In this episode, we have a special guest, Baraj Deol, who is an expert on the Khalistani movement and the history of the movement in India and Pakistan. We talk about how the movement came about, who started it, and how it started in Canada.
00:04:14.960Oh, the center is taking our waters away, giving it to other states,
00:04:18.680which I think very much common even in any federation and democratic setup.
00:04:23.480Like we have seen the oil issue with the Dalberta and the senior Trudeau.
00:04:28.780So Akhali party will start raising emotional issues of waters of Punjabi speaking areas which are left out of Punjab and so on.
00:04:38.540So they started a morcha means a kind of agitation to get those issues addressed by the center because basically they were out of power.
00:04:50.320So they wanted to rally their troops around them to win the next election.
00:04:55.320And that slowly became an emotional issue.
00:04:59.720And then a fundamentalist saint, so-called saint, Sant Jarnal Singh Bindarawala, he got into it.
00:05:09.380He started violent activities and there are a lot of proofs of it.
00:05:14.220And then he made Golden Temple his main base.
00:05:18.800That is where Operation Blue Star took place.
00:05:24.300That is called Operation Blue Star, the army action to flush him out because there was a lot of violence in India and especially in Punjab, a lot of killings.
00:05:33.740And there was pressure on the government that this separatist movement is taking hold.
00:05:41.580After that Operation Blue Star, the Khalistanis in India and overseas, they made it a kind of prestige issue that, look, government has attacked our temple, our holiest shrine, and we must take revenge for it.
00:05:58.080As a revenge, they killed Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, by her own bodyguards who were under oath to protect her.
00:06:06.080And then they started celebrating her murder, which gave excuse to some political elements to incite Hindus and other, especially the poor people living around Delhi to kind of loot and punish the Sikhs,
00:06:30.080the Sikhs, which resulted into a lot of innocent killings in Delhi and some other cities in India, that gave even stronger kind of foundation to these Khalistanis, both in India and overseas,
00:06:44.420that now, look, we are not safe in India, our temple was attacked, then a lot of Sikhs were killed as a result of Mrs. Gandhi's murder.
00:06:54.420So that is when this movement took hold overseas, especially in the diaspora communities.
00:07:00.420But they never discussed what brought the government or the situation up to the level of a military operation.
00:07:10.420What was that so-called saint doing and who was behind all those killings of Sikhs?
00:07:18.420Because soon those killings took place, the militants started killing whoever was, they had doubt on.
00:07:28.420They targeted a lot of people. So instead of-
00:07:31.420Can I just get to clarify, this is, are we talking about the killings that predated Operation Blue Star?
00:07:37.420So like the terrorism or is this, are you talking about during the anti-Sikh riots, as they say?
00:07:42.420Anti-Sikh riots. The logical way would have been that when there were attacks on the Sikhs, a lot of Sikhs were killed.
00:07:53.420Government did not take action for three days. Immediately, all the people who matter, like the lawyers, like intellectuals, like community leaders,
00:08:06.420they should, they should, they should gather all the evidence so that the guilty should be, should be, should be punished.
00:08:14.420They should rally around to gather all the evidence. But all that time was lost.
00:08:19.420Incidentally, there were some Punjabi Hindus. They published a booklet who are guilty.
00:08:25.420They gathered the evidence and Sikhs were all lost. Like they, they were, they were directionless what to do.
00:08:35.420And the militants started punishing those people, whoever they doubted on their own.
00:08:41.420So that is what, that was the starting point of terrorism after Blue Star.
00:08:48.420So I just, just to clarify for a question regarding before Blue Star, because you mentioned Jarnal Binderwal occupying the Golden Temple, like the holiest site in Sikhism.
00:08:59.420And was the point, the reason why, because I've seen this sort of disputed, but also claim, is that the reason why the military, and you can also clarify if it was mostly Sikh troops who were clearing him out, because that's also something that some people try and dispute.
00:09:15.420But was it that Binderwal was in the Golden Temple and ordering basically attacks on government installations in Punjab and government officials, and then after Blue Star and after Imjom Gandhi's assassination, then the anti-Sikh riots, then the, the targets of Kalistani terrorists kind of became wider, where it became anyone, it became government officials, government institutions, as well as anyone who wasn't supporting Kalistan.
00:09:41.420No, actually, Pindranwala also caused innocent killings before Blue Star.
00:09:48.420For example, six people were pulled out of a bus, and they were killed near Jalandhar, which is a district city.
00:10:00.420And there is a lot of evidence now that that killing was ordered by Bindranwala, and it was carried out by his men to create chaos.
00:10:13.420And that is when the federal government or the central government, as it's called in India, they dissolved the kind of the Punjab government, the elected Punjab government and imposed the governor's rule.
00:10:26.420And there were, there are other instances, for example, there is a video on the, on the net, a lot of Khalistanis will say he was a saint, he was very pacifist, he did not mean any, any violence, he was good for Hindus, he was giving them justice, they will give several examples, and so on.
00:10:45.420But there is a video, like there are several, but I will mention one, that his bus was detained by the police.
00:10:52.420And he is lecturing the people or his followers, and he's stating very clearly that if my bus is not released within 24 hours, I will kill 5000 Hindus.
00:11:06.420Now, I mean, can any pacifist say this? What was the fault of the 5000 Hindus he wanted to kill? The police detained his bus. He should have taken maybe some other course.
00:11:20.420In defense, though, that's only 10% as bad as the World Sikh Organization, which promised to kill 50,000 Hindus. So by comparison, he looks a little bit less insane.
00:11:33.420I think that's a good transition point to then move on and talk about the founding of the World Sikh Organization after Blue Star.
00:11:41.980Well, let's, I just want to sort of drive one point home here, and sort of mark a flag for our newcomers here.
00:11:48.380This is what the situation just described is often what's used in Kalistani propaganda. So, for example, Jagmeet Singh tried to get a motion passed to declare like a Sikh genocide, India did a Sikh genocide.
