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I'm the Extremist They are Talking About

T. SHER SINGH

DAILY FIX

Friday, November 9, 2012

When Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper flew to India earlier this week, Canada’s security agencies did something they’ve never done before.

They shipped off a bunch of high-tech armoured vehicles to New Delhi for the protection of the Canadian entourage while it was in India’s capital.

Those who know Canada could instantly see that this was strange and unusual behaviour on the part of Canadians.

After all, who on earth would want to harm the Canadian Prime Minister any where?

Sure, Stephen Harper is in the run to be “Canada’s Most Boring Prime Minister in History”. And it’s true: he’s in the play to be “Canada’s Most Un-Loved Prime-Minister” as well. One cannot deny that no one has seen any one ever burst into spontaneous excitement while in the presence of this man.

But that’s not grounds for anyone to want to hurt or harm a Canadian politician, least of all in distant India.

So, why this unprecedented step?

A security-expert I know from Ottawa explains: These high-security measures -- which he dubbed “Operation Dark Side” -- are merely taking into account that the PM is heading into a violence-prone country at a highly volatile time; India is heading into elections.

Keeping that context in mind, I was told, one cannot ignore the fact that it is a country which “knocks off” -- his words, not mine! -- its leaders “like nine pins.” Mohandas Gandhi was killed by Hindu extremists, the same bunch who are virtually the Official Opposition today. Then, there was Prime Minister Indira Gandhi: killed by the country’s own, highly-trained security unit, part of its own military operations. The next Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, was then killed by another bunch of Hindu terrorists. Not too many years after his brother, Sanjay Gandhi -- a Prime-Minister-in-waiting -- had been killed in an aircraft “accident”. So on and so forth …

So, no one in Ottawa is taking any chances.

Who’s the threat, I asked.

The only risk being taken seriously, I was told, was the tendency of Indian government operatives to take advantage of high-profile visits from foreign dignitaries as opportunities to “make a point” by “creating” a “situation” and then blaming it on one group or the other not in the “good books” of the ruling party.

That’s a very astute observation, I said.

That’s the job of our security agencies, he said, to protect our Prime Minister, no matter who the threat is from, no matter what their motivation is.

Do the Indians know that this is how the world sees them? Do the country’s diplomats send back reports to their superiors in New Delhi informing them of this famine of credibility that has come to be the hallmark of everything related to India?

I doubt it. I don’t know … but I do have this creepy and creeping feeling that Indians genuinely believe that the “goras” of the world come flocking to their door, enamoured by their irresistible charm and intellectual prowess and drawn to the charismatic personalities that people the country’s corridors of power.   

Let me tell you why I think that Indians live in a world of delusion, with not a thread connected to reality.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper had barely wrapped up his photo-op at the Taj Mahal on Monday (November 5, 2012) when he saw that the Injuns were already circling his wagons and whooping up a war party.

Let me paint you the scene.

Here’s a delegation that’s arrived from across the seven seas, ostensibly to do trade with your country. So, what do you do?

You start hollering about “Sikh extremism” in Canada!

Naturally!

It would have got some real, world-wide attention, but for the fact that that is exactly what these Indian PR wizzes say every time a Canadian dignitary arrives in New Delhi, or an Indian dignitary gets to go on a junket to Canada.

With no rhyme or reason. Somebody puts a piece of paper in front of the Indian government spokesperson, and he or she simply reads it out. No brain-power is involved at any point in the entire exercise. It was something someone had drafted when they were planning the assault on the Golden Temple in Amritsar.

In 1984.

They had cyclo-styled lots of copies then. The file is pulled out by the PR department on important occasions like this one, and returned to the cabinet … for future use. 

So, why was this wild, unsubstantiated, baseless claim surfacing yet again in November 2012? No one knows. No one asks.

The Canadian media is not staffed by the sharpest knives in the drawer. They don’t ask for evidence, they don’t demand facts, they don’t point out that nothing has happened in Canada, recently, or in recent years, or in recent decades, that could be, by any stretch, termed as extremism or a terrorist act. By a Sikh, of any nationality …

Being Canadian, they just mutter “Sorry!“ and then, “Thank you!“ and then they shuffle off to post what they’ve been told as a news story. Yes, it’s easier to just post the story, give it the usual headline, and then go have a beer at the party the Injuns have thrown for their pleasure, rather than waste a few minutes in checking out why the words of the claim and the paucity of evidence are identical to what was said six months earlier, and 12 months earlier, 2 years ago, three years ago, four years ago … even ten years ago!

So, you and I who read the headlines in our papers yesterday, and heard and saw the news on TV and radio, scratch our heads and wonder: Extremism? What extremism? Who? Where? What? When? How?  

The marvel of it all is that the Indians think they have an impact. They must, because they keep on doing it, over and over again.

