On September 22, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was received with a hearty welcome to Houston which he described as an energy capital. Though the city and its suburbs were under the grip of flash flooding, over 50,000 Indian Americans from different walks of life attended the #HowdyModi event at NRG Stadium where Modi delivered a keynote following an Indian cultural extravaganza that rocked with the national anthem of India, the Bengali song “Ekla Chalo Re” (written by Rabindranath Tagore), Garba and Bhangra.
On the eve of the Howdy Modi event in Houston, PM Modi met and interacted with a 50-member delegation from the Sikh community in the United States. The Sikh delegation thanked him for various reasons including removal of 312 Sikh Americans from the blacklist of anti-India activists, and submitted a memorandum urging him to rename Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi.
Furthermore, the Sikh delegation demanded that Delhi International Airport should be renamed Guru Nanak Dev International Airport to mark the Sikhism founder’s 550th birth anniversary this year. The memorandum has elicited flaks from Sikhs in India, who think that the demand to rename Delhi Airport after Guru Nanak Dev not only politicizes the latter’s 550th birth anniversary but also demeans the Sikh faith.
Indian Netizens remark that changing the name of New Delhi IGI Airport won’t be as easy as renaming of Hyderabad International Airport and Bengaluru International Airport. Being the busiest Indian airport, a primary gateway to India and a major destination for international airlines, Delhi IGI Airport requires better grounds for name change.
Hundreds of flights are operated to New Delhi from across the world daily, including tens of weekly Air India flights from USA to India. Evidently, a better and more transparent agenda is required to change the iconic name of Delhi Airport without demeaning the airport’s position on the global aviation map, according to aviation critics.
In their memorandum to PM Modi in Houston, Sikh Americans also requested to amend Article 25 of the Indian Constitution which does not recognize Sikhism as a separate, independent religion. They reasoned that Article 25 of the Indian Constitution considers Sikhs as part of Hindu community, which is a serious concern about their right to wear articles of faith on the foreign soil. The legal lawsuits they file to protect their religious right in foreign countries are often overturned on such grounds that Sikhs are recognized as subjects of Hinduism in Article 25 of the Indian Constitution.
In his brief note to the Sikh delegation in Houston, PM Narendra Modi remarked that they would have “a surprise and good news in the next few days.” Later, he tweeted that he had an amazing interaction with the Sikh Community.
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By not people should have understood, Religions only DIVIDE People. Each Human saying my Religion is best!. So please do something which will UNITE people not divide.