Al­leg­ing that In­dian gov­ern­ment un­der Naren­dra Modi con­tin­ues its march against mi­nori­ties and na­tion­al­i­ties, Dal Khalsa has reached out to the United Na­tions Hu­man Rights Coun­cil in Geneva nar­rat­ing the volatile de­vel­op­ments that spell an an­ar­chic sit­u­a­tion for re­li­gious mi­nori­ties in In­dia.

From ab­ro­ga­tion of Ar­ti­cle 370 in Kash­mir to In­di­a’s Supreme Court’s “po­lit­i­cal” ver­dict on Babri Masjid in the Ay­o­d­hya dis­pute to the pas­sage of the Cit­i­zen­ship Amend­ment Act by the In­dian par­lia­ment -every­thing is be­ing played out in In­di­a’s march to make In­dia a pro­fess­edly Hindu coun­try, reads the mem­o­ran­dum sub­mit­ted to the High Com­mis­sioner for Hu­man Rights Michelle Bachelet.

Party sec­re­tary for hu­man rights Prit­pal Singh Switzer­land met the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of High Com­mis­sioner at the UN­HCHR of­fice in Geneva and ap­prised him of the in­creas­ingly dif­fi­cult and dan­ger­ous times for all mi­nori­ties and na­tion­al­i­ties, who want to stand up for the fun­da­men­tal rights of op­pressed peo­ple.

Re­it­er­at­ing that Sikhs as ge­o­graph­i­cal neigh­bours of Kash­mir and as peo­ple who en­dorse the UN Char­ter on Hu­man Rights, con­sider it their sa­cred duty to stand up against re­pres­sion and op­pres­sion every­where.

Prit­pal Singh told the UN of­fi­cials that how the gov­ern­ment of In­dian de­nied his party and other groups the right to protest against gross vi­o­la­tions of rights of Kash­miri peo­ple.

The In­dian state barred around 200 ac­tivists as­so­ci­ated with Dal Khalsa and Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal (Am­rit­sar) from en­ter­ing Jammu and Kash­mir at the Mad­hopur-Kathua in­ter­state bor­der on 9 De­cem­ber on flimsy grounds. The ac­tivists were on their way to ob­serve World Hu­man Rights Day at Lal Chowk, Sri­na­gar.

Com­plain­ing about the muted re­sponse of the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity and the United Na­tions Se­cu­rity Coun­cil, which has been mak­ing soft rec­om­men­da­tions to the per­pe­tra­tor state, the Dal Khalsa leader  Prit­pal Singh told UN rep­re­sen­ta­tive that the stop­page of Sikh lead­ers and hu­man rights ac­tivists by the gov­ern­ment from en­ter­ing Jammu and Kash­mir was a loud de­c­la­ra­tion by the In­dian state that those who want to ob­serve Rights Day for the peo­ple of Kash­mir have no right to do so.

Urg­ing the UN to make In­dia an­swer­able for this to the world com­mu­nity, the Dal Khalsa leader nar­rated the out­cry of peo­ple across the spec­trum on CAA.

The stop­page of Sikh lead­ers and hu­man rights ac­tivists by the gov­ern­ment from en­ter­ing Jammu and Kash­mir was a loud de­c­la­ra­tion by the In­dian state that those who want to ob­serve Rights Day for the peo­ple of Kash­mir have no right to do so. 

-Prit­pal Singh, Sec­re­tary Hu­man Rights, Dal Khalsa

Un­ques­tion­ably, there are dou­ble stan­dards of the gov­ern­ment of In­dia vis-à-vis the ma­jor­ity com­mu­nity and the Mus­lims, not only in Kash­mir but the whole of In­dia.

It is ap­par­ent that the Modi gov­ern­ment was de­lib­er­ately push­ing the peo­ple to a point of no re­turn and this has dan­ger­ous por­tents for South Asia.

It is re­li­ably learnt that the Sikh leader Prit­pal Singh had a pa­tient hear­ing in the UN of­fice and more so the of­fi­cials were seized with the de­vel­op­ing un­rest across In­dia.

 Read also: In­dia stops Sikhs march­ing to Sri­na­gar to ob­serve Hu­man Rights Day

Speak­ing to WSN, Dal Khalsa spokesper­son Kan­war Pal Singh said its time for UN in­ter­ven­tion as the si­lence of the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity lead­er­ship was hurt­ing the rel­e­vance of the UN Hu­man Rights Char­ter.