00:11:59.760And this is what they're talking about. It's, and you've made the cut and often a lot of context is omitted, right? The assassination of Indra Gandhi, which we in Canada had a float celebrating just a few months ago, response to this, you know, the Operation Blue Star, like the multi, like there were a bunch of terrorist attacks.
00:12:17.760terrorist attacks that led up to the need to take out people. And it's unfortunate that they held up in a holy site. You know, they were given chances to leave, they chose not to surrender.
00:12:29.760And, you know, there were human shields being used. And as I pointed out, I'm not sure if it was majority Sikh, but I do know there were Sikh commanders in the Indian military who were given the option to opt out of Blue Star, but chose not to, because they saw themselves as Indian and this is anti-Indian.
00:12:45.760I mean, is that is, is, is this a correct basic understanding of, of Operation Blue Star, would you say?
00:12:52.760Well, there were, there were Sikhs all over the place, not only in the army, in the police, there were Sikhs in the, in the civil administration, there were Sikhs in the political sphere.
00:13:04.760There were Sikhs in the Congress party, there were Sikhs in Akhalis, and there was friction between the moderate Akhali party, which launched the agitation to rally their troops, to get ready for the next election.
00:13:18.760They had very serious problems with Vindarawala. Vindarawala was forcing them to take more extreme line, and they were not ready to go that far.
00:13:28.760He wanted them to go almost for separatism, which they were not ready to do.
00:13:34.760So they were communicating with the government and they were telling the government that there are a lot of credible witnesses who are saying that the Akhali Dal leaders told Indra Gandhi that it's beyond our control.
00:13:47.760Now she has to, has to do whatever she has to do.
00:13:50.760So she consulted the people around, which were also Sikhs. The president of India was a Sikh and, and, and the other ministers in our ministry were the Sikhs.
00:14:02.760So she consulted a lot of people and the analyst, the learned analyst now feel that she was actually late to take the action that she should have taken action very early on.
00:14:14.760When 40 fortifications were minimum and the weapons were not that many with, with the militants in the golden temple.
00:14:23.760Then there are some other quarters who believe that some sources from within the government agencies probably provided them weapons.
00:14:33.760Now that, that, that, that allegation also have some, some credibility and then, then that, that Pakistan was supplying them weapons.
00:14:43.760Like we can't pinpoint only one thing.
00:14:45.760There were a number of things which, which could be true at the same time.
00:14:48.760But the, but the basic thing is that Bindranwala and his gang, they were using golden temple as a base, as a fortification to, to, to, to, to kill the people.
00:15:03.760And they killed Mr. Atwal, who was, I think the IG of Punjab police.
00:15:10.760And when he was stepping out of the temple, he was shot right at the outer door of, of the golden temple.
00:15:18.760Uh, and nobody came close to pick his body for four or five hours.
00:15:24.760That, that, that, that is how much the fear there was of these terrorists.
00:15:29.760And then there were, but there were other shootings within the temple, uh, complex, uh, between, uh, the faction, which was supporting, uh, the Shromnia Khalidal and Bindranwala.
00:15:41.760They had very bad blood among, among themselves.
00:15:44.760And there were some other killings, uh, right, uh, in that area.
00:15:49.760And the bodies were recovered from the gutter.
00:15:54.760I, I mean, I will just say, this sounds a lot of like the inter-Calistani gang violence we have going on today, where we might look, you know, you might see them waving all the yellow flags and think there's a united frontier.
00:16:04.760But, um, you know, if we really want to, you know, save the lives of Calistani gang members in Canada, we might want to consider cracking down on Calistani gang members.
00:16:24.760So what, do you want to transition us into Canada?
00:16:26.760And after one question, I just want to roll it back a little bit.
00:16:29.760Just going all the way back to 1971, because you're talking about the Pakistani government providing arms and likely money to the Calistani movement.
00:16:39.760And you were saying it was starting back in 1971 that it was starting to take off faster.
00:16:44.760It was always kind of an existence rumbling since 47, but then it started increasing in 71.
00:16:49.760And was it because of the war with between India and Pakistan, because it resulted in the breakaway of Bangladesh from Pakistan that the, the revenge motive of Pakistan was then to say, well, we're going to break up India in response.
00:17:11.760That Mr. Bhutto said that Pakistan will take revenge by creating something like Bangladesh on, on its border, which is, which is Kalistan.
00:17:21.760So Tariq Fateh reported this, talked about it a lot of times.
00:17:25.760So he was, he was like eyewitness to it.
00:17:30.760And, and that was the time actually Pakistan also wanted to, to even eat grass and make a atomic weapon.
00:17:38.760So those, those things were going hand in hand to, to, to counter India or, or, or bleed India or, or, or make thousand cuts to bleed India.
00:22:48.760And the first part is Calistan to the max.
00:22:51.760Um, you know, all these guys are just, you know, activists, human rights activists, no mention of any of the videos that call for violence.
00:22:59.760And then they go to the Punjab region.
00:23:11.760This is a Canadian thing, you know, leave us alone.
00:23:14.760And then they're like, oh, wow, no one wants it.
00:23:16.760And then they went back to Canada and they're like, well, we're back to supporting Calistan, even though we, we saw evidence that no one really wants it to come back in the Punjab region.
00:23:25.760So, um, if you want to, we, if you want to go over, I mean, maybe we could breeze through it, but my, the general understanding is from like 1985 to 1995, that's when the big crackdown was to get rid of the internal Calistani movement.
00:24:15.760And I do understand that a lot of people were angry who were not fully informed, like the both sides of the story.
00:24:22.760They were very angry and ordinary people usually are not fully informed what is going on and what the consequences would be.
00:24:29.760Uh, so I give that benefit of doubt that yes, there was an emotional stage.
00:24:33.760A lot of people were very angry, but, uh, the communities do come to their senses.
00:24:39.760They do discuss things openly, what went wrong on their side, on the opposite side, who, who, who was at fault, how much, and how to reconcile.
00:24:50.760Unfortunately, that day never came in last 40 years in the Sikh community.
