Sikhs’ feelings mixed about would-be federal NDP leader
The front-runner for leader of the federal New Democratic Party receives decidedly mixed reviews from fellow Sikhs in British Columbia, where he has signed up more than 10,000 new party members.
In the Canadian province with the most followers of the religion, prominent Sikhs appreciate Jagmeet Singh is an accomplished lawyer and speaker, but they question what they see as his over-emphasis on his religious and ethnic identity, his evasiveness on the Sikh separatist movement and his attempt to “out-Trudeau Justin Trudeau” with style over substance.
Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Shinder Purewal and talkshow host Harjit Singh Gill also warn the charismatic, fashionsavvy politician from Brampton, Ont., may be trying to win the NDP leadership by leaning too heavily on “bulk voting” among the more than 500,000 Sikhs who live in certain cities across the country.
“My concern is too many Sikhs have signed up as NDP members because of Singh’s Punjabi identity and because he’s a baptized Sikh. They should instead be deciding whether to vote for him on his values,” said Gill, host of a popular Punjabi- and Englishlanguage radio talk show at 1550 AM.
Purewal, a political scientist, said, “My observation is that Singh is heavily relying on Sikh ethnic votes in Surrey, Brampton and Calgary to win the NDP leadership race.”
If Singh is chosen leader on the first NDP ballot, which opens Monday and closes Oct. 1, Purewal said the Ontario provincial politician will have the disadvantage of appearing beholden to “a few regional constituencies with one dominant ethnic community,” which can create a sense of illegitimacy among other Canadian voters.
Former federal Liberal cabinet minister Ujjal Dosanjh believes both Singh and the mostly flattering North America mainstream media have over-emphasized the candidate’s “exotic” religious identity, since he wears brightly coloured turbans and carries a ceremonial knife, called a kirpan.
“I find he’s highlighting his faith more than anything else. Do we talk about (NDP candidate) Charlie Angus’ religion? Or Justin Trudeau’s? I don’t know if Singh is conscious of it, but he seems to play to it. All this focus on his religion distracts from learning about things he stands for.”
Purewal worries about how both Trudeau and Singh come across as “Vanity Fair” politicians, who sacrifice policy clarity to emphasize their good looks, appeal to identity politics and offer feel-good messages about universal love.
“Jagmeet Singh didn’t come into the limelight for defending social-democratic issues … but because he appeared in fashion shows and made the cover of fashion magazines,” said Purewal, a former B.C. citizenship court judge who ran unsuccessfully for the federal Liberals in 2011.
Although Purewal appreciates Singh is an accomplished lawyer, he considers him “a model with a turban and three-piece suits who utters pleasant words on each politically correct position. If Singh wins we’ll have (along with Trudeau) two modern vanity politicians vying for the front pages of glamour magazines, while Canadians struggle with their economic and social lives.”
Dosanjh liked the way Singh recently handled an irate heckler, in a video viewed by more than 35 million people. But the former B.C. premier wants more clarity from Singh on important, contentious issues.
Dosanjh finds Singh “evasive,” for instance, about whether he supports Sikh separatists who want to create a theocracy in Khalistan, in the Punjab region of India. As a lawyer, Singh has a history of defending militants fighting for a separate Sikh homeland, said Dosanjh, who noted India has refused to give Singh a visa because of it.
When asked about Khalistan, Singh acknowledges he supports “the right to self-determination,” Dosanjh said. But the former B.C. politician noted most social democrats are secularists who have no interest in a theocratic state.
Singh has also alienated some NDP supporters, particularly in Quebec, by giving unqualified support to Muslim women who insist on the right to wear the face-covering niqab during a Canadian citizenship ceremony.
Because of Singh’s religious orthodoxy, Gill, the radio host, said the would-be NDP leader had no choice but to endorse Shariah law and niqabs.
“If he didn’t support the niqab, then other people would say, ‘You have to stop wearing your turban,’” said Gill, who estimated about 30 per cent of Sikh males in Canada are “orthodox” followers who wear turbans.
The talk-show host, who himself wears a turban, is concerned many Canadian Sikhs are turning a “blind eye” to Singh’s policies and just endorsing him because he belongs to their identity group, as they have done for Sikh Liberal politicians.
Many Sikhs in Canada are like Singh, said Gill. Sometimes they say they are proud to be part of “mainstream Canada,” but at other times they are like the NDP leadership hopeful — emphasizing their Sikh identity and stressing they’ve been victims of discrimination.
Since Gill has never been personally subjected to racism in his decades in Canada, he thinks anti-Sikh discrimination is rare in the country.
That’s one reason he’d prefer Singh highlight his values and policies, rather than his religious and ethnic identity.