Sir,
The leaders who are responsible for getting the bill H.R. 1067 deserve our sincere appreciation. Now it is the duty of all the Sikh masses to try their best to get more and more congressmen to support this bill.
Now the question arises what efforts we can make besides meeting or approaching our congressmen, I will suggest that first of all we need to make sure that all the congressmen have been approached by somebody. There are many states unlike California, New York, and New Jersey, etc. where there may be very few Sikhs. We should approach our friends in such places to write letters to their congressmen. The second thing is that in addition to Sikhs we should contact our American friends to sign petitions in support of the bill. In my own small town of Topeka, (population of 120,000) I had no problem in getting thirty signatures through the local Unitarian Church.
The next thing is to get letters written from intellectuals from other communities particularly Jews. Recently we got a letter written to our congressmen by a Jew Professor. I have given these examples not to praise myself but to prove that these suggestions are practical.
Besides the individual efforts there are some steps which we can take on an organizational level. With the cooperation of only a dozen friends we have already launched on the preparation of a video (approximately cost $5,000) specially meant for the congressmen. This video is expected to be ready by July 1989.
We are also trying to explore the possibility of arranging special reception for congressmen where such videos could be shown and the congressmen could otherwise be enlighted in a single effort. Another very effective way is to flood the radio stations in Washington D.C., with powerful radio commercials at suitable times when the congressmen or their aides are most likely to listen (approximate cost $250 per commercial). I have already contacted responsible officers of Sikh organizations, they have expressed their inability to finance these schemes. I therefore invite all those Sikh individuals who want to participate in these and other such efforts for the sake of our suffering Sikh brothers and sisters in Punjab to contact me at the following address.
Yours Sincerely, Daljit Singh Jawa 3543 Wood Valley Pl.
Topeka, Ks. 66614 (913) 2670222
Article extracted from this publication >> June 16, 1989
