The British rulers negotiated the transfer of power to Indians with three distinct communities, viz, Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. Among them only the Sikhs agitated against the partition of the sub-continent. When the Hindus, led by Mahatma Gandhi and Jawahar Lal Nehru, failed to win the confidence of the Muslim League, led by Jinnah, and agreed to the creation of the sovereign, independent Muslim state of Pakistan, the Sikhs first vehemently opposed the partition of the sub-continent. Failing that, however, the Sikhs successfully fought to achieve the bifurcation of the Punjab. Consequently, to appease the Sikh sentiment, nearly one-half of Punjab came to India thereby providing her access to the state of Jammu and Kashmir. As a sequel, the Bengal Province, where there was no agitation for its division, was also partitioned into East and West Bengal. This was yet another major geo-political gain for India. The Sikh nation had the option to opt for complete independence or to join either Pakistan or India. The British were prepared to have regional constitutional arrangements that would safe-guard Sikh interests. Mr. Jinnah, the President of the Muslim League, had offered the Sikhs a permanent sovereignty in a large part of the Punjab, from the River Ravi to Panipat, with weighlage in representation in parliamentary institutions and other organs of the state including defense forces. The Sikhs spurned such offers of partnership in a Muslim majority Punjab and instead chose to cast their lot with India notwithstanding the fact that nearly half of the Sikh population would be uprooted from the fertile canal colonies and other prosperous areas of West Punjab. The Sikh nation acted thus trusting the solemn commitments by the Hindus. Gandhi and the leadership of the Indian National Congress assured that the interest of the Sikhs, as a collective entity, would be safeguarded by giving them an autonomous region in the North (meaning the Punjabi speaking areas of East Punjab) and guaranteeing that the soon to be adopted constitution of the Indian state would not be passed without the full satisfaction of the Sikh nation. After independence, however, neither these nor other promises were honored. Despite the fact that the Sikhs (1.6 percent of the population of India) had comprised 77.5 percent of those killed, exiled or sentenced to life imprisonment during the struggle for independence, the Sikh nation was grievously betrayed. Far from giving the Sikhs special position as a nationality, the government of India has reduced the Sikh homeland to colonial status. The constitution promulgated in 1950 was so inimical to the interest of the Sikhs that its leadership refused to sign the document in protest. Ever since Independence, successive Indian governments have devised and pursued persistent policies which have reduced the Sikh nation to a status of dependency and subjection far worse than that experienced under the British colonial rule. By enacting draconian laws, the likes of which no civilized country has on its statute, the Sikhs are being deprived of their basic rights of life, liberty and property. They are denied the right of equality before law, freedom of religion, association and expression, and for the last four years, even the right to vote and elect a representative state government of Punjab which has become, in effect, a sub-state under the present dispensation. Despite the protestations of the propagandist Brahmanical state, events since 1982 and the continuing brutal repression in the Punjab demonstrate that the Sikhs have a fate far worse than a black population under the racist South African State in its most insensitive phase. Since the government of India has proven its insistence to deny the Sikhs its political, religious and human rights, the Sikh nation reaffirms the declaration for the creation of a sovereign and independent Khalistan passed at the Sarbart Khalsa on January 26, 1986 and reiterated on October 7, 1987 when the Council of Khalistan was formed.

