Are they Sikhs or Beasts

Around India young women are becoming victims of a crime that is robbing them of their virtues and their wealth.

Every year parents from Britain take their ‘looser sons’ to India and allow them to destroy the lives of innocent girls who crave for a life in Britain – or so they think.

Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/sikh-sikhi-sikhism/26161-are-they-sikhs-or-beasts.html
Many of these culprits are Sikhs, they have plagued the Punjab, with thousands of girls who have become bride and signed their lives to misery and pain, as they allow themselves to be robbed of the ‘virginitty’ become objects that give these bachelors a ‘wwhhoore’ on command whilst they are on holiday, with never a thought to these women once they return to Britain.

Rahuk Bedi has written of the misery Jaswant Kaur who is one of more than 15,000 'holiday wives' spread across India's northern Punjab state who, after years of abandonment, still awaits her husband's return from Britain.
A fortnight after their lavish wedding in the border district of Gurdaspur, Karamjit Singh - considered a prize 'catch' for most Punjabi parents wanting their daughters married as he was a non-resident Indian settled abroad - left for London.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26161

He promised his excited 21-year-old bride, who had never left her small town, that he would send her immigration papers within weeks to enable her to join him.

The groom and his family also carried away 700,000 rupees ($21,867.73) in dowry and gold ornaments which the bride's parents had raised by mortgaging their small plot of land and house.
Eleven years later, Jaswant Kaur still waits for news from her husband.

"We now learn that he already had a wife and two children in London when we were married" Kaur said.

"For him I was nothing but a sexual dalliance and a source of gratification for his greed in the dowry.

"Along with my family, I stand disgraced socially as an abandoned bride. I have no recourse to any redress whatsoever."

Jaswant, however, is one of the luckier ones. Karamjit Kaur from nearby Jalandar, 400km north of New Delhi, was not as fortunate. Her husband Raghbir Singh left her with his parents and returned to his job in Dubai in December 2002 after carrying away the mandatory dowry.

Three months later Karamjit's in-laws attempted to kill her by setting her alight when her parents were unable to pay additional dowry, a mode of bride murder favoured by thousands of greedy Indian husbands and their families.
Her parents lodged a police case, but were harassed in turn.

"All the police were interested in was making money out of our misery. They are doing nothing to investigate Raghbir Singh and his parents," she said.
"Lust, dowry and the lure of settling abroad are responsible for the plight of thousands of these holiday wives across Punjab" said Daljit Kaur, a lawyer and activist.

There was no legislation to safeguard them from being duped and dumped by Punjabi grooms mostly from the West, particularly Britain and North America and the Gulf Sheikhdoms.

Some men even married three or four times, managing to flee safely each time because local police favoured the boys' families.
In some instances, police took five to six years to even register a formal complaint.

Since 2002, only a small fraction of the 15,000-odd female victims had managed to lodge cases. But police officials in state capital Chandigarh privately conceded that such cases are difficult, if not impossible, to investigate because once the man has left the country, extradition was given little or no priority.

There have also been several cases of overseas Punjabi grooms taking their wives back, insuring them for large sums and then bringing them back home to have them murdered.

India's tortuously slow and corrupt legal and police investigation structure was insurance against them being caught, although since the mid 1990s a handful of convictions had occurred but under pressure from overseas authorities.

Punjab's intensely patriarchal social structure has a distinct gender bias against women, widely considered an economic liability as they need to be married off after payment of substantial dowries.

Abandoned brides become even more of a drain on their families.
"A woman who has been abandoned by her non-resident husband and returns to her parents' home is not welcome," said Balwant Singh Ramoowalia, head of the People's Welfare Society.

The children from such unions face even greater prejudice.
"Though social awareness programmes have been launched to educate people against this evil and the government lobbied to adopt more stringent laws, progress has been incremental" Kaur said.

 
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__________________
Our Gurus have taught us to value every single life. Bhai Kanhaiyaa's message was that we should connect with all of humanity. Our tradition teaches us to stand up to every injustice.

