[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 35 (Thursday, March 1, 2007)]
[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

                                 ______
                                 

                          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

[[Page E439]]

     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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