00:24:55.760The Khalistanis never allowed open discussion among Sikhs without fear that let's, let's discuss.
00:25:02.760Do you find the government at fault at, at what percentage point?
00:25:07.760And this, the moderate Sikh leadership, what was their role?
00:25:11.760What was the role of militants and, uh, Vendranwala?
00:26:11.760Now we get accused of denying genocide and Sikh oppression.
00:26:15.760And if you're never, not once have I ever denied that there were anti-Sikh riots.
00:26:19.760I just say they were a result of the Indra Gandhi assassination, which came from operation blue star, which was a result of, you know, an increase of terrorism from the people who are held up inside the golden temple.
00:26:30.760So it's complicated and I don't think it's a genocide, not saying thousands didn't die.
00:26:38.760We experienced tons of those in Eastern Europe where, you know, you know, violent, deadly riots sweep through your town.
00:26:45.760It's a horrible thing that happened in 1984 and the riots like no one wanted that.
00:26:50.760And I think you quite beautifully articulated that.
00:26:53.760So for never once have we ever denied that there were anti-Sikh riots that happened.
00:26:58.760But I think you make a very careful point that without the nuance and understanding everything that went into it from all sides,
00:27:06.760you're never going to come to a position where you can find healing and coexistence.
00:27:12.760And I think that's a great example of one of the more dangerous elements of the Calistani movement is it is it's quite vicious in the way it attacks anyone,
00:27:23.760especially within the Sikh community who tries to explain or embrace this nuance and build bridges,
00:27:31.760because I mean, a lot of the people reaching out to me and helping me connect to these things is like a lot of Sikhs.
00:27:37.760Like it really is not a Sikh versus Hindu problem we're kind of dealing with right now.
00:27:42.760It's it's sort of like a Calistani versus Indian government and with a permissive Canadian attitude type problem.
00:27:49.760So, you know, I've heard a lot from Sikh supporters when I've talked about this for years.
00:27:54.760It's a lot more now that like one, thanks for talking about this and they feel like they can't just out of fear.
00:28:02.760And like it's also the majority opinion is sort of on your side, but it's not what it's being portrayed in the media.
00:28:09.760I mean, the media would have you believe that you're the fringe and Harjips and Najjar was the majority.
00:28:16.760I can only imagine how maddening that is.
00:28:18.760Well, as far as mainstream media is concerned in Canada, I mean, it became totally useless.
00:28:25.760It's been taken over by vested interest and and, you know, like CBC and some other institutions.
00:28:33.760Certainly there are some good, good media persons, reporters among them, but they have confined themselves or limited themselves.
00:28:42.760Oh, don't speak against minorities. Everything is a minority for them.
00:28:46.760This is this kind of minority, that kind of minority, that kind of minority.
00:28:50.760Don't talk about the minority. Well, always, always curse the majority wherever it is.
00:28:54.760I mean, that that does not work and it's unfair.
00:28:57.760So mainstream media became totally ineffective and unfair and it is supported by the governments.
00:29:04.760So so more information comes from independent sources and I think independent sources are becoming stronger now.
00:29:13.760So we will we will hear more about these controversial issues from neutral point of view in the coming years, years and days and months to come.
00:29:23.760I'm glad you say that. That's why we started the National Telegraph is to talk about things other people don't talk about.
00:29:30.760Yeah, I was gonna say maybe this is a good moment then to just talk about, well, why has the Calistani movement in Canada been so robust in spite of the Air India bombing?
00:29:41.760Because if anything, that even in the even in Punjab, there was never a single day casualty rating quite like the Air India bombing was in Canada.
00:29:51.760Yet in Canada, it seems like it almost got brushed under the rug.
00:29:54.760So maybe you want to describe what happened with the Air India bombing?
00:29:58.760Who were the people involved? What like and why it kind of never became that flashpoint to take the issue seriously?
00:30:05.760Well, a lot of books been written on on Air India, a lot of articles, a lot of talk shows on it.
00:30:13.760There is no doubt everybody knows that it was done by Talavinder Singh Parmar and his close group.
00:30:20.760And to date, we have only one person in the reason they are to been convicted by Canadian courts three times related to to Air India or Narita and lying in the court total around maybe 25 or 29 years.
00:30:34.760And a lot of Khalistanis say that, oh, they trust the Canadian justice system.
00:32:16.760Toronto to Montreal to London to Mumbai.
00:32:17.760The other flight from Vancouver to Tokyo where the bomb blew up in baggage handling and killed two baggage workers in Japan.
00:32:25.760And then, of course, the other bomb was set off over when they were over Ireland.
00:32:30.760And then it killed every single person on that plane.
00:32:32.760And to go to the sort of people like Jagmeet Singh who half deny the Air India bombing happened or the people who outright just try and blame it on India.
00:32:43.760It doesn't make sense, though, because they'll still venerate the people who were the ones who blew up the plane.
00:32:48.760And they can't tell you why they're important figures if they cut the plane blowing up out of it.
00:32:54.760Because what else have these individual men done to have their pictures on parade floats when, if anything, they would just be generic community organizers without the violence.
00:33:03.760So how after in 1985 did it become that they that it never seemed like the Khalistanis were punished?
00:33:11.760If anything, people like you were punished for bringing it up.
00:33:17.760Mr. Ujjal Dosanj was literally beat almost beat to death for opposing the Khalistani movement after the bombing.
00:33:23.760You see, I would like to make one more point before we get into that.
00:33:31.760And that is a lot of Khalistanis still tell the young generation that Air India was blown up by government of India agents, that India done it to give bad name to the Sikhs.
00:33:44.760Right in front of them, they also will say that they trust the Canadian justice system.
00:33:48.760As I made point before that Inderjee Singh Riyadh, who's a baptized Sikh, he accepted.
00:33:54.760And there was overwhelming evidence when he was convicted and Rita bombing that he built the initial bomb, which was tried in Burnaby Woods somewhere when ceases agents were following.
