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Journalism of Courage
If you have had enough of the ethnic strife in Europe, travel elsewhere. Poet Majaz said: Bahut kuch aur bhi hai is Jahan mein/Yeh dunia mahaz gham hi gham nahin hai (There is a great deal more in this world than a continous chronicle of tragedy).
My focus in recent weeks has been on the remarkable architecture of multiculturalism being diligently put together in Australia and that remarkable Indian community, the Sikhs, who retain every bit of their cultural heritage and yet assimilate everywhere. Their extraordinary success in Australia, therefore, does not surprise me. But more on that later.
I check into the Intercontinental Hotel in Managua, capital of Nicaragua. Within minutes a waiter knocks at my door with a message. The general manager has invited me for dinner in his penthouse. Imagine my sense of wonder. I have flown from London to New York to Mexico and then onto this beautiful Central American country. Who on earth would recognise my name here? At the appointed hour, I turn up at thepenthouse. Even as I rub my eyes with disbelief, a tall, burly Sikh introduces himself to me as “Abbe” Singh. His Venezuelan wife is in a traditional salwar kamiz. A week’s stay in Nicaragua reveals that “Abbe” is the most popular name on Managua’s cocktail circuit with equal access to President Violetta Chamorro, opposition leader Daniel Ortega, and the all powerful Cardinal Ovando Bravo.
During the Gulf War, the port city of Basra in Iraq is virtually in the eye of the storm. While the Indian embassy in Baghdad has become the home for stranded Indian nurses, the Ministry of Information near the Mansour hotel speaks goldenly of a Sikh contractor staying on in Basra, quite undeterred by Desert Storm.
Meeting Hardarshan Singh Meijhi at the bombed out shed (which was once his field office) at Om Qasr, beyond Basra, is another one of those Ripley’s Believe it or Not stories.
Meijhi, once an engineering teacher at Chandigarh, won a contract to build a large housing complex around Basra. The project hadbarely been launched when the Iran-Iraq war started. Basra being the most important frontline city in that conflict, most entrepreneurs and businessmen packed up their bags and left “until the war was over.”
Fortune favours the brave. Even though the housing project was within shelling range, none of Meijhi’s labourers were ever hurt.
During the last days of the Iran-Iraq war an extraordinary incident took place. President Saddam Hussain, personally supervising operations at Om Qasr, spotted an Indian and his wife driving towards Basra. He stopped Meijhi. “We have to be here, defending our country because we are Iraqis,” the President said. “But your pr-esence here, helping build infrastructure in the midst of so much danger is something that Iraq will never forget.” Later, an extraordinary ordinance was issued by the president’s office waiving all penalties against delays in implementing the Basra housing project.
Former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, at that stage head of a New York lawfirm, contacted Meijhi to find out how the Indian contractor had managed to extract all his payment. Many American businessmen, who were Christopher’s clients, had not received their cheques.
One day, when sanctions against Iraq are lifted, Meijhi may turn out to be our only link with the Iraqi establishment to find for us a place in the queue when the Iraqi reconstruction bonanza begins.
If you imagine that Managua and Basra represent the extremities of the Sikh saga, you have got a surprise coming your way.
The most remote Gurdwara that I have ever visited happens to be in Woolgoolga. But where is Woolgoolga? From Sydney, Australia, drive on the northern route, along the coast, towards Brisbane. During Australian summers this route is cluttered with holiday makers driving to the world’s most exclusive sea resorts along the Great Barrier Reef. A few hundred kms short of Brisbane is Coff’s Harbour. Woolgoolga is almost contiguous with Coff’s harbour.
The Sikh’s advent in Woolgoolga begins in the 19thcentury. Hearing of Indians going to Fiji via Australia, some adventurous Sikhs clambered onto the ships. First they (and later their children) worked on the Queensland sugar farms. But, after the White Australia policy was terminated in the ’70s, the Sikhs moved south into the profitable banana plantations of Woolgoolga. Banana cultivation requires considerable hard work and farming skill. The Sikhs proved better than anyone else in the business. Today the 4,000 Sikhs of Woolgoolga have a monopoly on Australia’s banana plantation.
“We are respected because we work hard, stick to our traditions and harbour no prejudice towards the white Australians,” says community leader Sailender Singh.
White Australians reciprocate in full measure because they see the Sikhs as a model community helping build a multicultural Australia. The state, representing the White Consensus, is the engine facilitating a multicultural Australia attracting every possible Asian community. Of course there will be hiccups like theracist politics of Pauline Hanson. But the voters have today pushed Hanson beyond the edges of Australian politics. What survives is the Deputy Lord Mayor of Sydney, a first generation Chinese, and the Sikhs of Woolgoolga, among countless others.
There is a lesson somewhere here for contemporary Europe.
