Canadian PM’s trip puts spotlight on Sikh separatism

NEW DELHI: As the eight-day visit by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to India concluded on Saturday, it has attracted much criticism, some ridicule, adjectives like “disaster”, “joke”, “fiasco”, snarky memes and cartoons, in the mainstream Canadian media.

But observers believe that one positive by-product of the coverage was that the issue of Sikh separatism on Canadian soil may have permeated into mainstream Canadian consciousness.

Normally, Canadian media hardly pays any attention to resurgent Sikh separatism despite its violent history in that country. But Trudeau’s India trip helped serve as a vehicle for informing them. That message was driven home forcefully as the controversy over the dinner reception invitation at the Canadian High Commission in Delhi to a person once convicted for attempting to assassinate a Punjab minister in the 1980s.

Among the most articulate commentators to appear, including CBC, the national broadcaster, was former British Columbia premier Ujjal Dosanjh, who himself survived a murderous assault allegedly carried out by Atwal in 1985. Dosanjh said, “I think it’s a good thing. Previously, most Canadians didn’t think there was anything wrong, they didn’t know what was happening.” Vishnu Prakash, former Indian envoy to Ottawa concurred: “Awareness about the Khalistani issue and that the separatists were being afforded a platform, was rather limited...”