00:34:08.760And then he admitted that Mr. X, a person by which is named Mr. X, because nobody knows the name, was brought by Talginder Singh Paramahar from.
00:34:18.760From Ontario to BC to his house, who who worked with him to make those bombs, which was later planted on two CPA to be transferred to two Air India flights, one at Narita and one in Toronto.
00:34:34.760Riyadh, who is convicted three times by Canadian courts, who is a baptized Sikh, who accepted that Mr. X built those bombs and initial test bomb was built by him.
00:34:46.760So those who doubt that governor of India agents blew up the plane, made the bombs, placed the bombs.
00:35:07.760Yeah, I mean, I call this Schrodinger's terrorism, where you have both they are heroes for blowing up Air India, but also they are being framed by the Indian government to make us look bad.
00:35:20.760So it's like, you know, is the Calistani in the in the nuclear box alive or dead?
00:35:25.760Again, it's my Schrodinger's terrorism is the Calistani.
00:35:29.760And even just that it's a stupid crime in a certain sense, even just from a motives perspective, if the Indian government wanted to frame the Calisthenes, they could have just had a fake bomb and said, oh, we found this bomb on a plane.
00:35:42.760It doesn't make any sense for the Indian government to go to the extent where they're going to not only kill people, but they're going to kill people who are foreign citizens, especially Japanese citizens, a country that that tends to do a lot more trade with India than Canada.
00:35:57.760That this is just doesn't make it doesn't make any actual logical sense from the Indian government's point of view, especially since most of the operation, most of the issues that they're like, most of the anti-Calistani operations were happening in India.
00:36:10.760So it doesn't make sense that they would be focusing their attention on issues in Canada to try and set up the Calisthenes.
00:36:16.760Well, they make a very stupid point the same way regarding Blue Star.
00:36:24.760They say the governor of India intentionally attacked the Golden Temple to teach the Sikhs a final lesson to break the backbone of the Sikhs.
00:36:37.760So while if the government of India really wanted to destroy Golden Temple, there was no need to send army and have, according to the government, around 100 killed and maybe several hundred soldiers wounded and take about 48 or more hours to control the situation.
00:36:58.760They could have parked a few habitisers a couple of miles away and just bumped it to pieces.
00:37:06.760That was not the intention of the government.
00:37:08.760I mean, it could be a stupid decision of the government or a wrong way of doing it.
00:37:13.760We can criticize all that, but that was not the intention.
00:37:16.760But the Calisthenes pretend to break the backbone of the Sikhs government conducted that operation to destroy the Golden Temple.
00:37:24.760Similar way they claim that the governor of India to defame the Sikhs caused or created this bombing of India.
00:37:32.760So these are very stupid points and they are kind of putting their foot in two different votes at the same time.
00:37:39.760It's a very, very serious double standard, and it has not been checkmated within the community because there is no free discussion within the community.
00:37:48.760There cannot be a talk show on a radio or TV show live where people can call and make points in a very civilized way to convey their message, what they feel about it.
00:37:59.760Not even in any city, anywhere in the world where Sikh diaspora is only threats, only violence, only their line is the final line.
00:38:10.760You cannot say anything which goes against them publicly without fear and without threat of some sort of reprisers.
00:38:23.760I think that also plays a very big role in how they've managed to grow in the West.
00:38:26.760I mean, I know I said I take my knowledge out of it, but I mean, would you say that, one, the mishandling of the Air India trial, the lack of seriousness,
00:38:37.760but like, do you think the fact that Western governments have kind of given the Calistanis free reign to threaten and intimidate their asses has sort of helped them grow and become, you know, the political force they are today?
00:38:50.760Maybe to add on to that too, like, because I think this would be a good, like stapled on point, is that in the Air India trials, because everyone was effectively acquitted,
00:39:01.760except for the one bomb plotter that because many people were effectively murdered right before the trial happened and had their witness testimonies thrown out, they, the Canadian government or the Canadian system, not that they're, they're doing this actively, like they're trying to enable them.
00:39:17.760But by, but the system acting the way it did in that trial effectively gave the green light towards Calistanis using violence to promote their agenda because they were, they were.
00:39:27.760I would say a tacit endorsement, like a tacit endorsement would be the, yeah, it's like some, yeah, it's like, it's like this, it's an irregular endorsement.
00:39:37.760It's not that anyone in the government is specifically cool with it, but the, the Calistanis blow a plane and then they effectively, basically all of them get away with it by murdering people is, you know,
00:39:46.760one of the greatest endorsements of their violent activities in the country.
00:39:51.760Now that investigation was not on track.
00:39:55.760It was derailed from the very beginning.
00:39:57.760I'll, I'll, I'll give you, you, you are mentioning the murder of Tara Singh here, the, the, the editor of Indo-Canadian who was supposed to testify in the court and he was,
00:40:05.760he was attacked early on and then he was crippled and then he was murdered before the Air India, India trial.
00:40:10.760That was a very sad part, but let me tell, give you one more example, how derailed this investigation was and how the Canadian security forces, RCMP or CSIS or other investigative agencies had no clue how to proceed with it.
00:40:26.760This is, I'm disclosing this for the first time.
00:40:29.760When I was attacked in September of 85, when I recovered after a couple of weeks in the hospital, I, I, I had no immediate family member in Canada.
00:40:39.760So one of my friends took me to his house.
00:40:44.760I still have like a lot of injuries to recuperate and so on.
00:40:49.760One RCMP officer called him because they knew that I was staying my, with my friend and they, they said they want to come and come and meet me.
00:41:42.760I, up to that point, I had no interaction even with any Indian diplomat because I was very young at that point.
00:41:48.760Certainly when I got into the media later on, I, I had interaction with, with the diplomats.
00:41:53.760And, uh, uh, I had that kind of relationship, uh, on and off, uh, because we have to deal with the, uh, in media capacity with, with everyone.
00:42:04.760But at that point I was very young and I had no interaction with anybody.
00:42:08.760And this RCMP officer wanted to investigate air India bombing from me who was victim of violence.
