| The Council of Khalistan |
|
|
|
|
Delivered
Remarks of Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh
President, Council of Khalistan
Human Rights Hearing on India
Subcommittee on Wellness and Human Rights
May
12, 2004
Washington, DC
Mr.
Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the lack of human rights in
India for Sikhs and other minorities today. The written report that I have
submitted and the supporting documentation will give you additional information
on the matters I am discussing today.
Human-rights violations are widespread in India. Amnesty International has
not been allowed to visit Punjab since 1978. Even the repressive Cuban
regime has allowed Amnesty International into the country more recently.
The reality is that India is a Hindu theocracy, not the democracy it claims to
be. The leaders are militant Hindu nationalists associated with the
Rashtriya Sayamsewak Sangh (RSS), a pro-Fascist organization. The
government maintains a policy called Hindutva - the total Hinduization and Hindu
control of every aspect of political, religious, social, and civil life in
India. A senior leader of the ruling party was quoted as saying that
everyone who lives in India must either be a Hindu or be subservient to Hindus.
A Cabinet minister was quoted as saying that Pakistan should be absorbed into
India. The Indian government's policy of Hindutva is a policy of
elimination of minorities such as the Sikhs.
An Army commander in Amritsar district threatened that he would murder the Sikh
men, bring the women to the Army barracks, and "produce a new generation of
Sikhs." Mr. Chairman, this is disgraceful and extremely insulting to
the proud Sikhs. It is unbecoming of an army commander of a nation which
claims to be the world's largest democracy.
According to figures compiled by the Punjab State Magistracy, which represents
the judiciary of Punjab, and human-rights groups, over a quarter of a million
(250,000) Sikhs have been murdered by the Indian government since 1984.
They join over 300,000 Christians in Nagaland who have been killed by the Indian
regime since 1947, as well as more than 85,000 Kashmiri Muslims who have been
killed since 1988 and tens of thousands of other minorities. Amnesty
International reported in February that at lest 100 individuals, including
social activists, human rights defenders, and lawyers, were currently being
tortured in Punjab.
A report by the Movement Against State Repression (MASR) shows that India
admitted to holding 52,268 Sikhs as political prisoners. They are held
without charge or trial, some of them since 1984! Why does a democratic
state hold tens of thousands of political prisoners, Mr. Chairman? Why
does a democracy pay bounties to police officers to kill minorities? Why
does a democracy need a Movement Against State Repression?
According to the February 17 issue of the Tribune of Chandigarh, a Sikh named
Gurnihal Singh Pirzada, who was a high official of the Indian Administrative
Service, was released from jail claiming that "his fundamental right to
liberty was violated." He was arrested after allegedly being seen at a
meeting of gathering of Punjab "dissidents." Pirzada denies
attending such a meeting, but points out that it would not be illegal if he did.
The supposedly secular Congress Party is no better. In June 1984, under
Congress Party rule, the Indian government brutally invaded the Golden Temple
and 150 other Gurdwaras around Punjab. Over 20,000 people were killed in
these attacks, including such Sikh leaders as Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale,
who was the strongest spokesman for Sikh rights and Sikh freedom. More
than 100 young boys, ages 8 to 13, were taken outside into the courtyard and
asked whether they supported Khalistan, the independent Sikh homeland.
When they answered with the Sikh religious incantation "Bole So Nihal,"
they were summarily shot to death. The Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh
scripture, handwritten in the time of the ten Sikh Gurus, was shot full of
bullet holes by the Indian military.
In 1995, the Human Rights Wing, under the leadership of Sardar Jaswant Singh
Khalra, found that the Indian government had a policy of arresting Sikhs - often
innocent ones - then torturing them, murdering them, declaring their bodies
"unidentified," and secretly cremating them without even notifying the
families. Mr. Khalra concluded that at least 25,000 Sikhs had been made to
"disappear" this way. The follow-up to his efforts places the
number around 50,000. Mr. Khalra was arrested by the Punjab Police on
September 6, 1995 and killed in police custody about six weeks later. His
body was never given to his family. No one has ever been brought to
justice for the Khalra murder.