What a terrible story. Living in the West I can't wrap my head around their traditions and ethos. For instance to consider these women as disgraced and damaged is nothing more than a thought. I don't mean to put to much emphasis on physical appearance, but certainly it is the first thing noticed and appraised isn't it because there is no other information, but these women are not disfigured and what bad impressions that have been made can be overcome. Personally I would not hesitate to associate and care for such a woman but I am no longer the marrying kind.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26161
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26161
Furthermore how can these women be looked down upon because they were duped by a man who promised them much? Who hasn't been duped by a fast talker who leaves little time to think?
You may wonder why I have not condemned these men? Of course I do I am one and know myself very well. It seems like another life now but before I had the great luck to marry I was a man whose biological imperative ran wild but not anywhere near to the extent of these dogs.


Peace
Satyaban

Satyaban ji
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26161
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26161

It is called "blaming the victim." The victim must have done something to cause the ill fortune. We do it here in the US. In societies where karma is held to in the ordinary sense of the word, the women are paying off karma from previous lives through suffering in this life. In societies where the idea of being foreknown or chosen by God contributes to the belief that suffering will wash your soul clean. The idea that suffering is deserved can be so ingrained that people automatically write off victimized women (and men, handicapped, poor, orphaned, sick, mentally ill people) without even realizing that they are victimizing the victim a second time around.

I understand and agree with the basic phil but it is also to teach us and evolve our atman. Most of us have many scars from the past yet to be healed and resolved. I am going through a very low time at present and I can either wallow in my sorrow and stupidity or learn from it and move on. I am working on it but it is going to have an effect on me for at least a year. Anyway that is Shiva's business and karmic laws which if I understood would not be sitting here at my little desk.

Peace
Satyaban

Satyaban ji

I understand more than you may realize. We may not agree on the workings of karma, but here I can connect with you. Give yourself to that Universe. Nothing will happen, you will be safe. Sadness does not go away. Sadness becomes a companion. You overcome sadness when you befriend it. Then it loses its hold on you and you let go of it.

Narayanjot ji

Would you mind if I came up with a nickname for you because it would make things easier for me, I am a lethargic person. I just wrote a sentence about the length of a 10 letter name you know that ain't right.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26161

Your post was very thoughtful and kind and I very much appreciate it.

As far as karma goes how much it rules the minutia of our lives I don't know. But I believe it determines birth, maybe as Tom Waits said I will be a little"Hindu boy", but it certainly sets the tone events thereafter but it is up to us how we deal with them and proceed. Karma and rebirth are two things that it doesn't matter if we believe in them or not they are there and if we live the best we can it doesn't matter. If a person chooses to follow the teachings of Jesus to exclude all others they are not losing out. I am using Jesus only as an example and mean when they die because I believe they are missing much but that is of no consequence really. Christ my family and children are like that hence some of them consider me a dangerous man.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26161

Concerning my feeling low and not always living up to my ideals I made a right when I should have made a left and here I am. I have to say I have much more support than I expected. So for the last four hours or so I have had my Bose speakers pumping out the blues at max volume, Howlin Wolf at the moment, which is one of the best cures I know for the blues.

Again thank you for your concern, forget my first paragraph, and I guess I should have put this in a PM. BTW do you think I use to many comas. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Peace and don't forget the blues,
Satyaban

Satyabanji,

Speaking purely for myself, I would as briefly as is possible make the following points:

1. I personally admire your intellectual honesty and depth.
2. You have never intervened negatively in in any adversarial discussions that sometimes inevitably crop up.
3. I also admire people who adhere to the faith of their choice without denigrating any other faith. That is what our Gurus have unequivocally taught us but which we sometimes fail to adhere.

I am sure you will continue to contribute to the discussions with your positive energy and also pick up fresh and positive ideas of which there will be no dearth.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26161

You would also not have failed to notice that participants have exuded "Chardian Kalan" in various degrees however depressing the discussions may sometimes get.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26161

All the best.

Harbans Singh

Harbansj24 ji

My God, thank you for those most kind and fondly appreciated words. That is my response keeping in tone with this site.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26161
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26161

My gut response "Damn I can't believe you said those things about me. My words really can't express how good they make me feel. Something I really need these days."

Peace
Satyaban

Satyaban ji

I am slowly giving up on commas and inventing my own punctuation system You can always send a pm. I would have said more but then thought - Nah! too dense and not needed at this time.

As for a nick name -- yes my new name is really looooooooooooooooong and you are not the first to mention it. If they had gone with Naraaeein that would have been the same thing only shorter. You can try NK if you like. I will probably remember you are talking to me. Karma is karma -- and you are already and have been walking through it, so keep faith with yourself. Sat Nam.