There has been no ex­ter­nal po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence in In­di­a’s gen­eral elec­tions by Canada or any­one else and none seems likely.  The Cana­dian poll scene in Oc­to­ber will wit­ness a resur­gence of Sikh par­tic­i­pa­tion and ag­gres­sive In­dian med­dling. For the Cana­dian gov­ern­ment and Sikh-Cana­dian lead­er­ship, it is time to be alert and strong.  For those in Pun­jab, it is time for se­ri­ous strate­gic think­ing.

Sikhs are over 2 per­cent in In­dia with a ma­jor­ity of them in their home­land Pun­jab. Sikhs are nearly 2 per­cent in Canada with a siz­able chunk in Van­cou­ver and Toronto.  The num­ber of Sikhs in the Pun­jab is shrink­ing and in Canada, United States, United King­dom, Eu­rope, Aus­tralia and New Zealand it is ris­ing by the day.

Two of the seven phases of gen­eral elec­tions to the In­dian par­lia­ment are over and no one has seen any in­ter­ven­tion by the Cana­dian gov­ern­ment or any of its cit­i­zens.

In­dia sends of­fi­cial del­e­ga­tions to mon­i­tor elec­tions to many South Asian and African coun­tries but shies away from any talk by any in­ter­na­tional body to mon­i­tor elec­tions in the coun­try. Even Amnesty In­ter­na­tional and Hu­man Rights Watch are of­fi­cially not al­lowed to in­ves­ti­gate vi­o­la­tions in Kash­mir and Pun­jab.

“With the up­com­ing Cana­dian fed­eral elec­tions, and the ac­tive in­volve­ment of the Sikh com­mu­nity in Canada’s elec­toral process, we are even more con­cerned by the po­ten­tial of In­dian in­ter­fer­ence.”

Mukhbir Singh, Pres­i­dent, World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Canada

What is the po­lit­i­cal sta­tus of the Sikhs in the Pun­jab? There is no sin­gle po­lit­i­cal party which can be called “the” Sikh po­lit­i­cal party which vouch­safes for Sikh in­ter­ests and Pun­jab is­sues.  We do have Sikh faces as po­lit­i­cal lead­ers among many po­lit­i­cal par­ties. The to­tal num­ber of Sikh vot­ers is dwin­dling with the dwin­dling Sikh pop­u­la­tion –both in cen­sus terms of bi­o­log­i­cal growth and the ‘Let’s go to Canada’ mi­gra­tion move­ment.  As a com­mu­nity we have lost the num­bers game, ex­cept in some rural ar­eas. The Sikhs are a bru­tally di­vided lot.  The Sikh lead­er­ship in Pun­jab and the rest of the world is pur­blind to this.

“Sikhs are closer to their po­lit­i­cal des­tiny in Canada than any­where else.” 

Gian Singh Sandhu in The Un­com­mon Road

Out of Pun­jab, what is the po­lit­i­cal worth of Sikhs in In­dia?  From the whole coun­try, only one Sikh face from the BJP has been nom­i­nated. The phys­i­cally scat­tered and lead­er­less Sikh com­mu­nity has no elec­toral pol­icy, con­stituency-wise or state-wise. No na­tional or re­gional party has shown in­ter­ests in the Sikhs and Sikhs are also not so­cially and po­lit­i­cally ac­tive. The size­able num­ber of Sikhs in Delhi and Haryana have been ma­nip­u­lated and ex­ploited by the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal for their own up­man­ship. Po­lit­i­cally speak­ing, Sikhs in In­dia are weak and too de­pen­dent on syco­phancy.

The Cana­dian mul­ti­cul­tural land­scape, equal op­por­tu­nity par­a­digm, has pro­vided an en­vi­ron­ment to the Sikhs, not only to up­hold their dis­tinct iden­tity but to emerge as po­lit­i­cal lead­ers, re­spon­si­ble min­is­ters, par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, leg­is­la­tors, bu­reau­crats, judges and more, dis­play­ing high char­ac­ter with ex­em­plary acu­men for man­age­ment and gov­er­nance.

WSO co-founder Gian Singh Sandhu in his book, “An Un­com­mon Road” doc­u­ments how in the last thirty years, Sikh Cana­di­ans rose from “ex­trem­ists” to re­spectable cit­i­zens and min­is­ters. He busts many a myth and lie about Sikh lead­er­ship and boldly nar­rates the di­chotomy of In­dian and Cana­dian gov­ern­ments and their agen­cies. He be­lieves that “Sikhs are closer to their po­lit­i­cal des­tiny in Canada than any­where else.”

