Sikh Community concerned About French President Macron’s Attendance at India’s Republic Day Event

Pro-Sikh freedom organization has shared a poignant letter written to French President Emmanuel Macron, the missive expressed the Sikh community’s disappointment it urged President Macron to address crucial issues during his visit.

A few days before India’s Republic Day on January 26, the pro-Sikh freedom organization Dal Khalsa has shared a poignant letter written to French President Emmanuel Macron was the chief guest at India’s 75th Republic Day celebrations. The missive expressed the Sikh community’s disappointment it urged President Macron to address crucial issues during his visit. The organization’s appeal is a critical plea for international intervention in the Sikh community’s ongoing struggle for justice and recognition. WSN reports.

The cir­cum­stances and de­vel­op­ments in the last year have seen Sikh bod­ies go­ing in­ter­na­tional in their ap­proach to ad­dress­ing burn­ing is­sues con­cern­ing Sikh iden­tity and Sikh rights in a con­certed at­tempt to re­solve the po­lit­i­cal con­flict be­tween Sikhs and In­dia.

Dal Khal­sa’s let­ter to Pres­i­dent Macron, sent through the French Am­bas­sador in In­dia, penned by the par­ty’s Sec­re­tary for Po­lit­i­cal Af­fairs, Kan­war Pal Singh, high­lights the global scrutiny of the In­dian gov­ern­men­t’s role in transna­tional re­pres­sion.

The or­ga­ni­za­tion voices the Sikh com­mu­ni­ty’s con­cerns, stat­ing, “Your ac­cep­tance to be the chief guest at In­di­a’s Re­pub­lic Day cel­e­bra­tions has acutely dis­ap­pointed the Sikhs world­wide.”

 “Sikhs are fac­ing a live threat to their ex­is­tence and iden­tity, not only in Pun­jab and In­dia but also in other coun­tries. Now that you have de­cided and as per­haps there is no look­ing back, we urge you to have a di­a­logue with your In­dian coun­ter­part In­dian Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Modi dur­ing your visit to New Delhi on transna­tional tar­geted killings of Sikhs, im­ple­ment­ing equal pris­oner norms and laws in the coun­try, restor­ing re­spect for hu­man rights and es­pe­cially em­pha­siz­ing the Sikh de­mand for amend­ing In­di­a’s con­sti­tu­tion to give rest­less peo­ples of var­i­ous na­tion­al­i­ties the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion un­der UN covenants.”

Dal Khalsa has em­pha­sized the se­vere threat to Sikh ex­is­tence and iden­tity, not only in Pun­jab and In­dia but glob­ally, cit­ing in­stances of ex­tra­ju­di­cial killings by In­dian se­cret ser­vice agents. The let­ter re­it­er­ates the Sikh com­mu­ni­ty’s strug­gle in Pun­jab for Sikh sov­er­eignty.

Fur­ther­more, Kan­war Pal Singh has high­lighted that while In­dia marks 26 Jan­u­ary with pomp and glory, In­di­a’s mi­nori­ties and na­tion­al­i­ties, in­clud­ing Sikhs, ob­serve it as ‘Black Re­pub­lic Day’ due to In­di­a’s dis­crim­i­na­tory and fas­cist poli­cies.

Re­it­er­at­ing its re­solve to place things in proper per­spec­tive, Dal Khalsa has an­nounced a peace­ful protest march in Moga on Jan­u­ary 26, to re­call and re­it­er­ate the con­sti­tu­tional in­jus­tices and dis­crim­i­na­tion faced by mi­nori­ties, in­clud­ing Sikhs.

Dal Khal­sa’s cor­re­spon­dence with Pres­i­dent Macron also touches upon re­cent in­ter­na­tional in­ci­dents, in­clud­ing the as­sas­si­na­tion of Cana­dian Sikh ac­tivist Hard­eep Singh Ni­j­jar and the in­dict­ment of an In­dian na­tional in the US for plot­ting against US cit­i­zen Gur­pat­want Singh Pannu. These events, ac­cord­ing to Dal Khalsa, have placed In­dia un­der sus­pi­cion, with the group ex­press­ing fears and ap­pre­hen­sions re­gard­ing In­di­a’s re­sponse to these in­ci­dents.

Not stop­ping at just the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the vis­it­ing dig­ni­tary at the 26 Jan­u­ary events, Dal Khalsa has ques­tioned the French gov­ern­men­t’s con­tin­u­ous sup­port for In­di­a’s bid to join the UN Se­cu­rity Coun­cil.

Speak­ing to World Sikhs News, with­out minc­ing words, Kan­war Pal Singh said, “If with­out a seat at the high­est level at the United Na­tions, In­dia is un­tame­able and un­ac­count­able, should In­dia gain a foothold at the Se­cu­rity Coun­cil, we shud­der to think of the con­se­quences  that will be­fall mi­nori­ties and na­tion­al­i­ties, en­dan­ger­ing peace in South Asia ex­press­ing con­cerns over po­ten­tial threats to mi­nor­ity rights and peace in South Asia.”

“The carte blanche en­dorse­ment of In­di­a’s at­tempt to be a mem­ber of the UN Se­cu­rity Coun­cil by the gov­ern­ment of France un­der­scores the need for bet­ter com­pre­hen­sion of the pos­si­ble de­struc­tion In­dia can cause to peo­ples’ rights.”

As French Sikh res­i­dents, in­clud­ing cit­i­zens, face se­ri­ous mis­han­dling of their iden­tity is­sues with var­i­ous gov­ern­ment de­part­ments in France, Kan­war Pal Singh also sought the vis­it­ing dig­ni­tary’s in­ter­ven­tion to re­spect Sikh iden­tity and make lo­cal munci­pal and state reg­u­la­tions ac­cord­ingly.

With this timely let­ter, Dal Khalsa has once again fo­cused in­ter­na­tional at­ten­tion on the plight of the Sikh com­mu­nity and it would be in­ter­est­ing to see if France up­holds its com­mit­ment to equal­ity, lib­erty, and fra­ter­nity in ad­dress­ing the is­sues raised.