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MAQBOOLPURA, India — A boy just 12 years old was offering opium and hashish on a scrubby patch of land outside this village on a recent day. His cellphone rang incessantly as he proudly related that he earned hundreds of dollars a month dealing drugs and playing cards.

Soon, a young man who called himself Sonny approached, the hood of his sweatshirt pulled over his head. He, too, was dealing in broad daylight and said he was financing his heroin habit. He had a special offer: good-quality heroin for $45 a gram.

It does not take long to be offered drugs in Maqboolpura, a village outside the northern Indian city of Amritsar, not far from the Pakistani border. So many men here have died from drug use that the village is nicknamed “the place of widows.”

Maqboolpura offers a window into a drug epidemic that government and U.N. officials say is gripping young men in the state of Punjab. The trend, they say, is driven by unemployment and frustrated economic expectations, as well as the ready availability of smuggled Afghan heroin and other pain-relieving drugs known as opioids that are manufactured in India and often sold without prescriptions in pharmacies.

Punjab, India’s only Sikh-majority state, prospered from the nation’s “green revolution” and the introduction of high-yield crops in the 1970s. But it failed to build on that boom to attract industrial investment. In the past two decades, population growth has caused landholdings to shrink and economic growth has stagnated.

“It’s a very big problem, and our youth is being engulfed in it,” said Ravinder Singh Sandhu, a sociologist who has published research on the drug epidemic but who said authorities have ignored his findings. “Punjabis are very aspirational people, and when their aspirations are not fulfilled, then they are depressed.”

Drug use has long been a problem in India’s remote and insurgency-plagued northeast, as well as in cities such as Delhi and Mumbai. But the spread of drugs in Punjab, whose economy is the ninth-
largest of India’s 28 states, is a recent development that does not bode well for the nation, especially if the sharp economic slowdown of the past two years continues and youth unemployment rises.

A history of opium use

Punjab has a reputation for partying and heavy drinking. It also has a history of drug use. For years, landowners gave raw opium to migrant farm laborers to encourage them to work harder.

But it was the rise over the past two decades of the Golden Crescent region — which became the world’s main poppy-growing and heroin-producing center and encompasses Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran — that turned Punjab into a major transit route for the drug. Afghan heroin was smuggled into Pakistan, transported to the port in Mumbai and shipped to the West. But some of the heroin was cut to a lower quality and sold here cheaply.

Attempts in the past decade to tighten security along India’s border with Pakistan drove up the price of heroin and pushed people toward over-the-counter pharmaceuticals that produce a similar euphoric high, experts say.

What little data exist suggest that pharmaceutical drugs — opioid painkillers and sedatives — are commonly used here.

But physicians at drug rehabilitation centers said a recent rise in cross-border smuggling is causing a surge in the use of Afghan heroin. Increasingly, they said, drugs are being injected rather than ingested or smoked, leading to a surge in HIV/AIDS infections.

In the late 1980s, India began erecting a fence along its border with Pakistan that is now so brightly lit that it is clearly visible from space. But smugglers slip across at points where the fence is weak or interrupted by rivers, said H.S. Dhillon, director of intelligence for the Punjab police.

Often, packets of heroin are simply hurled across the fence, Dhillon said. “Terrorist groups are major beneficiaries,” Dhillon said, adding that the packets of heroin were often tied to bundles of counterfeit Indian currency, and sometimes weapons and explosives.

In October, more than 230 pounds of heroin were found packed in cement bags on a train arriving from Pakistan. Drug seizures have risen three-fold in Punjab in two years, and the state accounts for more than half the heroin seized in India, officials said.

Indian Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde told Parliament last month that he had complained to his visiting Pakistani counterpart about a “disturbing increase in attempts to push drugs across the Punjab border” and expressed concern that the trade in fake currency may have the patronage of what he called “influential elements/groups in Pakistan,” an oblique reference to the various Pakistani militant organizations.

Police complicity

But there is little attempt to regulate India’s production of pharmaceutical drugs or their distribution without prescriptions, experts say.

The deputy chief minister of Punjab, Sukhbir Singh Badal, said his government has set up a full-fledged anti-drug force and several rehabilitation centers. But researchers say there is little coordination or consensus on how to tackle the problem. Blaming Pakistan does not help, said Kunal Kishore of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

“The bulk of the injectable pharmaceuticals are being produced illicitly in India,” he said, “so it is much more complex than finger-pointing.”

