Dr. Sawraj Singh
THERE have been a growing
number of recent attacks on the Indian students in
Australia. For the last year, there were more
than 70 such attacks. In the last two weeks there
have been more than 5 attacks. Most of these
attacks have been in the Melbourne area. One
cannot help noticing that recession has something
to do with these attacks.
There are about 400,000
foreign students out of these about 100,000 are
Indian students. Most of the Indian students work
to support themselves. Most of them want to settle
in Australia after they finish their studies. Since
last year, when the recession hit Australia, the
Australians started perceiving them as people who
may threaten their jobs. The economic crisis is
known to sharpen contradictions between the
different groups of people.
The Australian government is
denying that the attacks are racially motivated. It
is saying that the Indian students are soft targets
and they also carry expensive lap tops and cell
phones. This attracts the attackers who just want
to rob them. Because most of the Indian students
work, many times they have to travel alone in the
trains at late night. However, the victims are so
severely beaten that they are critically injured and
some of them need extensive hospitalizations. These
facts suggest that these attacks are not just
motivated to rob them.
Australia was a penal
colony for the British and the criminals were exiled
here from England. Australia has a very strong
history of racist immigration policy. Till
seventies, only the white people were allowed to be
the immigrants.
Australia has been
economically, politically and culturally closely
integrated with the West, particularly England.
However, with the decline of the West and the rise
of Asia, attitudes started to change. Australia
wanted to economically integrate with the rising
Asia. People started learning Chinese and Japanese
languages. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd speaks fluent
Chinese.
Australia was moving towards
a multicultural society. Australia saw Singapore as
a very good example of multiculturalism. During the
2004 Olympics games Australia projected a
multicultural image and the Australian aborigines
were given a prominent role in the Olympic
celebrations. However, the recession and the
economic crisis may be pushing Australia again
towards racism and intolerance. This will be a sad
example of regression.
Historically, many Western
capitalist countries have seen racist attacks,
particularly during the hard economic times. We
were told that the World is moving towards a global
community in this era of globalization.
Globalization is an old wine in a new bottle. We
are seeing same types of racist attacks which we
have seen in the past.
One thing different from the
past is the movement in India in support of the
students. We have never seen such movement before.
The Indian government has also put pressure on the
Australian government. The World media has also put
the Australian government on the defensive. Super
star Amitabh Bachchan has refused to accept an
honorary degree from the Queensland University of
Technology. We certainly hope that Prime Minister
Kevin Rudd will live up to his assurances that the
Australian government will control the situation and
protect all people in Australia.
[The writer is M.D.
F.I.C.S and Chairman Washington State Network for
Human Rights]
BACK
Remembering a
progressive voice in Punjab we lost
Gurpreet Singh writes from
Vancouver
WHILE the Sikh leaders in India
and here in Canada marked the 25th anniversary
of the infamous Operation Bluestar early this
month, I was forced to remember a moderate progressive
and yet a determined voice we have lost. Whereas,
the Sikh separatists in Canada continue to take
mileage out of the memories of that operation,
Capt. Kanwaljeet Singh, who had served in the
Indian army before coming into politics, has left
behind a legacy of hope and reconciliation.
 Every
year, Sikh politicians mark the first week of
June as a holocaust week to remember the military
raid on their holiest shrine in Amritsar, India
in 1984. The operation was carried out as a final
solution to end the militant activities being
carried out from there. This had brought a sense
of alienation among the Sikhs and made the demand
for Khalistan, an imaginary separate homeland
more popular. The operation, which had affected
both, the moderates and the fundamentalists alike
had provoked many Sikh soldiers to revolt. Being
a leader of the mainstream Sikh political party,
Shiromani Akali Dal, Capt. Kanwaljeet Singh’s
emotions must have been equally hurt. Especially
being a former army officer he must have been
upset like many other ordinary Sikhs who felt
humiliated after the military of their own country,
whose borders the Sikh soldiers had defended stormed
their Mecca?
With more emotional boys
joining the militant ranks because of this
operation, the Punjab was on fire for until early
1990s. Capt. Singh died this year in a road
accident a few months before the 25th anniversary
of that operation. Had he lived to see how the
Sikh separatists stirred passions, he would have
shared his fresh and more moderate perspective.
When the Shiromani Akali Dal government decided to
celebrate the tercentenary of the birth of the
Khalsa in 1999, Capt. Kanwaljeet Singh was
assigned the responsibility of the preparations of
the events. As a minister in the government he
camped in Anandpur Sahib, where the tenth master
of the Sikhs, Guru Gobind Singh had raised the
army of the Khalsa in 1699.
As a reporter with the Indian Express I was
camping there too and had an opportunity to
interview Capt. Singh a number of times. Though we
had met each other in Chandigarh on many
occasions, but in Anandpur Sahib we met more
often. While covering an incident in Dera Bassi,
where a dalit man had died in the police custody,
I saw him using his strength to force the
administration to take strict action against the
officials involved. On another occasion he had an
argument with me over my coverage of the illegal
colonies that were built in his constituency. His
argument was that those colonies belonged to the
people who lacked affordable housing.
Some of the interviews I did in Anandpur Sahib
really went well while some went wrong with my
provocative questions. Though he got offended on
some occasions, but he remained accessible and
friendly most of the time. That was why he was
always available for interviews even after I
immigrated to Canada. He never said no, whenever I
phoned him from Vancouver for a radio interview.
