[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 16]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 21592-21593]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




        SIKHS PROTEST ON INDIAN INDEPENDENCE DAY, DEMAND FREEDOM

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, September 9, 2003

  Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Speaker, while we were in recess, India celebrated its 
Independence Day on August 15. I join my colleagues in congratulating 
India on 56 years of independence, but what is India really 
celebrating?
  Indian Independence Day is certainly not a celebration for the 
minorities living under the boot of Indian repression. Is missionary 
Graham Staines, who was burned to death along with his two young sons 
while they slept in their jeep, celebrating? Is human-rights activist 
Jaswant Singh Khalra, who was murdered in police custody after exposing 
the Indian government's policy of mass cremations, celebrating? Is 
Gurdev Singh Kaunke, who was murdered by the Indian police official 
Swaran Singh Ghotna, celebrating? What about the priests who have been 
murdered, the nuns who have been raped, the Christians whose peaceful 
religious festival was broken up by police gunfire, or American 
missionary Joseph Cooper, who was thrown out of the country after being 
beaten so severely by Hindu nationalists that he had to spend a week in 
a hospital? Do you think they are celebrating Indian Independence Day? 
I seriously doubt it, Mr. Speaker.
  India is a multinational state like the old Austro-Hungarian Empire 
or the Soviet Union. The record of history is that countries like that 
don't last. Eventually, they all break up. That makes India's 56 years 
of independence all the more remarkable, and perhaps it explains why 
India has to try to keep the country together by force.
  This effort has claimed the lives of over a quarter of a million 
Sikhs, over 200,000 Christians in Nagaland, more than 85,000 Kashmiri 
Muslims as well as thousands of Muslims in Gujarat and other places 
around the country, and tens of thousands of Assamese, Bodos, Dalits, 
Manipuris, Tamils, and so many others. According to the Movement 
Against State Repression, India admitted to holding more than 52,000 
Sikhs as political prisoners under TADA, a repressive law that expired 
in 1995. Some of these Sikhs have been in custody for almost 20 years 
without charge or trial. Even a Sikh Member of Parliament has recently 
had TADA charges brought to court against him. Amnesty International 
notes that tens of thousands of Christians, Muslims, and others are 
also being held as political prisoners, Mr. Speaker. Do you think they 
are celebrating India's independence?
  Listen to what a spokesman for the Golden Temple, Narinder Singh, 
told National Public Radio on the fiftieth anniversary of Indian 
independence in 1997: ``The Indian government, all the time they boast 
that they are secular, that they are democratic. They have nothing to 
do with a secularism, nothing to do with a democracy. They kill Sikhs 
just to please the majority.'' And Sikhs are unfortunately not the only 
ones. That is why Sikhs from the East Coast showed up to protest in 
front of the Indian Ambassador's residence, where an Independence Day 
celebration was being held. They demanded the basic democratic freedom 
of self-determination and freedom for the Sikh homeland, Khalistan, 
which declared itself independent on October 7, 1987.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time for America to take a stand for freedom and 
democracy in South Asia. We must act now to cut off aid to India until 
it allows real democracy and freedom for the Sikhs, Christians, Dalits, 
Muslims, and other minorities. And we must put this Congress on record 
in full support of self determination for all the peoples and nations 
of South Asia in the form of a free and fair plebiscite on the question 
of independence. Self-determination is the cornerstone of democracy and 
India is not allowing self-determination for anyone but the upper-caste 
Brahmins. A free and fair plebiscite will allow everyone to have self-
determination and allow this to happen peacefully. We must not allow 
militant Hindu fundamentalist theocrats to turn South Asia into another 
Yugoslavia, Mr. Speaker.
  I would like to place the International Sikh Organization's press 
release on the Independence Day protest into the Record at this time.

Deceitful Indian Government Moves Independence Day Celebration To Avoid 
   Sikh Demonstrators--Are Victims of Indian Repression Celebrating?