There is also widespread agreement that local politicians and police take a cut of the drug profits. Election officials seized more than 100 pounds of heroin that they said party workers intended to distribute to voters before state elections last January. Giving out alcohol to bribe potential constituents is relatively common in India, but the plan to distribute heroin was unique to Punjab, officials said.

In 2009, a former police narcotics chief from the state capital, Chandigarh, was arrested in Mumbai and charged with selling drugs.

At one rehabilitation center in Punjab, a former drug dealer said he had regularly paid police thousands of dollars to be allowed to operate freely. Another said heroin use was so open in prison that he had started his habit there.

“It’s basically the police who are smuggling half the drugs in the state,” said one man, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid social stigma and trouble with the police. “If they confiscate 100 packets, police show 50 to the press and let the other 50 back into the market.”

The human cost was all too evident in Maqboolpura, where 23-year-old Deepak Kaur lives with her three young children in a small brick house.

Her husband, a farm laborer, died of a heart attack in 2010 after ingesting painkillers and alcohol. Her brother-in-law died of an overdose, leaving two children. A father-in-law who is over 70 is the family’s main breadwinner.

“I have no plans for life after my father-in-law is dead,” Kaur said. “Only God knows how we are going to live.”

Suhasini Raj contributed to this report.

~ By Simon Denyer, http://www.washingtonpost.com/

CHANDIGARH: He renounced his French citizenship for embracing Sikhism, came to India, married here and settled in Punjab. Living here since past many years, he is disappointed with the current politicians of Punjab who, according to him, have completely diverted from the path shown by the Gurus.

Darshan Singh Rudel, 57, a French national, earlier known as Michael Rudel, had converted to Sikhism and married a Sikh woman. Now settled at Nurpur Bedi in Ropar district, Rudel is doing organic farming for the past 17 years.

Rudel had requested a French court in 1995 for changing his name from Michael Rudel to Darshan Singh Rudel, which was declined. Thereafter, he renounced French citizenship and became a UK national, which had issued him a passport in his new name — Darshan Singh Rudel.

In 1997, he became an amritdhari (baptized) Sikh at Anandpur Sahib – the place of birth of Khalsa — and married Malvinder Kaur, who teaches English at a college in Nangal. The couple is living at Nurpur Bedi since then. He strictly follows the tenets of Sikhism and has even written outside his house that “drunkards are not allowed to enter.”

Darshan, a dedicated Sikh missionary with profound knowledge of “gurbani” and “gurmat”, said that Sikhs were known for their honesty, integrity, hard work and bravery. But today’s politicians have created an environment in Punjab where all such virtues are evaporating, he said.

Harvesting wheat at his fields, Rudel told TOI, “Politicians in Punjab are confined to making money and fighting each other. They don’t focus on larger social issues of the state and have almost forgotten the concept of ‘sarbat da bhala’ (welfare of all). Today, Punjabis have stopped working in farms, become drug addicts and distanced themselves from hard work and have become money-centric.”

He further felt that politicians in Punjab have stopped bothering about pollution in the rivers of the state and are promoting multinational companies (MNCs) due to which people of the state are forced to consume poison by using chemical fertilizers and pesticides for their crops.

“Youth from Punjab, once considered a nursery for defence forces since British era, have stopped joining the Army and politicians are not even bothered about such issues,” he stated.

Rudel, who uses only organic methods at his farm, said Punjab needs “genetically modified corruption-free politicians”, who are nowhere in sight.

Darshan had to face the wrath of policemen in Delhi in 1991 for sporting a turban while coming to India. He was subjected to interrogation for several hours to ensure that he was not a militant or sympathizer of Sikh hardliners. He had also written to the then Union home minister, Shankar Rao Chavan that all Sikhs should not be treated as militants. However, no reply was ever received from the minister, he said.

~ Ajay Sura,TNN
~ http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

Two Sikh congregations have showed a united front by registering 500 donors and raising thousands of pounds to increase bone marrow donors in the borough last week.

The chance of finding a matching donor within the British Asian community is far smaller than if you were from a Caucasian background, due to lower population figures.

