Right to Bear Arms

A ‘Kirpan’ with a total maximum length of 9 inches (22.86 cm), but a blade not exceeding 06 inches (15.24 cm), is permitted for carriage by a Sikh Passenger on their person, within India.
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Kirpans[1] serve a function that is motivated by religion. The airline rule permits those who profess the Sikh faith to carry a weapon on board a commercial flight that is not allowed to non-Sikhs. This is discrimination based on religion.

As a private entity, Vistara is free to discriminate among passengers on any dimension it sees fit. However, if the general public did not tolerate religious discrimination, Vistara would not dare have that policy. The sad fact about India (and some other backward, uncivilized countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, etc) is that people see nothing wrong in discrimination.

The constitution of India declares India to be a “secular” state. It takes a special kind of brazenness for the state to claim to be “secular” and then discriminate among citizens based on religion. This shamelessness is made possible only because the people are insensate. (Insensate — lacking sense or understanding; lacking humane feelings; lacking animate awareness or feelings.) They lack awareness of simple basic facts and principles.

Discrimination by the state is odious, immoral, repugnant and uncivilized. People must have the freedom to discriminate for or against anyone or any group. But a civilized modern state treats all citizens equally. Private citizens and groups have freedoms that the state and its functionaries don’t — and must not — have.

The state is a reflection of the people who constitute society. Only if the people approve of state discrimination would the state discriminate. I think it is shameful that Indians tolerate, even approve of, discrimination. Indian society is not civilized. All societies have discriminated against others in the past but most have progressed in the modern age. The unpleasant fact is that India is still stuck in an uncivilized past.

I am for the right of people to bear arms. The Sikhs have the right to carry kirpans — and if the state recognizes that right, then it must extend that right to all citizens regardless of whether they are Sikhs or not. The principle is simple: the general application of all laws. There cannot be one law for Sikhs and another for the rest.

I am a “2nd-amendment fundamentalist.” What’s that you ask? It’s the second in the list known as the Bill of Rights:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The 2A is what guarantees freedom from tyranny. What tyranny, you ask? It’s the tyranny of the state. Only when the citizenry is disarmed can state tyranny become a reality.

The British overlords disarmed Indians during the colonial raj. The Indian-born wannabe British (Nehru and Gandhi) as the new overlords recognized the need to continue that British tradition and made sure that Indians cannot oppose tyranny. So they kept the British Raj rule of keeping the people unarmed and vulnerable. Indians are — let’s not be too delicate about it — slaves of a tyrannical state. It was the Nehruvian state in the past and now it is the Modi state of the present. Sad fact is that Indians don’t seem to mind being slaves.

So be it. Swaha. Tathastu. It’s all karma, neh!

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