Sir, the international news media, both print and electronic, in general and World Sikh News in particular, deserve compliments on their bold coverage of recent tragic and unfortunate events relating to the Babri mosque demolition in India and your fine December 18, 1992 additional “Ayodhya in Perspective.”
The destruction of the histone” mosque and the subsequent large scale deaths of angry Muslims at the hands of India’s Hindu police (since the Indian government very cunningly deploys Hindu police against Sikhs and Muslims as the case may be), may have come to some of your readers as a surprise. But to Ideologists (Scholars following events in India) it did not. It’s a well-known fact that since India achieved independence, majority community has been slowly but surely taking steps to completely liquidate and wipe out the subcontinent’s minority communities. History bears winless that Buddhism was born in India and it spread to Sri Lanka, Burma, Nepal, Tibet, South East Asia, Japan, to name a few, but is completely extinct in India. More recently, in June 1984, India’s armed forces attacked Sikhism’s more than 40 Gurdwaras destroying some and damaging others including the Akal Takht Sahib and Darbar Sahib Amritsar. This single event has completely alienated the once loyal Sikhs who saw the handwriting on the wall and declared independence from India on April29, 1986. The struggle instilling. In view of the foregoing, I believe time has now come that international community should help Sikhs in Punjab and Kashmiris in Kashmir to become free members of international community so that they can also enjoy the glow of freedom.
For protecting other religious minorities, namely, Muslims, Christians, and Jews in India, Watchdog agencies should be set up under the United Nations which should play constructive role in safeguarding persons and properties of these minorities now that the cold war has ended.
Amarjit Singh Buttar Member, National Executive, World Sikh Org. U.S.A.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 22, 1993
