1984

Indian Diplomacy
a la June 1984

T. SHER SINGH

 

 

 

DAILY FIX

June 1, 2012 

 

June 5, 1984. News of the attack on the Holiest of Holies of Sikhdom - the Darbar Sahib of Amritsar, popularly known as the Golden Temple - stunned the world.

Even more so, it hit each Sikh hard, no matter where he or she lived, regardless of the degree of his or her religious observance or interest in the goings-on in India.

In Toronto, Canada, a young 19-year-old man, Jasbir Singh Saini, was deeply troubled by it and became increasingly agitated as he heard the successive reports on the radio describing the enormity of the outrage committed by Indira Gandhi's government.

I had seen this Grade 12  high school student in the gurdwara from time to time, but hadn't had an occasion to speak to him. But he was easily identifiable, and easy to remember.

By the time he had heard the fourth such report which, by now, was spelling out news of an all-out massacre of the pilgrims by a full-scale military assault - the attack had taken place on one of the busiest high-holidays, the Shaheedi Gurparab of Guru Arjan - he was visibly troubled and was chomping at the bit to do something, anything.

As rage gripped his young soul, he dressed up quickly to head out on a mission of his own.

A slight figure in a black turban and a youthful beard, he took the subway and emerged at the Yonge and Bloor station in the heart of downtown Toronto.

Towering above him, on the north-east corner was an office tower, adjacent to, and part of a large office and shopping complex showcasing The Hudson Bay Company's sprawling flagship store. Two Bloor Street East.

Jasbir Singh took the elevator up to the twenty-second floor, which housed the Indian Consulate.

He entered the reception area.

A drab office replicating a bit of India, it had a reception desk at one end, sporting an Underwood typewriter. A basic coffee table covered with a collection of dog-eared Indian magazines and newspapers, and a few chairs, littered one side. Next to it stood a tall wooden receptacle, with a third of its slots filled with - to use a generous term - "tourist literature". The rest were typically empty.

Crude and primitve "Khira" metal almirahs stood around sombrely, completing the well-cultivated desi atmosphere.

The dismal walls had a portrait of Indira Gandhi and Mohandas Gandhi - [the two are not related to each other]. Another wall had a large poster, bravely trying to tout Indian tourism. [Remember, these were the days, though by now the mid-1980s, when India and all things Indian were still stuck in pre-independence, early 20^th century mode.]

Jasbir Singh strode in. He ignored the security guards lolling around the reception desk.

Stopped before the picture frame with Indira Gandhi's mug-shot and scowled at it. He stood in front of it, his legs parted, locking his eyes with hers. His rage had surfaced by now and had begun to overpower him.

Suddenly, with lightning speed, he picked up a chair and smashed it against the picture, shattering the glass. He hit it again and again, as if expecting blood to spurt out from it at any moment.

The guards yelled out and rushed to grab him.

He simply dropped the chair, turned around, opened the door and disappeared down the corridor.

The commotion had been registered inside the consular offices, which were stacked behind a closed door. A couple of clerks emerged. A guard, barely able to contain his excitement, managed to blurt out what had happened.

A clerk disappeared into the innards of the office. Seconds later, having been assured that the coast was clear, the Consul General of India swung the door open and stormed onto the scene.

Consul General Surinder Malik was a short and stocky man. Though loosely labelled a "diplomat", he was equally disliked by staff and any visitor who had the misfortune of having to deal with him.

He was obnoxious in temperament, uncouth in appearance. Neither the clip-on tie, nor the Delhi-style flip-flops he often wore to the office, did much to add to his stature. He often turned up for work with stubble on his chin. He was also known to freely dip into the consulate's duty-free liquor supply, using the excuse that his job entailed entertaining a lot of iffy characters.

I had had various dealings with him, and often wondered how he fitted into the IFS (Indian Foreign Service) context, since he lacked the usual graces that its members were then widely known to possess. His difficulty with the English language, his crude Haryanvi Hindi, and his tendency to burst into Punjabi expletives when angry, merely fuelled the rumours that his appointment had been through strings pulled by an uncle or nephew somewhere in the right place back in India.

There was also a widely-held belief that he was an "Intelligence" man - though the word clearly was meant to describe his career orientation and not his mental prowess.

A Punjabi Hindu, he had no love to spare for Sikhs. Certainly, therefore, he was no relative to the Malik of Air India fame - a chapter yet to unfold at this point of time.

When he burst into the reception area, it was obvious that he had already been apprised of the situation.

He flitted around the room, staring at one thing, then another, as if assessing the situation.

And then, without warning, he picked up a chair and, holding it firmly in both his hands, began smashing everything in sight with it.

When one of the security guards, a female, returned to the scene - after a futile chase to apprehend the young man who had fled a few minutes ago - she saw an even more bizarre scene unfolding before her eyes.

The other guard and the consular staff had retreated to a corner, as they, too, watched with horror this second madman who had appeared before them within the course of a few minutes.

India's Consul General Surinder Malik was throrough and efficient.

He began with Indira Gandhi's portrait, and went at it until the frame disintegrated and the damaged face fell to the floor.

Then he went for the old man Gandhi's picture, and did the same with it.

Legs had fallen off the chair in his hands. He crashed it heavily on the coffee table, and picked up another chair.

And then went around the room - well, like a wild bull in a china shop, if I may be forgiven the cliché.

He tackled the tourism poster, the reception desk, the metal almirahs, the coffee table again, and then the bare walls.

He yelled out at his staff and chided them for merely looking on. When they joined in the mayhem, he screamed: Jaldi, jaldi! Hurry, hurry! Before the saala media arrive!