Two years ago, when the On­tario Provin­cial As­sem­bly adopted MPP Harinder Kaur Mal­hi’s res­o­lu­tion that, “Mo­tion 47 con­demns all forms of com­mu­nal vi­o­lence, ha­tred, hos­til­ity, prej­u­dice, racism and in­tol­er­ance in In­dia and any­where else in the world, in­clud­ing the 1984 Geno­cide per­pe­trated against the Sikhs through­out In­dia, and call on all sides to em­brace truth, jus­tice and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion,” In­di­a’s Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs min­istry sharply re­acted say­ing, “we re­ject this mis­guided mo­tion which is based on a lim­ited un­der­stand­ing of In­dia, its con­sti­tu­tion, so­ci­ety, ethos, rule of law and the ju­di­cial process.” When Sikh-Cana­dian law mak­ers, com­mu­nity lead­ers and ac­tivists punc­ture In­di­a’s im­age through hu­man rights in­ter­ven­tion, an un­stop­pable storm of protest surges in In­dia.

In Canada, what started as lob­by­ing, diplo­matic and ad­vo­cacy cam­paigns, has now reached a state where Sikhs are more vis­i­ble in Cana­dian po­lit­i­cal life than ever be­fore.   The In­dian es­tab­lish­ment has found it hard to di­gest tur­baned Sikh Min­is­ters and Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment. The BJP could not ac­cept one tur­baned Man­mo­han Singh as Prime Min­is­ter; it was naive to ex­pect that they would go gaga over the hu­mil­ity of Har­jit Singh Saj­jan or the forth­right­ness of ND­P’s Jag­meet Singh who airs clear views on Sikh na­tion­al­ism and In­di­a’s hu­man rights abuse track record.

As Sikh Cana­di­ans soar high, it is this reach and clout of the Sikhs that wor­ries In­dia, which is why the In­dian me­dia and the ef­fu­sive Pun­jab Chief Min­is­ter shame­lessly and de­ceit­fully ridiculed Cana­dian Prime Min­is­ter Justin Trudeau’s visit to Pun­jab, ab­solutely un­mind­ful of the pos­si­ble trade loss.

Re­cently when the World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Canada ex­pressed con­cerns about how In­dia may have in­flu­enced the word­ing of the Cana­dian 2018 Pub­lic Safety Re­port, the Cana­dian gov­ern­ment did not give a com­plete re­sponse. Though Pub­lic Safety Min­is­ter, Ralph Goodale, un­der pres­sure of the Sikhs, re­moved the ‘Sikhs, Khal­is­tani ex­trem­ism’ la­bel in the re­port, the ques­tions that WSO asked, are per­ti­nent even to­day, “In the first place how did this hap­pen? Who pro­vided this an­gle to be taken by the Cana­dian gov­ern­ment in the ab­sence of any ev­i­dence what­so­ever?”

Sikh ed­u­ca­tor and com­men­ta­tor Harinder Singh of the Sikh Re­search In­sti­tute is forth­right. He says, “The Cana­dian Gov­ern­ment should com­mit to fur­ther due dili­gence in the fu­ture. Sikh politi­cians must work to­gether to form a mul­ti­party Sikh cau­cus, and Sikh civil ser­vants need to cre­ate a Sikh-lean­ing pol­icy mak­ing or­ga­ni­za­tion. Each party must es­tab­lish writ­ten plat­forms on is­sues im­por­tant to their Sikh con­stituents. With the 2019 fed­eral elec­tions on the hori­zon, Sikh-Cana­di­ans must ex­am­ine all party plat­forms.”

 

In In­dia, no one so far, ex­cept Pun­jab Chief Min­is­ter -Cap­tain Amarinder Singh re­acted to the Cana­dian re­trac­tion. Shoot­ing from the hip, he said, “Such an act amounted to en­dorse­ment of ter­ror ac­tiv­i­ties and de facto pro­mo­tion of ex­trem­ism.” Kan­warpal Singh of Dal Khalsa re­torted, “Why does the Cana­dian gov­ern­ment pub­licly not tell the Pun­jab CM to keep his hands off Canada in the same way he re­peats that Canada is in­ter­fer­ing in Pun­jab? What is Canada afraid of?”

Gur­preet Singh and Gur­deep Singh Kun­dan of the Global Sikh Coun­cil strongly con­demned the out­ra­geous re­marks of the Pun­jab CM, terming them, “grossly un­de­mo­c­ra­tic, vi­o­la­tion of in­ter­na­tional hu­man and civil­ian rights and drive by sec­tar­ian ul­tra-na­tion­al­ist pol­i­tics cur­rently at its peak in In­dia.”

“Sikh politi­cians must work to­gether to form a mul­ti­party Sikh cau­cus, and Sikh civil ser­vants need to cre­ate a Sikh-lean­ing pol­icy mak­ing or­ga­ni­za­tion. Each party must es­tab­lish writ­ten plat­forms on is­sues im­por­tant to their Sikh con­stituents. With the 2019 fed­eral elec­tions on the hori­zon, Sikh-Cana­di­ans must ex­am­ine all party plat­forms.”

