506.The Man in Blue – Sants, Deras, Sant Samaj

I am against institutionalised Sants, Deras and abhor the dominant position of the Sant Samaj on the decision making process of those in Amritsar who claim to be our leaders.

Institutionalised Sant Babas : Of course there are sants, people who are more holy than most, who have come very close to God. These sants might be free of maya and might have overcome the cycle of birth and death in this life.

As the Guru writes in Sukhmani Sahib, these sants are characterised by utter humility. They do not have to wear white clothes, they should not own big buildings adorned with marble and gold and have no need to travel in chauffeur-driven luxury motorcars.

I met wonderful humble people in Panjab, whom the scholars in Chandigarh would call ignorant villagers, in whom the light of God was clearly visible. I have not met too many Sants, but the ones I have met have a tendency to be rude, to have no loving bond with the Shabad, the word of God, and who direct you to themselves instead of to God.

Apart from the fact that these self appointed holy men have souls that are often not as white as their spotlessly clean white garments suggest, they are also in direct contradiction to Guru’s ‘Guru Granth – Guru Panth’.

Both the world wide Panth and local Gurdwaras and Sikh organisations should be run by ‘sarbat khalsa’ style open forums, not by Jathedars, authoritarian Pardhans or ‘men in white’. Sants, real ones, would be part of the Sarbat Khalsa and would have a natural authority, but not an institutional one.

Deras : There should be no deras owned by individuals, only Gurdwaras run by the sangat under the guidance of the Guru Granth Sahib. See above.

Sant Samaj: In a democracy people are free to set up their own organisations and as such I have nothing to say against this trade-union of self appointed holy men. But even the Badal controlled SGPC should know better than to give this organisation a voice in the running of the Panth.

Our leaders in Amritsar : According to the Sikh Rehat Maryada a Sikh is she/he who believes in One God and who follows the teachings of our Gurus. Guru Gobind Singh ordained us to follow Guru Granth and Guru Panth acting under its guidance.

Neither the SGPC nor the DSGMC are even near to being Guru Granth – Guru Panth.

Panj Piaré made up of SGPC employees are very far removed from Guru’s Panj Piaré. Jathedars making decisions without any say of the Guru Panth, political style elections where votes are bought by drink and drugs and where voters are judged by who their parents were or the length of their hair, it is all a mockery in the light of the teaching of the Guru Granth. Sádh Sangat, take your direction only from our eternal Guru, which shines God’s Light in our spiritual darkness.

The Tribune – Sikh high priests to meet today

Amritsar, March 19. A meeting of the five Sikh high priests will take place here tomorrow. The agenda of the meeting is the “will” of Balwant Singh Rajoana, former CM Beant Singh’s killer, which was handed over to the Akal Takht Jathedar by the convict’s sister, Kamaldeep Kaur, yesterday.

Prior to the meeting of the Sikh clergy, Baba Harbans Singh of Delhi will be given Panth Rattan award posthumously for his contribution in the field of “kaar sewa”. (TNS)

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2012/20120320/punjab.htm#13

The Tribune – Akal Takht Jathedar tells Rajoana to appeal against death sentence

Umesh Dewan, Tribune News Service

Patiala, March 19. Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh along with Takht Sri Kesgarh Sahib Jathedar Giani Tarlochan Singh today met Balwant Singh Rajoana, who is on death row in the Beant Singh assassination case, at Patiala Central Jail.

Gurbachan Singh asked Rajoana to reconsider the issue of filing a petition against the death penalty. The meeting lasted for about half-an-hour.

Kamaldeep Kaur, Rajoana’s foster sister, who was also present, said Rajoana had told Gurbachan Singh that he would not file any appeal. Gurbachan Singh presented two bottles of water taken from the Golden Temple sarovar to Rajoana.

“Before his execution, Rajoana will take bath with the holy water. The Jathedar also gave Rajoana some clothes which the latter would wear on the day of hanging,” said Kamaldeep.

Meanwhile, the deadlock continues over the execution of Rajoana by the Punjab Police on March 31 as has been announced by a Chandigarh Court. Sources said the Patiala jail authorities had returned the death warrant, stating that the case in which Rajoana had been awarded death penalty belonged to the Union Territory of Chandigarh.

“The decision to return the death warrant was taken after deliberations with legal experts and state government officials,” said the sources.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2012/20120320/punjab.htm#12

The Asian Age – Coalition making life difficult, says PM

New Delhi. 20 March 2012. Signalling that ‘coalition compulsions’ had made things difficult for his government, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday appealed to key UPA allies and other political parties to rise above narrow partisan ends and stand united as a nation to achieve national goals.

Replying to the Lok Sabha debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President’s address, Dr Singh said: “The difficult decisions we have to take are made more difficult by the fact that we are a coalition government and have to evolve policies keeping in mind the need to maintain a consensus.”

The PM said the challenges came to the fore after the Railway Budget. Railway minister Dinesh Trivedi was forced to resign as his party, Trinamul, was not happy with the Railway Budget, he said. Dr Singh regretted Mr Trivedi’s departure, saying that his budget had “promised to carry out the Vision 2020 was outlined by his predecessor.”

