Stories

A few reservations about Jagmeet Singh

Gaurav Singhmar
September 24, 2017
Justin Trudeau is in such foul odour these days he’s at risk of losing the progressive base he stole from the NDP in 2015. That’s great news for NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, who until recently looked like the deader of the two men walking. But let’s not forget that Singh’s leadership got off to such a rocky start partly because of news stories about his long history of playing footsie with Sikh extremists. Gaurav Singhmar, an Edmonton writer who like Singh has roots in the Punjab, was among the first to do that story on the eve of the 2017 NDP leadership vote.
Stories

A few reservations about Jagmeet Singh

Gaurav Singhmar
September 24, 2017
Justin Trudeau is in such foul odour these days he’s at risk of losing the progressive base he stole from the NDP in 2015. That’s great news for NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, who until recently looked like the deader of the two men walking. But let’s not forget that Singh’s leadership got off to such a rocky start partly because of news stories about his long history of playing footsie with Sikh extremists. Gaurav Singhmar, an Edmonton writer who like Singh has roots in the Punjab, was among the first to do that story on the eve of the 2017 NDP leadership vote.
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter

Last week Canada’s federal New Democratic Party began its multi-ballot process to elect a new leader. Among the top contenders is 38-year-old Jagmeet Singh, a handsome, charismatic, Scarborough-born lawyer noted for his progressive politics, skill in martial arts, and fashionable wardrobe. He served six years in the Ontario legislature as the NDP MPP for Brampton-Gore-Malton before resigning to enter the federal party’s leadership race last spring.

On a foggy day, and with different grooming, I could pass for Jagmeet Singh’s less brilliant kin. I doubt that the distance between the Punjabi villages of our fathers is anything close to that between Edmonton and Red Deer. I am tuned to ring with appreciation for his success. Why am I filled with apprehension instead?

Jagmeet Singh was born in Canada to Indo-Canadian parents in 1979, the year my family emigrated from India. As the country we grew up in celebrates 150 years of independence from British rule, the country our parents left celebrates 70. The political traditions of Canada and India grew out from a shared English root. Since independence both countries have been reliably more democratic than despotic (unlike many former colonial possessions of the West). Both have embraced liberal economics that have yielded impressive results – Canada has a $2 trillion GDP despite its relatively small population, and India currently ranks as the world’s seventh largest economy with a growth rate that consistently exceeds that of China. By their common colonial experience, parliamentary traditions and liberal temperament, Canada and India are natural allies.

Yet one of Jagmeet Singh’s most notable accomplishments as a lawmaker was to initiate a motion in the Ontario legislature last year declaring India a state that committed a genocide. The motion refers to three days in 1984: after two Sikh bodyguards assassinated Indian PM Indira Gandhi the country witnessed a spasm of mob violence not seen since the partition of India – about 3,000 Sikhs lost their lives. The violence was criminal and shameful, and shame accrues especially to the handful of governing party politicians who helped stir up the mob. But 3,000 dead over three days of mob violence – clearly it’s a stretch to call it a genocide.

Gandhi’s killing was inspired by a violent Sikh separatist movement in Punjab that claimed 12,000 lives, mostly moderate Sikhs and non-Sikhs, over a 15-year period before dissipating in 1997. We may compare it to the 10,000 deaths linked to the 30-year separatist turmoil in Northern Ireland. No one in their right mind would call that a genocide committed by the government of the United Kingdom. And clearly it would be unhelpful diplomacy for a government in Canada to declare it as such. What made Jagmeet Singh, at the time a provincial politician with no scope over international matters, undertake his extraordinary motion?

Far more than most Canadians realize, our country was deeply linked to that bitter period in India. The violent fundamentalism in Punjab that sought the formation of an independent state called Khalistan was largely an export from radical Sikh populations in the UK and Canada.

Separatist violence was unknown in Punjab before the 1980s, but extremist myths of a genocidal India were (and still are) nurtured in the hearts of many Canadian and British-born Sikhs by religious bigots.

These myths are a gross distortion of the ethno-cultural reality of India. The reality is that the longest-serving Indian Prime Minister since Indira Gandhi was the much-loved Sikh Manmohan Singh (leader of the party alleged by Jagmeet Singh to be genocidal against Sikhs), and the separatist wave subsided in India 20 ago.

In Canada, however, it remains vital and menacing. A continuous narrative thread connects Canadian support for the original Sikh insurrection to Jagmeet Singh’s 2016 motion in the Ontario legislature. In the middle is the worst terrorist incident in Canadian history. (Of the 268 Canadians who were killed by Sikh terrorists on Air India Flight 182 in 1985, there were 86 children, one of them a little girl from Montreal who had been the best friend of another little girl who later became my wife.) An agenda that seeks the violent dismemberment of a foreign state on theocratic lines connects this story together. Which part of his provincial and progressive mandate did Jagmeet Singh satisfy when he tabled his motion in the Ontario legislature? We might reasonably have expected a progressive politician to condemn extremist violence instead.

