21 June 2007

Being Sikh - Female Foeticide








I posted this a few days ago in the Gurbani Learning Zone, a Yahoo! group. The subject was female foeticide, in other words, the murder of our daughters, our little girls while still in the womb:

I humbly ask you to consider the following:

Forgive me for being simplistic, but does our Guru not teach gender
equality?

Does our Guru not condemn the killing of girls, in fact any unnecessary
killing, but specifically, in the strongest terms, the killing of our daughters?

And also, is dowry not forbidden?

As I see it, all we have to do is follow the teachings of our own religion,
i.e., stop being hypocritical, and the problem will solve itself.

How long will the killing of the unborn daughter go on? Until we obey what
our Gurus teach.

Please forgive me for being so blunt and simplistic. And I'm sorry if any
Sikh finds this offensive, more sorry than words can express.

Harinder Kaur, Seattle (They insist on whole name and location)

To date, no one has answered. I cannot preach or hold myself above other people. Anyone who reads this blog or my sometimes - 2 blog knows that I am well-aware of at least some of my faults and I have not led an exemplary life as a Sikh or simply as a human being.

But this issue seems so clear and basic and unequivocal: it is wrong to kill innocent human beings. How can we hold ourselves up as spiritual, moral people when we murder our own children without blinking an eye - just because they are girls. Need we be reminded that without the baby girl there will be no woman, and without woman...we all know this passage written by Guru Nanak Dev.

This scourge is not only immoral, it is suicidal to us as a nation. If we keep this up, the Indian government, the RSS and our other enemies won't need any genocidal actions or libelous campaigns against us. We'll just disappear. And the deaths of all our shaheeds will have been in vain!

Think about it.

5 comments:

  1. well written...

    It's unfortunate there is a need till today to spread this message in a land where people worship women goddesses. Where the scriptures glorify the power of a woman.

    It indeed is a shame.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dear purvabhatia (and thank you for having the courage to use your name),

    Indeed it is!

    I/We try very hard in this blog not to bash other religions, but since you brought it up:

    Is India itself (herself?) not referred to as 'Bharat Mata.' I remember when we studied Hinduism in college, we were taught the saying, 'The guest is god, the teacher is god, the mother is god.' But evidently, the potential mother is believed to be garbage!

    However, we are Sikhs and speak primarily to our own community. We need to clean up our own act before we can expect the rest of the world to look up to us and respect us as the DAUGHTERS and sons of Guru Gobind Singh Ji.

    If I may, a Jewish proverb from the Pirke Avot (Wisdom of the Fathers, a part of the Talmud - oral tradition):

    If I am not for myself, who will be for me?

    If I am only for myself, what am I?

    And if not now, WHEN?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oi, achei teu blog pelo google tá bem interessante gostei desse post. Quando der dá uma passada pelo meu blog, é sobre camisetas personalizadas, mostra passo a passo como criar uma camiseta personalizada bem maneira. Até mais.

    ReplyDelete
  4. bai ji main surjeet singh khalsa ludhiana to ha, main bhoot time to babbar khalsa group naal contact karan di koshish kar reha ha, par mainu ohna da koi v contact number nai mileya. jekar aap ji meri koi help kar sakde ho ta mainu reply jaroor karna ji. je tusi v khalistani fauj de member ho ta meri aap ji aage benti hai k mainu v iss fauj da member bannan da mooka deyo kyoki main v sikha utte hoye har julam da badla laina chahunda hai. mainu reply iss e-mail address te kareo surjeetkhalsa@yahoo.com
    reply jaroor kareo!
    WAHEGURU JI KA KHALSA, WAHEGURU JI KI FATEH
    KHALISTAN ZINDABAAD!!!
    HINDUSTAN MURDHBAAD!!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. To all our readers who aren't fluent in Panjabi, here is a gtranslation of the previous comment:

    Bai ji, I am Surjeet Singh Khalsa from Ludhiana. For along time now I've been trying to come in contact with the group Babbar Khalsa. But i'm just not managing to get their contact number.If you can help me in any way I would really appreciate it. . If you are part of a Khalistani fauj...then I humbly ask you to give me an opporunity to become a part of this group too because I really want to avenge all the crimes committed against the Sikhs.

    In the end it just says that you can reply at that e-mai address and the last two words say..."please be sure to reply"

    This is Mai again.

    Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa
    Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh

    To Surjeet Ji,

    I would like to say that I think we all feel the pain and frustration that is so apparent in your comment.

    But are you really sure that violence of that type, ie, vengeance, will do anything but cause more violence?

    We need to establish our nation now. We have never advocated violence or, for that matter, anything illegal in the country we are publishing from (USA). We have no contact with Babbar Khalsa or any other group, radical, moderate or conservative. We are individuals acting as individuals, writing and sharing our experiences as our way of encouraging (Ie, giving courage) to our sisters and brothers of the Panth.

    Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa
    Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh

    Mai, Suni, Vini (DKK)

    ReplyDelete

I LOVE COMMENTS.

Please feel free to speak your mind. Dissension is allowed and welcomed. I only delete illegal comments and spam. OK, maybe obscene, but not usually.

If you want to contact me personally, my address is theroadtokhalistan@gmail.com