The two Sikh temples in Redbridge – Gurdwara Karamsar in High Road, Ilford, and Gurdwara Singh Sabha in High Road, Seven Kings, held an event, on behalf of Delete Blood Cancer, to register blood donors and raise money for the cause.

Mankamal Singh, a committee member at the Singh Sabha Gurdwara, said: “I was definitely amazed by the response but the temple was busy because it was the Sikh festival of Vaisakhi. The mind set of the festival is to help people.

Harpreet Lall attended the two-day festival on the Monday.

Her six-year-old son Milan Singh Lall was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia in January after being in remission for three years.

Aged just three Milan was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.

Mrs Lall, a teacher assistant from Gidea Park, Romford, has had to leave her job to care for her son.

She said: “There are not many donors amongst Asians as a whole – I think there is only 3 per cent in the whole world on the national and international register.”

But Mrs Lall, whose family helped drive the cancer awareness campaign, is still trying to find a confirmed donor for her son.

She added: “We do not know if one of those 700 donors will help us in the future.”

Mrs Lall admitted she was “very surprised” £7,000 was donated to Delete Blood Cancer.

“We had people coming into the temple and pulling up their sleeves and saying “where do we give blood.”

If anyone still wants to register as a potential donor to help someone with Leukaemia, they can do so by visiting deletebloodcancer.org.uk

Source: www.ilfordrecorder.co.uk

Thousands of people traveled into the heart of Dubai’s industrial area to celebrate in the country’s only Sikh temple.

For the 50,000-strong Sikh community in the UAE, the annual Vaisakhi festival, was one of the biggest in the calendar.

Regarded as a harvest festival and marking the Sikh New Year, Vaisakhi is extra special because it also commemorates the year Sikhism was born as a collective faith.

“We had so many people here,” said Surender Sing Kandhari, chairman of the Gurunanak Darbar temple in Jebel Ali, Dubai. “People traveled here from all over the country. It was a day out.”

The temple, near Jebel Ali Hospital and the Jebel Ali Equestrian Club, opened in 2012 with the blessing of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, who agreed to donate the land.

Mr Kandhari came to Dubai in 1976 from Hyderabad, India, to help run a family business. At the time there was just a handful of Sikh families in the city, most of whom used the Hindu temple in Bur Dubai’s Old Souk, built in 1958, as a space to meet and pray.

“When I came to Dubai, every Sunday we would need a place to sing hymns to praise the Lord, and have food together. We would meet in homes. We used to all have celebrations in private houses or fire small warehouses,” said Mr Kandhari. “It was all under the radar.

“When I moved here the Sikh community was about 1,000 people. Now there’s 50,000 in the UAE, and 48,000 of these are blue-collar workers.”

A lot of the regular congregation are lorry drivers, carpenters, masons and electricians, because people from Punjab are “strong workers, hard workers”, said Mr Kandhari, a father of two and grandfather of four.

Before the Guru Nanak Darbar was completed, a lot of Sikhs living outside of Dubai had nowhere official to gather to worship or celebrate religious festivals or weddings.

In Dubai, the Bur Dubai temple and private homes being used for mass gatherings were bursting, prompting Mr Khandhari and fellow community leaders to look into the possibility of building a larger space for worship of the Guru Granth Sahib, the central religious text in Sikhism which is worshiped like a guru.

“It grew from five families, to 10 families to 50 families and it became hard for us to ask the hostess to make 400 chapattis in a day. So then we needed a rule, whoever comes brings 10 chapattis, and the hostess would make the vegetables and the dal.”

Before the early 2000s, Sikhism was not officially recognized in the UAE so a new temple was not allowed.

“I took the initiative and we went to talk to a few people,” said Mr Kandhari. “We were advised to go to the Islamic Affairs Authority and get clarification from them whether Sikhism could be practised in the UAE.

“I explained the religion, and translated a few versus of the book into Arabic.”

Sikhism was founded in the 16th century in the Punjab district of India and Pakistan. It is based on the teachings of Guru Nanak, the founder, and his nine gurus. It believes that there is only one God, and the Guru Granth Sahib is considered a living guru. Men and women are considered equal, and all Sikhs are required to treat others with respect and to take care of those less fortunate.

After explaining this to the authority, the group were given a plot of land from the Dubai Government with permission to build a temple.

