Amritsar, Punjab (September 11, 2013): Admitting that religio-political leadership of the Sikhs has utterly failed to create awareness about the separate and distinct identity of Sikhs, the Dal Khalsa has expressed its astonishment over the survey conducted jointly by the SALDEF and Stanford University that revealed 49 per cent Americans believes “Sikh” is a sect of Islam”.
In a hard hitting statement party head H S Dhami said it was most ironic that in India, Sikhs were being clubbed as “part of the Hindu ocean”, where as in the eyes of Western people, they are being viewed as sect of Islam”.
Terming it as a sorry state of affairs for Sikhs, Dhami asked the leadership of the community including heads of Akal Takht, SGPC, DSGMC and SAD to ponder upon “who was responsible for this mess”. He said Guru Nanak Sahib founded Sikhism by rejecting Islam as well as Hinduism. However, it was unfortunate that, still we are being dubbed as Hindus and Muslims in different parts of the world for different reasons.
Although, the Sikhs are recognized by the Western powers as a people striving for political sovereignty, yet “in the absence of state power, they have failed to get due recognition”. Had Sikhs got their own sovereign country in 1947, identity crisis would have been resolved much earlier, he remarked.
He urged the SGPC and DSGMC to set up joint ‘Sikh Mission (House)’ in the capitals of all major western countries in association with local civil rights Sikh groups to dispel the wrong notion.
Terming the research work as an eye–opener for our community, he said Sikh-Americans suffered the deadliest violence against their members in August last year when a white supremacist gun down 6 Sikhs at a gurdwara in Wisconsin. He said Sikhs have been victims of hate crime since the unfortunate tragedy of 9/11.