They picked up the other chairs and threw them around until they were all broken.

He stood back, and surveyed the scene. Kicked at the magazines and newspapers until they lay scattered around the floor.

Dusted his hands. Walked over to the telephone. Called 911 and, in a frantic voice, demanded police help: "We've been attacked", he spat into the receiver, feigning distress and terror.

More of the staff had emerged from the back offices. They stood around, with Malik almost literally foaming at the mouth, pouring out four-lettered abuse in Punjabi to no one in particular.

It didn't take long for the police to turn up.

Mr. Surinder Malik, Consul General of India, personally spoke to the Metro Toronto police officers and described in great detail how this young Sikh man had gone on a rampage, destroying everything within sight.

The police officers took copious notes.

Metro Toronto Police are undoubtedly amongst the best in the world ... I should know: I was a Police Commissioner and was regarded as an expert in police matters for a few decades.

Not surprisingly, it didn't take them long to track down the young man.

When they turned up at his door, he readily accepted his guilt.

And explained, without hesitation, what he had done, and why he had done it.

He confessed to having smashed Mrs. Gandhi's picture. That's it. No more, no less.

He was charged with Mischief, a Criminal Code Offence.

But the investigating officers were troubled by some of the other stuff Mr. Malik had told them in his sworn report.

To begin with, the officers were convinced of Jasbir Singh's sincerity. He had been forthright in all of his answers and had held back on nothing.

But one other thing intrigued them even more:

Jasbir Singh had only one arm. The other was not only completely missing, but its absence was routinely hidden by him in an empty shirt-sleeve. The guards at the Consulate offices had failed to notice this fact. And neither Mr. Malik nor his staff were aware of this.

The officers went back to the scene of the crime and it didn't take them long to determine that it was impossible for a young man, slight in stature and with an arm missing, to cause the damage Mr. Malik claimed Jasbir Singh had caused, within the timeframe each witness had reported.

They dug deeper.

And here's what they obtained:

A sworn statement from one of the security guards - who was employed by a private security company and merely contracted out to the Indian Consulate - declaring that she had personally witnessed Indian Consul General Surinder Malik destroying the portraits and damaging the furniture.

Convinced by now that there was much more than met the eye, the officers launched a full-fledged investigation.

And, lo and behold! There was another witness.

Dana Lewis, a radio reporter, had clued in on the emergency call on his wireless police monitor, and had rushed to the scene ... to see Mr Malik personally on a rampage in his own reception area!

When confronted with the evidence, Surinder Malik claimed diplomatic immunity.

As a result, he went scot free: he could not be charged by the police.

And Jasbir Singh? The charges against him were dropped because neither Mr. Malik nor any of the consular staff was willing to testify against him in open court. It would shed Malik's diplomatic immunity, and the lawyers could tear them apart under cross-examination.

And India's Consul General, Surinder Malik?

After a short and convenient lapse of time - and after considerable encouragement from Canada's Foreign Affairs and the Policing community - he was quietly pulled back to Mother India.

But not until he had committed a few more crimes.

He is now suspected of having been heavily behind the Indian intelligence operation which resulted in the bombing of Air India Flight 182 on June 23, 1985. And in the massive campaign of misinformation which spewed out from the Indian Consulate Office in Toronto thereafter.

Four other facts you need to know about Surinder Malik:

Surinder Malik's wife and daughter were booked to fly on Air India Flight 182. At the last moment, Surinder Malik called the Air India office and cancelled their reservations. The reason he gave for this later: his daughter, unexpectedly, had to give a school examination.

Siddhartha Singh, a senior bureaucrat visiting the Indian Consular Offices in Toronto from India - he was Head of North American Affairs for External Affairs Relations Division of the Government of India - was booked to return to India on the ill-fated Flight 182. He was with Surinder Malik a few days before the crash on "official business". Suddenly, Surinder Malik cancelled his seat on the flight, again "at the last minute". Siddhartha flew to Brussels instead.

Surinder Malik had a close friend of his - a car dealer in Toronto - cancel his reservation on the same flight, a few days before it took off from Toronto.

And, when the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) realized that Surinder Malik and his Consular cohorts were providing them misinformation pertaining to the Air India Flight 182, the CSIS "forbade its operatives to contact Indian agents. It had concluded that the Indian intelligence agents were more of a threat to Canadian security than a helping hand to Canada's domestic spy service." [Soft Target - see below.]

How do I know all of this? From the horses' mouths - the intelligence operatives who had to report to Surinder Malik, but hated his guts; from police officers involved at difference stages of the saga; and from key media persons who have followed the shenanigans of the Indians from day one.

And, if you are one of those who still believes that the Indians were and are the good guys and innocent victims through all of these goings-on, and that Canada's Sikhs are the trouble-makers, check out an account of that whole period, put together by two of Canada‘s top journalists with impeccable credentials:

Soft Target: How the Indian Intelligence Service Penetrated Canada, researched and written jointly by The Toronto Star Reporter Brian McAndrew and The Globe & Mail Reporter Zuhair Kashmeri. Lorimer Books, Toronto, 1989, 151 pp. ISBN-10: 1550282212 , ISBN-13: 978-1550282214. [I believe the book has gone into further editions since and is still available.]

POSTSCRIPT

The media reported the incident I have described above as an attack by a Sikh on the Indian Consular Offices, virtually destroying its outer offices. There was never any reportage, however, of Surinder Malik's hand in the crime - even when the facts became fully known to the police, the government and the media.  

 

Re-published on June 1, 2012

 

read other articles in 1984