Khalistan Calling
newsletter dated October 30, 2002can be viewed on the South Asia Tribune site at: >
http://www.satribune.com/index.htm > by clicking on the 'SIKH CORNER"It can also be seen at: >
http://www.khalistan-affairs.org/Main/K_Calling/kc10302002.htm <.The following KHALISTAN CALLING newsletter has been published in the leading Punjabi-
English newspaper of the Sikh diaspora, Surrey Canada-based CHARHDI KALA,- Issue of October 30-November 05, 2002 : Vol. 18 : No. 44. Last week's Khalistan Calling is available on the Khalistan Affairs Centre website at: ( > http://www.khalistan-affairs.org/Main/K_Calling/kc10232002.htm <) It was also published in the third week of October, 2002, in the Vancouver-based PUNJAB GUARDIAN, and Akal Guardian, Toronto-based SANJH SAVERA, Calgary-based SIKH VIRSA and numerous other Punjabi/English weekly and monthly publications which cater to the three million strong Sikh diaspora in Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. The Overseas Sikhs, unlike their 20 million compatriots captive in India, are free and prosperous and they are determined - as they believe it is their destiny and pray for it every day; Raj Karay Ga Khalsa; Sikhs will rule - to carve a sovereign, democratic, egalitarian Sikh buffer state of KHALISTAN in South Asia, stretching from the Jumna river on the East, to the Pakistan border on the West, China on the Northeast and Kashmir on the North.* Please E-mail or FAX newsletter
to a friend, opinion maker & / or newspapers in your area
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DIASPORA SIKHS ACCEPT INDIAN COLUMNIST
KHUSHWANT SINGH'S CHALLENGE
FOR THE FOURTH TIME
TO DEBATE KHALISTAN'S
RAISON D'ETRE
------------
DEBATE TO BE HELD IN THE UNITED STATES IN WASHINGTON DC
IF MR. KHUSHAWANT SINGH SHOWS MORAL COURAGE
AND A LITTLE BIT OF SIKH HONOUR
BY
Dr. Amarjit Singh
Khalistan Affairs Centre
956-National Press Building, Washington DC 20045 USA
Tel: 202-637-9210 :: Fax: 202-637-9211
INTERNET SITE INFORMATION:-
Web Site:
www.khalistan-affairs.orgE-mail Address:
Washington DC: October 30, 2002:
It is over a year now since India's renownned and most prolific newspaper columnist, Khushwant Singh, threw down the gauntlet (in one of his preachy syndicated columns published on July 14, 2001, in the Chandigarh newspaper Tribune and Telegraph Calcutta) that he was ready to publicly debate any one as to why the world's 23 million Sikhs do not need a democratic buffer state of Khalistan. The 3 million strong diaspora Sikhs, known for their zeal for a democratic buffer state of Khalistan - located betwen warring India and Pakistan, immediately (July 24, 2001) took up the gauntlet and offered to pay all his boarding, lodging and travelling expenses and invited him as an honoured guest to a public debate in Washington DC. Mr. Khushwant Singh despite repeated reminders made himself incommunicado and chose to go on a 'silence fast' a la Gandhi and has made himself scarce for the past fifteen months.After the initial July 24, 2001, invitation Mr. Khushwant Singh was again publicly invited on August 28, 2001, and we dedicated a Khalistan Calling column to the repeat invitation which was headlined, "Diaspora Sikhs taunt Columnist Khushwant Singh for his silence to join a public debate on Khalistan to be held in Washington DC - India's most prolific newspaper columnist loses face and credibility - India's census deliberatly halves Delhi's Sikh population". To read that column please click on the following link: >
http://www.khalistan-affairs.org/Main/K_Calling/kc08282001.htm < As even after that Mr. Khushwant Singh's 'silence-fast' continued, he was invited publicly once again in the Khalistan Calling dated October 24, 2001 which was headlined, " India's most prolific newspaper columnist where are you as we are looking for you to debate the raison d`etre of Khalistan"? > http://www.khalistan-affairs.org/Main/K_Calling/kc10242001.htm <We tried, all methods known to man, in the year that followed to get in touch with the evasive octogenarian Khushwant Singh to deliver the invitation but to no avail. The man it seems has been apeing his mentor Lala Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948) who used to conveniently forego any inconvenient political or other discussion on the grounds that he was observing a fast which did not allow him to speak to anybody. We have assumed that with a passage of a year Mr. Khushwant Singh's year-long 'silence-fast' must be over by now.
