As In­dia con­tin­ues to push to the wall its mi­nori­ties, na­tional and re­gional iden­ti­ties by crush­ing their rights and re­duc­ing the space for co-ex­is­tence, tak­ing the man­tle of be­ing the voice of the Sikhs, the Sikh po­lit­i­cal body -Dal Khalsa has urged the US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump em­bark­ing on a trip to In­dia to teach them how to deal with rights is­sues and de­bunk In­di­a’s hol­low ar­gu­ment of treat­ing all in­ter­na­tional oblig­a­tions as In­di­a’s in­ter­nal mat­ter only.

SEEK­ING A PRO-AC­TIVE ROLE FOR THE US PRES­I­DENT DON­ALD TRUMP, dur­ing his visit to In­dia, Dal Khalsa, in a com­mu­nique through the of­fice of the US Am­bas­sador to In­dia, has made a fer­vent ap­peal to the United States to de­bunk In­di­a’s hol­low ar­gu­ments that what­ever it does to its mi­nori­ties, na­tion­al­i­ties and re­gional iden­ti­ties is its in­ter­nal mat­ter.

Hit­ting out at In­di­a’s march to be­come a Hindu coun­try, Dal Khalsa cau­tioned the vis­it­ing US Pres­i­dent about the BJP’s march to­wards Hindu In­dia be­ing a di­rect threat to our iden­tity and ex­is­tence. “If not stopped, it would lead to dan­ger­ous reper­cus­sions, urged Dal Khalsa.

Nar­rat­ing the tale of woes that plagues In­dia to­day, Dal Khalsa has lamented say­ing, “You ar­rive in In­dia at a very cru­cial junc­ture in this coun­try’s con­tem­po­rary his­tory. Civil so­ci­ety, the con­cerned cit­i­zenry of the coun­try along with na­tional iden­ti­ties -Kash­miris, Sikhs and Na­gas keenly watch the kind of pres­sure that the United States of Amer­ica will ex­ert on In­dia to en­sure re­spect for hu­man rights and ac­cep­tance of the right to self-rule through the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion.”

“Things have reached a pass where the In­dian ad­min­is­tra­tion and the ex­ec­u­tive have turned big­ots and the ju­di­ciary and the army play a clear sub­servient role to the ex­ec­u­tive, cre­at­ing a dan­ger­ous par­a­digm for the sur­vival of democ­racy and peo­ples’ rights, read the let­ter.

“You ar­rive in In­dia at a very cru­cial junc­ture in this coun­try’s con­tem­po­rary his­tory. Civil so­ci­ety, the con­cerned cit­i­zenry of the coun­try along with na­tional iden­ti­ties -Kash­miris, Sikhs and Na­gas keenly watch the kind of pres­sure that the United States of Amer­ica will ex­ert on In­dia to en­sure re­spect for hu­man rights and ac­cep­tance of the right to self-rule through the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion.”

The United States can­not af­ford to ig­nore “the wide­spread pub­lic out­cry across the spec­trum against the di­vi­sive and dis­crim­i­na­tory Cit­i­zen­ship Amend­ment Act -CAA and the pro­posed Na­tional Reg­is­ter of Cit­i­zens -NRC pur­ports in­creas­ingly dif­fi­cult and dan­ger­ous times for all mi­nori­ties and na­tion­al­i­ties.

Urg­ing Pres­i­dent Trump to ex­ert pres­sure on In­dia to en­sure re­spect for hu­man rights of strug­gling na­tion­al­i­ties and ac­cep­tance of their right to sov­er­eign self-rule through the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion, Dal Khalsa said that the Pres­i­den­t’s friend­ship with In­dian Prime Min­is­ter should go be­yond the per­sonal do­main.

“The Modi dis­pen­sa­tion was us­ing the state’s full might to spread ter­ror on uni­ver­sity stu­dents, schol­ars and dis­senters while show­ing its timid “Gand­hian face” to the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity.

