[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 162 (Wednesday, November 28, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2153]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page E2153]]
SIKHS MUST HAVE A FREE KHALISTAN, ALL OTHER RELIGIOUS GROUPS HAVE THEIR 
  OWN COUNTRIES, SIKHS ARE SEPARATE RELIGION, CULTURE, LANGUAGE, AND 
                                 PEOPLE

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, November 28, 2001

  Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Speaker, all over the world, religious and ethnic 
groups have their own countries. There are numerous countries dominated 
by Christians and as we have recently been reminded, there are numerous 
Muslim countries as well. The Hindus rule India and a few other 
countries. There are a number of Buddhist countries. The Jewish people 
have Israel. Only the Sikhs do not have their own country.
  Sikhs declared their independence from India on October 7, 1987, 
naming their country Khalistan. Unfortunately, Khalistan continues to 
live under a brutal occupation by India that has cost a quarter of a 
million Sikhs their lives since 1984. Earlier this year, the Movement 
Against State Repression issued a report showing that India is holding 
at least 52,268 Sikh political prisoners, by their own admission, in 
illegal detention without charge or trial. Some of them have been held 
since 1984. Former Member of Parliament Atinder Pal Singh noted that 
``there is no family in the 12,687 villages of Punjab of which one or 
the other Sikh member has not been killed by the police.''
  As I have previously said, ``The mere fact that they have the right 
to choose their oppressors does not mean they live in a democracy.'' My 
colleague, the gentleman from California, Mr. Rohrabacher, has said 
that for Sikhs and Kashmiris, ``India might as well be Nazi Germany.'' 
I cannot make a better statement of how brutal India's occupation of 
the Sikh homeland is. A new Indian law makes any act a ``terrorist 
offense'' to ``threaten the unity or integrity of India.'' Under this 
law, anyone who peacefully advocates independence for Khalistan or any 
of the minority nations such as predominantly Christian Nagaland, 
Kashmir, or any other can be held as a ``terrorist'' for as long as it 
suits the Indian government to do so. This is not democracy, Mr. 
Speaker.
  When India got its independence from Britain, Sikhs were one of the 
three nations that were to receive their own sovereign state. Muslims 
got Pakistan, Hindus got India. Sikh leaders stayed with India because 
Mr. Nehru and Mr. Gandhi promised them that they would enjoy ``the glow 
of freedom'' in Punjab and no law would pass affecting Sikhs without 
their consent. However, as soon as the ink was dry on the agreement for 
Indian independence, the Indian government put out a memo describing 
Sikhs as ``a criminal class'' and began the tyrannical harassment of 
the Sikhs. Accordingly, no Sikh representative has ever signed the 
constitution of India.
  Sikhs ruled Punjab as an independent country from 1765 to 1849, when 
the British conquered the subcontinent. Punjab was recognized by most 
of the major countries at that time. Under Sikh rule, Punjab was a 
secular state in which Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus, and Christians all had a 
part in the government. The people prospered.
  In June 1984, the Indian government attacked the Sikh religion's most 
sacred shrine, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the Vatican or Mecca of 
the Sikhs. Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a leader of the Sikh 
freedom movement had warned that ``If the Indian government attacks the 
Golden Temple, it will lay the foundation of Khalistan.'' After the 
Golden Temple attack, the movement for an independent Sikh country, 
Khalistan, took on steam. As a result, India stepped up the repression. 
In the words of Narinder Singh, a spokesman for the Golden Temple who 
appeared on NPR in August 1997, ``The Indian government, all the time 
they boast that they're democratic, they're secular, but they have 
nothing to do with a democracy, they have nothing to do with a 
secularism. They try to crush Sikhs just to please the majority.''
  Mr. Speaker, this is unacceptable. I must join Atinder Pal Singh, the 
former Member of Parliament in asking, ``why can't the Khalistan, 
Sikhistan, or whatever name you might like to give it be formed for the 
Sikhs?''
  India claims to be ``the world's largest democracy.'' If that is so, 
then why can't India do the democratic thing and let the people of 
Khalistan and the peoples of all the minority nations have a free and 
fair plebiscite, with international monitoring, to decide the question 
of independence? Isn't that the democratic way? The United States does 
it for Puerto Rico, Canada does it for Quebec. Why can't ``the world's 
largest democracy'' do it for the people of Khalistan, Kashmir, 
Christian Nagaland, and all the other minority nations? Only when these 
nations are free will the repression of minorities in India end.
  The U.S. Congress should go on record in support of self-
determination for all the people of South Asia and we should stop 
American aid to India until the repression ends. The only answer is 
freedom. Let's do what we can to support it and expand it.

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