As a run-up to the visit of Cana­dian Prime Min­is­ter Justin Trudeau, his fam­ily and cab­i­net col­leagues, Sikho­pho­bia has struck. In­dian mag­a­zines, vet­eran colum­nists and the es­tab­lish­ment have joined hands to give a thumbs-down to the visit, os­ten­si­bly be­cause of his affin­ity for the Sikhs, jus­tice and fair play. While the Ma­haraja of Pun­jab con­tin­ues his per­verted pre­var­i­ca­tion, Sikh po­lit­i­cal par­ties, so­cial ac­tivists, Pun­jabi me­dia, the Sikh Di­as­pora, the DS­GMC and SGPC have re­sponded as a ma­ture na­tion.

When the Cana­dian first fam­ily de­scended from the air­craft in Delhi, with a typ­i­cally In­dian, folded-hands ges­ture, it was a re­mark­able sight. Whether it would please and cut ice with the pachy­der­mous In­dian me­dia we will know in a week from now, as on the eve of the visit of the Cana­dian Prime Min­is­ter, the In­dian me­dia has been struck with Sikho­pho­bia.

The Out­look mag­a­zine set the ball rolling on the Sikhs with an over­dose of false­hood and fears in its spe­cial edi­tion on the Justin Trudeau visit. With a bunch of ar­ti­cles and in­ter­views, the mag­a­zine at­tempted to tell the coun­try that Canada is sup­port­ing the Sikhs to let them gain their self-rule.  Ref­er­ences and pho­tos as old as 20-30 years were dug out and pre­sented -old wine in a new bot­tle, with no men­tion that jus­tice eludes the Sikhs on all fronts.

When re­ports came in that the Cana­dian en­tourage has per­haps de­cided to snub the Pun­jab Chief Min­is­ter Amarinder Singh, in re­tal­i­a­tion to his snub to the Cana­dian Min­is­ter for Na­tional De­fense Har­jit Singh Saj­jan, some months back, vet­eran colum­nist Shekhar Gupta could not bear it. He tweeted that the In­dian gov­ern­ment should can­cel the visit of the Cana­dian Prime Min­is­ter. Not sat­is­fied with that, he retweeted the ab­solutely-bi­ased piece by Chitleen K. Sethi of his por­tal www.thep­rint.in. The ar­ti­cle al­most men­tions that one of the min­is­ters -Amar­jit Sohi -ac­tu­ally tor­tured by the Pun­jab po­lice is per­haps still some­one to fear. His team is also jus­ti­fy­ing In­di­a’s low key re­sponse.

“Re­it­er­at­ing their de­mand for the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion of the peo­ple of Pun­jab, the po­lit­i­cal party Dal Khalsa has un­equiv­o­cally wel­comed the Cana­dian Prime min­is­ter, his fam­ily and del­e­ga­tion to the Pun­jab and also ex­pressed grat­i­tude for the re­spect­ful sta­tus of the Sikh peo­ple in Canada.”

Zee News twisted facts about how the vis­it­ing dig­ni­tary will be wel­comed in the Pun­jab -in­stead of wel­com­ing with Sikh flags, they said black flags for one full day, un­til at the end of the day, the Dal Khalsa Spokesper­son Kan­warpal Singh clar­i­fied on the mat­ter.

The In­dian Ex­press could not re­sist join­ing the band­wagon. Ed­i­to­ri­ally it com­mended the fam­ily-filled so­journ of the first fam­ily of Canada with a Wah Trudeau com­ment. How­ever Con­tribut­ing Ed­i­tor on For­eign Af­fairs C Raja Mo­han, among other di­a­tribes says, “Trudeau’s team has been send­ing con­flict­ing sig­nals even af­ter he landed in In­dia on Sat­ur­day.” What are those sig­nals? No de­tails have been pro­vided. He fur­ther says, “It is in­deed tragic that In­dia-Canada re­la­tions have be­come a po­lit­i­cal hostage to the Khal­is­tan ques­tion.” With Sikh par­tic­i­pa­tion at an all time high with one can­di­date run­ning for the post of the Prime Min­is­ter next year, make no mis­take that if In­dia con­tin­ues to be so ob­sessed with what Canada does to Sikhs, po­lit­i­cal and diplo­matic re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries will seize to be bi­lat­eral. The Sikh ques­tion will al­ways make it tri­par­tite. The ear­lier this re­al­i­sa­tion dawns the bet­ter it is for jus­tice. It is con­cern­ing that even the In­dian Ex­press has so far not at­tempted to look at the ques­tion from the Sikh per­spec­tive.

