[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E437-E439]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

SIKH EDITOR WRITES TO PRESIDENT BUSH, URGES SUPPORT FOR SIKH FREEDOM

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HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS

of new york

in the house of representatives

Thursday, March 1, 2007

Mr. TOWNS. Madam Speaker, recently, Dr. Awatar Singh Sekhon, Managing
Editor of the

[[Page E438]]

International Journal of Sikh Affairs, wrote to President Bush about
the dangerous situation in India, where democratic rights for
minorities are under continuing threat. He also published the letter in
his magazine.
Dr. Sekhon noted that the interests of the United States and its
allies, such as Canada, are likely to be damaged by continuing close
cooperation with India. As he observed, although India proudly portrays
itself as ``the world's largest democracy,'' it is a country where, as
he writes, ``democracy has been used to deny freedom, national and
human rights, and basic human dignity to the majority.'' That majority
includes Christians, Sikhs, Muslims, Dalits, and other minorities.
He notes that in India, the Brahmin class, which is 15 percent of the
population, uses the most brutal oppression to suppress and rule the
minorities. The caste system is still rigorously enforced, despite
being made illegal in 1950. It is used to keep the people down, backed
by violent repression. He notes that in 1948, the Indian government
promised the people of Kashmir a plebiscite on their status. Punjab was
promised sovereignty at the time of Indian independence. Those promises
have not been kept and any effort to claim what was promised has been
met with brutality that has resulted in the murders of over 250,000
Sikhs, over 300,000 Christian Nagas, over 90,000 Kashmiri Muslims,
Muslims and Christians elsewhere in the country, and tens of thousands
of other minorities. Yet our policymakers insist on treating India both
as a democratic country and as an ally, despite its longstanding and
still current friendship with Russia, as well as its coziness with the
mullahs of Iran, to whom it has sold heavy water and other components.
Dr. Sekhon cites the attack on the Golden Temple as another example
of India's effort to eliminate the minorities and subsume them into a
Hindu state.
Madam Speaker, I call on all my colleagues, especially those who are
promoters of India, to read this devastating letter. It is quite
damaging to India and it is right on target. It will give you essential
information on the lack of basic liberties in that country.
We can makce a difference, Madam Speaker. Instead of cozying up to
India and trying to cut deals with them in the name of stability, it is
time to stop our aid and our trade to pressure India to allow all its
people to enjoy basic human rights. And it is time to put the U.S.
Congress on record in support of self-determination for all the peoples
and nations of the subcontinent through a free and fair plebiscite on
their status. Isn't that the fair and responsible way to handle
questions like this? Isn't that the way democracies do it? Why is India
afraid of real democracy?
Madam Speaker, I would like to insert Dr. Sekhon's excellent letter
into the record. Again, I urge eveyone to read it. It will prove very
informative.
International Journal of

Sikh Affairs,

January 24, 2007.
Hon. George W. Bush,
President, United States of America,
The White House, Washington, DC.

south asia: interests, permanent allies, world peace and the role of
the united states in the region

