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Shamed on anti-Christian
violence, India talks turban
WSN Network
 MARSEILLES:
There was
little that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh could do to
persuade the French President Nicholas Sarkozy on the issue of Sikh
turbans as he was under fire with the European Union ticking him off
for New Delhi's failure to prevent massacre of Christians in Orissa
and Karnataka. At the India-EU summit, Sarkozy, as head of the
European Council, and Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European
Commission, took up the issue very strongly about Hindutva terror
outfit's attacks on Christians, leaving Manmohan Singh with little
room to push the Sikh demand for removing the ban on turbans in
French schools. Sarkozy strongly dismissed the suggestion that the
Christians' massacre could be equated with the discrimination Sikhs
allegedly face in France.
Sarkozy repeated
the French line, saying: "We respect Sikhs, their customs, their
traditions. They are most welcome to France. But we have rules
concerning the neutrality of the civil servants, rules concerning
secularism and these rules don't apply to just Sikhs, they apply to
the Muslims, they apply to all on the territory of the French
Republic." India's shame on violence against minorities is a
continuing saga on world stage as EU criticized Indian actions in
Kashmir for years. In 2002, then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
was ticked off by Danish PM Anders Rasmussen on human rights abuses
of Kashmiris, leading Vajpayee to retaliate.
1 October 2008
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