WSN de­nounces at­tempts to in­flu­ence Ravi Bhal­la’s cam­paign for mayor of Hobo­ken and calls upon res­i­dents to vote for him and de­feat hate mon­ger­ing which is has re­curred twice in New Jer­sey in the last few days and which is grad­u­ally be­com­ing a hall­mark in the US.

The “ter­ror­ist” flyer cir­cu­lated yes­ter­day on wind­shields of parked cars in Hobo­ken in an at­tempt to in­flu­ence Ravi Bhal­la’s may­oral cam­paign should stir the res­i­dents of the city to vote for this hum­ble, hard-work­ing Sikh can­di­date giv­ing thumbs up to him and thumbs down to those who thought that hate would win. 

World Sikh News en­dorses Ravin­der Singh Bhalla say­ing, “he is not go­ing to be cowed down by this and that he would con­tinue his cam­paign notwith­stand­ing such at­tempts to in­flu­ence his pub­lic ser­vice.” Still, Sikh Amer­i­cans have a long way to go to ed­u­cate Amer­i­cans specif­i­cally and the world at large about the dis­tinc­tive­ness of the Sikh re­li­gion and its fol­low­ers.
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It is sat­is­fy­ing to note that one of the ri­val can­di­dates De­Fusco, whose name ap­pears on the flyer, has dis­owned any knowl­edge and called it garbage.

“I am not go­ing to be cowed down by this and that I would con­tinue my cam­paign notwith­stand­ing such at­tempts to in­flu­ence my pub­lic ser­vice.”

Ravi Bhalla, may­oral can­di­date, Hobo­ken

Ravi Bhalla him­self has been cat­e­goric, say­ing in a state­ment, “I want to use this in­ci­dent as an op­por­tu­nity to af­firm to each other and our chil­dren the value of liv­ing in a di­verse com­mu­nity where we are judged by the con­tent of our char­ac­ter – not by the color of our skin or how we wor­ship.”  

Sen. Cory Booker too has called it “vile” and “hate­ful” and said, “We all must con­demn big­otry & hate!” on his Twit­ter ac­count.  In a state­ment, city coun­cil pres­i­dent Jen Gi­at­tino said of Hobo­ken in­ci­dent, “This rep­re­hen­si­ble act is com­pletely un­ac­cept­able.  There is no room for this kind of hate­ful and cow­ardly act in our elec­tion. We may dif­fer in many of our views in this elec­tion, but I know that we all agree that this type of tac­tic has no place in our so­ci­ety.”

The flyer posted by Ravi Bhalla on his Face­book, reads, “Don’t let Ter­ror­ism take over your town! Amer­i­cans and Hobo­ken res­i­dents need to de­clare loud and clear, “Don’t let hate take over the United States of Amer­ica.” Amer­ica and Hobo­ken owe it to make it eas­ier for Ravi Bhalla to wipe off the tears of his wife and en­able him to an­swer his 10-year daugh­ter seek­ing to know “why are they at­tack­ing you merely be­cause you are wear­ing the tur­ban?”

““Don’t let hate take over the United States of Amer­ica.” Hobo­ken, make it eas­ier for Ravi Bhalla to wipe off the tears of his wife and en­able him to an­swer his 10-year daugh­ter seek­ing to know “why are they at­tack­ing you merely be­cause you are wear­ing the tur­ban?””

The flyer re­minds of a sim­i­lar cam­paign by In­dian Prime Min­is­ter Ra­jiv Gandhi in 1985 ma­lign­ing Sikhs and seek­ing votes based on a threat per­cep­tion about them. In­dia failed in 1984 and voted for Ra­jiv Gandhi, Hobo­ken should not.

Un­doubt­edly, the US has a long way to go to bring about par­ity of blacks and whites, par­ity be­tween new mi­grants and the ones ear­lier to them and a par­ity be­tween dif­fer­ently look­ing peo­ple like the Sikhs who made US their adopted home more than a cen­tury back and those Amer­i­cans who fit in and do not look dif­fer­ent. How­ever, as ac­tivist Va­lerie Kaur has said in her supremely fan­tas­tic speech, love and love alone will win the day.

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Ravi Singh Bhalla was the first Sikh to be an elected coun­cil­man twice in New Jer­sey and WSN hopes that this gen­tle­man, tur­ban wear­ing Sikh, en­dorsed by the out­go­ing mayor Dawn Zim­mer, be­comes the first elected mayor of Hobo­ken when res­i­dents poll on Tues­day.