For­mer In­dian am­bas­sador to Iran, K. C. Singh, writ­ing in the wire.in has also raised un­founded fears only be­cause the Lib­eral party has won with over­whelm­ing Sikh sup­port. He got it all wrong to say that a pri­vate mem­ber’s bill was passed to la­bel the 1984 mas­sacre of the Sikhs as “geno­cide”. No such bill was in­tro­duced in the Cana­dian par­lia­ment, such a bill was passed af­ter MPP Harinder Kaur Malhi in­tro­duced it and got it cleared in the Provin­cial Par­lia­ment of On­tario. If fur­ther says that ..”there is bad blood be­tween Pun­jab CM Amarinder Singh and the Sikh min­is­ters, be­cause, ap­par­ently at their in­sis­tence he was de­nied a visa on the “grounds that Cana­dian laws did not per­mit for­eign politi­cians to make par­ti­san ap­peals in Canada.” Ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion avail­able with the WSN, Amarinder Singh was never de­nied a visa, he him­self chose not to go to Canada and then blew it up out of pro­por­tion.

How­ever, K C Singh rightly calls In­di­a’s fears ex­ag­ger­ated and asks what steps has the In­dian for­eign min­istry done to ad­dress Sikh Di­as­pora con­cerns.

It is heart­en­ing to see that Sikhs have re­sponded as a na­tion.  Kan­warpal Singh of the Dal Khalsa lam­basted the Out­look is­sue and sent in a be­fit­ting re­join­der. Thank­fully, Out­look showed that they have slightly risen above yel­low jour­nal­ism and pub­lished his re­join­der in full.  In a note cir­cu­lated in the so­cial me­dia and sent to the vis­it­ing dig­ni­tary through email, Kan­warpal Singh says,  “Your visit to Pun­jab and In­dia has evinced great in­ter­est. Un­like vis­its of other lead­ing dig­ni­taries, the In­dian me­dia, on cue from the In­dian state, is in the over­drive to em­bar­rass you on the ba­sis of imag­ined fears, lies, sub­terfuge..”

Re­it­er­at­ing their de­mand for the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion of the peo­ple of Pun­jab, the po­lit­i­cal party Dal Khalsa has un­equiv­o­cally wel­comed the Cana­dian Prime min­is­ter, his fam­ily and del­e­ga­tion to the Pun­jab and also ex­pressed grat­i­tude for the re­spect­ful sta­tus of the Sikh peo­ple in Canada. In his re­join­der to the Out­look sto­ries, the Dal Khalsa has laid down the case of the peo­ple of Pun­jab.

“WSO Pres­i­dent Mukhbir Singh said, “We are con­fi­dent that Prime Min­is­ter Trudeau will de­fend the rep­u­ta­tion of Canada’s Sikhs and in the ab­sence of any ac­tual ev­i­dence, will re­ject al­le­ga­tions of ris­ing rad­i­cal­ism. The Sikh com­mu­nity in Canada is in­cred­i­bly en­gaged in every facet of Cana­dian life, and there is noth­ing to in­di­cate any rise in rad­i­cal­ism..””

Re­ject­ing all al­le­ga­tions in the In­dian me­dia about “ris­ing Sikh rad­i­cal­ism in Canada, The World Sikh Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Canada has ques­tioned the same with facts, say­ing, “Al­le­ga­tions of “Sikh rad­i­cal­ism” are not sup­ported by ac­tual facts and are used as a eu­phemism for speech that In­dia finds dis­agree­able. In­dian of­fi­cials have re­peat­edly cat­e­go­rized le­git­i­mate ac­tiv­i­ties of Sikh po­lit­i­cal ac­tivists in Canada in sup­port of hu­man rights or a sep­a­rate Sikh state, as rad­i­cal­ism, and have re­sorted to la­belling speech they find of­fen­sive as ‘ex­trem­ism’”

WSO Pres­i­dent Mukhbir Singh said, “We are con­fi­dent that Prime Min­is­ter Trudeau will de­fend the rep­u­ta­tion of Canada’s Sikhs and in the ab­sence of any ac­tual ev­i­dence, will re­ject al­le­ga­tions of ris­ing rad­i­cal­ism.  The Sikh com­mu­nity in Canada is in­cred­i­bly en­gaged in every facet of Cana­dian life, and there is noth­ing to in­di­cate any rise in rad­i­cal­ism..”

Aman­deep Sandhu in his sharp re­ac­tion to Shekhar Gupta half-baked tweets says in Pun­jab To­day “The big­ger shame is that Shekhar Gupta and the se­nior jour­nal­ist know the nu­ances of Pan­jab’s pol­i­tics. They know the rea­sons for the de­mand of Khal­is­tan. They know that the state has ad­dressed none of those rea­sons.” Well, I think that many in the In­dian me­dia with all the in­tel­lect at their com­mand do not un­der­stand the Sikh hy­poth­e­sis and those who per­haps do, want to rub­bish it by brush­ing it un­der the car­pet.