00:42:14.760I, I mean, if you want a masterclass in incompetence, um, look into everything surrounding the air India bombing and inquiry.
00:42:25.760And, you know, we had these Calistanis being monitored.
00:42:28.760Uh, we knew there were threats and they were speaking Punjabi.
00:42:32.760So like, we couldn't like, if we, they got a translator, they would have learned something about it, but they were just too lazy to do that.
00:42:39.760You know, asking you if you knew responsibly or India bombing, I mean, yeah, that, that, that was not the end of stupidity of the, of the, of the security forces.
00:42:53.760After I, I recovered, uh, somebody from the community who knows, uh, things.
00:42:59.760He, he, he, he told me that you can apply for a criminal compensation because you are, you have suffered very, very severely and, uh, you have not recovered.
00:43:08.760I, I gone through a number of surgeries even after a year.
00:43:11.760So I, I checked with somebody who knew the law and the person said, yes, you can file a claim and they might compensate you maybe four or $5,000 because you suffered a criminal attack.
00:45:44.760Like maybe there's some of that going on.
00:45:46.760I mean, I, I just can't, I can't even fathom this level of incompetence.
00:45:49.760And, and, and I mean, I, I've had lazy days where I just want to sit there and watch TV, but I, I, I've never been this bad to, to do something that's monumentally incompetent, stupid and lazy.
00:46:00.760But I mean, that's the story of Air India in Canada.
00:46:03.760But we must give credit to Calistanis that how effectively they fooled the system, how effectively they created this victim mentality in young Sikhs who are born overseas after blue stars.
00:46:25.760Like, Calistan is not going to come out of this, but, but the credit must go to them that they adopted a strategy, which worked to brainwash the young Sikhs overseas.
00:46:38.760What I will say here, can I, can I tip it on this?
00:46:41.760I mean, my thing is that we'll go back to why I I've seen this in like, I, I, I think they use like sort of the, the radical posting.
00:46:47.760The radical postmodern point of view that was, that was, that was surging up through academia.
00:46:51.760Like the, you know, when Jordan Peterson says neo-Marxist postmodern nonsense, right?
00:46:56.760It's sort of the intersectional thing we have now, but this was an earlier version of it where you have oppressed and oppressors and this very simple narrative that we sell to people, right?
00:47:06.760You know, the old communist bourgeoisie and the proletariat, then the 1960s, the communists realized that they don't like working class people.
00:47:13.760So, and working class people didn't like them.
00:47:18.760And I've seen the Calistanis sort of adopt this general Western eyes, neo-communist behavior where you say, you know, there's oppressed, it's white and black.
00:47:26.760And they've sort of taken the, well, Hindu, Hindus are, are, are this, are the oppressors where the oppressed and sort of taken this narrative, given it a little Calistani twist and, and, and go, because I think we have this narrative of victimhood is very prevalent in the modern West.
00:47:43.760West, less so in the 1980s, but a lot more so now.
00:47:47.760What do you, do you, have you seen any, we're going to wipe, but I would ask, have you seen any merging between, let's say, Calistani ideology and like the, the.
00:47:59.760Well, what I, what I remember is the organizations like WSO in the beginning, you know, in 1985, they were openly discussing and saying that, oh, we should learn from the Jews.
00:48:12.760How they organized themselves, how they, they created their lobby.
00:48:17.760And certainly they followed some of the clues from the Jewish community, but they don't realize that Jewish community was the real victim.
00:48:25.760Of, of genocide and under Nazis, but they created a fake kind of narrative.
00:48:33.760Uh, and honestly, if you put, uh, those two incidents of blue star and, uh, after Mrs. Gandhi's murder, whatever happened, you, you put those two things aside, say they never took place.
00:49:10.760The respect of the six, uh, kind of was reinstated, uh, very quickly after that, within, within a decade, they reached the same level.
00:49:21.760After that, uh, a sick became prime minister, uh, more than two, six became chief of the army staff, chief of the air force, a number of state police's, uh, heads were six at different points.
00:49:36.760So six, uh, I mean, the sick prestige recovered very fast in India, even after such a serious incident, uh, and the credit goes to Indian democracy and, and very solid relationship.
00:49:50.760With which Hindus and six have, I mean, these two communities were not separate, uh, in my childhood.
00:49:57.760Uh, and if I, if I go to the historical perspective, uh, of the Mughal period, at least there are two examples that a famous Mughal King Akbar, when he visited Punjab, uh, in, in his memoirs or, or whoever was writing his activities of the day, uh, which, uh, which is like.
00:50:19.760Uh, which is like the daily happenings, uh, noted in it, which is translated in English available that, that the King went to Punjab near such and such town and met.
00:50:44.760And then after that, uh, the fifth Sikh guru was persecuted by, uh, by, by, by the ruling class of the time.
00:50:52.760And the King was Jahangir who was third from Akbar and his memoir say that he came across information that a Brahman guru, which is like a class within, within Hindus.
00:51:08.760The chief class, a Brahman guru has opened a shop of, of lies.
00:51:15.760And I have told the governor of Punjab to shut it down.
00:51:18.760So, so again, the King, a Mughal King feels that, that Sikh guru was Brahman guru.
00:51:25.760Just, just for, just for our, our people who are not into Indian history, the Mughals were not, um, Hindu, they were Muslim.
00:51:36.760So, so just, so when, if you're thinking what the Hindus were saying this, no, this is when there was Islamic rulership and this is how they viewed Hindus and Sikhs.
00:51:42.760So just, just for the beginners, uh, out there.
00:51:57.760There are, I mean, these, I mean, today, I mean, when there's a couple of Hindu organizations that I've worked with and, and then I've got in contact with me now.
00:52:05.760Like there's Sikh member, like there was a Sikh member of a Hindu organization who, who reached out to me to ask me to, to, to do something.
00:52:12.760I'm like, I mean, that's par for the course in my, in my view.
