Dear Sikh Brothers,
Like you, my heart is also crying over the endless deceptions and atrocities committed on us by the Indian Govt. and its terrorist supporters. Like most of you I am also convinced that the only way to restore justice and security to the Sikh nation is through having our own independent homeland Khalistan.
However like me, you must be realizing that Indian Govt. is very successfully hiding all its atrocities and Draconian laws against the Sikhs by citing our demand for Khalistan as threat to unity of the country. The result is that almost all the media comments I hear and read and all the views of foreign govt. Including USA, Canada and England show that they are all against us and instead of putting pressures on India to restore our human rights, they are taking all kinds of measures to suppress even our voices.
On top of this unfavorable outside conditions, I see many distressing internal features. Instead of trying to secure the support of people of other faiths and nationalities to our cause, we are foolishly dividing even our small nation into many parts like Amrit Dhari’s. Non Amrit Dhari’s, Sehjdhari’s, Jats, and Non Jats, etc. I think if things continue like this what to speak of Khalistan we may not have many Khalsas for too long. I am now an Amrit Dhari Sikh myself but I know many Sehjdhari Sikhs who are much more sincere and working much harder than me for the panthic cause. Similarly many Jat Sikhs can look around themselves and find many Non Jats equally if not more anxious to sacrifice themselves for Sikh cause and vice versa. I therefore suggest to every reader of this letter, who has any sympathy for the Sikh brethren to right now
vow to forget all these false prejudices, and every Amrit Dhari Sikh should respect every Non Amrit Dhari Sikh, every Jat Sikh should respect every Non Jat Sikh and vice versa.
Secondly, I will suggest that the Sikhs abroad should have a direct link with Akali Dal in Amritsar and instead of pulling in different directions, we should try to support them in whatever way they need our support. We therefore need to weigh the pros and cons of our actions carefully.
Thirdly, I will suggest that in today’s world it is not the actual truth that matters, but it is the perceived truth that matters. In the eyes of almost all Hindus, most of the American citizens, media and other foreign governments we are a bunch of terrorists trying to destroy the unity of the country, instead of being perceived as victims of holocausts trying to maintain our existence. This kind of situation, although mainly is due to false propaganda by Indian govt., yet partially is of our own doing. All the letters, materials and newspapers telling the real truth are being circulated by Sikhs and among Sikhs. We have generally failed to spread the truth among non-Sikhs. One way which appears possible at this stage is that we need to hire some professional publicity company and try to get the truth across through powerful TV, radio and newspaper ads. On top of these ads every Sikh should consider it as his sacred duty to spread the truth through circulation of the newspapers, articles, etc., among his friends and colleagues and try to make presentation in clubs like Lions Clubs, Rotary International, etc. I will even suggest that out of the donations made by Sikhs, newspapers like World Sikh News and spokesmen should be sent to the non-Sikhs and the media.
Fourthly, I will suggest that we should send 2 strong signal to the Indian govt. by uniting under one voice. The most feasible one voice seems to be that of World Sikh Organization. I know many of my Sikh brothers are not very happy with the performance of, WSO so far. I do not know what the reasons are for it, whether it is because of initial organizational problems, inexperience, power struggle or just a false propaganda. Whatever the reason might be the best way to strengthen our voice and achieve solid success is not by blaming WSO or disassociating from it. To my mind the best way is to become its active members and replace any inefficient executives (if there are any) by better ones. We should ensure that only most sincere and efficient Sikhs run the affairs of WSO and not any leadership hungry individuals. We should vow that first of all we our self will not run for any office jut for the sake of leadership and secondly, we will not vote for any individual who lacks sincerity and leadership qualities no matter how rich or poor or friendly that person is.
Finally, if we are really sincere in our motives, every night before going to bed we should ask ourselves the question “what solid action did I take today which in any way helped my Sikh brethren and what I want to do tomorrow in this direction.”
Only this kind of firm commitments and actions by each and every Gursikh will lead us to our cherished goal of everlasting justice and our own independent homeland Khalistan.
Yours sincerely,
Daljit Singh Tanaka We
Article extracted from this publication >> July 5, 1985
