Wahe Guru Ji Ka Khalsa,

Wahe Guru Ji Ki Fateh.

Param Satkar Sadh Sangat Ji:

Punjab is passing through a life and death struggle these days. A declaration of civil war in Punjab, is imminent. Government of India has stopped considering Sikhs as Indians and Punjab as a part of the country. In fact, since 1931, we have been fed with false promises by Mahatma Gandhi and Jawahar Lal Nehru. These leaders gave lot of assurances and promises to the Sikhs but instead:

  1. We were persecuted for practicing our religion.
  2. Our religious shrines have been continuously attacked and desecrated.
  3. Effective representation in Parliament has been denied to us.
  4. The economy of the Punjab has been disrupted through illegal distribution of its river waters to other States.
  5. By mobilizing army and political elements’ efforts are afoot to destroy our identity, integrity and eventually our religion.

These are the dividends we are getting for our sacrifices that we made for the independence of this country (80% martyrs were of Sikh religion) for providing half of the total agricultural needs of the Indian people, although we are only 2% of the total population.

Now the time has come when the Sikhs cannot afford to submit themselves to any more humiliation, maltreatment and oppression. We are a peace loving nation, but we can no longer contain our people, who refuse to submit themselves to this inhuman treatment,

I also feel that there is no scope left for democratic and political solution. The World media is continuously being manipulated by Government of India, where the Sikhs are being unfairly labeled as “terrorists” just to make New Delhi hide its shameless oppression which has been termed as civil war and is ready to explode any day. They are maligning Sikhs for every type of crime to solicit foreign governments’ sympathy and cooperation. A glaring case has come up in U.S.A. where Sukhvinder Singh Sandhu and Ranjit Singh Gill have been unjustly apprehended by the U.S. Government on the basis of fictitious charges by the Government of India. Their extradition is sought to teach them a lesson for fighting for the just cause of their religion. I earnestly wish to make an appeal to the Sikh community to launch a major worldwide media effort to counter the malicious propaganda of New Delhi. We should tell the world media how Punjab has been blocked to foreign news media. Our sources in projecting the true picture of Punjab situation will accomplish the following:

  1. To report the truth concerning the atrocities now taking place against us.
  2. Substantiate the reasons for the establishment of our homeland by seceding from India to ensure World support to achieve our objective honorably
  3. To project our struggle in its right perspective in the International Forums as a “civil war”. I am sure if we succeed in creating congenial atmosphere, India would not be able to continue to abuse international laws and harass innocent young men like Sandhu and Gill.

To counter inspired propaganda against the Sikhs we are writing this letter to you. We are ready to launch a massive worldwide media campaign with aggressive news programs, documentaries “lectures”, lobbying and even by smuggling news reporters into Punjab. Whereby we will enlighten the international press and governments who cannot be otherwise convinced.

Article extracted from this publication >>  July 24, 1987