday in China, the paper quoted him as saying   “An incident of a magnitude like the one on March 14 will not happen again,” the paper said.
   The March 14 violence came after days of peaceful protests in Lhasa against 57 years of Chinese rule and quickly spilled over into other parts of China inhabited by Tibetans.
   Exiled Tibetan leaders say 135 to 140 people have died in the Chinese crackdown on the demonstrations. China insists it has acted with restraint and killed no one, while blaming Tibetan rioters for the deaths of 20 people.
   The unrest, the worst to hit the Himalayan region in decades, has come at an awkward time for Beijing at it prepares to host the Summer Olympics, attracting the attention of the entire world.
   The region’s hardline Communist Party leader also ordered harsh punishment for local party officials found lacking in their commitment to Beijing’s official line, following the sometimes violent anti-government protests and the harsh crackdown that followed. AFP

UK’s Eton gets first Hindu tutor      

          London: Symbolising the growing influence of Hindus in the UK, the Eton College appointed Jay Lakhani, head of the Hindu academy and education director for the Hindu council UK, to the post of parttime Hindu Tutor. 
  

         Lakhani’s role will be to provide pastoral support and religious teaching to Hindu boys at the school, and contribute to school inter-faith activities. As religion plays an important role at the Eton college, all the boys studying in the college are expected to take part in week-day chapel services.
        

       For many years, Jewish boys have been able to take instruction from a Jewish tutor during Sunday Chapel, for the last four years, the College has had a Muslim tutor to offer the same service to Muslim boys. 
  

       With the appointment of Jay Lakhani, even the Hindu boys will now be offered the same choice.
       On his appointment, Lakhani said: “I see this as an exciting opportunity to explore a broader vision of spirituality with the boys at Eton College, particularly how the Hindu idea of spiritual humanism manages to reconcile differences between religious and secular world-views.”
         “Religious pluralism offers the best prescription for making religions once again the cohesive force in our society. It is wonderful to see Eton college embracing these wider aspects of personal and spiritual development.” Lakhani said in a statement. PTI

While Bhutia refused to carry the Olympic torch in his support for Tibet and HH Dalai Lama, Aamir is carrying the same ‘…with a prayer for the Tibetans and their struggle’. I relate to both of these men, and their stand in taking opposite actions but with the same purpose.

Shame to the communists in India, who are calling this an ‘internal matter of China’, notwithstanding Dalai Lama’s message who is repeatedly saying that he is ‘okay with a Tibetan Autonomous region within the Chinese nationhood, but would want religious and cultural freedom for the region of Tibet and Tibetans’.

Not allowing ‘freedom of religion’ and ‘imposing a different cultural identity by force’ (changing demographics of a certain region purposefully and by force) is a violation of basic human rights; this is not ‘humanism’ for sure – and yet the communists claim to have ‘humanism’ and ‘dignity for all’ as their primary ideology, rather than any religious affiliation.

They seem to follow a ‘policy of convenience’ rather than ‘principles’, which they project most of the time.

You will notice, that very often in international political matters, these policies bend to cater to the policies of their ‘evolved’ Chinese brethren, even if their stand is against basic humanitarian principles.

CPM’s communists are certainly no better the Saudis and other Islamic fanatics, who follow the same principles, just a different way of expressing the fanaticism- just like Aamir and Bhutia who have the same objective but different actions – ofcourse the latter are ‘men of principles’.