Harinder Singh, Ed­u­ca­tor and com­men­ta­tor, The Sikh Re­search In­sti­tute

Since 1984, con­tem­po­rary his­tory is re­plete with in­ci­dents of the In­dian state, In­dian agen­cies and In­dian me­dia work­ing over­time to tackle, down­grade and down­size the large strides of Sikhs in the po­lit­i­cal life of Canada. In this light, Dal Khalsa spokesper­son Kan­warpal Singh cau­tions, “To run down Sikh as­pi­ra­tions and to show Canada and Pak­istan in a bad light, In­dia spares no op­por­tu­nity to ac­cuse Is­lam­abad and Ot­tawa of har­bour­ing and sup­port­ing Sikh in­sur­gents. In the forth­com­ing Cana­dian elec­tions, Sikhs will have to be more vig­i­lant than in the past, both in In­dia and Canada.”

Last week, in a third such in­ci­dent, a Badal Dal-aligned Sikh cou­ple, was de­tained in Ger­many on charges of spy­ing on Sikh and Kash­miri com­mu­ni­ties there and fur­ther­ing the in­for­ma­tion to for­eign in­tel­li­gence agency, Re­search and Analy­sis Wing (RAW).  In Toronto in 2017, the In­dian con­sular of­fice des­per­ately in­ter­vened to stop the Pun­jab Pavil­ion float in a pa­rade. The In­dian High Com­mis­sion in Canada un­abashedly pa­tro­n­ises the RSS’s Canada branch.  The Air In­dia tragedy en­quiry com­pre­hen­sively doc­u­mented In­di­a’s es­pi­onage fund­ing of a sec­tion of the Pun­jabi me­dia.

In­di­a’s pre­tence flew over the lid when for­mer In­dian in­tel­li­gence chief MK Dhar in his mem­oirs, “Open Se­crets” openly talked about how “they” pen­e­trated Sikh ranks, planted sto­ries in Pun­jabi me­dia and be­friended the RCMP per­son­nel.  He does not tell us that in 1986-87 sev­eral In­dian diplo­mats were asked to leave Cana­dian shores for their Sikhs-re­lated es­pi­onage ac­tiv­i­ties.

“Why does the Cana­dian gov­ern­ment pub­licly not tell the Pun­jab CM to keep his hands off Canada in the same way he re­peats that Canada is in­ter­fer­ing in Pun­jab? What is Canada afraid of?”

Kan­warpal Singh, spokesper­son, Dal Khalsa

Oc­to­ber 2019 is not go­ing to be easy for Sikh Cana­di­ans. Sikh ide­o­logue Harinder Singh warns, “The Cana­dian gov­ern­men­t’s job is to ad­dress risks and ide­olo­gies di­rectly. It can do that job even bet­ter if its con­cerns are not party to non-ev­i­dence based pro­pa­ganda from for­eign gov­ern­ments. It can in­stead act ex­ten­sively to pro­tect all of its cit­i­zens from claims and al­le­ga­tions levied by for­eign gov­ern­ments at a time when we know Canada’s elec­tions could be sus­cep­ti­ble to for­eign in­ter­fer­ence.”

The book “Nest of Spies” by Fab­rice de Pier­re­bourg and Michel Juneau-Kat­suya de­tail­ing the vul­ner­a­bil­ity of Canada to for­eign in­flu­ence, in­clud­ing In­di­a’s med­dling in Sikh-Cana­dian af­fairs, per­haps de­serves a closer look and cor­rec­tive ac­tion by the Cana­dian au­thor­i­ties.

The Cana­dian Cen­tre for Cy­ber Se­cu­rity has warned that, “For­eign coun­tries are very likely to try to ad­vance their agen­das in 2019 — a gen­eral elec­tion year — by ma­nip­u­lat­ing Cana­dian opin­ion with ma­li­cious on­line ac­tiv­ity.”

For call­ing a spade a spade, the World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Canada has in­vari­ably been at­tacked by In­dia.  WSO Pres­i­dent Mukhbir Singh rightly fears, “With the up­com­ing Cana­dian fed­eral elec­tions, and the ac­tive in­volve­ment of the Sikh com­mu­nity in Canada’s elec­toral process, we are even more con­cerned by the po­ten­tial of In­dian in­ter­fer­ence.  There is a his­tory of In­dian in­ter­fer­ence and in­tim­i­da­tion in Canada and we hope that all steps will be taken to en­sure that Cana­dian Sikhs are not in­tim­i­dated or pres­sured by In­dian in­ter­ests.  It is of the ut­most im­por­tance that Canada re­mains free from for­eign in­ter­fer­ence.”

Will mav­er­ick Sikh ac­tivists and lead­ers in Pun­jab or Canada sit up tight and plan for the chal­lenges ahead?