I am a citizen of Canada and a member of the Canadian Sikh
community. I retired from service in public health as a
microbiologist, research scientist, administrator and
academic a few years ago. I am now active in work for human
rights. These rights are not peculiar to a people or country;
they protect the entire human race. I am expressing below my
concerns over the likelihood of damage to long-term interests
of the United States of America, its allies, the NATO forces,
Canada in particular. The pain of sufferings families of
North America, in Europe, the Middle East and South Asia is
hard to ignore. The irony is that the more the U.S. tried to
ameliorate conditions, the worse they have become.
The people of North America know very well the objectives
of the United States (U.S.) and the hurdles faced in leading
the world during much of the 20th and in the current 21st
centuries. The people of the U.S. and their elected leaders
have devoted a lot of time, money and precious resources in
manpower and management for the good of the mankind to make
the world better and safer. Despite all the good intentions
of the democratic world it has been struggling to find a
basis for lasting world peace. I believe that the long-term
interests of the United States and the world at large are
complementary. The U.S. leadership is good for the world.
Yet, increasingly fewer people believe that to be true. Is
there anything amiss?
I firmly believe that the United States and its allies
eagerly want to prevent the sufferings of friendly peoples
whose governments they have influence over. While we find the
stern hand of the U.S. military operating against enemies,
there is little effort to impose the same principles of human
freedom and dignity on ``friends''. Much of South Asia is
democratic; India boasts of being the largest democracy in
the world. Yet it is in India--more than anywhere else--where
democracy has been used to deny freedom, national and human
rights, and basic human dignity to the majority. As the Hon.
Dana Rohrabacher, (R-Cal) had said as far as the minorities
(the Sikhs, Muslims in general, Muslims of the
Internationally Disputed Areas of Jammu and Kashmir,
Christians, Dalits, Adivasasis or the indigenous native
people, and other non-Hindu, non-Brahmin) are concerned,
India is a Nazi Germany for them (Tim Phares 2006 Int J Sikh
Affairs 16(1),40-42 ISSN 1481-5435).
Congressman Rohrabacher's assessment is accurate and well
justified; it can be the focal point of a new beginning with
India. The question is: how could a country, which is the
world's largest democracy, sustain caste apartheid and
pogroms against minorities without facing recrimination? It
is done by mis-definition and misrepresentation the world is
too busy to try and unravel. India is not a nation and has
not even tried to become a nation during the 60 years that it
has been ``free''. It has relied entirely on brute military
force to crush any people that demanded its rights. The fact
is the Muslims are a majority in Jammu and Kashmir, the Sikhs
are a majority in the Punjab and Hill tribes of Assam are
mostly Christian. The People of Jammu and Kashmir were
promised a plebiscite that was endorsed by the United
Nations. The Sikhs were promised their separate state
Khalistan by the Congress leaders in exchange for rejecting
Pakistan's offer of the same. The Tribal peoples of Assam
were also promised ``freedom'' if they sided with the
Congress Party against the British. Now that these peoples
demand what was promised, India has unleashed the most
diabolical genocide and an international campaign to demonize
their stuggle. The British Raj lasted as long as it did
because it was founded on recognition of India as multiple
nations. How can a country call itself a democracy when it
discards its very foundation--the right of national self-
determination?
India aspires for its leaders--M.K. Ghandi and J.L. Nehru--
to be recognized with other great leaders of the democratic
world like George Washington, Franklin D Roosevelt, Abraham
Lincoln, J.F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, and William Jefferson
Clinton. But it cannot even begin to secure that position
until it can show that they stood up for the oppressed within
the country and without. India has invaded each one its
neighbours, overtly or covertly; if it gave in to any demand,
it sought to hurt twice as much elsewhere. The Untouchables
or Dalits--who are a majority in several states of India and
constitute 65 % of its population--were promised
``reservation'' of seats in the parliament, in education and
jobs. Even after 60 years, it is still denied to backward
castes and to Muslims. India uses ``democracy'' as means to
fudge issues and deny rights by never ending arguments in
circles. That is the experience of the people in the country
and neighbours who live in dread of roads being closed or
rivers being diverted.
The devious policies and broken promises is the hallmark of
India today. The Sikhs have been the worst victims. They
founded the first secular and sovereign state in South Asia
by Sikh monarch Ranjit Singh in 1799 that was ``annexed'' by
treaty to the British Empire on 14th March, 1849. In June
1984, the Darbar Sahib Complex which includes the Supreme
Seat of Sikh Polity, The Akal Takht Sahib, Amritsar
(mistakenly known as Golden Temple of Amritsar), which is the
Vatican of the Sikh faith, was assaulted by the Indian Army
killing 20,000 devotees who were inside the temple and their
leader Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was martyred. When the
Sikh guards of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi avenged the
assault assassinating her, the worst pogrom was unleashed
upon the Sikhs all over India that resulted in 250,000
Sikhs--mostly young men and their families--who were
mercilessly killed, Indian diplomats talk about the tradition
of non-violence in India of which Mahatma Gandhi is
considered to be a universal symbol. But the truth is that
India is violent but only to the weak; when confronted with
strong and powerful the Brahmin response is obsequious
folding of hands. This manner of greeting appears to be show
of humillty. But it is actually a statement that the person
being greeted is of low birth and is untouchable.
On 15th of August 1947, the British handed over political
power to the ``unelected'' Hindu leadership. But the Hindus/
Brahmins (neither a religion nor a culture) were only 15 % of
the population; how could they be the successors of the
British Empire in India. Once installed in power, they
have relied on a combination of hate (for people of
foreign faiths or of low birth), guile and stratagem far
mor complex than any Machiavelli. The record of their rule
over India speaks eloquently how Hindus/Brahmins have been
master-mind in persecution of faith minorities and the low
caste majority of native peoples who are deemed to be
inferior by birth in their unique faith. Through Article
25 of the Indian Constitution 1950, the Sikh, the
Buddhists and Jains and all the Untouchables, all of who
are victims of oppression and apartheid, are denied their
separate identity and deemed to be Hindus. The Sikh faith
founded by Guru Nanak Sahib was a rebellion to reject the
caste ``apartheid'' enforced by the Hindus of Brahmin
caste. The irony is that when freedom came, the Sikhs were
declared to be Hindus (long haired Hindus) albeit of the
renegade variety, against the teachings of its founder,
Guru Nanak Sahib, and the Sikhs' Holy Scripture, Adi Guru
Granth Sahib. It is difficult to portray

