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Malaysia’s Sikh leader asks Sikhs to ignore Bengali reference
WSN Network

PENANG: Malaysia's well known Sikh leader, the DAP chairman Karpal Singh has come to the rescue of Perak Mentri Besar Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin, saying the latter referred to Sikhs as Bengalis "in ignorance." He asked the Sikh community "not to get upset", and said going by the ignorance of the man who made such remarks, we should only consider it a very "trivial" matter.

"After all, a rose would smell as sweet by any other name," he said after attending Vaisakhi prayers at the Gurdwara Sahib. However, Khalsa Dharmic Jatha Gurdwara vice-president Baljit Singh disagreed. "That very utterance has made the Sikhs a laughing stock of other communities. How can we expect society to know the difference between the two communities when the leaders themselves cannot?" he said, adding that Nizar owed Sikhs an apology. Nizar has already admitted his mistake. Incidentally, in Malaysia, Sikhs have been mistakenly referred to as Bengalis for decades.

16 April 2008
 

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