A MIGHTY MINORITY
As leader of a political party, four Sikh ministers, a Sikh as the premier of a province: how did the community acquire such formidable political clout in Canada?
Sikhs have had a presence in Canada for nearly 110 years, but their involvement in the North American nation’s politics has been briefer: After 40 years of being denied the vote, they were enfranchised in 1947, about a month after India gained independence and that event was certainly a factor as Ottawa wanted to forge amicable relations with the Jawaharlal Nehru-led government.
Seven decades after gaining that right, the community marked a historic high on October 1 this year as 38-year-old Jagmeet Singh, member of the Ontario Provincial Parliament became the first visible minority, not to mention the first person of Indian origin and Sikh heritage, to take the reins of a major federal party, the New Democratic Party (NDP). At his victory event in a Toronto hotel ballroom, the nearly 500-strong crowd, almost half of whom were Sikhs, burst into raucous cheers as the young politician, known for his immaculate wardrobe, style and proudly wearing a turban, garnered over 50 per cent of the approximately 66,000 votes cast in a multipolar contest.
As an analysis in the daily Toronto Star noted, in the early 1900s, a leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, precursor to the NDP, had once said the community was “sadly out of place” in the country. More than a century later, that past of discrimination and demonisation has given way to a demonstration of the community’s political chops.
This isn’t the first time the NDP, traditionally the third party in Canadian politics and one that has never held power federally, has played a part in Sikhs making history in Canada. The first Sikh to be elected to a provincial assembly was Munmohan Singh Sihota in 1986 when he won a mandate in British Columbia (BC). Sihota went on to become the first Sikh minister in a provincial Cabinet in 1991. Nine years later, Ujjal Dosanjh became the first Sikh Premier of BC.
WHAT AIDS THE RISE?
Curiously enough, even though in the United States Dalip Singh Saund entered the House of Representatives from a California district in 1957, the level of political success Sikhs are enjoying in Canada with four members in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Cabinet and now Jagmeet Singh’s emergence, is unparalleled elsewhere in the world.
A number of factors contribute to this phenomenon. Among them is Canada’s much-vaunted liberal tradition, and as Nelson Wiseman, professor of political science at University of Toronto puts it, a “fairly open” system. Shachi Kurl, executive director of the opinion research foundation, Angus Reid Institute, seconds that sentiment: “To this point, Canadians have very much taken the principle everyone is equal very much to heart.” In a late June survey, Angus Reid found that 96 per cent of Canadians would vote for a woman for Prime Minister, and 85 per cent for a gay person; while the corresponding numbers of American preferences for their President were 90 and 63 per cent.
Curiously though, the numbers for those supporting a person wearing a religious head covering are fairly similar – 56 per cent in Canada and 53 per cent in the US. Five days after Jagmeet Singh was elected NDP leader, the Institute found that “seven-in-ten Canadians are saying they themselves would consider voting for a national party leader who wears a turban and carries a kirpan.” Such tolerance, though, isn’t quite evident in the Francophone province of Quebec, where overt religious attire is frowned upon.
BEYOND LIBERALISM
The extreme right, which remains outside Canada’s political mainstream, is obviously averse to such developments. During a meet in Brampton in September, one woman, Jennifer Bush, accused Singh of promoting Sharia, in a video that went viral. Rise Canada, a group that is apparently ‘Defending the Rights of all True Canadians’, states that “other threats include fundamentalist Sikh influences.” At this time, the NDP is a distant third in polling for federal power, and how this dynamic will play out if Singh gains steam closer to the 2019 elections, will be a test of the Canadian platform of plurality.
Dosanjh, who was a product of India’s secular democracy, doesn’t take kindly to the Sikh label. As he says, “It’s part of me, but it doesn’t define me.” But he believes among the principal reason for the community’s rapid rise in Canada is “the system of choosing candidates.” In Britain, a party presidium elects candidates, while in America, primaries matter. In Canada, it is the party’s convention, of the sort Jagmeet Singh mastered. “The elites in parties don’t have too much control. In that sense, Canada provides a very democratic setup,” he says.
Shinder Purewal, professor of political science at the Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Surrey, BC, agrees, “Here, in an electoral district, a party will allow you to recruit members and you can go basically among your own ethnic, religious, national minority members who are known to you and through extended family networks, you can make members. And bring them to a nomination meeting.” Not surprisingly, Jagmeet Singh’s campaign had signed up 47,000 new members out of the 124,000 that were eligible to vote in the leadership race. Finally, he received over 35,000 votes, nearly thrice the number commanded by the runner-up.
The attraction Sikhs have for politics is mutual. As Wiseman says, “We’ve moved to a system where the parties don’t really