The best coverage I have seen on this topic comes from the Human Rights in India Blog, run by the Human Rights organization Ensaaf. Ensaaf has done some truly excellent work on the Delhi 1984 Pogroms. Here they compare the Nanavati Commission report to their own investigation of the subject:

The report fails in similar ways as the Misra Commission report. In its report, Twenty Years of Impunity: The November 1984 Pogroms of Sikhs in India, ENSAAF analyzes thousands of pages of previously unavailable affidavits, government records and arguments submitted to the 1985 Misra Commission, established to examine the Sikh Massacres in Delhi, Kanpur, and Bokaro. The report reveals the systematic and organized manner in which state institutions, such as the Delhi Police, and Congress (I) officials perpetrated mass murder in November 1984 and later justified the violence in inquiry proceedings.

… police officers not only passively observed the violence, but also actively participated in the attacks and made promises of impunity to assailants. Senior officers: ordered their subordinates to ignore attacks against Sikhs; ordered policemen to disarm Sikhs to increase their vulnerability to attack; systematically disabled and neutralized any officers who attempted to deviate from the norm of police inaction and instigation; released culprits; and manipulated police records in order to destroy the paper trail of the violence and protect criminals from the possibility of effective future prosecutions. At all times, the police and their superiors had sufficient force and knowledge to effectively counter the violence.

ENSAAF’s report further demonstrates the involvement of the Congress Party in organizing the massacres. Senior political leaders provided for details such as deployment of mobs, weapons and kerosene, as well as for the larger support and participation of the police. They conducted meetings the night before the onslaught of the massacres where they distributed weapons, money, voter and ration lists identifying Sikhs and their properties, and in inflammatory speeches, instructed attendees to kill Sikhs.

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We are pretty used to it here in the States.  Whatever the reason, we accept labeling people as German-American, Japanese-American, Indian-American, etc.  We are at once comfortable with the identity inherited from our ancestors as well as that acquired from our new home (even if it’s been are only home).  Or perhaps, a hyphenated-identity is how it has always been and it’s too late to fight such convention.  Not so in the UK where folks are raising a storm.  MSNBC reports:

Inayat Bunglawala was born in northwest England, speaks English as his native language and only once visited his ancestral homeland, India.

That makes him bridle at a proposal being floated in the government to give members of minorities hyphenated identities — he would be Indian-British — to strengthen their bond to Britain.

The idea “simply makes no sense,” the 36-year-old said. “I am 100 percent British.”

The British government is discussing a variety of ways to improve community cohesion after last month’s bombing attacks, and it was not clear in what ways such a label might be used. But minority groups were angry at the very idea that they need a new identity label to tie them closer to a country that has been the only home many of them know.

Who the hell suggested such a thing in the first place? Continue reading →

Over the weekend I ran into a friend with a crazy story.  He told me that he had recently visited a city in the U.S. South on business.  While there he was taken to a nightclub which had women in saris dancing provocatively.  “People were throwing dollar bills at them,” he told me.  That’s crazy I thought.  I am pretty familiar with said city and I had never heard of such an unusual establishment.  Apparently even families sometimes go there.  I hate to be so cryptic but identities must be protected especially given the type of business.  Then, this morning I saw this on India Daily:

The Indian girls in Toronto are busy making big bucks with sari stripping. They wear sari to attract traditional clients from getting rich India and strips in front of them.

Industrialists, politicians, Bollywood directors, actors and producers all are heading towards Toronto to experience this massive display of Indian sex!

The number of girls involved in sari stripping and sex market exceeds hundreds. They speak fluent Canadian English, are brought up in Canada and have Indian heritage.

Pretty sad.  The logistics of stripping a sari must be a nightmare.  You’d assume that more than one girl has tripped on their own sari.  Now we know the downstream consequences of this.

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