National Post (National Edition)
SIKH SEPARATISM RE-EMERGES AS A FLASHPOINT
Since literally his first day on the job as head of the New Democratic Party, Jagmeet Singh has been dogged by questions about his position on Sikh separatism — and videos that resurfaced this week of his appearances with Sikh separatists have caused the rookie leader more headaches.
The issue has long simmered in the background of Canadian politics but with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s widely criticized trip to India and Singh’s arrival as the first Sikh party leader, it’s once again taken centre stage.
Here’s what you need to know about the Khalistan movement and how it has influenced Canadian politics.
It’s a movement that aspires to create an independent Sikh state — called Khalistan — in the Punjab region of India.
Sikh separatism has been active since the 1940s, but the issue reached a boiling point in the 1980s with some extremist factions committing assassinations, bombings and retaliatory killings. Since then, separatist support has appeared to be in decline in India, but the issue remains a flashpoint — especially in some quarters in Canada, where in 1985 it inspired the deadliest terror attack in Canadian history: the Sikh militant group Babbar Khalsa’s bombing of Air India Flight 182, which killed all 329 people aboard.
The investigation and prosecutions that followed the bombing lasted nearly two decades, and a public inquiry into the attack then lasted from 2006 until 2010.
Meanwhile, some Sikhs have complained that in India and in Canada, all Sikh Canadians are seen as separatists, and that all separatists are considered extremists.
WHY IS JAGMEET SINGH BEING ASKED ABOUT THIS NOW?
In the early days of his leadership, Singh had been slow to denounce posters honouring Talwinder Singh Parmar, the mastermind of the Air India bombing. In a controversial appearance on CBC’s Power and Politics show, Singh said he didn’t know who was responsible for the Air India bombing “but I think we need to find out who’s truly responsible.”
Then on Wednesday, the Globe and Mail published a story about Singh’s presence at a San Francisco rally where some speakers called for an independent Khalistan.
The next day, National Post wrote about a February 2016 video of Singh speaking at an event organized by the U.K.-based National Sikh Youth Federation, a group that advocates for an independent Khalistan, titled Sovereignty and Polity.
One of the other speakers was Shamsher Singh, who had said “if you want selfdetermination, you’re going to have to take up arms … and that’s the only route to independence.”
HOW HAS SINGH RESPONDED THIS WEEK? WHAT IS THE KHALISTAN MOVEMENT?
In an interview with the Post Thursday, Singh changed his tune, saying he accepted the Air India Inquiry report’s findings that Parmar, and others, were responsible for the bombing.
That interview followed a 500-word statement posted to the NDP’s website in which Singh condemned terrorism generally, but that also explored some longstanding Sikh grievances.
Throughout his career — and again in this week’s statement— Singh has invoked the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in India sparked by the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by two of her Sikh bodyguards.
Retaliatory attacks killed thousands of Sikhs; the Indian government estimates nearly 3,000 Sikhs were killed, with independent estimates going as high as 8,000. Last year the Ontario legislature endorsed a private member’s motion from Liberal MPP Harinder Malhi — a motion Singh supported — describing the riots as “genocide.”
“Sadly, the pain and trauma of those events could not be left behind in their country of origin,” Singh said in this week’s statement. “...this is not a simple or easy process, but attempts to oversimplify these experiences will not advance the cause of reconciliation.”
Singh says he deplores violence, but supports the idea of “self-determination” in general, mentioning independence movements in Quebec and Catalonia.