Jagmeet Singh, the head of Canada\u2019s New Democratic Party (NDP), has disavowed all \u201cacts of terrorism\u201d even as he came into the eye of a storm over his appearance at an apparently pro-Khalistan event in San Francisco in 2015.<\/p>\n
Singh, who was denied a visa by India in 2013 and had not spoken out against the practice of some guruwaras in Canada eulogising Sikh militants as heroes, had appeared at the San Francisco event on a platform with the backdrop of a large poster of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, considered in India as the person who birthed the violence of the Khalistan movement in the 1980s.<\/p>\n
\u201cI condemn all acts of terrorism in every part of the world, regardless of who the perpetrators are or who the victims are. Terrorism can never be seen as a way to advance the cause of any one group. It only leads to suffering, pain and death,\u201d Singh said in a statement.<\/p>\n
However, he maintained his stance as a human rights advocate who thought it \u201cimportant to name human rights atrocities\u201d, and cited the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in India in that context.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have seen pain and anger and my approach has always been to give space to those feelings in order to work through them, but never to condone acts of violence,\u201d Singh said.<\/p>\n
Canadian media reported on the controversial video featuring Singh\u2019s speech at the rally held in San Francisco. Singh was at that time a member of the Ontario provincial parliament.<\/p>\n
The daily Globe and Mail reported that the video showed Singh \u201cwalking in the pro-sovereignty march behind a truck that displayed signs saying \u2018India out of Sikh Homeland\u2019, and \u20181984 Sikh Genocide Independence\u2019. Parade participants carried the same messages on placards as well as others including \u2018Sikhs Demand Independence\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
In that speech, speaking in a mix of English and Punjabi, Singh said \u201cIndia was built on inequality\u201d before moving on to the theme of a separate homeland, though in a tangential manner.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf where we are living, we cannot remain freely, there is oppression, where your own government is trying to finish you off, then we have to think whether we can stay there or not,\u201d he said to the crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this is not our home, why can\u2019t we build our own? That is our right,\u201d he said, adding it was \u201cnot an option to move elsewhere\u201d. He also said, \u201cThis is our legal right, to talk about this openly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shinder Purewal, professor of political science at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in British Columbia, reacted: \u201cA spectre is haunting Jagmeet Singh, the spectre of Khalistan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Accusing Singh of being a \u201cKhalistani\u201d, Purewal said, \u201cHe used these connections to win nominations for his entry to provincial legislature and become the national leader of NDP in terms of both people and money. However, now he is running away from his past because this affiliation is not setting well with the Canadian people.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his statement, Singh added, \u201cQuestions regarding the future of India are not for me to decide. I am not a citizen of India or an Indian politician. Self-determination means respecting the views of people in whatever country to choose their own path.\u201d<\/p>\n
Soon after he was elected leader of the NDP last October, Singh had spoken of self-determination for Punjab. He doubled down on that position in the statement, as he asserted his \u201cbelief in human rights includes a fundamental principle that is written into Article 1 of the UN Charter: respect for equal rights and self-determination\u201d.<\/p>\n
Canadian media also reported on a second video from February 2016, in which Singh appeared at an event in Southall in London organised by a group identified as the National Sikh Youth Federation, which advocates for a separate homeland.<\/p>\n
While these videos have been available for some time and were posted on Twitter when he won the NDP leadership race, the flurry of coverage of Singh\u2019s presence at events that appear to be pro-Khalistan came as the Canadian media increasingly focuses on the issue of separatists using Canada to organise themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jagmeet Singh, the head of Canada\u2019s New Democratic Party (NDP), has disavowed all \u201cacts of terrorism\u201d even as he came into the eye of a storm over his appearance at an apparently pro-Khalistan event in San Francisco in 2015. Singh, who was denied a visa by India in 2013 and had not spoken out against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24859,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24858"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24860,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24858\/revisions\/24860"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}