Har­jit Singh Saj­jan doggedly and humbly faces the Cana­dian op­po­si­tion and me­dia at­tack on a mis­take which could have been eas­ily over­looked con­sid­er­ing his re­mark­able track record. His apol­ogy is a de­mo­c­ra­tic Cana­dian tra­di­tion and we are happy that this Cana­dian hero has up­held the ethics and val­ues of re­spon­si­ble gov­er­nance.

There is no ques­tion that it is the duty of the Cana­dian op­po­si­tion to pick and prick faults of the rul­ing party and par­tic­u­larly if the De­fence Min­is­ter of the coun­try trips on words, they are bound to do what they did. Har­jit Singh may not have been the ar­chi­tect of Op­er­a­tion Mesuda in Afghanistan and he has ac­cepted that, but as the let­ter writ­ten by his com­man­der shows, he was not the ar­chi­tect but more than that. He was the hero of the op­er­a­tion. He along­side oth­ers pro­vided the works to make the op­er­a­tion a suc­cess.

In 2006 Har­jit Singh Saj­jan served as a Ma­jor with the Cana­dian Forces in Afghanistan dur­ing Op­er­a­tion Medusa. He was spe­cial ad­vi­sor to Amer­i­can Coali­tion Forces in Afghanistan and served as an in­tel­li­gence of­fi­cer on three dif­fer­ent oc­ca­sions.

“ Har­jit Saj­jan was the best sin­gle Cana­dian in­tel­li­gence as­set in the­atre, and his hard work, per­sonal brav­ery, and dogged de­ter­mi­na­tion un­doubt­edly saved a mul­ti­tude of Coali­tion lives. Through his courage and ded­i­ca­tion, Ma­jor Saj­jan has sin­gle-hand­edly changed the face of in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing and analy­sis in Afghanistan.” –Brigadier Gen­eral David Fraser, Com­man­der of Canada’s Coali­tion Task Force in Kan­da­har, Afghanistan 

Speak­ing at the Ob­server Re­search Foun­da­tion in New Delhi on April 18, Har­jit Singh Saj­jan is re­ported to have said, “On my first de­ploy­ment to Kan­da­har in 2006, I was kind of thrown in an un­fore­seen sit­u­a­tion and be­came the ar­chi­tect of an op­er­a­tion… where we re­moved about 1,500 Tal­iban fight­ers off the bat­tle­field.”

On 29 April, when the Op­po­si­tion par­ties in Canada called the above state­ment a lie, the Cana­dian Min­istry of Na­tional De­fence is­sued a re­join­der which read,
“Every mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion our forces un­der­took in Afghanistan, in­clud­ing Op­er­a­tion Medusa, re­lied on the courage and ded­i­ca­tion of many in­di­vid­u­als across the Cana­dian Forces. My com­ments were in no way in­tended to di­min­ish the role that my fel­low sol­diers and my su­pe­ri­ors played in Op­er­a­tion Medusa. What I should have said was that our mil­i­tary suc­cesses are the re­sult of the lead­er­ship, ser­vice and sac­ri­fice of the many ded­i­cated women and men in the Cana­dian forces. I re­gret that I did­n’t say this then, but I want to do so now.”

Chris Ver­non – Re­tired Se­nior British Army Of­fi­cer who was Chief of Staff of the Cana­dian-led HQ in Kan­da­har – Op­er­a­tion Medusa speaks to the Na­tional Post re­gard­ing the role of Har­jit Singh Saj­jan in the op­er­a­tion. – Cour­tesy: www.om.fy

All doubt­ing Thomases to note this. On 16 Sep­tem­ber 2006, soon af­ter the en­gage­ment in Op­er­a­tion Medusa, Brigadier Gen­eral David Fraser, Com­man­der of Canada’s Coali­tion Task Force in Kan­da­har, Afghanistan wrote a let­ter to the Chief Con­sta­ble J. H. Gra­ham, Chief Con­sta­ble of the Van­cou­ver Po­lice, from where he joined the Coali­tion Forces, which among other plat­i­tudes of brav­ery and dili­gence of Har­jit Singh Saj­jan stated,