Chastis­ing Out­look for the man­ner in which the whole is­sue of Out­look was an­gled, Kan­warpal Singh said,“By car­ry­ing the photo of Cana­dian PM Mr Justin Trudeau on the cover page with the ti­tle Khal­is­tan-2 (Made in Canada), the mag­a­zine has of­fended the po­lit­i­cal sen­si­bil­i­ties of Canada -a Com­mon­wealth friend of In­dia and started a fresh tirade against the Sikh Di­as­pora which as part of the Sikh na­tion has been mak­ing the right move on Cana­dian soil, rais­ing hu­man rights con­cern and en­dors­ing the call for the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion.”

Like the NDP leader Jag­meet Singh, who has strongly de­bunked the In­dian pho­bia with the Sikh Cana­dian min­is­ters and also called a spade a spade by stand­ing for the rights of Sikhs, the Dal Khalsa re­sponse is hard-hit­ting and di­rect. “The Sikhs set­tled in Canada, UK, Eu­rope and else­where need no cer­ti­fi­ca­tion or clear­ance to stand up for the rights of the Sikhs in Pun­jab, suf­fer­ing un­der the jack­boots of In­dian hege­mony.  They are well within their so­cial and po­lit­i­cal rights to lend voice to the true des­tiny of the Sikhs and to high­light hu­man rights abuses in the Pun­jab.”

Of­fer­ing a com­pre­hen­sive ex­pla­na­tion, he fur­ther says, “Who are these Sikhs? In­dia per­ceives all Di­as­pora Sikhs sup­port­ing the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion as agents of their re­spec­tive coun­tries, out to cre­ate mis­chief in In­dia.  Con­trary to it, the re­al­ity is that they are Pun­jabi-born Sikhs, who have mi­grated to for­eign coun­tries and who want to see their home­land Pun­jab free from ex­ploita­tion, hu­man rights abuses and In­di­a’s po­lit­i­cal stran­gle­hold.”

Un­der­stand­ably, In­dia is miffed with the stel­lar and lead role of Sikhs in the Trudeau cab­i­net. Fur­ther­more, with the Sikh Cana­dian di­as­pora de­cid­ing to keep In­dian diplo­mats at bay for their in­ter­fer­ence in Sikh af­fairs, In­dia is fac­ing grow­ing em­bar­rass­ment at Sikh hands in the West. Jus­ti­fy­ing this, Kan­warpal Singh says, “…diplo­mats, bu­reau­crats and lead­ers have been de­barred from do­ing any type of ac­tiv­ity from Gur­d­wara premises due to their mean, ma­li­cious and ill-in­ten­tioned cam­paign against Sikh ac­tivists..”

Spelling out his fu­tur­is­tic view for the Sikhs, the Dal Khalsa ide­o­logue says, “Ever since the Sikhs lost their self-rule in 1859, they have been long­ing to re­gain it…. at heart, the Sikh Spirit is free. This free spirit will con­tinue to seek sup­port, as­sis­tance and even recog­ni­tion for their right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion from the United Na­tions, the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity in­clud­ing Canada, notwith­stand­ing In­dian pro­pa­ganda.

“Who are these Sikhs? In­dia per­ceives all Di­as­pora Sikhs sup­port­ing the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion as agents of their re­spec­tive coun­tries, out to cre­ate mis­chief in In­dia.  Con­trary to it, the re­al­ity is that they are Pun­jabi-born Sikhs, who have mi­grated to for­eign coun­tries and who want to see their home­land Pun­jab free from ex­ploita­tion, hu­man rights abuses and In­di­a’s po­lit­i­cal stran­gle­hold.”

None of the mag­a­zines, colum­nists and gov­ern­ment spokesper­sons has both­ered to re­port or nar­rate what the Sikh min­is­ters have said, what both­ers Sikh Cana­di­ans and why do Sikhs be­lieve that their sta­tus in their home­land has reached its nadir.  

The sea­soned re­sponse from Sikh Cana­di­ans, Sikh min­is­ters in the Cana­dian cab­i­net, Cana­dian diplo­mats in New Delhi and Ot­tawa con­vinces the Sikhs of a func­tion­ing democ­racy with full play of mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, the rule of law and free­dom of speech. The In­dian me­dia cer­tainly needs re­search their facts, un­der­stand the Sikhs and lis­ten to the voice of their soul not just of the mind and the pow­ers that be.

Sim­ran­jit Singh Mann-led Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal Am­rit­sar has wel­comed the visit of the Cana­dian Prime Min­is­ter.  Sikh lead­ers of the DS­GMC have wel­comed the Cana­dian Par­lia­men­tary del­e­ga­tion with dig­nity and grace and I am sure that the SGPC will leave no stone un­turned to make the visit to Dar­bar Sahib Am­rit­sar of the Cana­dian Prime Min­is­ter, his fam­ily, his cab­i­net col­leagues, a mem­o­rable one.

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Like it or lump it, Indo-Cana­dian re­la­tions will re­main Indo-Cana­dian-Sikh re­la­tions for a long time to come.