Dr Singh, noting the country was charting its course through waters that were choppy for the entire world, said India still can revert to high growth (nine per cent) if “we can agree on a number of difficult decisions”.

http://www.asianage.com/india/coalition-making-life-difficult-says-pm-511

15 January 2012 – Winter Walk around Sint-Truiden

Sunday the 15th of January was a wonderful clear winter day and I decided that instead of sitting in the Gurdwara I should go for a long walk around the south side of Sint-Truiden

Sint-Truiden, Tiensevest

Sint-Truiden, Sint-Pieter

Sint-Truiden, Sint-Pieter

Sint-Truiden, Sint-Pieter

Sint-Truiden, Naamsesteenweg 

To see more Belgium (mostly Limburg) pictures :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12445197@N05/sets/72157622046344528/

More Belgium pictures to follow
Harjinder Singh
Man in Blue

The Tribune – Amarinder may be down, but says he is not out

Naveen S Garewal, Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 19. Punjab Congress president Captain Amarinder Singh has said that he would not step down from the post till he was asked to do so by party president Sonia Gandhi.

“I am the party head and will remain there till the party high command wants,” he said. He told his detractors in the party that they should not waste their time picking on him as “he was there to stay”.

Announcing the launch of a “morale booster” campaign for the party workers, Amarinder Singh said the outcome of the Punjab elections had been discussed with the Congress high command and the central leadership was fully aware of the circumstances that resulted in the party debacle. “The day Sonia ji wants me to step down, I will, but no party leader has the right to make statements before the media. We are taking indiscipline very seriously,” he said.

Advising his party leaders to come to him or go to the party’s central high command with their grievance instead of venting these before the media, Amarinder Singh said there was no time to waste ahead of the corporation elections, which would be followed by the panchayat samiti and zila parishad elections and finally the parliamentary poll in 2014.

He announced that he would tour every district of the state to ensure that the Congress workers were not demoralised by the vendetta let loose once again by the SAD-BJP government on the Congress workers. He said the government had started targeting and victimising Congress workers. He would forward details of such cases to Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, as desired by him in a letter (written to Capt Amarinder), to see what action he really would take, he added.

Sharing the dais with newly appointed Congress Legislative Party Leader (CLP) Sunil Jakhar and outgoing CLP leader Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, Amarinder spelt reasons for the Congress defeat.

He said the SAD-BJP alliance used money to support Congress rebels, making the party loose at least 10 seats. The BSP did extremely well in Doaba, thus hitting the Congress. He said even the atta-dal scheme funded by the Centre had helped the SAD-BJP alliance.

Maintaining that the government had again stooped to its old tactics of victimising and harassing Congress workers, he said even the security cover of former minister Gurchet Singh Bhullar, who contested elections from Khemkaran had been arbitrarily withdrawn as also that provided to his son and Punjab Youth Congress vice-president Sukhpal Bhullar. This had been done despite high court orders and an affidavit filed by the SSP that Bhullar was being provided security, he added.

Amarinder disagreed that due efforts were not made to prevail upon party rebels to withdraw from the contest. Despite the limited time available, 60 out of the 81 rebels who had filed nomination papers were made to withdraw and only 21 were left in the fray, he claimed. By the time the Congress leadership could reach out to them, they had been already paid huge money by the Shiromani Akali Dal to ensure that they stayed in the contest, he added. He said the Congress vote share in the state was intact. In fact, the vote share of the Akali-BJP alliance had gone down by 4 per cent while that of the Congress by less than 1 per cent, he said.

“Although the alliance won 12 seats more than the Congress, their total vote share is only 0.8 per cent more than us,” he said. The People’s Party of Punjab took away more votes from the Akalis than the Congress, he claimed.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2012/20120320/main6.htm

BBC News – India ‘inclined’ to back UN Sri Lanka war crimes vote

Monday, 19 March 2012. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said India is “inclined” to vote in favour of a resolution against Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council.

The council is due to vote later this week on a US motion calling for a probe into alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka as its civil war ended in 2009.

Both government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels have been accused of abuses.

Mr Singh has come under pressure from India’s Tamil community to support the resolution.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party, representing Tamils in southern India, had threatened to pull out of the coalition led by Mr Singh’s Congress party if India did not vote in favour.

Violations ‘credible’  

Speaking in parliament, Mr Singh said: “We are inclined to vote in favour of the resolution if the resolution will cover our objectives, namely the achievement of a future for the Tamil community in Sri Lanka that is based on equality, dignity, justice and self respect.”

He said India would study the final text of the draft resolution once it had been received.

The Sri Lankan government commissioned its own investigation into the war last year and the UN draft resolution calls on the government to implement its recommendations.

The Sri Lankan Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) cleared the military of allegations that it deliberately attacked civilians. It said that there were some violations by troops, but only at an individual level.

But another report commissioned by the UN secretary general reached a different conclusion, saying that allegations of serious rights violations were “credible” on both sides.

Human rights groups estimate that up to 40,000 civilians were killed in the final months of the war. The government recently released its own estimate, concluding that about 9,000 people perished during that period.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-17427125