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The struggles in Punjab, the birthplace of the Sikh religion that traditionally straddled an space now cut up by the border between Pakistan and India, has been mired in many years of violence, political chaos and migration which have now enmeshed Canada, a nation 1000’s of miles away.
Canada’s place in the midst of tensions surrounding the Khalistan motion, which helps the creation of an unbiased state in Punjab for members of the Sikh religion, got here into sharp focus this week following revelations that India could have been concerned within the assassination of a outstanding Sikh separatist in British Columbia.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau advised the nation’s Parliament on Monday that there have been “credible allegations” that Indian brokers have been concerned within the killing in June of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a supporter of the Khalistan motion and a pacesetter within the Sikh group. India denies the fees. The allegation follows many years of developments which have additional pulled Canada within the dispute.
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Within the 1900s, the primary main wave of Sikhs, the vast majority of whom have been males, moved to Canada, principally to work as laborers — logging in British Columbia and manufacturing in Ontario, stated Sardar Harjeet Singh Grewal, who teaches within the division of classics and faith on the College of Calgary.
Destabilization caused by partition, the 1947 splitting of India and Pakistan after the top of British colonial rule, additional strengthened the emigration of Sikhs from Punjab, he stated.
Although Sikhs additionally moved to Britain, Australia and the US, they’ve been significantly drawn to Canada due to “parallel worth programs,” he stated.
“Sikhs see probably the most semblance of connection to what Canada represents,” Grewal added, noting that there’s now a secondary migration of Sikhs from Britain to Canada. Among the parts drawing Sikhs to Canada embody an emphasis on humanity and equality, he stated.
Canada is now house to the most important Sikh inhabitants outdoors of India, with about 770,000 individuals who reported Sikhism as their faith in a 2021 census. Whereas that pales compared to the 22 million Sikhs in India, principally within the northern state of Punjab, Canada has a a lot smaller inhabitants, in order that at 2.1 %, the Sikhs make up a bigger portion than in India, the place they’re simply 1.7 % of the populace.
Neilesh Bose, an affiliate professor and Canada analysis chair on the College of Victoria in British Columbia, additionally famous that whereas Sikhs are a small minority in India, they comprise a big portion of the South Asians in Canada. That has contributed to an outsize prominence of Sikhs in how Canadians understand South Asia, he stated.
These perceptions confronted a jolt in 1985, when a bomb went off on an Air India flight from Canada to India by way of Britain; the explosion off the coast of Eire killed the 329 individuals on board. A Sikh extremist was convicted in connection to the bombing.
“After that second, any public dialogue about Sikhs, any Sikh politician … would all the time be requested about their potential linkages to any terrorist teams or to Khalistan, which coloured how they have been understood in a approach that didn’t happen earlier than that,” Bose stated.
Nevertheless, not all Sikhs help the separatist motion, and never all supporters of the Khalistan motion consider in the usage of extremist techniques to press for a Sikh state.
And although the occasion has drawn comparisons to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist assaults in the US, the Air India bombing didn’t set off a dynamic of bigotry towards Sikhs in Canada as excessive because the one inflicted on Muslims (and a few Sikhs) in the US after 9/11, he stated.
At present, Sikhs maintain a outstanding place in Canadian society and politics. The pinnacle of the New Democratic Occasion, Jagmeet Singh, is Sikh. He has been outspoken concerning the therapy of Sikhs in India, and was denied a visa to go to the nation in 2013, allegedly due to his public statements.
Trudeau made historical past in 2015 when he named 4 Sikhs to his cupboard, greater than the 2 Sikh members of India’s cupboard on the time, which Trudeau reportedly bragged about.