How real is Indian democracy when it comes to Sikhs?

Punjab, India, the state I spent my childhood and have always longed to go back one day in order to undo the mistake I feel my parents made by tagging me along to Canada and then U.S during my late teenage years. What about the life here with American wife and kids? It is nice, cushy, and with God’s grace peaceful, nurturing and happy. But inside somewhere, there is always this feeling about going back to Punjab, living and settling there. I always wonder if I would have been able to live peacefully in Punjab. Parents weren’t that poor in Punjab that there was a desperate need to get out of India. Sometimes, I wonder how many people like my parents that make the same mistakes because they just want to join the rat race. I am sure there are genuine people that needed to leave India because of financial hardship; political pressures etc but in our case there was neither of those. It was basically to join other family members without knowing much about the country of destination. On the other hand, you read about the day to day lives of millions of peaceful men, women and children in Punjab and India that get affected in worst ways everyday by ill and corrupt officials of Indian and Punjab government, lack of community support and compassion among the masses. At times it feels like a “dog eat dog” mentality, but that may be just too much of negative thinking on my part. I wonder if India will ever change its ways to be a peaceful and compassionate place to live or always be chaotic with religious tensions, corruption and hatred. I wish these negative thoughts would just go away, but always come back to haunt. A Sikh is always supposed to be in Chardi kala and not worry about stupid things like these. But somehow, I feel it is the same rat race people have there as people here in America or anywhere else for the matter, about money, power, egos, jobs etc. Only the protocol, language, and way of doing things are different. Americans want to be more like others thru yoga, wine, tai chi, tanning, body messages etc. and others want to be like Americans thru McDonalds, KFC, Cowboy hats, jeans, CNN, MTV videos and all. But the underlying rat race is the same. The true way of living life seems to be missing for the most part, be it a Sikh way, Christian way, Buddhist or other. I guess, I am way off my original topic of Indian democracy, but it all started with the news below about latest arrests of Khalistani separatists and disruption of people’s lives by Indian government thru anti-Sikh media propaganda etc. As much as I am for unity and harmony between Sikhs and Hindus, the news tell me otherwise. Hope it will change one day and people of all religions, races, colors, castes, gender can live in peace and enjoy the truely democartic India and not a gender, religion and caste biased India that is full of corruption and makes people's lives miserable. Read if you like and but don’t go into cyber deepspace like I did. May be ISingh can shed more light on this after his recent visit:
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060310/punjab1.htm#1