Shar­ing the thrust of his mis­sive, party spokesper­son Kan­war Pal Singh shared, “As you would be de­scend­ing on In­dian soil, your friend Naren­dra Modi and his party -Bharatiya Janata Party -con­tin­ues its march against mi­nori­ties and na­tion­al­i­ties.”

The tur­moil in Kash­mir was para­mount in the let­ter to the US Pres­i­dent with Dal Khalsa point­ing out that, “the In­dian Par­lia­ment strip­ping Jammu and Kash­mir of its au­tonomous sta­tus and amend­ing Cit­i­zen­ship laws to ex­clude Mus­lims” has dras­ti­cally cur­tailed rights in the re­gion.  The Dal Khalsa spokesper­son stated, “In In­dia, the anti-Pak­istan, anti-Mus­lim and anti-mi­nor­ity eu­pho­ria was on full swing to po­lar­ize so­ci­ety on com­mu­nal lines.”

“We be­lieve as a leader of the world; the US can­not af­ford to take sides. Mr Pres­i­dent your photo op­por­tu­ni­ties with Naren­dra Modi were be­ing ex­ploited by In­dia to con­tinue the sub­ju­ga­tion of a large sec­tion of In­dian so­ci­ety and re­pres­sion against Kash­miris in par­tic­u­lar”, reads the let­ter.

The Dal Khalsa let­ter listed that, “the state­ment by UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­eral An­to­nio Guter­res on Feb­ru­ary 19, stat­ing that there was a “risk of state­less­ness for two mil­lion Mus­lims ex­cluded by the di­vi­sive Cit­i­zen­ship (Amend­ment) Act” is liv­ing proof of how In­dia is mal­treat­ing its mi­nori­ties. The de­ten­tion and de­por­ta­tion of British MP Deb­bie Abra­hams, who is a vo­cal critic of New Del­hi’s han­dling of Kash­mir dis­pute is an­other proof of In­di­a’s in­tol­er­ance and ar­ro­gance to­wards crit­i­cism.”

Re­fer­ring to Wash­ing­ton’s huge trade in­ter­ests with New Delhi, he said even if the United States takes the only-trade ar­gu­ment, In­dia on the brink of eco­nomic and po­lit­i­cal dis­as­ter does not au­gur well for the growth of trade and pros­per­ity.

“We be­lieve as a leader of the world; the US can­not af­ford to take sides. Mr Pres­i­dent your photo op­por­tu­ni­ties with Naren­dra Modi were be­ing ex­ploited by In­dia to con­tinue the sub­ju­ga­tion of a large sec­tion of In­dian so­ci­ety and re­pres­sion against Kash­miris in par­tic­u­lar”

While the Naren­dra Modi spon­sored thou­sands may gather to wel­come Don­ald Trump in a quid pro quo for the thou­sands gath­ered by him dur­ing Naren­dra Mod­i’s visit to In­dia, Dal Khalsa said that it stood for a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion of the po­lit­i­cal con­flict and tur­moil in Kash­mir, Pun­jab and the North­east, for which the United States must pos­i­tively and ur­gently in­ter­vene to bring about an am­i­ca­ble en­gage­ment be­tween these iden­ti­ties, the gov­ern­ment of In­dia and the United Na­tions to sat­isfy the po­lit­i­cal as­pi­ra­tions of the peo­ple.

Re­spond­ing to a query at the press meet, the Dal Khalsa leader said when the US is talk­ing with Afghan Tal­iban to re­store peace in the re­gion, why is the In­dian state stub­born enough not to talk with strug­gling na­tion­al­i­ties. He chided the In­dian lead­er­ship by say­ing, “leave alone talk­ing to dis­senters and lead­er­ship of na­tion­al­i­ties, they do not have the will and heart to talk to the women pro­tes­tors at Sha­heen Bagh in the heart of Delhi.”

Pres­i­dent Trump and Naren­dra Modi Photo, cour­tesy: Rapi­dleaks