Gurpreet Singh
Today marks 34 years of the Air India Flight 182 bombing that left 329
people dead.
The suitcase bomb used in the crime that is widely blamed on Sikh
separatists seeking revenge from the Indian government originated from
Vancouver. The incident was the worst attack in the history of aviation
terror before 9/11.
Investigators believe that the episode was in response to repression of
Sikhs in India during 1984. The Indian army had invaded the Golden
Temple Complex, the holiest shrine of the Sikhs in June 1984, to deal
with a handful of armed militants. The military operation left many
worshipers dead and important historical buildings heavily destroyed.
The same year, then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her
Sikh bodyguards at her residence in Delhi, following which innocent
Sikhs were targeted all across India by mobs led by Gandhi’s ruling
Congress party with the help of police.
These bloody events alienated the Sikhs from the mainstream, and
galvanized the movement for a separate Sikh homeland, both in India and
Canada.
At the annual memorial event this year in Stanley Park, Vancouver ,
where a wall bears the names of the victims, the speakers paid tributes
to the dead and emphasised remaining vigilant against terrorism anywhere
in the world. Among them were Counsel General of India Abhilasha Joshi,
and some pro-India moderate Sikhs who are known to be vocal critics of
terrorism and violence.
They rightly condemned those who were involved in the Air India bombing
conspiracy and expressed their frustration over just one conviction for
329 murders, but none of them touched upon the terrorism of Hindu
extremists which has spiked in India over the past several years under a
right wing Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) government.
Ever since the BJP came to power under Prime Minister Narendra Modi in
2014, attacks on religious minorities by Hindu fundamentalists have
grown. Emboldened by the electoral support Modi continues to receive in
a Hindu dominated India, they are bent upon turning a secular democracy
into an official Hindu state.
So much so, Modi endorsed newly elected BJP MP Sadhvi Pragya Singh
Thakur, who was responsible for a bomb blast targeting Muslims in 2008.
The incident left eight people dead and 100 injured. Thakur got a bail
on medical grounds and was allowed to run for the parliamentary
election. Modi justified the decision citing the anti-Sikh massacre of
1984 engineered by the then ruling Congress party.
Notably, Modi repeated the 1984-like carnage in Gujarat in 2002 when he
was Chief Minister of the state. Thousands of Muslims were killed by BJP
supporters after a train carrying Hindu pilgrims caught fire leaving
more than 50 people dead. Modi blamed Muslim extremists for the incident.
It is important to mention here that the son of a Muslim couple that
perished in the Air India tragedy had also suffered during the Gujarat
violence. Irfan was only ten-years-old when his father Umar Jethva and
mother Zebunisa died in the tragedy. They were both visiting Vancouver
to see their relatives leaving behind their son when the bombing
happened during their return journey.
Irfan was then brought up by the extended family in Gujarat. His
computer business shop was destroyed during the anti-Muslim violence.
His cousin Renee Saklikar is a Vancouver-based poet who has authored a
book, based on her poems dedicated to more than 80 children who died in
the Air India bombing. Her husband Adrian Dix, the health minister in
the BC Government, was Master of Ceremony at the memorial event. And yet
there was a complete silence about terrorism being patronized by Modi
administration.
Ironically, Joshi said in her speech that it was everyone’s duty to
speak up against “dark forces” that try to disrupt peace. But no one at
today’s event found it necessary to say anything against majoritarian
terrorism in the name of Hindu theocracy that poses a greater threat to
the peace in India because of state support. The Air India tragedy was
the culmination of sectarian politics of the Indian politicians, and if
the Indian leadership continues to oppress minorities and patronise
majoritarianism, this is going to cause more problems in the Indian
Diaspora.
***
Gurpreet Singh
Cofounder and Director of Radical Desi
https://twitter.com/desi_radical?lang=en