Weary of in­creased for­eign in­ter­fer­ence in the wake of Canada’s Indo-Pa­cific Strat­egy, the World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Canada has urged their gov­ern­ment not to suc­cumb to In­dian pres­sure and pho­bia about Sikhs up­hold­ing their civil and po­lit­i­cal rights and not to com­pro­mise hu­man rights at the al­tar of eco­nomic part­ner­ship with In­dia or any other coun­try.

The tus­sle be­tween eco­nomic growth and re­spect for hu­man rights has trav­elled from In­dia to Canada through In­di­a’s pho­bia of Sikh rights ad­vo­cacy in the coun­try which is grad­u­ally be­com­ing a sec­ond home for Sikhs and Pun­jabis.

The Indo-Pa­cific Strat­egy of Canada is aimed at ex­pand­ing the hori­zons of op­por­tu­nity for Canada in this 40-coun­try fo­rum. Canada’s strate­gic con­sid­er­a­tion is that “The Indo-Pa­cific is rapidly be­com­ing the global cen­tre of eco­nomic dy­namism and strate­gic chal­lenge. Every is­sue that mat­ters to Cana­di­ans—in­clud­ing our na­tional se­cu­rity, eco­nomic pros­per­ity, re­spect for in­ter­na­tional law, de­mo­c­ra­tic val­ues, pub­lic health, pro­tect­ing our en­vi­ron­ment, the rights of women and girls and hu­man rights—will be shaped by the re­la­tion­ships Canada and its al­lies and part­ners have with Indo-Pa­cific coun­tries.”

With this in mind, the gov­ern­ment of Canada 27 No­vem­ber 2022 launched the Indo-Pa­cific strat­egy which is in­tended to in­crease en­gage­ment in the re­gion and in­cludes an in­vest­ment of $2.3 bil­lion over the next five years.

Canada-based World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion, in a state­ment, has ac­knowl­edged that in­creased trade and en­gage­ment in the Indo-Pa­cific is an im­por­tant goal. Still, it has also cau­tioned that such an en­gage­ment can­not come at the ex­pense of ba­sic hu­man rights and free­doms.

The WSO state­ment reads that “Sikhs in Canada are weary of in­creased in­ter­fer­ence and co­er­cion by In­dia aimed at mar­gin­al­is­ing and si­lenc­ing Sikh ad­vo­cacy.”

Soon af­ter the an­nounce­ment of Canada’s Indo-Pa­cific strat­egy, In­di­a’s newly ap­pointed High Com­mis­sioner to Canada, San­jay Ku­mar Verma, said “Canada must crack down on “seg­ments of the Sikh com­mu­nity in Canada [that] are of­fer­ing sup­port and money to se­ces­sion­ists who want to sep­a­rate Pun­jab from In­dia.”

This is “bla­tant in­ter­fer­ence” in Cana­dian af­fairs and In­dia has al­ways been wary of such in­ter­fer­ence by other coun­tries in In­dian af­fairs. And this is noth­ing new.

Indo-Cana­dian bi­lat­eral meet­ings have be­come an op­por­tu­nity for In­dian au­thor­i­ties to raise the bo­gey of “pro-Khal­is­tan rad­i­cal­ism”.

The WSO state­ment ex­plains the con­cept by say­ing, “Khal­is­tan refers to a sov­er­eign state gov­erned in ac­cor­dance with Sikh prin­ci­ples and val­ues. Khal­is­tan is a con­struct un­der­stood in dif­fer­ent ways and is a source of ro­bust dis­course and de­bate amongst Sikhs world­wide. Dis­cus­sion or pro­mo­tion of Khal­is­tan falls within rec­og­nized free­doms of ex­pres­sion and po­lit­i­cal dis­course.”

