Given the urgency of the issue it is time to sound the alarm bells and challenge the hypocrisy, if not duplicity of the Canadian government and its leader. Some days ago, the Khalistani extremist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun made an extraordinary statement.
He advised Sikhs not to board any Air India flight on 19 November, 2023, or after, going so far as to suggest that plans were afoot to blow up a plane belonging to the airline on that day, which incidentally also happens to be the day of the 2023 World Cup Cricket final.
Even more extraordinary than Pannun’s statement was the deafening silence on the part of Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. Neither Trudeau nor the Canadian government came forward with any proposed action against the Khalistanis, let alone stepping forward to arrest Pannun. Canadian media too is silent on the issue. It could have been argued that it is best to ignore statements made by ‘crazy’ people were it not for the fact that more than twenty-five years ago, in 1995, the Khalistanis carried out an attack on an Air India flight. It came to be known as the Kanishka bombing case and resulted in the death of all three hundred and twenty-nine passengers.
Why does Pannun want to bomb an Air India flight while trying to ensure simultaneously that there are no Sikhs on board? It is because he knows no Sikh in India is willing to buy into his toxic narrative. Time is a great healer and vestigial anger over the 1984 riots notwithstanding, there is no one more loyal to the nation than the Indian Sikh. As the journalist Shekhar Gupta puts it, Sikhs may have ninety-nine demands but Khalistan is not one of them.
Yet there is method behind Pannu’s apparent ‘madness.’ Let us consider, for a moment, that an Air India plane is bombed. What would be the potential consequences? Unless the government is especially vigilant, as a consequence of any such mishap, there may be attacks by misguided, fringe Hindu elements on the Sikh community as a kind of perceived retaliation. The result: old wounds will be reopened in Punjab. From being a non-issue at present, Khalistan may become an issue once again.
Canadian terrorist Pannun has made threats against the Indian state on videos shot in the US, and there too no action was taken against him by that nation. There is no question in anyone’s mind that a person who had made a similar threat against, say, a Western nation or even, say, Israel would have been behind bars by now.
It would appear Mr Pannun knows fully well that he will not be touched by the Canadian government, let alone arrested. Why is he so supremely confident? It may be because Trudeau’s government is dependent on Khalistani support for its very survival. There may be other reasons as well. It could well be the case that Pannun and Company are privy to a few of Mr Trudeau’s dirty secrets, which the terrorist may reveal should the prime minister refuse to play ball.
This is not so unlike the situation often depicted in Bollywood films of a Indian politician being blackmailed by a criminal with whom he may have worked closely during elections. Under the circumstance, it is an odd, even bizarre, but strangely appropriate parallel. After all, Mr Trudeau has been closely associated with the Khalistanis for very many years, who in turn are closely connected to Pakistan’s notorious ISI that is closely aligned to several anti-India terrorist organisations.
Not only is Pannun supremely confident that the Canadians will do nothing to him, he may have received assurances that Canada’s Big Brother, the United States will also remain reticent on the matter, aside from issuing mealy mouthed, vague condemnations. American silence is especially conspicuous in view of the fact that the US was not silent in respect of the specious Canadian allegation that India had been complicit in the killing of Mr Nijjar, but had come forward to support Canada. Mr Blinken, US Secretary of State expressed ‘deep concern’ over India’s alleged involvement and sought accountability.
Many in India were shocked by Canadian stance on the Nijjar killings but even more surprised by the statement issued by the US Secretary of State. Should we even be surprised? Let us look back at a bit of history to put matters in perspective.
More than fifty years ago, in 1971 when Indian support became instrumental in the creation of an independent Bangladesh, under the leadership of President Nixon, the Pakistanis were actively supported by the Americans in carrying out one of the world’s biggest genocides after the Holocaust. According to Richard Pilkenton writing in the Journal of Genocidal Research the Canadian response was disquietingly ambiguous. Canada chose to be ‘neutral’ during the ensuing genocide. Pilkenton speaks of ‘an unfortunate absence of principle and an uncomfortable air of appeasement.’
Similar language could be used to describe the Canadian government’s response to recent actions by the Khalistanis. It is now payback time. If Canada could equivocate in respect of a genocide, surely Trudeau can count on the Americans to remain quiet on the need to arrest Mr Pannun even if many Indian-American lives may be at risk in any future Air India flight together with that of other nationalities.
As the writer Gary Bass says in his seminal work ‘The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger and a Forgotten Genocide,’ Richard Nixon deserves to be remembered as an American President who facilitated the Bangladesh Genocide of 1971, which included the rapes of tens of thousands of Bangladeshi women. In the event, howsoever unlikely, that there is a repeat of the Kanishka bombing, Justin Trudeau too will go down in history as a Canadian prime minister who facilitated through his inaction the mass murder of innocents.
Rajesh Talwar is the prolific author of thirty-eight books across multiple genres and has worked for the United Nations for more than two decades across three continents. His latest book is ‘Where Elephants Danced and Dragons Flew.’