Dear Senator Kerry

February 19, 2004

Senator John F. Kerry

304 Russell Senate Office Building

Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Kerry:

I am writing to you today on behalf of half a million Sikh Americans and over 25 million Sikhs worldwide to say that your remarks equating Sikhs with terrorists were offensive to the Sikh community. While giving a speech in Oklahoma, you referred to “the Sikhs in India” as an example of terrorism.

Sikhism is an independent, monotheistic, revealed religion, not a part of any other religion. Sikhs are distinctive by our religion, language, and culture from any other people on Earth.

Sikhs ruled Punjab from 1710 to 1716 and again from 1765 to 1849. Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, and Christians all participated in the government. Sikhs are a separate nation and people.

At the time of India’s independence, three nations were to receive sovereign power: the Muslims, who got Pakistan, the Hindus, who got India, and the Sikhs. Sikhs took their share with India on the solemn promise that Sikhs would enjoy “the glow of freedom” in Punjab and no law affecting Sikh rights would be passed without our consent. Instead, almost as soon as the ink was dry on India’s independence, Nehru sent out a directive describing Sikhs as “a criminal class” and ordering police to take extraordinary measures against us.

Since June 1984, India has murdered over 250,000 Sikhs, according to figures compiled by the Punjab State Magistracy and human rights groups and published in the book The Politics of Genocide by Inderjit Singh Jaijee. A report from the Movement Against State Repression (MASR) shows that India admitted to holding 52,268 Sikhs as political prisoners. Some have been in illegal custody since 1984! Tens of thousands of other minorities are also being held as political prisoners, according to Amnesty International. Indian forces carried out the March 2000 massacre in the village of Chithisinghpora, according to two independent investigations. Indian forces were caught red-handed trying to set fire to a Sikh Gurdwara and Sikh homes in a village in Kashmir. Sikh and Muslim villagers joined hands to stop them.

The book Soft Target, written by two Canadian journalists, Zuhair Kashmeri of the Toronto Globe and Mail and Brian McAndrew of the Toronto Star, shows conclusively that the Indian government blew up its own airliner in 1985, killing 329 innocent people, to blame it on the Sikhs and have an excuse for more repression.

Other minorities such as Christians and Muslims, among others, have also felt the lash of Indian repression. Over 300,000 Christians in Nagaland have been killed by the terrorist Indian regime. Nuns have been raped, priests have been murdered, churches have been burned, schools and prayer halls have been destroyed, all with impunity. A mob of militant Hindus affiliated with the parent organization of the ruling BJP murdered missionary Graham Staines and his two sons by burning them to death while they slept in their jeep, all the while chanting “Victory to Hannuman,” a Hindu god. India threw missionary Joseph Cooper from Pennsylvania out of the country after he was beaten so severely that he had to spend a week in the hospital. A Christian religious festival on the theme “Jesus is the answer” was broken up by police gunfire.

Almost two year ago, Muslims were massacred in Gujarat while police were ordered to stand by and do nothing, according to Indian newspaper reports. One newspaper quoted a policeman as saying that the Indian government planned the massacre in advance. This is an eerie parallel to the 1984 massacre of Sikhs in Delhi, in which police were locked in their barracks while the state-run radio and television called for more Sikh blood.

An Indian Cabinet minister was quoted as saying that everyone who lives in India must either be a Hindu or be subservient to Hindus. This kind of religious fanaticism as state policy is dangerous and anti-democratic. We would not want it in America; why should we support it in India?

On October 7, 1987, Sikhs declared their independence from India, naming their new country Khalistan. We are committed to liberating Khalistan by peaceful, democratic, nonviolent means. History shows that multinational states such as Austria-Hungary, the Soviet Union, and India are doomed to fall apart. We intend to see that this happens peacefully, in the manner of Czechoslovakia, not violently like Yugoslavia. Yet simply supporting a sovereign, independent Khalistan is what India calls terrorism.

The 20,000 Sikhs who were murdered in the June 1984 attack on the Golden Temple and 37 other Sikh Gurdwaras throughout Punjab were not terrorists. They were seeking refuge from the Indian government’s tyranny. Yet the Indian government insists on describing them as “terrorists,” as if repeating it often enough will make it true.

Senator Kerry, we respectfully request that you apologize to the Sikh Nation and the Sikh community in the United States for your remark. I urge you to support measures to bring freedom to all the people of the subcontinent. Sikhs share the commitment to freedom you showed when you fought in Vietnam and in your service in public office. There was even a Sikh member of Congress in the late 1950s, Dalip Singh Saund of California. We look forward to working with you in the future to bring the blessings of liberty to everyone in the subcontinent.

If you would like any further information or would like to meet about these issues, please feel free to contact me.

Sincerely,

Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh

President Council of Khalistan

Dervish · February 19, 2004

I wasn't aware of the sikh comment. Now that I think about it, Kerry is scary looking, with that George Lucas pompador hair and those shadowy eye sockets, it looks like his eyes are sunken in.

In the end, I had some real appreciation for Kucinich, but I think nowadays only big money wins :/