NORTH CAROLINA: The Executive Board and the members of the Sikh Gurudwara of North Carolina wish to express their grief and shock at the brutal destruction of the Babri Masjid, a sacred Muslim shrine in Ayodhya, India. We condemn this criminal, violent, fanatical, and militant act of thousands of members of India’s majority community, and the ensuing wanton destruction of life and property the hands of organized mobs and violent police. We equally condemn the retaliatory destruction of Hindu temples in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and England.
The state government and, more importantly, the central Indian government share the blame for these heinous acts, through their inability and apparent unwillingness to protect the interests of India’s minority communities. In fact, news reports have demonstrated that this incident took place with the clear knowledge and perhaps connivance of the government.
The memory is fresh in the minds of Sikhs of a similar indignity we suffered at the hands of the Indian government eight years ago, when it desecrated our holiest shrine, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, and destroyed or desecrated dozens of other Sikh temples as well. These incidents ushered in a reign of military suppression of the Sikhs. which has led to the systematic elimination of their basic human rights, including the right to life.
While the Western world is busy concerning itself with “ethnic cleansing” in Bosnia-Herzegovina, it has unfortunately ignored similar patterns of ethnic cleansing that have been taking place in India for nearly a decade. The majority community of India has declared “India for Hindus” and the government has craftily resorted to tactics of divide and rule, with the result that no Muslim or Sikh can feel truly safe in his homeland.
We urge the free citizens of the United States, and particularly those of Indian heritage, to bring pressure on the Indian government to live up to their obligation to uphold the Indian Constitution’s mandates of secularism and obliges the government to safeguard the rights of minorities. Finally, we urge the members of all religions to learn to live together in peace and learn respect and tolerance for each other’s beliefs.
By: Parminder K.Dhillon the Executive Board of the Sikh Gurdwara of NC Inc.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 8, 1993