The fear psy­chosis of In­dia has reached its peak as “In­dia has re­peat­edly tried to pres­sure Canada to si­lence Sikh ad­vo­cacy and have used tac­tics such as the con­tin­ued sus­pen­sion of E-Visas for Cana­dian cit­i­zens wish­ing to visit In­dia, de­spite the E-Visa sys­tem be­ing avail­able to other coun­tries such as the USA, France and Mex­ico. Wait times for Cana­dian cit­i­zens ap­ply­ing for In­dian Visas are cur­rently four to six weeks. Ten-year visas pre­vi­ously is­sued to Cana­dian cit­i­zens also re­main sus­pended, de­spite hav­ing been re­stored for cit­i­zens of most other coun­tries,” al­leges WSO.

De­spite the fact that Sikhs fol­low a par­tic­u­lar ap­proach which falls within Cana­dian law and the Cana­dian Char­ter of Rights and Free­doms, In­di­a’s High Com­mis­sioner to Canada has con­tin­ued to in­sist that In­dia will “talk about the il­le­gal­ity of such processes, the il­le­gal­ity of such move­ments based out of the ge­og­ra­phy of Canada.”

“It needs to be re­stated that even dur­ing the In­dian Farmer protests that took place in the fall of 2021, in an of­fi­cial diplo­matic note ob­tained by the WSO through a free­dom of in­for­ma­tion re­quest to the Peel Dis­trict School Board, the Con­sulate Gen­eral of In­dia urged On­tar­i­o’s Of­fice of In­ter­na­tional Re­la­tions and Pro­to­col to in­ves­ti­gate di­a­logue about the on­go­ing protest of pre­dom­i­nantly Sikh farm­ers in In­dia and stop teach­ers in the Greater Toronto Area from giv­ing lessons on these protests. The In­dian con­sulate claimed such ma­te­r­ial could threaten re­la­tions be­tween In­dia and Canada.”

Canada will seek new op­por­tu­ni­ties to part­ner and en­gage in di­a­logue in ar­eas of com­mon in­ter­est and val­ues, in­clud­ing se­cu­rity, and the pro­mo­tion of democ­racy, plu­ral­ism and hu­man rights.”

“In­dia has used every bi­lat­eral meet­ing be­tween Canada and In­dia over the past decade as an op­por­tu­nity to ma­lign and mar­gin­al­ize Sikhs in Canada.”

Tejin­der Singh Sidhu, Pres­i­dent, World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Canada

Mak­ing a scathing at­tack on the In­dian at­tempt to ex­ert pres­sure on Canada, WSO Pres­i­dent Tejin­der Singh Sidhu said, “In­dia has used every bi­lat­eral meet­ing be­tween Canada and In­dia over the past decade as an op­por­tu­nity to ma­lign and mar­gin­al­ize Sikhs in Canada. This has in­cluded the pro­mo­tion of false nar­ra­tives such as al­le­ga­tions of ris­ing ex­trem­ism in the com­mu­nity and now, the fund­ing of the se­ces­sion­ist move­ment in Pun­jab by Cana­dian Sikhs. No ac­tual ev­i­dence has ever been pro­vided by In­dia to sub­stan­ti­ate these claims. They are in­tended solely to cre­ate sus­pi­cion and mar­gin­al­ize the Sikh com­mu­nity in the Cana­dian main­stream.”

In a strong note to the Cana­dian po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship, WSO has cat­e­gor­i­cally stated that “Rather than al­low­ing In­dia to bully voices in Canada crit­i­cal of its de­te­ri­o­rat­ing hu­man rights record and the plight of mi­nori­ties in the coun­try, Canada must press In­dia for ac­count­abil­ity and de­mand that it meet its hu­man rights oblig­a­tions in ac­cor­dance with in­ter­na­tional law.”

“In­dia must be told in no un­cer­tain terms that it can­not in­ter­fere in the ac­tiv­i­ties of Cana­dian Sikhs in Canada. While it may dis­agree with those who ad­vo­cate for is­sues such as Khal­is­tan, such ex­pres­sion is pro­tected by the Cana­dian Char­ter and In­dia has no busi­ness at­tempt­ing to in­ter­fere in that right.”