Canada and Referendum 2020

Punjab Today

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Referendums are an old process

RECENTLY, there is news in Indian media that Canada has decided not to recognise the results of the Referendum 2020 organised by maverick Pro-Khalistan group, Sikhs for Justice (SFJ). It does matter that the news is not carried by any foreign, including Canadian media, but let us keep it aside for the time being.

Let us go by what the supposed spokesperson of the Foreign Minister of Canada, said: ‘Canada respects the sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of India, and the Government of Canada will not recognise the Referendum.’

For those new to the topic a brief reminder: SFJ is a US based group which has in 2011 and 2013 tried to take Kamal Nath and Sonia Gandhi to US courts over the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom. The US courts dismissed the SFJ petitions. In 2014 they submitted a report to United Nations Commission on Human Rights against then 13th Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his role as finance minister of India in 1990s accusing him of “funding crimes against humanity perpetrated upon the Sikh community in India”.

A few years back the SFJ announced it would sponsor a Referendum 2020 in which Sikhs all over the world can participate in a poll on whether they seek a separate country Khalistan. In 2018 SFJ announced it will establish a permanent office in Lahore for facilitating the registration of voters and giving information to Sikhs. As of now, India has declared the founder of SFJ, Gurpatwant Singh Pannu, a terrorist. SFJ has been banned by India as a terrorist organisation. All websites related to the Referendum 2020 are banned in India.

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THE PUNJAB Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh hailed Canada’s decision. Displaying his most effusive self he is reported to have said: the stand taken by the Justin Trudeau government on this issue is exemplary. He hopes other nations and governments should come out and be against SFJ as well. Captain Amarinder Singh’s visible relief comes from now Canada accepting India’s position.

What bewilders an onlooker is how Captain has done a complete turnaround to his stand against the Canadian delegation led by Premier Justin Trudeau which included his ministers Harjit Singh Sajjan and Amarjit Sohi when they came calling in February 2018. How Captain had cold shouldered that visit and pushed Indian-Canadian ties to a long time low.

All this now changed because the Canadian government supposedly said an advance no to the results of a Referendum which has not even taken place yet?

This does not seem like international diplomacy. This seems like children playing marbles and doing katti and mithi over who scored how much. It is sad that the longstanding friendship, the relationship between the two countries, the bonds that seven lakh Punjabis who have migrated to Canada, especially the love that the people of Punjab have for Canada, has been reduced to the moves of one maverick organisation, one man, who isn’t even clear on how to conduct such a Referendum.

Referendums are an old process associated with how sometimes nation states are determined. In 1991, fifteen nations emerged when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics broke up; more nations emerged when Yugoslavia broke up in 1992. Recent examples of Referendums conducted with varying results are from Scotland voted No for independence from United Kingdom; Brexit where UK voted Yes for withdrawal from European Union; whereas Catalonia, South Brazil and Kurdistan voted Yes for independence but the results were not acknowledged. However, all those cases were either set up or function differently from Sikhs and Punjab.

One wishes the Punjab government shows some maturity in the face of the question of the Referendum. It is sadly true that Punjab government does not have the best legal aides – refer to long standing dispute on Punjab’s river waters in Courts of the nation – but hopefully it has someone who knows how the issue with the term referendum lies with the definition of the term.

ReferendumBy definition, a referendum is a general vote by the electorate on a single political question which has been referred to them for a direct decision. For that we need to define an electorate. The dictionary defines an electorate as ‘all the people in a country or area who are entitled to vote in an election’.

Sikhs in various countries of the world do not form one electorate. Indian Sikhs are one electorate in terms of citizenship but different electorates in terms of the states to which they belong. The Diaspora Sikhs are all electorates of their new adopted nations. By the definition of a referendum, they cannot be voters on the question posed. Namely, Khalistan.

Since the Sikh Diaspora exists, even seemingly threatens, the Punjab government, its members are not part of one region, one geography. They are scattered all over the globe. So, even a plebiscite on the question of Khalistan is not possible.

Nations are imagined communities. In order to achieve them, their activists should operate from imagination and not from emotion alone. Especially not from negative emotions alone. Instead, they should create positive models of aspiration for its future citizens.

If SFJ were truly committed to the cause of Khalistan, they would not have turned the term into bogey one and waved flags to trouble the Sikh community. They would have worked on the basic reasons why the Khalistan movement in India failed in the 1980s and 1990s. They would have defined the idea of Khalistan as a new nation, its geography, its Constitution, and given reasons how it would be created.

For instance, would Khalistan claim Lahore and parts of Pakistan? Would it clarify whether non-Sikhs would be equal citizens in Khalistan? Would the system of governance be democratic or theocratic? We already see how democratic, secular India is turning out to be a Hindu Rashtra due to majoritarian politics.

What would be Khalistan’s economic base? Certainly not agriculture because if such a nation does come about, an antagonistic India would block the rivers flow into the land. How would a land-locked country with no port survive? How will it trade with the world?

These are important questions because while a new nation originates in imagination, it needs to be executed on the ground. The answers to practical questions remain important else all this is mere flag waving.

SFJ would have found a way of seeking opinion of its future citizensby going beyond the limitations of English language and even its mother language Latin, by acknowledging the dynamics of the lived experience of the Sikh people. What their flag waving does now is give excuse to the police to act against young Sikh men in Punjab, jeopardize Sikhs who live outside Punjab but within India, and turn some Gurdwaras in foreign lands into hubs of anti-India activities.

In any case, it is impossible to create a voting process even on the Internet without the cooperation of all parties involved – Punjab and India. Such a vote, even if it takes place, will not be acceptable in any international forum. Which country will accept a vote for a creation of another country on religious lines? What the British did in the Middle East in the last century is only too clear to us now.

One wishes the Punjab and India government calms down and notices that at this point in history, in ordinary people’s imagination, Khalistan is not a quest for a separate nation but for justice.

As far as justice is concerned, the governments of Punjab and India need to heal the many historical wounds of Punjab. Until those wounds are healed, some opportunist maverick, somewhere in the world, will keep teasing India. India should not fall for these gimmicks. Instead, we should break the cycles of violence in our discourse.

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Punjab Today

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