Opinion Express View on pro-Khalistan ‘freedom rally’ in Toronto: Ramping up noise

Much before the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers in New York became the defining image of terrorism and Osama bin Laden its face, the biggest terrorist attack in North America was the June 1985 bombing of Kanishka, Air India’s Flight 182 from Toronto to London, killing all 329 passengers and crew aboard. Most of those who perished in the attack were Canadian citizens. In large part due to sloppy investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, members of the Babbar Khalsa International, held to be the perpetrators, went unpunished, the last of them, bomb-maker Inderjit Singh Reyat walking free in 2017. But Ottawa and Canada’s provincial governments remain sanguine in the face of what is clearly an effort by radical groups such as Sikhs for Justice to ramp up the noise. Canada’s liberal immigration policies have kept its doors open to large numbers of immigrants from every corner of the globe. This is commendable in a world where the words immigrant and refugee have turned into terms of abuse. Most of the large Sikh community that has made Canada its home is peace-loving and law-abiding.

But a vociferous extremist fringe comprising radical groups has hijacked the agenda. Promotional posters for a planned pro-Khalistan “freedom rally” in Toronto on July 8 openly threaten violence against Indian diplomats posted in Canada. This is unacceptable, and Canadian law enforcing authorities cannot pass this off as a free speech issue. The summons by the Ministry of External Affairs to the Canadian High Commissioner to India over this latest Khalistani outrage come a month after a milder rebuke from External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar last month for a float depicting the assassination of Indira Gandhi in a Toronto parade taken out by members of the Sikh community to mark the anniversary of the 1984 storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar. He attributed the Canadian tolerance for Khalistani elements to “vote bank” politics. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is dependent for his government’s survival on well-known Khalistani propagandist Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the New Democratic Party.

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It is no coincidence that ever since the campaign began some five years ago for the so-called “Referendum 2020” in countries such as Canada, the US, Australia and the UK, where large Sikh diasporas reside, Punjab has witnessed an uptick in pro-Khalistan activities. It is true that the sudden emergence of Amritpal Singh in Punjab as a self-styled Khalistani leader in the mould of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale pointed to several failures of Punjab’s political elites to address economic and social challenges that plague the state. But what is happening in Canada is adding to the security concerns in Punjab. It is time that the Canadian government took this seriously, else bilateral ties, which the two sides are trying to boost, are bound to be affected.