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From: jbtubman@water.UUCP (Jim Tubman)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Gandhi Assassination - Media Distortion of facts
Message-ID: <103@water.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 3-Nov-84 15:29:48 EST
Article-I.D.: water.103
Posted: Sat Nov  3 15:29:48 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 4-Nov-84 06:40:40 EST
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 35

Vasudev Bhandarkar's posting on news coverage of the Gandhi assassination
and his charges of media distortion caught my attention.  Mr. Bhandarkar
apparently feels that the coverage of Sikhs celebrating the assassination
does not represent the attitudes of most Sikhs towards this event, and that
those who are celebrating are just a "small minority of fanatics".  I
haven't seen the American TV coverage of the North American Sikhs but the
Canadian TV coverage seems to point in two directions.  Some of the Sikh
leaders have denounced the assassination; others, while stopping short of
openly praising it, have said that she brought it upon herself.  Certainly
there were celebrations by Sikhs in Canada as well as in the US and UK.
(I think that when people immigrate to another country they should leave
the feuds of their homeland behind them, but that's another issue.)

From my limited knowledge about India (gleaned from the Indian friends), I
understand that the Sikhs as a group have done very well, and hold many high
and important positions.  What are issues that are motivating the radical
Sikhs?

Does anyone out in netland have a realistic idea of what percentage of the
Sikhs in India support the separatists?  The coverage I have seen claims it
is only a small number, but an Indian friend of mine who visited there two
years ago said that, in his estimation, 40 to 60 percent of the Sikhs were
of the more radical variety.  (He has nothing against the Sikhs himself, so
I am trusting his estimate.  We are both worried about his parents, who are
visiting in India now and are staying 50 kilometres from Amritsar, where the
Golden Temple is.)  Is the attitude of Sikhs in other countries
substantially different from those still in India?

Let's hope that things there calm down soon.

						Jim Tubman
						University of Waterloo
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