time-to-engage-with-indian-origin-canadian-mps

Twenty-two of 343, more than six percent, Members of Parliament in Canada’s House of Commons are of Indian origin. Most of them are Punjabis, who have influence across the party lines. Of the 22 MPs, 11 each are from the ruling Liberal Party and the principal opposition Conservative Party.

 

In the outgoing parliament, the number of Indian origin MPs was 17. It has increased by five, the New Democratic Party leader Jagdeep Singh’s crushing defeat from Burnaby Central riding, where he came a poor third behind the Liberal and the Conservative candidates.

 

While there is a widespread perception of the Liberal Party pandering too much to the Sikh radical and extremist elements, in reality, all the parties have been doing that. Even in the Conservative party, the Punjabi-origin leaders have, from time to time, played up the Sikh radical sentiments to outdo the Liberal Party and the NDP.

 

While the NDP was supposed to represent the radical left, under Jagmeet Singh’s leadership it was seen as encouraging radicalism. One of the main reasons for former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s going extra step to pander to the Sikh radicals was growing influence of the NDP with Jagmeet as the president, over the Sikh community which was traditionally seen as supporting the Liberal Party. Both the Liberal Party and the NDP entered into a competition to outdo each other to win the support of radical Sikhs, who are believed to hold a lot of influence among the community.

 

With Jagmeet Singh out of the picture, having resigned as president of the NDP after losing from his own riding, besides the party’s dismal performance under his leadership, the Liberal Party will not need to take extreme positions to overcome the competition to win the “Sikh constituency”. The fact that the majority of those who had voted for the NDP in 2021, opted for the Liberal Party this time, suggests a major shift in the thinking of the Sikh voters.

 

Majority of those Indian/ Punjabi origin MPs elected to the parliament have, in the past, mostly taken a belligerent, rather hostile position towards India. Most of these MPs belong to a particular generation of Punjabis who left India under very difficult circumstances. Punjab was burning that time. There were killings by militants and the police. There was 'Operation Bluestar' and then there was the assassination of the then prime minister Indira Gandhi, at the hands of her own Sikh bodyguards, followed by massacre of innocent Sikhs in Delhi and several other places across the country.

 

This generation has not been able to come out of that “frozen timeframe” and the “persecution complex”. No matter how much Punjab has changed, no matter how much the situation has normalised and no matter that the culprits of the crimes against the community have been or are being brought to book, the deep sense of hurt, persecution and grievance persists among those who left at that time.

 

Not only those who got elected to the federal parliament and provincial legislative assemblies, even the common people who migrated out of India during the 1980s are still trapped in the same time frame. A large number of those people had got “political asylum” there, on the basis of which they have become Canadian citizens. They believed that they had reason to be hostile towards India. And this belief is still reflected in “Sikh parades” and protests against the Government of India and attacks on Indian diplomatic missions.

 

The things are further complicated by increased interest by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Added to that is the unbridled and unidentified influence of social media, where fake handles add fuel to the fire.

 

There has been a grave lapse on part of the successive governments in India till 2014 as none of them bothered to reach out to these people. Except for token interactions with a select few, no Indian leader bothered to meet or reach out to the strong, powerful and influential diaspora settled in Canada. Everything was left to the “babus” posted in the diplomatic missions.

 

Over a period, this diaspora assumed powerful influence in Canadian politics. Irrespective of who would be in power in Canada, whether the Liberals or the Conservatives, the Punjabi diaspora will continue to wield the same power as is evident from the fact that there are eleven Punjabi origin MPs each in the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party.

 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been closely associated with Punjab, as he has remained the BJP’s state in-charge for a long time. He has extensively studied Punjab, its history and culture. No wonder he has often gone out of way to reach out to the Sikh community including the Sikh diaspora. There has been strong resistance against him, which is obviously orchestrated by those who do not want the relationship between India and the Sikh diaspora to get better.

 

During the last 11 years, the government of India at different levels has started engagement with the Sikh diaspora. However, it went off track last year when the former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, for his domestic and “in house” political compulsions dragged India into the killing of a Khalistan activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada. Not only did this lead to resentment among the Sikh diaspora against India, it led to the diplomatic relations between India and Canada, so far two friendly democracies, touching their nadir.

 

Now the effort has to be mutual. It is an irony that a country, which has twenty-two Indian origin MPs has practically snapped all diplomatic relations with India. Ideally this should suggest very warm and friendly relations between the two countries. But it is completely otherwise. The Indian origin MPs will need to understand and appreciate that they should stop pandering to the “anti-India” sentiment that is fanned by a few vested interests. They need to understand and realise that it is no longer the India of the 1980s, but an India of the twenty-first century. They have a chance to be the ambassadors of the great country they or their ancestors belonged to. 

 

Those promoting and encouraging hatred and hostility towards India in Canada must think and introspect that what do they get out of it? They only create or add to the bitterness. The visuals of turbaned people disrespecting the Indian tricolour or burning the effigies of the Indian Prime Minister only causes bad blood among people in India, who see no reason for such acts. In fact, there is no reason actually. 

 

Also read: India must turn US sympathy into strategic support

 

Now that a powerful political class of Indian/Punjabi origin is firmly in the saddle in Canadian politics, it needs to play a positive and constructive role in building good, healthy and friendly relations with India. Keeping aside their Indian origin and roots, they should be engaging with the world's largest democracy and help in improving the relations between the two countries and not become the reason for further deterioration of such relations. After all India and Canada do not have any conflict of interest of any sort. The two countries can mutually benefit each other with close cooperation.

 

The time has come for the powerful Indian diaspora living in Canada, now represented by a strong voice of twenty-two MPs in the Canadian parliament, to look ahead and look forward and help in strengthening friendly ties with the country they have their roots in. For sure, there will be equal reciprocation from the people here including those in power.

 

Let us look forward to better times for multi-dimensional Indo-Canadian relations.