Religion is not a decisive factor in my identity. Though my background is not Sikh, I admire Sikhism. As spiritual practice, it is humane, egalitarian, lyrical, and disciplined. I acknowledge Sikhism as a flower of the Indian spiritual traditions. I do not pretend to read the heart of Jagmeet Singh. But the regrettable truth is that many Sikh (and non-Sikh) politicians in Canada bow to the extremist lobby. They attend Khalsa day parades and march alongside Khalistani extremists. Those who call them out face criticism, threats, or worse. After former federal Liberal minister and British Columbia NDP Premier Ujjal Dosanjh (a Sikh, and among the most decent men in Canadian politics) stood up to the extremist lobby in 1985, he was attacked in the street and viciously beaten by a man wielding an iron pipe. If we compare the stand taken by Dosanjh to that taken by Jagmeet Singh, we might wonder about the allegiances, and courage, of the latter.

Earlier this month Jagmeet Singh was rudely assailed during a campaign event by a woman shouting that he is a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood and sharia law. He responded gracefully, offering love and patience to his attacker. A video of the exchange ignited a media outpouring of admiration for his saintly response to ignorance. Lost in the coverage was the fact that she was angry about his opposition to Quebec’s proposed ban on the niqab. Martine Ouellet, madame la cheffe of the Bloc Québécois and a fellow progressive traveler, cut through the soft-focus media swoon and noted Jagmeet Singh’s willingness to put religion before the core principles of democracy – an illustration, she said, of “the rise of the religious left”.

Jagmeet Singh’s 2016 genocide motion did not pass, but a similar one initiated by the Ontario Liberal government passed this year, with his support. No doubt the vote endeared Jagmeet Singh and the Liberals to Sikh extremists with an aggressive old-country agenda. Likewise his opposition to Quebec’s proposed niqab ban probably endears him to orthodox Muslims, and their many defenders among progressives. But as New Democrats ponder who to vote for as their next leader, they should ask themselves whether this man who aspires to be Canada’s prime minister would uphold Canadian principles of tolerance and pluralism, or pander to fundamentalists and extremists nursing ancient grudges at home and abroad.

Love C2C Journal? Here's how you can help us grow.

More for you

Ground Zero in the Culture War, Part II: Descent to Madness

The purpose of great art and literature is to nourish the human spirit on an individual level. Or so Brock Eldon saw it. What he encountered in graduate school at an elite Canadian university was literature warped into a political tool of intimidation and compulsion, debauching even Shakespeare and destroying nearly everything in its path. Eldon watched the descent of PhD students into angry shouting nihilists and the incipient disintegration of a literature department. He descended a long way himself, fearing for his sanity and for civilization. In the second instalment of his nonfiction novella – published here for the first time – Eldon melds his years spent in East Asia, where he found greater intellectual freedom than in Canada, into a penetrating and original take on the Vietnam War’s centrality to the postmodern/neo-Marxist capture of Western culture and institutions. Part I is here.

The Promises and Pitfalls of Bitcoin, and the Looming Threat of a Central Bank Digital Currency

For many Canadians, figuring out the differences between a savings account and chequing account is all the banking knowledge they really want. Understanding how Bitcoin works or what a blockchain does seems overwhelming and irrelevant. Yet knowing your way around these digital banking innovations may soon prove vital to protecting your privacy and pushing back against government overreach. Using the experience of last year’s Freedom Convoy as his guide, Gleb Lisikh explains the nuances of cryptocurrencies, their strengths – and weaknesses – as bulwarks against financial censorship and why the Bank of Canada is suddenly so interested in creating its own cashless currency.

Ground Zero in the Culture War, Part I: Cross-Dressing, Sharing Sticks and Trigger Warnings

Brock Eldon entered Canada’s elite universities a true believer in everything they represented: the integrity of these institutions of higher education, the quality of their professors, the rigour of their scholarship, the purposefulness of their syllabi, and the meaningfulness of the degrees he would earn. He left confused, disillusioned and disgusted. Rebuilding his life in East Asia, Eldon clung to two things: an unshakeable conviction that the truth exists to be discovered – that two plus two really do make four – and a burning determination to tell his story. In the first instalment of his nonfiction novella – published here for the first time – Eldon recounts his youthful faith followed by his first, worrisome encounters with a graduate department in the throes of wokist nihilism.

More from this author

Who Is the Federal NDP Leader?

Jagmeet Singh is soaring in the polls. He seems nice, and millions agree. The man’s depths remain mysterious, however. The federal NDP leader professes devotion to a Sikh doctrine of “oneness” and says he’s driven by the twin imperatives of courage and belonging. Still he declares entire federal parties unfit to be heard in public and half the human race unqualified to speak on certain issues. Using Jagmeet’s autobiography, Love and Courage, as his vehicle, Gaurav Singhmar draws on his deep understanding of Western and Indic thought to perform a layered and nuanced examination of our would-be prime minister.

Share This Story

Donate

Subscribe to the C2C Weekly
It's Free!

* indicates required
Interests
By providing your email you consent to receive news and updates from C2C Journal. You may unsubscribe at any time.