Where as the government of India has persistently reneged on all its solemn commitments make to the Sikh nation and has continuously discriminated against and oppressed the Sikhs since independence; and
Where as such acts of discrimination and oppression include the ratification of a constitution that negated the promises of a genuine federal structure, which denied the Sikhs a special constitutional status in direct violation of the very basis of preindependence assurances to the contrary; and
Where as the Indian government's unparalleled state repression has included, inter alia, full fledged military offensives against the holiest of Sikh shrines during which Indian forces engaged in the deliberate and wanton destruction of historical and religious archives including objects sanctified by the Sikh prophets; and
Where as the engineered genocide of the Sikhs after Indira Gandhi's assassination in November 1984 and the single-minded pursuit of the genocidal policies by successive governments have resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Sikhs, the rape of Sikh women and even minor girls, illegal detentions, torture, intimidation, and humiliation on a large scale; and
Where as the Sikhs have been kept out of the political process for a period of eight years; and now continuously for four years by extending the President's rule through the Janata Dal governments in May and November 1990, and Janata Dal (S) in March 1991, with all the so-called national political parties unanimously supporting the bills, save for just four members voting against it in both Houses, and in view of the specially enacted draconian laws to deprive the Sikhs of life and liberty; and
Where as the Sikhs have been severely discriminated against economically through such actins as the diversion of Punjab's river waters to non-riparian states, the usurpation of the control of Punjab's river dams and hydel projects, and the deliberate diversion of savings from the Punjab to other parts of India through strict central government control of the banking system and industrial policies which have left Punjab with the lowest per capita investment for industry; and
Where as the persistent policies of linguistic chauvinism pursued by the Indian state led by fundamentalist Brahmnical and elitist upper caste forces committed to the primacy of Hindi, Hindu, and Hindustan have sought through deliberate plans, design and actions to undermine and subvert the Punjabi language and culture with the transparent long term aim of destroying basic Sikh values, ethos, and vitality; and
Where as the essence of the Sikh culture can only flourish and grow by staying true to the linguistic genius of Guru Nanak and Sheikh Farid through the growth of the Punjabi language as a broad based, open, flexible, versatile, freely assimilative and non-elitist communication medium which shall wither away in a hegemonic environment of reactionary Brahmanical values imposed and propagated through the monopolistic power of mass media under state control bent upon extirpating in Sikhs and the Sikh way of life; and
Where as the Indian State has now gone to the reprehensible extent of threatening through its military authorities that they would shoot all adult male Sikhs and take their women to army camps to "breed a new race" which is tantamount to destroying the very existence and identity of the Sikhs as a distinct and sovereign religious entity. NOTING also that to suppress the Sikhs, their sentiments and aspirations, India has deployed more full combat, paramilitary and police forces in the Sikh homeland ( comprising less than 2 percent of India's land mass ) than were ever maintained ( in peace time ) by alien rulers - - Moguls and British - - in the entire Indian subcontinent during the past 500 years. To conceal its misdeeds, the successive governments have refused to allow human rights organizations with impeccable records, like Amnesty International, to conduct investigations in Punjab. NOW, therefore, the Sikhs are fully convinced that they can never hope to live with honor and dignity in India as equal citizens at par with majority community and are fearful of even losing their identity. The Sikhs have been virtually reduced to the status of slaves. Their homeland is being treated as a colony and made into a vast military - cum - police camp in which Sikhs are meted out treatment incomparably worse than that given to people in occupied territories during war. Consequently, the Sikh nation has collectively declared through unanimous resolutions at various political and religious conventions and congregations on numerous occasions that the government of India should enable the Sikhs to exercise the universally accepted right to self determination under the provisions of the United Nations Charter, particularly the Covenant on International Civil and Political Rights acceded to by India in 1979. The Government of India, however, has steadfastly refused to do so. Clearly it is under no illusion that over 95% Sikhs in Punjab will vote for independence and cannot face the truth. In fact, ever since the demand for independence has been articulated by the Sikh Nation, India has sharply escalated repression resulting in the extermination of dozens of Sikhs everyday.

DECLARATION

The Sikhs hereby declare their homeland - - Khalistan - - and independent, sovereign state comprising of the present state of Punjab and the adjoining Punjabi speaking areas. We call upon the Government of India to give up its design of imposing a repressive, colonial and Brahmanical hegemony on the Sikh people and to negotiate with Sikh leadership the alignment of the international boundary and other related matters. We further declare that the future relationship between India and the Sikh homeland will be on the basis of equality and mutual advantage; modalities to be determined in the spirit of give and take and in the context of our common heritage and history so as to usher in an era of peace in the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent and South-Asia. We invite the government of India to create a conducive atmosphere for conducting peaceful negotiations by abrogating all draconian laws, announcing general amnesty for Sikh prisoners of conscience and those detained unlawfully or on trumped up charges, and to reserve all policies, regulations and administrative orders designed to deny the Sikhs their civil and human rights and subvert the political, economic, and cultural development of our homeland and language.