       Washington, D.C., August 15, 2003.--The cowardly, deceitful 
     Indian regime again moved its Independence Day celebration 
     from the Indian Embassy in Washington, D.C. to the 
     Ambassador's residence to avoid Sikhs who came from 
     Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia to protest 
     Indian repression of Sikhs, Christians, Muslims, and other 
     minorities and to demand an independent, sovereign Khalistan.
       ``This action shows the cowardice of the fundamentalist 
     Hindu nationalists,'' said Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh, President 
     of the Council of Khalistan. ``They are afraid of a peaceful 
     protest,'' Dr. Aulakh said. ``That is not how democracies 
     act,'' Dr. Aulakh said.
       The protestors raised slogans like ``India out of 
     Khalistan'', ``Khalistan Zindabad'', and others. They carried 
     signs demanding the release of over 52,000 Sikh political 
     prisoners in India as well as thousands of Christian, Muslim, 
     and other political prisoners, denouncing India for its 
     violent repression of minorities, pointing out India's long 
     history of anti-Americanism. and demanding freedom for 
     Khalistan. Khalistan is the independent Sikh homeland 
     declared on October 7, 1987. It has been under Indian 
     occupation since then. When India became independent, Sikhs 
     were equal partners in the transfer of power and were to 
     receive their own state, but the weak and ignorant Sikh 
     leaders of the time were tricked into staying with India on 
     the promise that they would have ``the glow of freedom'' and 
     no law affecting the Sikhs would pass without their consent. 
     Sikhs ruled an independent and sovereign Punjab from 1710 to 
     1716 and again from 1765 to 1849 and were recognized by most 
     of the countries of the world at that time. No Sikh 
     representative has ever signed the Indian constitution. The 
     Council of Khalistan is the government pro tempore of 
     Khalistan, the Sikh homeland.
       History shows that multinational states such as India are 
     doomed to failure. Countries like Austria-Hungary, India's 
     longtime friend the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, 
     and others prove this point. India is not one country; it is 
     a polyglot like those countries, thrown together for the 
     convenience of the British colonialists. It is doomed to 
     break up as they did. ``We only hope that the breakup will be 
     peaceful,'' said Dr. Aulakh, ``and that the fundamentalist 
     Hindu nationalists will not force a violent, bloody breakup 
     like that of Yugoslavia.'' India is ruled by Hindu theocrats 
     whose agenda is ``Hindu, Hindi, Hindutva, Hindu Rashtra,'' or 
     total Hindu domination of every facet of Indian life. An 
     Indian Cabinet minister said that everyone who lives in India 
     must be a Hindu or subservient to Hindus.
       ``It is clear that India does not accept Sikhs,'' said Dr. 
     Aulakh. ``The Indian government continues to persecute and 
     kill our Sikh brethren,'' he said. ``Sardar Atinder Pal 
     Singh's question of 13 years ago is still the question facing 
     the Sikh Nation: Why don't we liberate Khalistan? As 
     Professor Darshan Singh, a former Jathedar, said, `If a Sikh 
     is not for Khalistan, he is not a Sikh','' Dr. Aulakh noted. 
     An Indian newspaper reported on Tuesday that Sikhs in India 
     had decided not to celebrate Indian Independence Day, but 
     instead would hoist a black flag for the occasion. ``This 
     shows that the drive for freedom is still alive in Punjab,'' 
     Dr. Aulakh said.
       The Indian government has murdered over 250,000 Sikhs since 
     1984, more than 200,000 Christians since 1948, over 85,000 
     Muslims in Kashmir since 1988, and tens of thousands of 
     Tamils, Assamese, Manipuris, Dalits (the aboriginal people of 
     the subcontinent), and others. The Indian Supreme Court 
     called the Indian government's murders of Sikhs ``worse than 
     a genocide.''
       ``Is Jaswant Singh Khalra celebrating? Is Jathedar Kaunke 
     celebrating? Is Graham Staines celebrating?,'' Dr. Aulakh 
     asked. ``How can a democracy celebrate the kind of violent 
     repression that claimed their lives?''
       Indian police arrested human-rights activist Jaswant Singh 
     Khalra after he exposed their policy of mass cremation of 
     Sikhs, in which over 50,000 Sikhs have been arrested, 
     tortured, and murdered, then their bodies

[[Page 21593]]

     were declared unidentified and secretly cremated. He was 
     murdered in police custody. His body was not given to his 
     family. The police never released the body of former Jathedar 
     of the Akal Takht Gurdev Singh Kaunke after SSP Swaran Singh 
     Ghotna murdered him. No one has been brought to justice for 
     the Khalra kidnapping and murder. SSP Swaran Ghotna has never 
     been brought to trial for the Kaunke murder. Yet according to 
     a report by the Movement Against State Repression (MASR), 
     52,268 Sikhs are being held as political prisoners in India 
     without charge or trial. Some have been in illegal custody 
     since 1984!
       Missionary Graham Staines was murdered along with his two 
     sons, ages 8 and 10, by a mob of militant, fundamentalist 
     Hindu nationalists who set fire to the jeep, surrounded it, 
     and chanted ``Victory to Hannuman,'' a Hindu god. None of the 
     people involved has been tried. The persons who have murdered 
     priests, raped nuns, and burned Christian churches have not 
     been charged or tried. The murderers of 2,000 to 5,000 
     Muslims in Gujarat last year have never been brought to 
     trial. An Indian newspaper reported that the police were 
     ordered to stand aside in that massacre and not to get 
     involved, a frightening parallel to the Delhi massacre of 
     Sikhs in 1984.
       ``Only in a free Khalistan will the Sikh Nation prosper and 
     get justice,'' said Dr. Aulakh. ``India should act like a 
     democracy and allow a plebiscite on independence for 
     Khalistan and all the nations of South Asia,'' Dr. Aulakh 
     said. ``We must free Khalistan now.''

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