The plot is in an area known unofficially as “religion city” with coptic, evangelical and orthodox churches, among others, all within one or two blocks.

It is an obvious and pleasant reminder of the religious tolerance of the UAE.

The beige coloured temple has three levels of underground car parks, and two floors above ground. It stands apart from the other churches and is surrounded by a sort moat, inspired by the Sarowar – a lake or pool – at the Harmandir Sahib, known as the Golden Temple, in Amritsar, Punjab, India.

There are two main entrances, each with their own washroom and cloakroom (shoes are not allowed to be worn in the temple) and headscarf stand (men and women must cover their heads inside the temple).

The main prayer room, with a 7.2 metre high ceiling, has a glistening elaborately decorated table on which sits the Guru Granth Sahib. There are chairs around the outside of the room for the elderly and impaired, set below the main ground so no one person is sitting higher than the religious text, and a large soft purple carpet for the able-bodied worshipers to sit.

There are libraries and private prayer rooms set off the main hall, and an 18-metre diameter dome roof.

It was designed to reflect the Golden Temple.

“I wanted the best,” said Mr Kandhari, who was involved in the designing process. Most of the money for the temple came from the wealthier members of the country’s Sikh community.

“Even the one dirham the driver gives is just as important as the Dh1 million the businessman gives,” sais Mr Khandhari.

Two years after it finally opened, the temple is always busy. As well as the thousands who visit from the across the UAE, it has also become a destination for tour groups of Sikhs from India and the UK.

The singers in the temple, who perform in the prayer hall on rotation, are hired from India if their demo tape impresses the temple’s board of directors. There are 35 full time staff and dozens of volunteers who help at busy times.

In the short time it has been open, the temple has also become a location for destination weddings.

“There is a London businessman who organizes tours. They come to us in the morning and spend the day here, the second day they do a safari on the third day they come back to the temple, and on the fourth day they go home.”

The temples serves 10,000 vegetarian meals every Friday, and about 1,000 during the week, to people who enter the doors, regardless religion or race. In 2013 it served 984,000 meals.

In the large stainless steel kitchen on the ground floor everything is in mammoth proportions. There are cooking pots that are so large that it takes broom-sized spoons to stir the contents. An industrial chapatti machine makes 800 chapattis every hour.

The walk-in fridge has dozens of sacks of tomatoes, potatoes and other fresh vegetables. In another larder-type room there are shelves full of ghee, vegetable cooking oil and flour. More than 700kg of rice, 1,200kg of wheat flour and 200kg of ghee is cooked every week.

Much of the produce is donated by the temple’s patrons and arrives at any time of the day or week in vans at the back door.

It means that anyone who walks in, even for a short time, will be offered a cup of tea and a sweet or savoury snack, or even a takeaway dinner.

“We give respect to everybody. Whether he’s a driver or a business owner, we don’t differentiate. There’s no class system.

“Most of the blue-collar workers aren’t with their families. For them it’s a great place for them to come and meet people; to spend a day in the summer heat inside a place with air conditioning, listening to hymns, having food and meeting friends.

“It has changed peoples’ lives.”

By – Mitya Underwood

– Appreciates Sarwan Singh Guiness World Record Holder for longest Beard…

Recently, Sr. Sukhwant Singh, met Lata Mangeshkar and the conversation happened between them about her Ustaad Sr. Sarwan Singh and about the record he has got registered in his name for keeping the longest beard in the world. To which Ms. Lata Mangeshkar urged him to show his picture to her and with excitement she shared the picture with her sister Asha Bhosle and family appreciating S. Sarwan Singh.

The whole episode took Lata Mangeshar by a stroll and she then shared with us about how she has been keeping her hair uncut and her braid goes up to her knees. She told Sukhwant Singh that she loves her hair and was happy to know that a Sikh holds a record of the Longest Beard in the world!

Sarwan Singh who has set a new Guinness Book of World Record with the longest beard. Singh’s beard measuring at 2.36 meters or 7.7 3/4 ft has won several hearts. Over 200 people came out in support of the Akal Academy Music Teacher and his attempt at breaking the world record.

Dhan Sikhi. Dhan Khalsa!

~ Deeksha Singh
~ New Delhi, 26th April ’14