Some of my ``annoying’’ questions were why the
government is celebrating a religious event? Isn’t
it against the spirit of secularism? He rarely
lost his cool but had once expressed his
displeasure at my habit of grilling.
On many of these occasions,
Capt. Singh used to walk in the streets with his
kurta-pajama and runners. He mostly wore black
turban. He always appeared relaxed and spoke to
the ordinary workers engaged in the preparations
politely. Earlier, he used to tie his beard, but
later he was forced to leave it untied after
getting baptized following sustained pressure from
the orthodox Sikh leaders. But this had never
changed his liberal views.
We got the news of the murder of Tara Singh Hayer,
the editor of the Indo Canadian Times in Anandpur
Sahib. He was critical of the Sikh extremists in
Vancouver at that time. When I asked for his
reaction, he appeared very upset. He had warned
that the people of Punjab have denounced extremism
and those indulging in violence over dialogue
should learn from the history. The Sikh radicals
were locked in an ideological tussle with his
party too and were critical of the state sponsored
celebrations. His warning was directed at the
people both domestic and foreign. In fact, he
never avoided the moderate Sikh leaders during his
visits to Vancouver despite that some of them were
ostracized by the Sikh clergy for defying a
religious edict.
Under his command, the Indian army also joined the
celebrations and provided help to the devotees
such as temporary shelters, drinking water and
medical assistance. Besides, the Chiefs of the
Army, the Air Force and the Navy also came and
bowed before the holy scriptures of the Sikhs.
Capt. Singh was so humbled by this gesture that he
reminded the Sikhs of the days when the Indian
army had stormed the Golden Temple. In contrast,
the Army came to celebrate the birth of the Khalsa
in Anandpur Sahib, another important place for the
Sikhs. And that was the legacy of Capt. Kanwaljeet
Singh.
It was this gesture of the
Indian army that assuaged the feelings of the
Sikhs who for several years looked upon it as
their enemy. Even though many Sikhs have still not
recovered from the sense of alienation, yet Capt.
Singh’s message to the community was to overcome
the persecution complex. Certainly, the Indian
government should acknowledge that the Operation
Bluestar was a blunder. The delay in this
acknowledgement is only strengthening the hands of
the separatists. Former police and army officers
have repeatedly said that it was avoidable. But
the Sikh leadership should also own some moral
responsibility for allowing the extremists to turn
a place of worship into a fortress. For that we
need people like Capt. Kanwaljeet Singh. His death
is not only a loss to his party, but also to the
Indian politics, which is getting increasingly
communalised and divisive and moving away from
secularism.
BACK
India: Pesticide
level in vegetables and fruits rising
THE presence of pesticide residues in fruits
and vegetables is getting higher than the maximum
permissible levels (MPL), revealed a recent survey
by the Union government. Besides, vegetables from
some parts of Uttar Pradesh were found presence of
banned pesticides.
 The
survey, conducted over a year from November 2007
to October 2008 across the country by the Union
agriculture and cooperation ministry, found that
18% vegetables and 12% fruits, both home grown
and imported, contained pesticide residues, including
banned pesticides.
In 4% vegetables and 2% fruits, these residues
are higher than the maximum permissible levels.
The survey, which considered water sample and
market samples of vegetables, fruits, spices,
cereal grains, milk, butter, fish, tea, honey,
meat and marine products, for possible presence
of pesticide residues, analysed a total of 12,004
samples during the year.
“About 18% (664) of the total 3,648 vegetable
samples of brinjal, okra (lady’s finger), tomato,
cabbage and cauliflower, was found residues. Vegetables,
such as cabbage, cauliflower, okra and tomato
had the highest amount of pesticide residue,”
the survey said.
 A
total of 1,726 samples of apple, banana, grapes,
orange, pomegranate, guava and mango were analysed
in 15 different laboratories. The pesticides found
in fruits mainly included chlorpyriphos, monocrotophos,
profenophos and cypermethrin. Banned pesticides
were mainly found in the samples analysed by the
Lucknow laboratory. These samples were collected
from Gorakhpur, Faizabad and Allahabad. About
54% of them were found residues.
The banned pesticides include aldrin, HCH, chlordane,
DDT, dimethoate, chlorpyrifos and heptachlor.
“Though residues of banned pesticides have not
been reported in other parts of the country, these
results need to be reconfirmed,” the survey said.
The experts said banned pesticides, such as
DDT, which are still used in the malaria
eradication programme, find their illegal way into
the agriculture system, while the residue of other
banned pesticides can be found due to their
presence in the soil and water.
One major reason for contamination of water,
and foods in Punjab is the excessive use of
pesticides including those banned by the
government. The government control and checks are
thin. In large areas, particularly in the Malwa
region, the water is not even fit for crops. This
has lead to spread of cancer and other diseases.
BACK
Punjab labour shortage
RISING labour rate during the
Paddy season in Punjab are pushing the cost of
cultivation at one level. At another level, they
are making the farmhands better off and happy.
This season the supply of labour from the poorer
states of Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh is less,
leading to shortage and higher cost. Punjabi youth
from the farmer families either wants to migrate
to greener pastures or stays away from hard
labour. Roughly 20 lakh farm workers are involved
in paddy sowing and plantation.
 Rates
in the Malwa belt :
2000 - Rs-300 per acre
2005 - Rs-500 per acre
2007 - Rs-600 per acre
2009 - Rs-2000 per acre
BACK
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