MR, LIPINSKI: Mr. Speaker, I believe time the Government of India lift the current information blackout ‘on the Punjab and allow the Sikh people the freedom to practice their religion and live their lives in peace, With the only source of news being the Government controlled media, dangerously little is known about what is actually going on in Punjab, an area where most of India’s 15 million Sikhs live. Eyewitness reports of religious and cultural persecution, of arbitrary arrest and detainment and the mass murder have conflicted sharply with official statements regarding the treatment of Sikhs.
Sikhs are a hardworking, industrious and peace loving people. They produce 60 percent of total Indian wheat reserves bought by the Government and are largely responsible for the “green revolution” that has allowed India, in recent years, to become a net exporter of foodstuffs. However, with the bloody June 6, 1984, attack on the holiest of Sikh shrines, the Golden Temple, the Government has attempted to portray the large majority of Sikhs as terrorists and extremists bent on the violent creation of the independent state of Khalistan, Since all other news sources are so scarce it is not surprising that many in “the West have essentially accepted without question this line of reasoning or have never heard of the Sikh plight.
Dr. GS. Aulakh, president of the International Sikh Organization, has been instrumental in presenting the other side. He claims the Indian army traps Sikh men in fake encounters in order to provide a pretext for their deaths. He argues that the Indian Government infiltrates Sikh organizations outside the country in order to discredit them as extremist and pursues at home a systematic policy of cultural and political genocide. He asks a number of questions that I think need to be answered Why does the Indian Government prohibit foreign journalists from covering Punjab? Why a group of U.S Congressmen was denied permission to visit the area?
Why is the book “Report to the Nation: Oppression in Punjab”, published by the largely Hindu Citizens for Democracy organization, banned in India?
Why was no one tried for the murder of thousands of Sikhs in Delhi after the Gandhi assassination?
‘The most important point here is the genuine movement toward a lasting solution for the Sikh nation must include real freedom, A democracy cannot function if the majority tyrannizes the minority. Similarly, if there is no deep commitment to protecting the Sikh minority in India, then tragic events like the Golden Temple siege will continue to divide and disrupt India, I appeal to Prime Minister Gandhi as leader of the largest democracy in the world of work toward implementing those measures that would end the violence and strife in the Punjab.
Article extracted from this publication >> October 10, 1986
