Sikhs con­sti­tut­ing 1.4% of the Cana­dian pop­u­la­tion and 1.8% of In­di­a’s have seen Sikh bait­ing dur­ing Cana­dian PM Justin Trudeau’s trip to In­dia. The Sikh na­tion’s re­sponse was ma­ture and mea­sured. In this open let­ter of ap­pre­ci­a­tion, love and grat­i­tude, ed­i­tor of World Sikh News ap­plauds his visit.

Dear Justin Trudeau: Wa­he­guru Ji Ka Khalsa Wa­he­guru Ji Ki Fateh!  This is an open let­ter of whole­hearted ap­pre­ci­a­tion, love and grat­i­tude. In the eight days that you were in In­dia of which you spent one day in the Pun­jab, your good self, your wife, chil­dren, cab­i­net col­leagues and Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment pro­vided a rare, sig­nif­i­cant and his­toric op­por­tu­nity to the Sikh peo­ple to be happy and cheer­ful. You set an amaz­ing ex­am­ple of peo­ple-to-peo­ple ties.

As you ex­pe­ri­enced, Sikhs rose as a na­tion and ac­corded a wel­come be­fit­ting a leader like you. From the streets of Am­rit­sar to the prom­e­nade to the Golden Tem­ple to the Face­book pages, you en­deared to the Sikhs, and they re­sponded whole­somely. The Sikhs will cher­ish the mak­ing of Ro­tis by you and your fam­ily at the Guru Ram­das Lan­gar. Sim­plic­ity and mod­esty were your hall­marks un­like the bla­tant brag­ging of politi­cians.

Coun­tries and na­tions have in­ter­ests, and I write to you with the Sikh in­ter­est in mind. Not from the con­text of be­ing parochial, petty and self­ish as some In­dian scribe may think but from pro­vid­ing the Sikh per­spec­tive to de­vel­op­ments af­fect­ing the Sikhs, their faith and des­tiny. The Sikh na­tion will re­main in­debted to you for your down-to-earth ges­tures, your whole­some par­tic­i­pa­tion, your hu­mil­ity, your smil­ing fam­ily pic­tures and your re­spect­ful bows at Dar­bar Sahib not only to God Almighty but to the con­gre­ga­tion gath­ered in the holy place. Your com­ments about grace and hu­mil­ity and your ad­mi­ra­tion for the warmest wel­come Sikhs have ac­corded to some­one in a very long time -these are all in­deli­ble in the hearts and minds of the Sikhs. World­wide, Sikhs rev­elled at your hum­ble man­ner­isms.

All sec­tions of Sikhs -politi­cians, re­li­gious lead­ers, the or­di­nary folk, men and women, from Am­rit­sar to Delhi to Mum­bai by­passed the naysay­ers and those who tried their best to sab­o­tage your affin­ity for Sikhs and Pun­jab. Sikhs were glad to see the Ma­haraja of Pun­jab -Amarinder Singh, fi­nally able to meet the Na­tional De­fence Min­is­ter of Canada Har­jit Singh Saj­jan, whom you so grace­fully took along for the of­fi­cial meet­ing. One Face­book writer styled it in chaste Pun­jabi -Hunn Fuf­fadh aaye kaabu vich -loosely trans­lated as “Now this hard nut has cracked.”

1.4 % Sikhs in Canada and 1.8 % Sikhs in In­dia were vic­tims of Sikh-bait­ing in the In­dian me­dia. For nearly three weeks now, the In­dian state, the In­dian me­dia, the Ma­haraja of Pun­jab Chief Min­is­ter Amarinder Singh -unit­edly tried to scare you. You re­mained un­fazed. False­hood, de­ceit­ful re­marks, ref­er­ences to 30-year old in­ci­dents and the works -all of it ex­cept the mis­taken in­vite, noth­ing put you on the de­fen­sive. We the Sikhs were forced to re­call the Urdu cou­plet of Ak­bar Al­la­habadi-Ham aah bhi bharte hain to ho jaate hain bad­nam, woh katl bhi karte hain to char­cha nahi hota -trans­lated thus -Even a deep sigh de­fames me, while even if they mur­der it is not de­bat­able. This is the Sikh dilemma.

