NDP leader says Sikhs should not turn to violence
OTTAWA — NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says he condemns all acts of terrorism, no matter who is responsible.
In a statement posted to the NDP website, Singh defends his decision to attend a 2015 rally in California — an event billed as a commemoration of Sikhs who died during an invasion of the Golden Temple in Amritsar in 1984, but which was also a show of support for Sikh separatism.
Singh says he has long been an advocate for human rights and while he believes in allowing the Sikh community the opportunity to process the feelings inflicted by the trauma of the 1984 invasion, which he calls a genocide, he does not condone violence as a response.
Many Indian-Canadian families immigrated to Canada in the years following the temple attack, fleeing tension and anti-Sikh rioting that followed it. In his statement, Singh says many Sikhs are still processing the fact their relatives were attacked for who they were and that they need the space to be able to express their feelings. He says he has dedicated a lot to helping a community answer how it can “move through pain and trauma in order to reach acceptance so that it can arrive peacefully at reconciliation? I encourage all those facing these tough questions not to fall prey to rage and violence, but rather to embrace your truth and move forward with love and courage,” he wrote.
Singh’s statement, which follows a report about the 2015 rally in the Globe and Mail, comes at a time of strained CanadaIndia relations, in part because of lingering Indian concerns that Canadian governments tolerate Sikh separatism and extremism by not speaking out against it.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent visit to India became more of a diplomatic embarrassment than a peace-building exercise, though Trudeau did make some headway in signing a joint security framework with India to counter terrorism and violent extremism.
Trudeau spent much of the trip expressing Canada’s official support for a united India and condemning violence to quiet allegations within India that Canada supported Sikh separatism and that his cabinet included Sikh separatists.