Canada has a problem. It panders to a small % of a small % of its population – the radical Sikhs…

Canada began as a country with the French & British showing up, nearly wiping out the native population of the land and then dividing up the land between themselves culturally. Over the years it has tried to over-correct this and has become a country with supposedly one of the ‘nicest’ population bodies anywhere in the world… I don’t agree because I have experienced more non-nice / assholic Canadians than nice ones but…. ‘being nice’ is what most of the jokes about Canadians are all about… So I guess they are…

Anyway…

Over the years whether on account of the country not being able to assimilate the large numbers of immigrants that it has welcomed into its population or some other reason, there are these large town-sized immigrant ghettos that have been created across Canada, which have since grown to become really large & dense – in Brampton, Mississauga, Milton, Surrey, Abbotsford, etc. Ghettos lead to an amplification of the racial identity of a person / group, cause them to not imbibe the culture of the resident country as much and make them look more inward within their communities than outward at the larger community out there. This also can lead to the ghettoised community’s thinking taking precedence over the laws of the country that you live in.

And above all, this ghettoisation leads to creation of identity-driven diaspora groups easily available to politicians to be exploited for electoral advantage. While this may be politically rewarding in the short term, it is highly damaging in the long term.

Proof in point are the Sikhs in Canada. While Canada has been pandering to Sikhs for years (much to India’s pleasure of seeing roadsigns in Gurmukhi in ‘the Canneda’), the problem now is that Trudeau considers them so crucial to his politics that he is even willing to condone, nay, support the radical Khalistani Sikhs amongst them.

Now, despite being less than a fraction of Canada’s Sikh population (there really is no way of knowing how many of the Sikhs who make up 1.5% of Canada’s population, are Khalistani supporters but I bet that number is not a majority), on account of their cluster density they have become an important votebank, pandering to which seems to be of more value to Trudeau’s Canada, than its foreign policy.

This is not good for anyone – not for Canada as a country or for the Sikhs in Canada.

It has already put a big fat dent into their diplomatic relationship with India. I doubt if anyone in the Modi govt, now & for for the foreseeable future, will give Trudeau even the time of day. Even the Punjab state govt is pissed off with Trudeau govt’s removal of a reference to “Khalistani extremism” from a 2018 Public Report in Canada on “Terrorism threats to Canada”. I remember then that Capt Amarinder Singh had called this a “promotion of extremism.”

At present, Canada is struggling with vaccinating its citizens and in the words of their own procurement minister “Canada will stop at nothing to bring in vaccines”. Despite that, Trudeau has not reached out to the Indian government, which as of now has not only vaccinated over 6 mn Indians but sent over 15mn vaccine doses to 18 countries. I wonder what is preventing the Canadians from calling India?

Regular Sikhs in Canada, most of who have deep ties to India and have retained their culture just like they would, in their pind, and who have nothing but hate for Khalistanis are the ones who suffer seeing this strained relationship between their motherland and their homeland.

I have spent many weeks in Canada – both in & around Toronto & in & around Vancouver and had a really good time. I have several Canadian friends – both of Indian origin and not of Indian origin. I hope the country comes to its senses soon. I really don’t know how Canada is going to turn this rapidly worsening situation around and get off this running tiger of radical-sikh-appeasement, while ensuring that the tiger does not eat it. 🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️

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P.S. Canada, Pulses & India…

India is the world’s largest producer and consumer of pulses. In 2015, Canada was exporting $1.5Bn worth of pulses to India each year. Over the past 5 yrs, through crop-diversification incentives, India has increased its pulses production. It has also managed to move its imports away from far-away Canada to close-by Myanmar.
So much so, that in 2019 only $320mn worth of pulses were being imported from Canada.

Since not too many countries in the world consume a lot of pulses, Canada has not been able to divert those exports from India to elsewhere and hence there has been a noteworthy dent in Canada’s economy because of this.

Now imagine if more farmers of Punjab & Haryana who are today growing wheat & rice (which nobody wants and is rotting away in warehouses), start to grow pulses. If we do end up importing any pulses at all, they will be from Myanmar.

It is directly in Canada’s financial interest that Indian agriculture does not diversify, which it will once the impact of the #FarmReformsBills is seen on ground.

#JustSaying