January 26, 2005

The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States
The White House
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Bush:

Congratulations on beginning your second term as President of the United States. Your leadership will continue to inspire America for another four years.

Many people around the world, including the Sikh Nation, were very impressed with your Inaugural Address. We agree with you that “the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.

In India today, there is no freedom for minorities. When I met you in March 2004, you said, "I am aware of the Sikh and Kashmiri problem." The Indian government, which proudly proclaims itself a democracy, has murdered over 250,000 Sikhs since 1984, more than 300,000 Christians in Nagaland since 1947 as well as tens of thousands of Christians around the country, over 90,000 Kashmiri Muslims and thousands of Muslims in other parts of the country such as Gujarat, where a government-induced massacre killed 5,000, and tens of thousands of other minorities, such as Assamese, Bodos, Dalits, Manipuris, Tamils, and others. They continue to hold 52,268 Sikhs as political prisoners, according to the Movement Against State Repression (MASR.) Amnesty International reports that tens of thousands of other minorities are also being held as political prisoners. These political prisoners are held without charge or trial. Some have been in illegal custody for over 20 years.

As you said in your speech, "No one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave." Sikhs, Christians, Muslims, and other minorities are slaves in India and they seek only to be free. If we are to end tyranny in the world, the tyranny of the Brahmins in India must be dealt with.

In your Inaugural Address, you promised, "We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation: The moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right. America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies." In light of that promise, I respectfully urge you to put the moral force of American freedom and strength on the side of freedom for all the people in South Asia. If you would stop non-humanitarian aid to India until all people fully enjoy basic human rights and put your Administration on the side of a free and fair plebiscite in Kashmir, as India promised in 1948, in Punjab, Khalistan, which declared its independence on October 7, 1987, in Nagaland, and wherever else in India s multinational empire people seek to be free, this could have a major influence in bringing freedom to all the peoples and nations of South Asia. As you said yourself, this is the best way to ensure peace, prosperity, and dignity for everyone in that troubled region. This will be better for the security of the region and of the United States.

Thank you for standing for freedom.

Sincerely,

Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh
President
Council of Khalistan