00:52:16.760Like, I know they're two separate religions and, you know, I know there's differences, but I'm saying when, you know, when it comes down to the communities, um, the Calistanis will have you believe that there's this massive rift between Sikhs and Hindus.
00:52:30.760And then if you really kind of get into the Sikh community and the Hindu community that are not Calistani aligned, there is, uh, it's, it's about as minimal of a rift as you can get between two different religious groups.
00:52:43.760Um, so, I mean, that, that's the reality that I think a lot of people should know about is, and I think, I think it's important that people know that, you know, there, there are a lot of Sikhs who have been actively in the fight against this in Canada and trying to help who get really angry and upset when they see, you know, these radical goudoirs talk about violence and stuff in their name.
00:53:04.760And, and a lot of them will, you know, step up and, and, and try and be on the other side.
00:53:08.760They just don't get that much attention from the media, um, for whatever reason.
00:53:12.760Maybe, uh, maybe I can move on to that other question I had, cause I think this will bring us to the modern day in the process of it.
00:53:19.760So this is probably, you could, it'll probably be a few questions wrapped up into one.
00:53:24.760So in 85 and the years after that, you and, uh, you and you are effectively like, you know, literally almost killed by the Calistanis.
00:53:34.760And I assume that it would be right to say that there's not a lot of Sikhs speaking up, not because there's constant violence from the Calistanis, but they've made it very clear that they will, they will go after anyone who speaks up.
00:53:47.760So that's probably why most of the Sikh community doesn't say anything, even though the Calistanis are only like 1% of the population.
00:53:54.760Uh, but the thing I want to move on to that, that's probably a side point.
00:53:57.760It's a little bit more basic, but the reason why the police don't take you seriously.
00:54:01.760And maybe the reason why politicians don't take Sikhs like you seriously, does it have to do with almost a sort of certain type of exoticism?
00:54:09.760Because like the point that Tariq Fatah had made in the past, he says that a lot of politicians and government officials get dazzled kind of by the idea that you have this Sikh man with a very large beard and a big turban.
00:54:21.760And he is a Calistani and he comes up and he says, I represent the community.
00:54:25.760You should talk to me if you want to know what Sikh people think.
00:54:28.760And that's how almost through the sense of exoticism that politicians are like, Oh, it's such a strange community.
00:54:35.760And that's how they end up getting power.
00:54:37.760Even though you without the turban is a far more representative of the average Sikh in Canada.
00:54:43.760Is that kind of how it's been working and how they've been able to stay relevant in Canada?
00:54:47.760Is that they are unfairly seen as representatives?
00:54:50.760Well, I think in the beginning, there might be some politicians who felt that, you know, the person with the big turban and big beard is a Sikh and he's a Khalistani.
00:55:05.760I think the politicians of the day in Canada and other Western countries, they are very opportunistic.
00:55:11.760They are using this movement for their own benefit, for votes and for notes.
00:55:18.760So when they want nominations from certain areas in the beginning, that's how it started.
00:55:25.760The Canadian politicians, all of a sudden, when they when they found that the Khalistanis are leading the community and Khalistanis became active in Canadian policy,
00:55:35.760they started picking sides with one candidate or the other for nomination and liberal party and other party, mainly liberal in the beginning and NDP and then conservatives.
00:55:45.760So whoever they will they will support will win because they can they can hire instant members.
00:55:51.760And we had media reports from B.C. and from Ontario, where one family was member of the riding association of a liberal party and also member of riding association of NDP party.
00:56:04.760And somebody was paying the fee as the same person was paying the fee.
00:56:09.760They did not even know which for which party they were recruited, for which party or which candidate they are being taken for the nomination.
00:56:17.760They will simply take the name they've been told.
00:56:20.760So that is how the politicians started using them.
00:56:23.760So the Khalistanis started raising funds for them.
00:56:26.760And over the years, the community got into business.
00:56:30.760They they make big business houses, medium sized business houses.
00:56:36.760They could afford to get funds and more people came.
01:04:34.760Or they will ask the members to drop their ballot sets at certain point near, near their home.
01:04:38.760And those ballots will be send it, send it to the central registry of, uh, of NDP.
01:04:43.760Like first the, the, the registration of members and then the voting, then the voting.
01:04:49.760Yeah, because I'm, I'm, I'm looking at the numbers now and I just want to bring this up.
01:04:52.760It's so sketchy that in, uh, 20, yeah, in 2017, during the leadership, the last poll of actual party members had Jagmeet winning, but he was winning with 38.2% of the vote.
01:05:04.760And Charlie Angus was behind with 29.4. Then you have Nicky Ashton with 17 and Guy Caron with 14.
01:05:10.760And then the real results were 53 Jagmeet, 19 Angus, 17 Ashton and 9.4 Caron.
01:05:16.760And it's like, that's, that's a little bit of a polling error if you are actually pulling this right.
01:05:21.760But my thought is that you probably don't have a lot of people who are kind of being pressured into buying a membership or being told that they have to buy a membership.
01:05:29.760They're not picking up the phone and answering these polls. So it's effectively this concentrated group in a few cities all voting and none, none of the people interested enough to even take a, take a phone poll about who they're supporting.
01:05:40.760Well, in the community, it was open secret. What, what is, what is going on? Uh, and then it was discussed in the mainstream media too, up to some extent, but he, he, he won the election and he became the leader.
01:05:52.760Now, now he's keeping, uh, Trudeau in power, uh, for as long as both of them want, uh, I mean, I'm not, now it is not limited to liberals and NDP.
01:06:04.760It has also gone to the conservatives.
01:06:06.760Like there, there, there, there, there is a Khalistani lobby within, within the conservative party, within, within, uh, Pierre Polyav's, uh, caucus within, within his shadow cabinet.
01:06:15.760There is a, there is a Khalistani lobby, uh, although it is much weaker, uh, when, when we look at, uh, uh, liberal and NDP, but it is there.
01:06:23.760And, uh, I think its strength is going to increase in the next election. So Canada has to be very, very careful which way the things are going.