“1.4 % Sikhs in Canada and 1.8 % Sikhs in In­dia were vic­tims of Sikh-bait­ing in the In­dian me­dia. All tried to scare you. The Sikhs were forced to re­call the Urdu cou­plet of Ak­bar Al­la­habadi-Ham aah bhi bharte hain to ho jaate hain bad­nam, woh katl bhi karte hain to char­cha nahi hota -trans­lated thus -Even a deep sigh de­fames me, while if they mur­der even that is not de­bat­able. ”

When 1984 hap­pened to the Sikhs, there was an over­whelm­ing feel­ing among Sikhs in the home­land and the Di­as­pora that it would be the Di­as­pora who would lead the Sikh peo­ple to get jus­tice, re­spect for hu­man rights and a voice at the UN and other in­ter­na­tional fora. Par­tic­u­larly in the last 33 years since 1984, with all par­ties in the gov­ern­ment, all me­dia -from print to video to TV to so­cial -no se­ri­ous at­tempt has been made to un­der­stand Sikh is­sues and con­cerns. As the pre­sent time, we have been at the re­ceiv­ing end of lies, fake news, sub­terfuge and de­ceit. For­tu­nately, this time our re­sponse was ma­ture and mea­sured. We were pleased by your tweets and those of your team­mates which were truth­ful, fac­tual and un­com­pro­mis­ing.

We have moved on. You will agree Mr Prime Min­is­ter that the Sikh na­tion has been able to get their voice heard -loud and clear. In the times to come, many coun­tries will see more Sikh par­tic­i­pa­tion and that the Sikh Di­as­pora will lead and force is­sues con­cern­ing Sikhs. Sikh-Cana­di­ans are likely to lead the Sikh Di­as­pora world­wide.

Se­nior In­dian scribes did a bar­rage of ar­ti­cles to over­awe you and the Sikhs. Oth­ers did not like your dress style. Some diehard snobs dis­ap­proved your jovial Bhangra moves! No ef­fort was made to see your novel and hum­ble way to reach out to peo­ple. In­cor­ri­gi­ble! Many In­dian scribes had a field day writ­ing left, right and cen­tre against you, your cab­i­net col­leagues and the Sikhs. Some sec­tions of the Cana­dian me­dia also joined them by res­ur­rect­ing old ghosts.

While the whole me­dia -In­dian, Cana­dian, West­ern and Russ­ian went ham­mer and tongs against you for your close­ness and love to Sikhs, there is noth­ing to worry. The per­cep­tion that Sikhs may be an em­bar­rass­ment to you is a fic­tional idea cre­ated and crafted by scribes and bi­ased schol­ars. There is ab­solutely no sub­stance in their ref­er­ences and hy­pothe­ses. A Face­book post by a Ben­gali lady -Riya Mukher­jee is rel­e­vant and apt. Re­fer­ring to the Sikhs she says, among other things, “This is one com­mu­nity that keeps ris­ing from its own ashes. It suf­fers the hor­rors of par­ti­tion and then re­builds it­self with­out any vic­tim­hood, stak­ing claim not just to self-re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion but to pros­per­ity. This is the com­mu­nity that faces a planned pogrom and yet does­n’t give in to long-term ha­tred. This is the com­mu­nity that had a clear, dan­ger­ous sep­a­ratist move­ment and yet some­how man­aged to dis­tance it­self from the “ter­ror­ist” tag.” I only wish that top-notch In­dian scribes had good sense like her.

“When art greets pol­i­tics, it touches the hearts of the peo­ple. When artist Gur­preet Singh from Moga drew your por­trait in Sikh at­tire, the mes­sage from the Sikhs to you and the In­dian scribes was ad­e­quately con­veyed. Whether it will be un­der­stood or will they will con­tinue to haunt you and the Sikhs, time will tell.”

Even the in­ter­na­tion­ally re­spected hu­man rights or­gan­i­sa­tion -the World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Canada, which has done ex­em­plary work in Canada not only for jus­tice causes of Sikhs but other com­mu­ni­ties as well, is er­ro­neously per­ceived by In­dian colum­nists as well as the well-ed­u­cated Chief Min­is­ter of Pun­jab. Leave alone a com­pre­hen­sive re­search; not even a cur­sory at­tempt is made to find out the truth.

De­spite all odds, it was nice to see you and your min­is­ters not buck­ling un­der pres­sure. Un­doubt­edly, you “had to stand for the ter­ri­to­r­ial in­tegrity of the two coun­tries” but all of you nu­anced it with the right to free­dom of ex­pres­sion and the right to jus­tice against geno­cide and other hu­man rights abuses. The In­dian scribes, uni­ver­sity ex­perts, so­cial ide­o­logues, some politi­cians in Canada have failed to fathom that Sikhs want re­spect for hu­man rights, jus­tice and a deeper un­der­stand­ing of who the Sikhs are and what they stand for.