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the anger, revulsion and frustration felt by the Sikhs in
this unwelcome embrace of Hinduism (which is neither a
religion nor a culture according to the verdict of Punjab
and Haryana High Court, 1984). Brahmin rule in post-15th
August, 1947, India has interest only in maintaining the
apartheid system; its objective is the prosperity of urban
dwelling upper castes--the so called 200 million middle
class.
Suave Indian diplomats routinely underlines that the USA
and India are natural allies. Even American politicians and
diplomats have started to harp on the same theme. It is time,
this was questioned. What makes them natural allies? During
the years of the Cold War, India was the friend of The Soviet
Union, not of America. Why? It is because both were
internally and internationlly imperialist. Now, India needs
an imperial patron to underpin its own imperious. It needs
the U.S. Is that the role the USA sees for itself in the
world? As supporter of local imperialists? Surely the power
and prestige of the USA is such that it must aim higher:
obtain lasting universal peace and harmony; amity between
faiths; unfettered democracy; free trade. Tied to apron
strings of India, the USA is bound to drift into petty
machinations to deny freedom to some and equality to all.
lndia's imperialism is founded on delaying tactics and
betrayal. All the problems in the South Asian region are
product of Brahmin spin or stratagem. The media makes wild
forecasts of India of the future. It is supposed to be a huge
market for consumer goods. Whose? Peoples' Republic of China?
Some people have become very rich in India. Diaspora
Indians are clever and are also becoming rich. But for the
majority, India is a hellhole and will always remain so.
Caste based India has structural, infrastructual and social
problems that it cannot overcome until it abandons its
``poverty imperialism''. However, India is country of 1.1
billion people who deserve better. If India allowed the right
of self-determination to the Sikhs, to the peoples of Jammu
and Kashmir and Assam, it would still be the second largest
country with population more than all of Europe. However, it
would no longer need to maintain hostility with neighbouring
states and would be in a position to remove strife, tension
and hate from its social scene. India must give the native
peoples their national rights and create autonomous states of
India that would facilitate a compact of states within each
the interplay of diverse ethnic and caste interests would
create grass root harmony.
For the United States to articulate its interests in far
off lands and develop mechanisms to secure those interests,
its diplomats and politicians have to be conversant with the
history and customs of those lands. Historically, the Sikhs
of Punjab and the people of Afghanistan have never been
``subservient'' to any foreign ruler. That was true in the
19th Century as it is today. There are nearly 20
nations within the ``Indian union'', which are struggling
to regain their lost sovereignty and independence ever
since the British Indian Empire was hurriedly partitioned
in 1947. The end of the British Empire marked the end of
the imperial era in the whole world. India's efforts to
build and expand its empire are the biggest threat to
peace and stability of Asia. Consider Mr. President, if 20
or so nations, including the Sikhs of Punjab, Christians
of Nagaland, the tribal people of Assam and Manipur, the
south Indian states most notably Tamil Nadu, were to
become ``sovereign'' states, what a huge change for the
better it would be for the region and the world. That is
the only way to replace the polity of hate and oppression
with polities of peace and harmony underpinned by secure
undefended borders. Large is not fashionable; not just for
women.
I hope I have given some points to ponder. The USA can lead
the world with a global vision. There are not many regions
where so much is old and archaic ready to crumble and hit
dust. Many Americans are fond of India but they do not know
why? The present rulers of India would like your help in
building their empire. But that is not the best interest of
the people of India. India is one country that needs benign
intervention to dismantle the social and political structures
to be replaced by structures founded on national self-
determination. That would be good for business; that would be
good for world peace; that is the calling of greatness.
Best wishes and warmest regards.
Sincerely,
Awatar Singh Sekhon,
Ph.D, FlBA, RM (CCM), Associate Professor (Retired), Medical
Microbiology and Immunology; Director (Former), National
Centre for Human Mycotic Diseases Canada; Managing Editor and
Acting Editor in Chief.

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