01:06:32.760Uh, if they are looking at international relations, especially relations with India, which, uh, which has a lot of influence on the world stage, uh, then Canadian politics, the ground realities indicate something, something that it is not going to work out with that in Canada and India.
01:06:48.760Yeah. You have, you made a very good point. And why didn't I always talk about like, you know, foreign policy is more important than people give it credit for.
01:06:55.760Like we all want to ignore it. You know, yes, healthcare and, and, and economy are very important education, but if you let these problems fester, they will eventually create bigger problems.
01:07:04.760And you're seeing it now. Like if we just want to be like, Oh, Kalistan, why do I care?
01:07:09.760But if they get into every single political party, this is a movement that openly advocates for violent balkanization of an ally.
01:07:17.760Countries don't like that. Right. We would not like it if, if Brazil was harboring elements of the FLQ, who periodically assassinated Canadian diplomats there.
01:07:28.760Um, we're throwing funds into Quebec to, to increase violence. And there was violence on the Ontario Quebec border every now and then.
01:07:36.760It would really hurt our relations with Brazil. Um, and we would, yeah, we would be quite oppositional.
01:07:42.760Uh, you know, we're just a country of 40 million, but now think of that example, where the Brazil were Canada and India has 1.5 billion people, an emerging economy.
01:07:51.760That's only going to get stronger. And are they just like, we're, we're, it's not out of the, if Polly have wins and then goes the same route and gives into the Kalistanis.
01:08:02.760And then the signal is there's no political party in Canada that's going to do anything about the Kalistanis.
01:08:06.760We risk India just saying, okay, blockade it. We don't need any trade. Like we don't need them. Might as well.
01:08:11.760Like we're literally making, we're, we're risking India saying we're going to make an example of Canada of how, if we want to actively try and like undermine a country or.
01:08:24.760Withhold trade or pull the plug, we can survive it and they can't. So pay attention world. Like we run the risk of being an being made example of, which is why I'm going ballistic right now on television.
01:08:37.760And anyone who lets me talk is I want to avoid this. Like I get the, oh, you're anti Canada because you don't like, no, I just, I see.
01:08:46.760I can kind of see, I've seen the Kalistani movement build up here. I know what our government is like.
01:08:52.760And I understand the geopolitical concerns of another country. And I, I, you know, I, I have some ability with some foresight to see an incoming train wreck.
01:09:02.760And I, I'm trying to, you know, switch the lever as hard as I can to, you know, make the trains go on opposite tracks here to avoid collision.
01:09:10.760But the way we're going is we, we run the risk of being made an example of by a country that has more power and leverage than we do.
01:09:18.760And that's not going to be good. So this is why I'm trying to get us to sort of clean up the Kalistani issue, because it's not just, oh, brown people are fighting.
01:09:30.760And that's what I meant about the exotic, the media tends to cover when Sikhs will go up and break up an Hindu parade and attack other Sikhs.
01:09:37.760It's like, oh, this is so complicated. It's people from a different region of the world fighting.
01:09:42.760We can't understand what's going on. And then it almost never gets investigated as if it's just some, you know, random happening that you're supposed to expect in this community.
01:09:49.760And it's not just a specific tiny group of agitators.
01:09:53.760You know, looking at the ground realities for last four or five years, I've been stating this, that Canada and India relations cannot stay friendly for very long time to come.
01:10:06.760Because there is a very strong anti-India lobby and it is very widespread.
01:10:12.760It's not like only in the Liberal Party, as I stated before, NDP and conservatives are also part of it.
01:10:22.760But it starts from civic level. It starts from civic level. It goes to the provincial level and it goes all the way to the federal level, to the PMO, all three levels.
01:10:33.760Like when, when, when we talk about Indian interference, I don't see where Indian interference is.
01:10:38.760A couple of years ago when the things came to fore that Chinese interference, it was WSO who created, oh, there is also Indian interference which should be investigated.
01:10:49.760If you see the interference, it's the Canadian interference in Indian affairs constantly for almost four decades.
01:10:56.760And it is from, it is from three, three levels of, of the government.
01:11:01.760Uh, the, the terrorism, terrorist plots are planned in here, executed in India.
01:13:07.760I mean, what, what, what do they have to do with the farmer's agitation in India?
01:13:11.760I was, I was, I remember watching the farmer's protest and like, I'm not an expert on what was going on in the Punjab region at the time.
01:13:16.760I, maybe someone in the Punjab region to the farmer's protest, uh, protest said the word farm, agriculture, vegetables, something to do with land that might've gone on the picture.
01:13:28.760I, one of the, in Canada, just Calistan flags.
01:14:18.760They started media lobbying and there goes the farmer's movement.
01:14:22.760Uh, I, I, I mean, though, if you look at those Indian laws and you compare with, with, with, with Canada, Canada has, has more of, of that, that, that free market, uh, kind of, uh, whether it's contract farming, whether, whether it's a, uh, kind of supply management.
01:14:39.760Like Canada has supply management, which was not, which is not even close.
01:14:44.760Indian laws were not even close to it.
01:14:46.760Canada supply manages, uh, the poultry, the, the, the dairy and so on.
01:14:53.760Uh, there, there, there is very strict limits, uh, license system of what, what they can produce.
01:14:59.760So there was no such thing in Indian laws.
01:15:02.760So they were defending, uh, the Canadian system against the prospective Indian laws, like, which were being implemented and then later, later withdrawn due to emotional issue.
01:15:13.760So Canada, Canada has like much more strong, uh, restrictions on farming.
01:16:25.760They start basically surrounding whatever castle that was and beating on it with like wooden mallets and stuff like that and damaging property.
01:16:32.760And that's something that Justin Trudeau openly endorses as a freedom, like human rights movement.
01:16:38.760And yet in his own country, he, he's like way more authoritarian against much more peaceful movements.
01:16:47.760What I wanted to bring up to bring it back to Jagmeet Singh is that when Jagmeet Singh was at that one forum alongside Kalistani activists like Shamshir Singh, who is an open advocate of violence.
