Respected President Qayyum Khan,
When VP Singh, Prime Minister of India, visited Amritsar and Ludhiana in Khalistan recently he did not realize that he encountered neither gratitude nor awe from the ‘Sikhs but simply the cool determination of an emotionally wounded people who have already in their hearts seceded from the Indian union.
Before the armed assault on the Golden Temple in 1984 and the brutal campaign against the Sikh population in the Punjab in the years thereafter the Sikh nation may have been agreeable to embrace some kind of local autonomy under the Indian Constitution but now they are wary and want nothing less than total independence. It is obvious India is now about to follow a policy of realism in the Punjab as the Indian ruling elite is still living in a world of illusion the death of illusion is a necessary Prelude to the birth of realism. Until that happens we should be prepared for another bloodbath in the Punjab as sooner than later the ‘Sikhs will turn that crucial psychological corner that emboldens people to seek freedom like the people of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Colonial Empire.
While democratic uprising in Eastern Europe and the rumblings in the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union strengthens the principle that every people are entitled to right of self-determination. Acceptance of this simple doctrine by the Brahmin Ruling Elite of India and the realization that nothing is gained by procrastinating, would bring South Asia, particularly occupied Kashmir and Indian Punjab, out of anachronism into the spirit of the modern age. Alas, that is not going to happen and therefore it makes. Sense for the Sikhs and Kashmiris to make common cause against a ruthless enemy who would like the world to believe that there is a realistic chance of achieving peace in Kashmir and Punjab as the widespread support for independence is internal terrorism and not genuine nationalism. The Brahmin Ruling Elite and its news media want the world to think that the Sikh demand for Khalistan is going away if it hasn’t already. They want everyone to believe that India can hold on to Kashmir and Punjab indefinitely, without paying too high a price, They seem to have convinced themselves that the continued sub Jugation of 17 million Sikhs and six million Kashmiris is an achievable objective (as long as these two communities do not get together) and it is a moral and patriotic imperative to boot.
Your courageous and farsighted action, therefore, of meeting in Washington D.C with the able representative of the Sikhs Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh of the Council of Khalistan could deflate Indian illusion in the long run and make them see the hopelessness of their stand viz a viz, Kashmir and Khalistan. In the short run this action could result in saving the lives of Kashmiri freedom fighters that now face the Indian occupation army, a quarter of which is made up of Sikhs.
Nearly forty years ago when a million dollar education was being rammed down my throat, coin by coin, in the Pakistan Military Academy at Kakul, I never thought that one day I would have the opportunity to repay my debt of gratitude to my country by suggesting a meeting between the leaders of Kashmir and Punjab which Tam convinced will expedite the dawn of freedom for the Sikhs and the Kashmiris.
- Shaikh President, Kashmir Association of North America
Article extracted from this publication >> January 26, 1990
