Publications

The concept of equality, liberty, and dignity for all has been enshrined in a socially sacred document of today: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”.

Guru Nanak’s message in founding the Sikh Faith was: neither is one Hindu nor Muslim – thus stating that we are all just human beings. Siri Guru Granth Sahib (the Sikh Scripture) starts with ‘Ik Oankar’, meaning that there is One Universal Creator whose children we all are, and are all thus equal..

This Thanksgiving, the day falls on the martyrdom anniversary of Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Sikh Guru, who sacrificed his life for the protection of the people under brutal religious persecution. We cherish this principle in the United States today: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe..

This was a bad time for Sikhs in India. Sikh men were being beaten, in most cases with iron rods, and then subjected to the garland treatment, which means putting tires around their necks, dousing them with kerosene, and setting them on fire.

The Sikh Gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wis., has witnessed a terrible tragedy that leaves one at a loss for words. Seven persons, including the gunman, have died, and three, including a police officer, have been seriously injured. While the motive for the shooting is still unclear, our whole country is much the poorer for it.

At the sentencing of her tormentor, the most brutalized of the three women, Michelle Knight, said: “You took 11 years of my life away, and I have got it back. … I spent 11 years in hell. Now your hell is just beginning.” The man who had held three women in a hellish prison for years could not live in his far more..

The grand jury decision regarding Eric Garner’s death reminds me of a man I met briefly a few years ago. The last thing I wanted to do was talk to him. Admittedly, he was the only one who had offered to drive me to the airport an hour away, with a fierce snowstorm en route. But three nights of almost no sleep had sucked..

We live in a world where schoolgirls are kidnapped and sold into slavery, and school children are massacred in large numbers. We live in an era where young children, who can’t even comprehend what is being done to them and why, are subjected to horrific torture, and infants who have barely learned to walk are so mutilated..