The Tribune dated 01st June 2022.

Comments by Simranjit Singh Mann: Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) states that the author Mr. Katju refers to democracy and autocracy. I hail from a partitioned village of the Punjab.

The little knowledge that I have, I know the Hindu Indian state has not signed and ratified the following UN Human Rights treaties, covenants, protocols and conventions. These are as follows:

1. 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

2. 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.

3. 1954 Convention relating to Status of Stateless Persons.

4. 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.

5. 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

6. 1966 Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

7. 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. It is because there are still 30,000 Sikh Stateless refugees in Kashmir since 1947.

8. 1972 Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile System.

9. 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. If this Convention had been followed, neither the Darbar Sahib, the Golden Temple would not have been reduced to rubble nor the Babri Masjid in 1992.

10. 1984 Convention against Torture and other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

11. 1984 Safeguard and guaranteeing protection of the Rights of those facing the death penalty.

12. 1995 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

13. 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

14. 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of anti-Personnel Mines and their Destruction (the Ottawa Convention on the abolition of landmines).

15. 2001 Rome Statute, by virtue of which the International Criminal Court has been set up at The Hague.

16. 2010 The Convention on Cluster Munitions prohibits all use, stockpiling, production and transfer of Cluster Munitions.

I wish to ask the author Mr. Katju and The Tribune whether in the light of these omissions, the Hindu state is a democracy or an autocracy?

Simranjit Singh Mānn,
President,
Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar),
Email: simranjitsinghmann@yahoo.com
website: https://akalidalamritsar.in/
facebook page: @sardarsimranjitsinghmann