Sikhs hope and pray that notwith­stand­ing the busi­ness part­ner­ship of In­dia and Canada, both the coun­tries will en­deav­our to re­spect fun­da­men­tal hu­man rights and com­pletely re­frain from equat­ing quest for rights with vi­o­lence and ter­ror­ism. Your am­ple stress on the strate­gic im­por­tance of ties with Pun­jab was mu­sic to our ears and we look for­ward to more ed­u­ca­tional and so­cial par­tic­i­pa­tion, twin­ning agree­ments be­tween cities, ed­u­ca­tional ties with uni­ver­si­ties and agri­cul­tural tech­noc­racy to save lives of our dy­ing farm­ers.

Mr Prime Min­is­ter, I am par­tic­u­larly wor­ried about the huge prac­ti­cal gap be­tween the In­dian con­cept of rule of law and due process as against the one prac­tised in Canada and the West. Canada has to en­sure that shar­ing of se­cu­rity in­for­ma­tion with In­dia will not lead to the death penalty, ex­tra­ju­di­cial killings and pro­longed de­ten­tions un­der un­de­mo­c­ra­tic se­cu­rity, despotic and sedi­tion laws.

Sikh com­men­ta­tors and or­gan­i­sa­tions may dis­agree with the joint Indo-Cana­dian state­ment on coun­ter­ing ter­ror­ism and they cer­tainly have the right to pre­sent a third per­spec­tive – a per­spec­tive based on hu­man rights pro­tec­tion and a dis­course based on the wrong­ful poli­cies of world pow­ers in bring­ing about a sit­u­a­tion wherein mi­nor­ity com­mu­ni­ties and na­tion­al­i­ties are pushed to the wall.

“We the Sikhs were forced to re­call the Urdu cou­plet of Ak­bar Al­la­habadi-Ham aah bhi bharte hain to ho jaate hain bad­nam, woh katl bhi karte hain to char­cha nahi hota”

For the In­dian Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Modi to obliquely say that “re­li­gion should not be al­lowed to drive pol­i­tics” sounded like the devil quot­ing the scrip­ture. His right-wing party has been do­ing more and worse since the last seven decades. For him and his party, re­li­gion has been not only the key dri­ving force but also the plank for ha­tred and ac­ri­mony amongst the pop­u­la­tion. The Sikh re­li­gio-po­lit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy can­not be eas­ily un­der­stood by bi­ased minds. You have to see through this for a proper as­sess­ment of the Sikh peo­ple.

The Sikh nar­ra­tive runs many par­al­lels si­mul­ta­ne­ously and In­dia will have to con­tend with them even if the Sikh promi­nence in Canada is not eas­ily di­gestible. Frankly, In­dia and its me­dia are at sea at the sight of Sikh stal­warts in Canada. Sig­nif­i­cantly, a sec­tion of the Cana­dian and In­dian Pun­jabi me­dia has started ques­tion­ing and chastis­ing the role of the dom­i­nant In­dian me­dia.

Your visit was a roar­ing suc­cess on all fronts. You turned the tide up­side down by es­tab­lish­ing peo­ple to peo­ple con­tact and keep­ing core pol­i­tics at the end of the visit. Peo­ple like you in­vari­ably face tough times and I have ab­solutely no doubt that when the whole pic­ture sinks in de­spite the “en­forced ir­ri­tants”, you will emerge stronger.

When art greets pol­i­tics, it touches the hearts of the peo­ple. When artist Gur­preet Singh from Moga drew your por­trait in Sikh at­tire, the mes­sage from the Sikhs to you and the In­dian scribes was ad­e­quately con­veyed. Whether it will be un­der­stood or will they will con­tinue to haunt you and the Sikhs, time will tell.

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Canada has come a long way since the first Sikhs landed in Canada more than a 100 years ago. Fol­low­ing the foot­steps of your il­lus­tri­ous fa­ther, you, your gov­ern­ment and your coun­try are mak­ing gi­ant strides in un­der­stand­ing the Sikhs, their ethos, cul­ture, re­li­gio-po­lit­i­cal con­cerns and hu­man rights is­sues. We deeply ap­pre­ci­ate that for you -plu­ral­ism, mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism and peo­plekind are not just pet words, but a way of mod­ern life for peace­ful co­ex­is­tence. Please wish and pray that In­dia fol­lows Canada. Adieu!

Yours sin­cerely

Jag­mo­han Singh
Ed­i­tor, The World Sikh News