Interrupt them to ask them what they mean by “extremism”, and they look puzzled and confused. Is it really necessary to parse terminology?

Here’s what the Canadian media should’ve done, but didn’t do: ask, what do these Indians mean when they throw around English words that have more than two syllables in them. 

Extremism? What exactly do the Indians mean by the word?

An Indian government spokesperson finally explained, when confronted by our Prime Minister’s blank face: she complained bitterly about “the anti-Indian rhetoric” she heard from the “Punjabi” community in Canada, voiced in its media and its parades and celebrations, and echoed by its politicians.

Anything else? Anything else she thought was extremist in Canada?

No, nothing else.

That’s it.

It’s the rhetoric. And because it is critical of India.

That’s what makes the Sikhs of Canada “extremist”, according to the Indians.

It’s the freedom of speech, the freedom of expression, that are freely exercised in Canada and the rest of the free world that irks the desis. And being forced to look at the truth is … well, extremism. Worse, it’s terrorism, they say.

Anything that is said or written or broadcast or shown or published which is not complimentary about India and Indians is, therefore, extremist.

Anything that suggests that there is something wrong, something not right, in India, is therefore “extremist”.

Hey! That makes me an extremist.

It’s true: I’m the extremist they’re talking about. Me and all those in Canada who, correctly or incorrectly, see things gone awry in India, and are criminal enough to speak out about it.

It makes us all extremists. In the warped mind of some Indians, even terrorists.

It makes the parliamentarians and lawmakers around the world -- including here in Canada, in Great Britain, in the US, in Australia -- who have raised their voices against the Indian human rights violations, as extremists and terrorists.

The United Nations too fits into that pigeon-hole easily.

Like all Canadians, I am what I am. I spoke out, like millions around the world, against apartheid in South Africa, when it was warranted. And I speak out now, like umpteen others, when I see terrible wrongs committed in India.

So does every Sikh-Canadian. And Sikh-American. And Sikh-Briton ...
 
Here, living in a free society, we are critical of Canada and Canadians, when we feel it is warranted. We have ladled it out on Americans, Pakistanis, Israelis, the Brits … and yes, Sikhs. I haven’t spared myself either. Neither have others spared me, when they thought it was warranted.

That's what freedom of the press and freedom of expression are all about. It doesn't mean that we must go mum when the perpetrator of the wrongs gets uncomfortable under scrutiny, and that we should then look the other way?

Na-a-ah! I’d rather be an "extremist".

And let me say this loud and clear: if that is what you in India define as “extremist”, then I am proud to be one, and I wear the label as a badge of honour. It’s part of the pride and honour of being Canadian.

I know it is difficult for the desis to understand the value, nay, the centrality of free speech to a democracy; of how that is what makes our countries civilized, and what makes India, through its absence within its borders, the worst in the world today.

The Indians have absolutely NO concept, no idea, of how ridiculous they sound when they tell their visitors to go home and silence their citizens.

Also, it reveals a number of things.

First, it shows India’s frustration over its utter failure in trying to silence people abroad and prevent them from pointing to the gross human rights violations committed in India by the very people who are meant to uphold the law; of the corruption that makes their country the laughing stock of the world; the complete disregard for democratic and other civilized norms …

Second, the level of frustration betrays the intensity of their activities abroad in trying to intimidate and silence their critics. Withholding visas and harassing visitors to India is not the only methods used.

The billion-dollar propaganda machine which churns out lies; the quid-pro-quo used in trade deals; the meddling in the internal affairs of nations where Sikhs live in large numbers; the concocted parades and protests in India; the crocodile tears, etc., etc. fool no one any more.

Third: how much freedom of speech and expression do they then allow their own citizens, if this is how they perceive democracy? Sadly, not much.

But the saddest part of it all is that the Indians have no idea how they are perceived by others as a result.

‘Global village idiots’ is what they have become.

[Shakespeare’s Sir Andrew Aguecheek is one who instantly comes to mind whenever I see an Indian politician or bureaucrat strutting before a camera. Check out “Twelfth Night” and you’ll know exactly what I mean.]

And then they wonder why, even when their representatives beg and plead and buy and bribe and flatter and threaten and intimidate us in order to just get invited to Sikh functions in the free world, they wonder why they get grabbed by their ears and are thrown out into the street.

While successful in intimidating their own Sikh citizenry into an apparent and somewhat tentative silence within their own borders, it drives the Indians nuts to see they can’t touch those who live in the free world.

Not all the coffers in the world, not all the kings horses and the kings men, not all the lies, not all the propaganda, not all the lackeys and minions you can buy, not all the mischief in the world, will help you hide your crimes and your shame, or to earn you even a smidgen of respect. 

       

TO BE CONTINUED … What exactly does a “trade mission” do in India?
 
   
 

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