Unlike the 3 million free and prosperous Sikhs in the diaspora the 20 million strong Sikh community (nay nation) captive in Occupied Punjab, India, since August 15, 1947, when Imperial Britain left South Asia, is worse off than it was a year ago. Thousands of Sikh young men and women are still rotting in India's horrible jails without trial or hope; the guilty who organized the anti/Sikh pogroms in which thousands of our compatriots were butchered in 1984 in India's capital city of New Delhi, and other urban areas, have not been arrested or punished and are still strutting around; Indian foreign policy is headed in a direction which will turn Sikh Punjab into a battlefield; and Brahmin intrigues still continue to syphon Punjab's river water resource to the non-riparian states of Rajasthan and Haryana which practice if it continues will convert Punjab's farmlands into a desert. We therefore, want to renew our invitation for a public debate in Washington DC to Mr. Khushwant Singh by repeating below our July 24, 2001 Khalistan Calling, > http://www.khalistan-affairs.org/Main/K_Calling/kc07242001.htm < in which we took up the gauntlet of a public debate Mr. Khushwant Singh had thrown down in his column. The terms and conditions for the invitation and expenses remain unchanged.
We urge Mr. Khushwant Singh, who was also born a Sikh, to come debate with us in Washington DC why Khalistan, stretching from the Jumna river in the East, to China on the North East, Kashmir in the North and Pakistan on the West, freely trading with the Stans of Central Asia, is a MUST if we Sikhs want to protect our holy shrines and wish to survive as a people, as a religion and as a civilization. Unlike last year, today Khalistan Calling is also broadcast from the internet site of the widely-read Washington-based South Asian Tribune electronic newspaper (nearly three million hits in the last 3 months). The latest Khalistan Calling (and archives) can be read by clicking on the "Sikh Corner" on the front page of the following website: > http://www.satribune.com < which very informative internet site Mr. Khushwant Singh is known to visit like thousands of other South Asians. Here is the invitation again so that Mr. Khushwant Singh can't say that he did not know about our fourth invitation for a public debate:----------
Invitation for Mr. Khushwant Singh
http://www.khalistan-affairs.org/Main/K_Calling/kc07242001.htm
BY
Dr. Amarjit Singh
956-National Press Building, Washington DC 20045 USA
Tel: 202-637-9210 :: Fax: 202-637-9211
INTERNET SITE INFORMATION:-
Web Site:
< http://www.khalistan-affairs.org >E-mail Address:
Washington DC: July 24, 2002: In the July 14, 2001 issue of the Calcutta-based popular English language daily newspaper The Telegraph India's 'most prolific columnist' one Mr. Kushwant Singh, has thrown down the gauntlet in his weekly column (This Above All, headlined; "It is not easy to change those spots") which article not only zero's in on the ailing, and ageing, Jagjit Singh Chohan (and we quote verbatim); "and other supporters of Khalistan like Zaffarwal, Ganga Singh Dhillon of Washington, Gurmit Singh Aulakh also of Washington and Simranjit Singh Mann to an open dialogue so that we can discuss Khalistan in a public debate," but also throws a challenge to the FREE three million diaspora Sikhs who are determined to see that their 20 million compatriots do not live like Shudras (India's 200 million third class 'untouchable' citizens) in the world's largest Castocracy currently misruled by a corrupt ruling elite dominated by a coterie of Brahmin-Fundamentalists of an intolerant, communalistic, extreme right wing Hindu political party - the BJP.
Mr. Khushwant Singh (born a Sikh in the town of Hadali, Punjab, in 1915) is a former editor of Hindustan Times and Illustrated Weekly of India. He claims he is an admirer of Pundit Atal Bihari Vajpayee the Brahmin-Fundamentalist Prime minister of India; "who (Khushwant Singh wrote) must shed the backward-looking narrow-minded advisors obsessed with pointless disputes over temples, mosques, churches and gurdwaras." During the 'Emergency' in 1976 when Mrs. Indira Gandhi and her son, Sanjay Gandhi, ruled the roost in New Delhi Mr. Khushwant Singh was known as an 'admirer' too, and the gentleman was nick-named by the media as 'Mr. Khushamad Singh' for his loyal support to Sanjay Gandhi. Khushwant Singh sometimes fears - as he should - for the future of India as the present set of leaders, who he considers pygmies as compared to Pundit Nehru, have failed to tackle the problems (like poverty, corruption, communalism, environment etc.,) that face India.