Sardar Gurdev Singh Kaunke, who was Jathedar of the Akal Takht, the highest Sikh
religious position, was murdered by police Senior Superintendent of Police
Swaran Singh Ghotna. He has never been punished for this crime.
Unfortunately, Sikhs are not the only victim of India's brutal tyranny.
Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons were brutally
murdered by being burned to death while they slept in their jeep by a mob
of Hindu militants affiliated with the militant, pro-Fascist Rashtriya
Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) who chanted "Victory to Hannuman," a
Hindu god. An American missionary from Pennsylvania, Joseph Cooper, was
expelled from the country after being so severely beaten by RSS goons that he
had to spend a week in the hospital. In January 2003, an American
missionary and seven other individuals were attacked by RSS-affiliated Hindu
militants. RSS-affiliated gangs have raped nuns, murdered priests, and
burned churches. Christian schools and prayer halls have been attacked and
destroyed. A Christian religious festival was broken up by police gunfire.
Church staff have been harassed. Church events have been disrupted.
And yet India continues to claim that it is secular and democratic.
Both Prime Minister Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani are members
of the RSS and neither has ever repudiated its Hindu fundamentalist ideology.
In March 2002, between 2,000 and 5,000 Muslims were brutally murdered by RSS-affiliated
mobs in Gujarat. According to the U.S. Commission on International
Religious Freedom, "Hundreds of mosques and Muslim-owned businesses and
other kinds of infrastructure were looted or destroyed." The
Commission reports that "Many Muslims were burned to death; others were
stabbed or shot. India's National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), an
official body, found evidence in the killings of premeditation by members of
Hindu extremist groups; complicity by Gujarat state officials; and police
inaction in the midst of attacks on Muslims." A police officer
confirmed to an Indian newspaper that the massacre was pre-planned by the
government.
Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, and Orissa have all passed bills barring religious
conversions. These bills are targeted against the conversions of Hindus to
Christianity and other religions. Yet Hindu mobs have forcibly reconverted
lower-caste Chriatians to Hinduism and no action is taken.
India has never been one country. It has 18 official languages.
There was no such entity as India until the British conquered the subcontinent
and threw it together for their own administrative convenience. History
tells us that such multinational states are doomed to fall apart.
Sikhs ruled an independent Punjab from 1710 to 1716 and again from 1765 until
the British conquest of the subcontinent in 1849. The Sikhs have never
accepted the Indian constitution. When the Indian constitution was adopted
in 1950, no Sikh representative signed it and no Sikh representative has signed
it to this day. On October 7, 1987, the Sikhs declared independence from
India, naming their new country Khalistan. Yet India insists that Punjab,
Khalistan, is an integral part of India.
Only a free Khalistan will stop India's repression of the Sikhs. Only
independence for all the nations and peoples of South Asia will bring freedom,
dignity, stability, prosperity, and peace to the region. The cornerstone
of democracy is self-determination.
Mr. Chairman, there are measures that America can take to help end the
repression of Sikhs, Christians, Muslims, and other minorities in India and to
support the cause of freedom in the subcontinent. Cutting off U.S. aid to
India would be a good start. Why should American tax dollars go to support
the brutal, repressive, theocratic regime I have described, especially when a
British documentary called "Nuclear India" showed that India spends 25
percent of its development budget on its nuclear program and just two (2)
percent each on health and education? All that U.S. aid does is provide
additional resources with which to carry out the repression of minorities.
In addition, America should support democracy in South Asia in the form of a
free and fair plebiscite under international monitoring on the question of
independence in Punjab, Khalistan, in Kashmir, in Christian Nagaland, and
wherever the people are seeking freedom.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you and the members of the subcommittee
again for this opportunity. I respectfully urge you to support freedom for
all the minority nations of South Asia as the only way to end the repression and
secure full human rights for everyone in that troubled region. Thank you.