Sikhs in Canada call for a referendum on Khalistan's independence
Sikhs for Justice plan to hold a second vote on 6 November, raising concerns in India about what it calls "anti-Indian" activities. Sikhs in Canada are only half a million but they exert great influence. The Indian diaspora is not insulated from politics in the old country.
Rome (AsiaNews) – Relations between Canada and India are tense and are expected to be so for a while, at least until 6 November, when a referendum on Khalistan’s referendum is scheduled to take place, organised by Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), a separatist group banned in India in 2019.
India recently asked Canada to stop and speak out against the referendum, noting that the two countries had previously agreed not to allow their territory to be used for activities detrimental to the security of the other nation.
This is not the first time that the Indian government has asked Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to act. On 19 September about 100,000 people took part in a vote in Brampton, Ontario, also organised by the SFJ, which called for the independence of India’s Punjab state and the creation of a Sikh nation state called Khalistan.
The Indian government warned its Canadian counterpart of growing anti-Indian forces in the North American country, but Canadian authorities responded by saying that they would not stop people from expressing their views through a democratic process.
“Once there is a consensus within the Punjabi people that independence from India is desired, we [Sikhs for Justice] will then approach the UN and other international forms and bodies with the goal of re-establishing Punjab as a nation state,” the SFJ website says.
Following the referendum, India issued an advisory for its citizens travelling to Canada to remain vigilant amid a “sharp increase in hate crimes and anti-India activities”.
A few days later the Canadian Foreign Ministry responded by asking its citizens to avoid going to India because of the threat of “terrorist attacks throughout the country ".
Diplomatic bickering aside, the Sikh independence movement is also active in India. For its part, Canada has already said that it will not recognise the referendums organised by the SFJ.
Sikhs are quite visible in Canada. India’s lower house of parliament, the Lok Sabha, has only 13 Sikh members out of 543, while 18 were elected in 2019 to the Canadian House of Commons out of 338.
Punjabi is the third most spoken language in Canada after English and French. But the Sikh community in Canada numbers around half a million or 1.4 per cent of the population. In 2001 they were 0.9 per cent and 0.7 per cent in 1996.
Between 2006 and 2016, the community grew by over 36 per cent thanks to a steady flow of new immigrants but their political influence is due to strong cultural cohesion and organisational capacity rather than large numbers.
In Canada, a candidate to be nominated by their party needs to recruit actual voters in their and the party’s support.
Sikh networking is very strong because for them the political process begins at the local level with the election to Sikh temple (Gurdwara) councils. Within the Sikh minority, Khalistanis are a minority.
In 2018, Canadian intelligence added Punjabi separatists among the top five domestic terrorist threats after Islamist fundamentalism and far-right groups.
Two Sikh organisations (Babbar Khalsa International and the International Sikh Youth Federation) have been banned in Canada but so far domestic violence has remained limited.
In the days leading up to the SFJ referendum in Brampton, Khalistan extremists were blamed for vandalism against a Hindu temple in Toronto covered in "anti-Indian" graffiti, over which the Indian High Commission in Canada expressed strong concerns.
Canada is not the only place where interethnic relations are an issue. Clashes broke out last month between Muslims and Hindus in Leicester, United Kingdom after the two communities coexisted peacefully for years.
Indians abroad have been influenced by social media, sparking sectarian tensions that threaten to explode at any moment.
Now the question is whether tensions will also rise in Canada. What is certain is that the Indian diaspora, the largest in the world, is not immune to sectarian and religious divisions back in the old country.
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