The Honorable George W Bush
President
United States of America
The White House
WASHINGTON D C
U S A
24th January, 2007

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 US tried to ameliorate conditions, the worse they have become.

The people of North America know very well the objectives of the United States (US) and the hurdles faced in leading the world during much of the 20th and in the current 21st centuries. The people of the US 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 US 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 US 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 struggle. 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.Gandhi 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 humility. 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 more 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 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 diplomat 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 internationally imperialist. Now, India needs an imperial patron to underpin its own imperious. It needs the US. 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. India’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, infrastructural 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 it 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, FIBA, 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
International Journal of Sikh Affairs ISSN 1481-5435
E-mail: assekhon@shaw.ca <mailto:assekhon@shaw.ca>
Phone: 780. 487-2869

Copy to: The Hon Steven Harper, Prime Minister, Government of Canada
The Hon Stephane Dion, Leader of the Opposition, Liberal Party of Canada
The Hon Jack Layton, Leader of the New Democratic Party
The Right Hon Tony Blair, Prime Minister, Government of the United Kingdom
The Hon Rona Ambrose
The Hon G. S. Malhi, Member of Parliament
*****