Thu, 04 June 11:00 2009

Vienna’s caste system victims

Even at its most rigid Britain’s past class system was comparatively egalitarian compared to India’s in the 21st century, where society continues to be tightly controlled with groups and sub-groups dictating the minutest details of existence for Sikhs, Moslems and Christians.
On May 24, this rigidity extended as far as Austria after an attack by Sikhs on a temple in Vienna frequented by Sikhs of another caste.
Despite a curfew, there were riots across the Punjab on May 25, as rival groups of Sikhs clashed and at least two people were killed after police opened fire on demonstrators protesting against the Vienna aggression.
Six Sikh fundamentalists armed with knives and a pistol had attacked worshippers at the temple, fatally wounding Guru Sant Ramanand, who died early on May 25.
Fifteen others were injured, including another preacher, Sant Nirajnan Dass, whose condition was soon stabilised in hospital.
Both preachers, who had travelled to Vienna for a special service at the temple, belonged to the Sikh sect Dera Sach Khand, composed mainly of Dalits, formerly known as ‘Untouchables’, and which has a large following throughout the Punjab.
According to the BBC’s correspondent in Deli, Sanjoy Majumder, high-caste Sikh groups opposed their presence at the Vienna temple and had threatened violence beforehand.
Initial investigations in Vienna found that some of the attackers were asylum seekers living in Austria who belonged to higher castes opposed to the teachings of Dera Sach Khand, which diverge from conventional Sikh doctrine. These include the worship of living gurus like Sant Ramanand, regarded as blasphemous by the Jat Sikhs, a faction with a high proportion of land-owning Punjabi farmers which accused both the dead and the injured man of disrespect towards Sikhism’s Holy Book, the Guru Granth Sahib.
The majority of the 1.2 billion people living in the sub-continent are Hindu and Sikhs represent less than two per cent of the population.
Contradictorily, Sikhism nominally condemns caste and one of its original aims was to rebut the rigid system prevalent – and still prevalent – throughout India.
When caste discrimination was officially abolished more than 50 years ago in India, quotas were introduced to ensure that a proportion of government jobs and school places were allocated to the Dalits but their situation today is little better than it was in the past.
Although the Punjabi chief minister, Prakash Singh Badal, called an all-party meeting on Tuesday and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appealed for calm, with 2,800 Sikhs living in Austria at the last count, the tentacles of its own version of fundamentalism evidently stretch as far as the West.

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