Shun the Khalistan Activists

The tableau eulogizing the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi at the hands of her Sikh security men way back in 1984 marks a new high in the anti-India campaign being run on a sustained basis by activists of the Sikh diaspora in Canada.

The procession ‘celebrating’ the assassination of Mrs Gandhi was organized by an outfit calling itself ‘Sikhs for Justice’ (SFJ) in the Canadian city of Brampton, the largest Sikh population outside Punjab.

An outrageous act, the despicable depiction deserves condemnation in the strongest words and External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has minced no words in conveying to the Canadian government India’s sense of hurt emanating from a country that is home to a sizeable community of Indian immigrants.

Canada, a country which hosts a community of eight lakh adherents of Sikhism, constituting over two per cent of its total population, has been steadfast in ignoring India’s sensitivity to support gathered by so called Khalistani activists in the north American nation.

Khalistan finds no ground support among Sikhs in Punjab and India and the Sikh community is fairly well integrated with the life and development in India. An enterprising community, preponderant majority of Sikhs have never shown even an iota of interest – let alone lending it any support – with the slogan or concept of Khalistan.

Not even the Sikh militants holed up in the Golden Temple under the leadership of Bhindranwale in 1984 had ever referred to it. While the Sikh diaspora in Australia and the United States has occasionally demonstrated flashes of support, Canada remains the only nation where such elements seem to have drawn some support on a continued basis.

It is doubtful if the cause finds some resonance among the Canadian Sikhs as a whole. Yet the egregious supporters have been stoking the embers of Khalistan off and on. While bombing of an Air India plane way back in 1980s by Sikh militants was the earliest manifestations of the hospitable climate for blossoming of militancy, it was in 2002 that propaganda to this effect became the stuff of media. Sanjh Savera, a Punjabi language journal (now a daily) from Toronto, carried an advertisement celebrating Indira Gandhi’s assassination.

The affair got messier as the journal had received Government advertisements. Last year the city of Brampton even had a referendum for ‘Khalistan’ which the organisers alleged received support from one lakh people.

India’s attempt to draw the attention of the Canadian authorities and request to restrain initiatives which encourage such elements on its home soil, have been of no avail. It does not seem the free reign for such elements on Canadian terrain is without some kind of subtle official encouragement.

The critical mass of Sikh population in selected quarters of the North American nation is approaching a votebank proportion and some political parties in the pursuit of wooing them are lending support to such causes which are detrimental to harmonious IndoCanadian ties.

It will be imperative for the Canadian authorities to ignore such propagandists and desist from offering them any official support.