We have noticed the increasing participation of the Sikhs in the affairs of their adopted country since the last few years. We are proud of this since we have been extorting our readers to be more active in community affairs.
Last week the New York Times carried a front page photograph of Robert Giuliani celebrating his victory as the Republican nominee for the election as a mayor. With him, amongst others in the photo, was a local Sikh businessman, David N. Dinkins, the Democratic contestant and most likely Mayor of the city also has a Sikh as a prominent backer.
The U.S. Sikhs are asserting their presence by participating in, to take a few examples, (1) politics in city, county, state and national elections as supporters, fund raisers and in one case in Connecticut as a candidate; (2) in community service such feeding the homeless in Washington D.C. or Austin Texas, and organizing relief for the victims of natural disasters in Sacramento CA; (3) parades a Baisakhi parade in New York or the Guru Granth Gurpurb parade in Yuba City or joining in July 4 parade in Modesto.
The Sikhs have lived in the country since 1820 in small numbers but there was a spurt in Immigrants from India, most of them Sikhs, between 1898 to 1914 when about 6,000 people of Indian origin lived in the Pacific states. The Gurdwara in Stockton CA was built in this period. They were blankly discriminated against and in 1917 a law was passed to close the doors of the immigration of Asians to the U.S. It is only in the last forty years or so that the discriminatory nature of the immigration law was changed.
Despite all that, Sikhs have been politically active in the United States, for a long time. Bhai Jawan Singh, the potato king of California financed and supported the Gadar movement to overthrow the yoke of British imperialism in India as early as 1913.
In 1943, J.J. Singh of New York lead the efforts to organize famine relief aid to the tune of more than dollars 100,000 for the famine in Bengal. A magazine India Today was also produced under the direction of this businessmen who had immigrated to the United States in 1926,
Dr. Dalip Singh Saund, a Democrat, was the first, and as far as we know, only American of Asian origin who made it to the Congress. He was a PhD from University of Berkeley, and was elected to the Congress from California in 1956.
Only recently have a vast majority of Sikhs living in the U.S. realized the true nature of the repressive regime in India which has denied them the very basic human rights. They have been very active at the grass root level in making their fellow Americans more aware of the true state of affairs in what the Indian government wrongly likes to call the world’s largest democracy.
We commend them for their effort. The stupendous support 0f204 congressmen to the amendment, in June, to stop the aid to India because of its poor human rights records was largely as a result of their efforts in making the facts known to their representatives,
The Gurus founded our religion on the principles of universal brotherhood, sewa the service of our needy brethren and the need to live life by contributing to the society rather than any reclusive escapism. Let us all do our bit for the U.S. society let us participate in it fully.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 22, 1989