01:16:58.760One of the things that kind of gives the lie to the idea that the Calistanis are just looking for, you know, seek rights in Punjab for seeks sovereignty for the ability to, you know, you know, like the ability to control their own destiny or whatever the high minded way of explaining it is, is that Shamshir Singh on on secretly taped audio when he's in the UK is endorsing Naxalite violence in Eastern India, which is atheistic violence.
01:17:26.760So Naxalites that people don't know, they're like a communist Maoists who are basically waging an insurgency war in Eastern India.
01:17:35.760And it's been going on since the, since the sixties, but Modi's cleaned up quite a bit in the last, you know, several, like in the last eight years or so it's been heavily cleaned up, but those people are just murdering random Indians and Hindus and other people who are religious or who are in favor of capitalism.
01:17:52.760In some way in the hundreds, you'll go through like the records of Naxalite attacks.
01:17:56.760One attack will just be, Oh, there's a bunch of people trying to build a road into a Naxalite health territory.
01:18:02.760And that's a threat to the Naxalites because if a road gets built, maybe tanks come in and they're basically thug operation falls apart.
01:18:08.760They just, you know, kill 130 people for no reason.
01:18:12.760And people like Shamshir Singh who Jagmeet Singh shares a forum with is completely fine with it.
01:18:17.760He actually sees those people's random killings as being fellow travelers with the Calistani movement.
01:18:23.760Well, I mean, his comments are not out of the way because the truth is that a lot of, there was a Naxalite movement in Punjab in seventies, which, which was crushed by, by, by a Sikh party.
01:18:38.760The, the Sharomani Akalidal, its, its premier was Mr. Badal who died recently in old age.
01:20:14.760I mean, it's often called the red green alliance when the communists and the Islamists get in bed together, like when they overthrew the Shah of Iran in 1979.
01:20:21.760Usually when they get power, whoever gets power will kill the other one.
01:20:24.760So, you know, if the Naxalites gain power, they'll then start killing the Calistanis and the Calistanis gain power, they'll kill the Naxalites.
01:20:29.760But until then they have a common enemy to tear down, you know, whether it be the West, whether it be India, right?
01:20:35.760The uniting thing is not, we have principles.
01:21:55.760And they'd just become the Alliance and not the reform anymore.
01:21:58.760And when he ran for his nomination, he ran against four other Sikh candidates in which there was more than 15,000 memberships in the riding during the nomination.
01:22:07.760There was more memberships in that riding than there were the rest of the country for the Alliance party.
01:22:13.760And he still somehow won cause he was the only white guy running in the area.
01:22:17.760So all the Sikh Kalistani candidates seem to cut each other up.
01:22:23.760I, I remember that they were, they were very much against, uh, Art Hanger because, uh, uh, one of, uh, the ex leaders of WSO was nominated, uh, as a refugee board judge.
01:22:35.760Uh, and, uh, Art Hanger, uh, brought this case to a parliamentary committee.
01:22:41.760He questioned the government, uh, that are you aware of the past of this person?
01:22:45.760Uh, and the basic, uh, point he brought out was that this person himself jumped a ship.
01:22:52.760When a ship, uh, he was working for a, for a shipping company.
01:22:56.760When the ship came to Montreal, he jumped the ship, he became refugee.
01:23:00.760Uh, and then he married, uh, somebody marriage of convenience to get, uh, uh, his status.
01:23:05.760And now he's immigration refugee board judge.
01:28:21.760If, if, if he thinks about Indian interference, I think Canadian interference is much, much greater in India and better.
01:28:28.760He cleans up his act and other politicians clean their act and sit together with India.
01:28:35.760And let's, uh, talk, which makes sense and tell the sick leadership here, whether it's WSO, whether there are other pressure groups that, yes, there is difference between freedom of expression and violence.
01:28:50.760And violence, blending of violence, threats, violence, violent threats to, to anybody who speaks something you don't like the threats to the, to the, to, to the foreign diplomats posting those, those banners, war zones, and, and those tableaus.
01:29:08.760And by the way, I must add, this magazine belongs to the same Gurdwara, which, uh, uh, made that tableau part of the parade.
01:29:21.760It was the same, same Gurdwara, which, which lionized this, this terrorist.
01:29:26.760It was the same Mrs. Gandhi's tableau, which, which became news in, in, in June of this year.
01:29:32.760And also, you know, when, when, when I spoke to some friends, some media persons, uh, back home, uh, there is, there are credible rumors, uh, that, that there are Canadian staffers in India who are foreign proxies.
01:29:51.760I've been told India has asked numbers and rank parity with Canada.
01:29:58.760Not only Canada has a lot more staff in Indian missions there, but some of them are foreign proxies.
01:30:06.760And if that becomes public with the, with evidence that will be very embarrassing to Canada.
01:30:39.760I hope you learned something and, and, and, and, and can kind of see the dangers that Wyatt and I have been trying to explain to people through, unfortunately, Indian media.
01:30:50.760And if you're in Canadian media, I suggest you might want to cover this because this is going to be a story that's going to matter.
01:30:55.760It, yeah, you might think we have a few years until things get bad, but an ounce of prevention, an ounce of, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure is, is what I'd say.
01:31:07.760What I just wanted to add right there is that, uh, for anyone who wants to see, uh, wants to see the documentary that Terry Malefsky made back in 2007, uh, uh, that Balraj is in, I'm going to be linking that YouTube video from connect politics that has, uh, that one in it.
01:31:22.760Cause I think it's one of the best explainers if someone's not willing to sit down and listen to this full hour and a half, but you want them to know about it.
01:31:28.760It's a good 20 minute video that explains it in a very snappy way that I think will get people to take the issue seriously.
01:31:34.760But, uh, I guess other than that, we can probably end it right here.
01:31:38.760It's been fantastic to have you on Balraj.
01:31:40.760And just like Daniel said, we would love to have you back someday, hopefully.
01:31:44.760And, uh, and I guess that's where we're going to end this year.