“I have had the plea­sure of hav­ing Con­sta­ble and Ma­jor Har­jit Saj­jan work for me for the past nine months of OP­ER­A­TION ARCHER/​ATHENA, Canada’s con­tri­bu­tion to the global war on ter­ror in Afghanistan. I must say that Ma­jor Saj­jan is one of the most re­mark­able peo­ple I have worked with, and his con­tri­bu­tion to the suc­cess of the mis­sion and the safety of Cana­dian sol­diers was noth­ing short of re­mark­able.
……..He was the best sin­gle Cana­dian in­tel­li­gence as­set in the­atre, and his hard work, per­sonal brav­ery, and dogged de­ter­mi­na­tion un­doubt­edly saved a mul­ti­tude of Coali­tion lives. Through his courage and ded­i­ca­tion, Ma­jor Saj­jan has sin­gle-hand­edly changed the face of in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing and analy­sis in Afghanistan.
……..He tire­lessly and self­lessly de­voted him­self to piec­ing to­gether the ground truth on tribal and Tal­iban net­works in the Kan­da­har area, and his analy­sis was so com­pelling that it drove a num­ber of large scale the­atre-re­sourced ef­forts, in­clud­ing OP­ER­A­TION MEDUSA, a large scale con­ven­tional com­bat op­er­a­tion that re­sulted in the de­feat of the largest TB in­sur­gent cell yet iden­ti­fied in Afghanistan, with over 1500 Tal­iban killed or cap­tured. I rate him as one of the best in­tel­li­gence of­fi­cer I have ever worked with – fear­less, smart, and per­son­able, and I would not hes­i­tate to have him on my staff at any time in the fu­ture.

Un­doubt­edly the Lib­eral party and Prime Min­is­ter Justin Trudeau were aware of his con­tri­bu­tion which prompted to stand by Saj­jan. For the op­po­si­tion, the words of Sikh MP, Raj Gre­wal are apt,
“Har­jit Saj­jan has served his coun­try his en­tire life and I would highly en­cour­age any­one who wants to crit­i­cize this Cana­dian Hero to walk a day in his shoes.”

Af­ter @Har­jit­Saj­jan's dis­pens­able apol­ogy, he has demon­strated be­ing a good Sikh & a per­fect Cana­dian -an ideal com­bi­na­tion of Sikh-Cana­dian pic.twit­ter.com/​PUqKQd0uVM

— Har­jin­der S Kukreja (@Singh­Lions) May 2, 2017

Ac­tu­ally, as a tweet from Har­jin­der Singh Kukreja said, “Har­jit Saj­jan’s apol­ogy was dis­pens­able”.  Not for Saj­jan. The gen­tle­man in him could not have ac­cepted his own lapse and he read­ily owed up to the “mis­take”. How many politi­cians and lead­ers in Canada and In­dia do that? Those who live in glass houses should be care­ful about throw­ing stones at oth­ers, their turn is around the cor­ner.

There is a quip pop­u­lar among the Sikhs of yore, “Kabul de rehn walyan lahi nitt mo­hima -for the res­i­dents of Kabul, life is a con­tin­u­ing chal­lenge.” Your three for­ays in Kabul have made you a part-time res­i­dent of the moun­tain­ous coun­try and like the Sikhs of by­gone days, whom you so ably rep­re­sent, you will face such chal­lenges from time to time.

“ I rate him as one of the best in­tel­li­gence of­fi­cer I have ever worked with – fear­less, smart, and per­son­able, and I would not hes­i­tate to have him on my staff at any time in the fu­ture.” –Brigadier Gen­eral David Fraser, Com­man­der of Canada’s Coali­tion Task Force in Kan­da­har, Afghanistan 

Across the globe, the alacrity with which the In­dian print and on­line me­dia, has picked up the words of the Cana­dian op­po­si­tion in the Cana­dian Par­lia­ment is a new ven­ture in In­dian jour­nal­ism. It is a sur­pris­ingly wel­come sign that the In­dian me­dia is ex­ten­sively re­port­ing the hap­pen­ings in the Cana­dian par­lia­ment.  The In­dian state and me­dia is grow­ing be­yond its shores, the prob­lems of other coun­tries are no longer their in­ter­nal prob­lems and via the same logic the prob­lems of In­dia can­not re­main the in­ter­nal af­fairs of the coun­try.

When Sikh-Cana­di­ans and Cana­dian me­dia talk about hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions in In­dia and the bi­ased role of In­di­a’s main­stream me­dia, In­dia too should have the guts to stom­ach that too, how­so­ever un­palat­able that is.

It is time for Sikhs world­wide to ex­press sol­i­dar­ity with Prime Min­is­ter Justin Trudeau and Har­jit Singh Saj­jan and over­whelm them with good­will mes­sages, as that is the only way to sur­pass that sec­tion of the Cana­dian me­dia who has been go­ing ham­mer and tongs against the Sikh min­is­ter now and has been af­ter the Sikhs too in the past.

Join the #OurHeroSaj­jan cam­paign.