Speech by Mr Terry Dicks British MP to the Third Annual Sikh Heritage Award Banquet in San Jose California 16 February 1991
It is a great honor for me a British Member of Parliament to be here in California tonight to receive the Sikh Heritage Award for 1990.
The close ties between your country and mine have never been more important than they are today as we both stand side by side facing the dictator of Baghdad. A man without honor or decency.
We share not only a common language but a sense of justice and fair play. When the time comes we both know instinctively that we have to stand up and be counted. We did it in two world wars and we are now doing it again in the Gulf.
I am unashamedly Pro American and if I may speak personally I’d rather Britain was the fifty first state of the union than part of a Europe that never seems to know where its obligations lie.
It is that sense of decency and fair play that has brought us together this evening. Many of you are Sikhs who came to America and made a success of your lives. Some of you may have been born in this country Never the less your Sikh Religion your Sikh values and indeed your Sikh homeland are still of importance to you and so they should be.
As a British Member of Parliament I have spent nearly eight years getting to understand and share in the concerns of some eight thousand Sikhs in my constituency. Like them. I am extremely worried about the wav their families their values and most importantly their religion are being threatened in the Punjab. The Sikh Heritage is under threat and we cannot sit back wring our hands and do nothing.
Intervene of her behalf that I came to realize that the cozy relationship that exists between the British and Indian governments would prevent justice being done.
It was in the summer of 1985 when I first became actively involved with the Indian government over Sikh issues The wife of constituent of mine who was a Sikh but who had lived much of her life in East Africa and held a British passport was detained as she was about to board a plane in New Delhi to return to Britain.
She was carrying a newspaper that contained details of her daughter’s wedding which she had taken to show relatives in India. Unfortunately also contained in that newspaper was an advertisement showing a meeting of the Sikh Youth Organization.
The Indian government claimed that she had been showing this subversive her release. As most of you probably know I had a disagreement with the Indian home affairs minister who first of all asked me for a gift. When I refused to provide one he said he knew nothing about my constituent. This despite the fact that only a few months before she have stayed as a guest in his family home. His reaction to my refusal to pay him was to order me to leave the country.
When I raised this issue on the floor of the house of commons the overriding concern of the British government was not to offend the Indians and nothing further happened. Indian friends have been kind enough to say that a result of the pressure I brought and the publicity surrounding the case the Indian government was forced to release this lady within three months of my visit.
This may or may not be true but what I am sure about is that my government did nothing to facilitate her release and could only suggest that I had misunderstood the situation and that the Indian government had acted in a reasonable manner.
As a result of my actions many Sikhs approached me to bring to my attention the persecution of the Sikhs that was taking place in the Punjab. I was appalled to learn of the way the Sikhs were being treated and the conditions in which they were expected to live. The horror stories were too detailed and the grief too widespread for these stories not to have been genuine.
Even as I stand here today I wonder whether there is any difference between the way the Indian government treats the Sikhs in the Punjab and the way Saddam Hussein has treated the Kurds in Iraq or indeed the Kuwaitis in their own country.
Strange is it not that the rape of Kuwait can lead the allies to war whereas the rape of the Punjab hardly gets a mention in a western newspaper let alone bringing about action by the international community.
Are the people of Kuwait more important than the Sikhs in the Punjab? Is the abuse of Human Rights in Kuwait more important than the abuse of those rights in the Punjab? Or is it simply that much of the world’s oil comes from the Middle East while only food to feed millions of hungry mouths in India is produced in the Punjab? What a combination of the international community if that is the case.
The rape of young women the beating of old men and the murder of young boy cannot and should not be tolerated no matter where those atrocities are committed. The British have a unique responsibility to the Indian people and to the Sikhs in particular.
In 1947 when India obtained its independence it was the British who accepted a guarantee by the Hindus that the self-determination of the Sikh people in the Punjab would be recognized. It was on that basis that the British Government granted India its independence and it was the British government that stood by and did nothing when that promise was never kept Despite their loyalty to Britain and their sacrifices in two world wars successive British governments have done nothing to ensure the self-determination of the Sikh Nation or as I have already indicated even to guarantee that their basic Human Rights were being recognized in India.
Despite several questions to the British Foreign Minister and a debate I initiated on the Moor of the House of Commons in November 1988 I have so far been unable to get answers of any substance from the British government.
My government a conservative government remains firm in its resolve to do nothing. It is much easier to tum a blind eye to wrongdoing when that wrongdoing is done by friends easier still to take a stand which can be justified as being in the British interest.
I sometimes despair of politics and politician’s double standards and hypocrisy so often appear to be the tools of this shabby trade.
It is traditional when British politicians of any party speak abroad that they do not criticize their own government.
It is difficult for me facing you tonight to maintain that tradition because in all honesty it must be said that not only have the British government done nothing in this matter but they have bent over backwards to defend the Indian government’s position even to the extent of implying that the problems in the Punjab are caused primarily by Sikh terrorists
As a result of the intransigence of the British government and the harsh cruel approach to the Sikh issue by the then Indian government led by Rajiv Gandhi I decided in early 1989 to try and form a group which would concern itself with the Human Rights issue in the Punjab
Since that time I have travelled many thousands of miles speaking to politicians lawyers and businessmen in Europe Canada and here in the USA. The idea has met with a great deal of enthusiasm but until very recently very little practical support. (from the Sikhs).
An organization such as the one I have in mind needs to be properly Organize and properly funded if it is to have any impact at all. I also strongly relieve that it can only have real influence if it is made up of international politicians acting on advice from lawyers and other human rights experts.
While I understand and sympathize and indeed in philosophical terms support the call being made by many Sikhs for a home land in the Punjab I believe this can best be achieved by bringing to the attention of the world community the violation of human rights in that part of India. Self-determination for the Sikhs seems to me to be a logical outcome of that international recognition. It will not be achieved by Violence no matter how justified such action may be. This must surely be so now that the international community has at last come together to fight in the name of human rights in the Gulf.
It would in my view be extremely difficult for the United Nations to refuse to recognize what is happening in the Punjab after it had been so quick to act against Iraq. Oppression and Burman rights are fresh in the minds of everyone. The Punjabi people are just as important as the Kuwaitis.
Therefore I say to my Sikh friends here in California tonight and to those I have met in many other parts of the world the way forward must be through an international body such as the one I have suggested fighting in a practical and lawful way to bring the Sikh cause to the attention of the rest of the world.
If my coming here this evening and accepting this award can make a small contribution towards the creation of such an organization and through its activities perhaps bring an end to the violation of those basic human rights in the Punjab then I gladly accept this honor.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 1, 1991
