By Girish Linganna
Canada’s position in the midst of tensions linked to the Khalistan movement, which advocates an ‘independent Sikh state in Punjab’, became highly prominent during the current week. This came to light after allegations that India might have played a role in the assassination of a prominent Sikh separatist in British Columbia, a province in Canada located on the west coast of the country.
During a speech in Canada’s Parliament on Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated that there were “credible claims” suggesting the involvement of Indian agents in the June killing of ‘Khalistan Tiger Force’ chief Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who supported the Khalistan movement and was a prominent figure in Canada’s migrant Sikh community. India has rejected these accusations. These claims come after decades of developments that have further pulled Canada into the conflict.
Close on the heels of this unsubstantiated accusation, the firebrand leader of the banned outfit Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, in a sabre-rattling stance, threatened all Hindus in Canada to immediately leave the country, while issuing a threat to the Indian mission in Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver saying they would be attacked on Monday (September 25, 2023). While declaring “Death to India” and “Balkanisation of India”, Pannun also announced that a new referendum on the formation of a ‘Khalistan state’ would be held in Canada on October 29, 2023.
Pannun, who refers to Nijjar as his ‘brother’, has become irrepressibly aggressive since the killing of the latter in June this year. He has alleged the involvement of the Indian High Commissioner to Canada, Sanjay Verma, in Nijjar’s killing. Sikhs for Justice has issued repeated calls for the expulsion of the high commissioner and some of the diplomats posted in that country, besides “death threat” posters against them.
During the 1900s, the first major wave of Sikh migrants, a majority of whom were men, moved to Canada, to work mostly as labourers in British Columbia and in the manufacturing sector in Ontario, Sardar Harjeet Singh Grewal, who teaches in the department of classics and religion at the University of Calgary, told a media house. The upheaval caused by the India-Pakistan Partition in 1947 at the end of British colonial rule played a significant role in encouraging Sikhs from Punjab to leave their homeland, according to Sardar Grewal. While the Sikhs also migrated to Britain, Australia and the United States, Canada seemed particularly attractive to them due to its “shared values and principles”, he explained.
Grewal further pointed out that Sikhs feel a strong connection to the values that Canada embodies, noting that there was even a secondary migration of Sikhs from Britain to Canada. Some of the factors that attract Sikhs to Canada include a focus on such principles as “humanity” and “equality”.
Canada currently hosts the largest Sikh community outside India, comprising approximately 770,000 individuals who identified Sikhism as their religion in the 2021 census. Although this number is significantly smaller than the 22 million Sikhs in India, particularly in the northern state of Punjab, it is not so insignificant given that Canada has a much smaller overall population. Sikhs in Canada, hence, represent a higher percentage, accounting for 2.1% of the population, compared to India where they constitute just 1.7%.
Neilesh Bose, associate professor and Canada research chair at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, pointed out that, although Sikhs are a minority in India, they constitute a significant segment of the South Asian community in Canada. This has led to an amplified visibility of Sikhs in shaping Canadian perceptions of South Asia, he explained.
In 1985, Canadian perceptions were deeply shaken by a tragic incident in which a bomb exploded on an Air India flight 182 travelling from Canada to India via Britain. The explosion occurred off the coast of Ireland, resulting in the loss of all 329 lives on board. A Sikh extremist, Ripudaman Singh Malik, was found guilty in connection with this bombing. The bombing was widely believed to have been the handiwork of Canada-based Sikhs in retaliation to the deadly 1984 storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the holiest shrine in Sikh religion, by the Indian government led by Indira Gandhi.
Following a two-year trial, Malik and co-accused Ajaib Singh Bagri were acquitted in 2005 of mass murder and conspiracy charges related to the two bombings in what was believed to have been a case of the police having bungled the investigation. Ripudaman Singh Malik was later shot dead in his car in Surrey, British Columbia. The police found a charred vehicle close by. An intelligence officer investigating the case later said that the role of “most-wanted” Hardeep Singh Nijjar, Canada-based chief of the Khalistan Tiger Force, in the killing could not be ruled out.
Following the Air India bombing incident, any public discourse concerning Sikhs, including Sikh politicians, inevitably revolved round questions about their potential affiliations with terrorist organizations or Khalistan. This altered the way they were perceived and understood, which was different from the past, Bose explained to a media house.
While comparisons have been made between the Air India bombing and the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, it is worth noting that the aftermath of the Air India bombing did not create a level of prejudice against Sikhs in Canada as severe as the discrimination experienced by Muslims (and some Sikhs) in the United States after 9/11, he stated.
In contemporary Canada, Sikhs occupy a notable position in both society and politics. Jagmeet Singh, leader of the New Democratic Party, is Sikh. He has been vocal regarding the treatment of Sikhs in India and faced visa denial for a planned visit to India in 2013, purportedly due to his public statements. In 2015, Trudeau achieved a historic milestone by appointing four Sikh individuals to his Cabinet, surpassing the only two Sikh members in India’s Cabinet at that point of time. Trudeau reportedly took pride in this fact.
It is important to note that not every Sikh in Canada backs the separatist movement and, likewise, not all advocates of the Khalistan movement endorse extremist methods to push for a Sikh state. Senior Sikh leaders in Canada must intervene to ensure that the relations between the Canadian Hindus and the Sikhs are not vitiated. They should act for the interests of the Indian people as a whole. (IPA Service)
(The author is a Defence, Aerospace & Political Analyst based in Bengaluru)