Mr. Khushwant Singh, whose two regular weekly columns (This Above All and Malice Towards One and All) are syndicated to hundreds of English and vernacular newspapers in India, has recently been described by The Statesman (one of India's oldest -126 years old - English language newspaper) as "an 86 years old author of 90 books, and thousands of columns in national dailies, who admits to being one of the most prolific writers of India but who seems to be at pains to erase the image of a wine-bibbing, woman-loving man for whom writing is a passion, a craving he can't do without." Some of the recent titles, according to The Statesman, like; 'Sex, Scotch and Scholarship', 'In the Company of Women,' and 'Women and Men in my Life', were a mere extension of his columns which lacked the literary standards of his earlier books like; 'A Train to Pakistan' and 'The Mark of Vishnu'.
One columnist, Isidore Domnick Mendis, recently wrote, as if on cue, in a column in the latest Statesman newspaper magazine, headlined; Author of Substance, that; "over the past two years, he (Kushwant Singh) seems to be at pains to set the record straight and re-establish his preeminence as an author of substance and his latest 293-page compilation, Penguin India's book; Notes on the Great Indian Circus, which documents Khushwant's perceptions about people, issues and events (like Operation Blue Star, communalism, fundamentalism, press censorship and other topics that have been the subject of intense debate in recent years) must necessarily be seen in that context."
We agree with Isidore Dominick Mendis's appreciation that at this point in time Mr. Khushwant Singh is indeed showing a deep desire to set the record straight and; "seems to be at pains to erase the image of the wine-bibbing, woman-loving man." But we are also of the opinion that his challenge, nay provocation, to the Sikh diaspora in his weekly column (in the July 14 issue of the Calcutta newspaper The Telegraph - It is not Easy to Change Those Spots) may not have been made in good faith. In that column he has had the chutzpah to invite a few individuals he has named out of thin air to 'an open dialogue so he can discuss Khalistan in a public debate'.
We think that perhaps his challenge for an open debate on Khalistan is an insincere effort to shed his image and re-establish himself as a Sikh writer of substance who can also think on behalf of his 23 million unhappy, but ambitious and muscular, Sikh compatriots - 20 million captive in India and 3 million free in the diaspora - who pray every day in every Gurdwara all over the world (even in the one's under 24-hour Indian police surveillance in New Delhi like the Gurdawara near Mr. Khushwant Singh's house) for Sikh rule - Raj Karayga Khalsa they pray daily- Sikhs will rule. Also see Khalistan Calling dated May 04, 2001
< http://www.khalistan-affairs.org/main/k_calling/kc04042001.htm >.As the Sikh gentlemen who had been challenged by name by Mr. Khushwant Singh in his July 14 column, for a dialogue through an open debate on Khalistan, have not responded (for any number of good and bad reasons) this proud Khalistani Sikh has decided to take up the gauntlet and hereby publicly offer an open venue in the heart of the most media savvy city in the world - Washington DC USA, National Press building - for a public debate on the subject of Khalistan between Mr. Khushwant Singh and a 5-member Punjabi/English speaking pro-Khalistani panel on any mutually agreed date and time within the next three months - please call Telephone No: 202-637-9210 :: Fax: 202-637-9211 or write to: Khalistan Affairs Centre, 956-National Press Building, Washington DC 20045 USA. E-Mail address:
> kacwashdc@yahho.com <A map of Khalistan and other literature answering Mr. Khushwant Singh's every question raised in his July 14 Telegraph column will be available during the Washington DC public debate which will explain the raison d'etre - reason for being - of a democratic, egalitarian, sovereign state of Khalistan. A neutral buffer state, between warring, nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, is something which we Sikhs MUST have. Without an independent Khalistan we 23 million Sikhs, our culture and our religion, will cease to exist. Incidentally a 'certified' copy of the map of Khalistan was given to Mr. Kuldip Nayar (a former Indian High Commissioner to UK and veteran journalist) during a public debate in Chicago's main gurdwara, on July 14, 1996, when the gentleman was touring the United States as special representative of the then Indian Prime minister Mr. Dev Gaurah. How about it Mr. Khushwant Singh will you, along with Mr. Kuldip Nayar, join us in a public debate in Washington DC USA or were you bluffing as is your wont?
KHALISTAN ZINDABAD - Long Live Khalistan
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