New Delhi: With India-Canada diplomatic ties hitting a historic low over the 2023 killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government found an unlikely ally in the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M) last week.
Even as other opposition parties sought answers from the Narendra Modi government on Canadian allegations of links between Indian government officials and Nijjar’s murder, the CPI(M) Polit Bureau flagged the threats posed by Sikh separatist elements operating on Canadian soil.
“The activities of anti-India Khalistani elements operating in Canada have been a matter of serious concern and have a direct impact on national security. The Government of India is duty-bound to protect the national interest for which it has the support across political parties in India,” it said in a statement issued on 15 October.
It underlined that the allegations levelled by various official authorities of the Canadian government against India have been “rejected by the Government of India”—in a stark contrast from the stance taken by the Congress and the Trinamool Congress (TMC), among others.
Though opposition parties in India have traditionally endorsed the government line on most matters of national security and external aggression, the CPI(M)’s statement appears to be anchored more in Punjab’s history with the separatist movement and the party’s position in opposition to it.
Otherwise, the party has taken divergent views on other sensitive issues. For instance, on the 2020 Galwan clashes between Indian and Chinese troops, the CPI(M) refrained from criticising Beijing, instead advocating disengagement and de-escalation.
“The lack of clarity on LAC demarcation has been leading to such disputes and standoff situations. It is necessary to agree on a clear demarcation of the LAC by both India and China to maintain peace and tranquillity on the border,” read the CPI(M)’s political resolution adopted at its 23rd party congress in April 2022.
Canada sheltering ‘too many extremist leaders’
Speaking to ThePrint, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat recalled how cadres of both the CPI(M) and the Communist Party of India (CPI) had come under attack from militants as the separatist movement raged in Punjab in the 1980s and the early 1990s.
“Canada’s support to elements that support the Khalistani separatists certainly cannot be supported in the name of free speech. We lost so many of our leading comrades of both the CPI and CPI(M) as we were under such attack from the Khalistanis. Our offices as well as homes were targeted,” Karat said.
She mentioned how the late CPI(M) stalwart Harkishan Singh Surjeet had said that Canada was sheltering and supporting “too many extremist leaders”.
At the same time, Karat said, the Communists also opposed the policy being pursued by the Congress government led by Indira Gandhi of “treating the Khalistani issue as a law-and-order problem”.
“The Congress was attempting to use these elements in the fight against the main political force in Punjab, the Shiromani Akali Dal. Comrade Surjeet and the party argued for the need to find political solutions to some of the genuine demands of the people linked to the autonomy of the state, the status of Chandigarh, the border disputes with neighbouring states, and the sharing of river waters. We stressed on the importance of politically isolating the extremists instead of only resorting to repressive actions by the security forces,” she wrote in her book, An Education for Rita, published earlier this year.
In its latest statement, however, the CPI(M) Polit Bureau also mentioned that the party expects that the Centre will take the opposition parties “into confidence on these issues including the allegation made about the role of the Lawrence Bishnoi criminal gang”.
CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Nilotpal Basu said his worry stems from the fact that the approach of the Modi government “mirrors that of the Indira dispensation”.
‘300 Communist leaders killed’
While there are no official estimates on the Communist leaders killed by militants during the separatist insurgency in Punjab, Basu told ThePrint that the Left parties lost around 300 leaders and workers during that restive period.
In an India Today report from 31 October 1986, journalist Gobind Thukral wrote that “Communists, particularly those belonging to the Communist Party of India (CPI), are reaping a bitter harvest of death for their strident public campaign against terrorism.”
The report was written in light of the killing of former CPI Punjab unit secretary Darshan Singh Canadian and Baldev Singh Mann, a leader of the CPI (Marxist-Leninist) New Democracy, within a span of two days in September 1986.
Darshan Singh, incidentally, adopted the surname ‘Canadian’ after his return to India from Canada, where he had immigrated in 1937. During his stay there, Singh was associated with the Labour Progressive Party, which went on to become the Communist Party of Canada.
India Today reported that, after Darshan Singh was gunned down, the militants allegedly left a slip of paper next to his body with the message, “We are silencing this voice opposed to Khalistan. It is a lesson for others.”
“Himself a scholar of Sikhism and Indian philosophy, Canadian would always convincingly quote from the Sikh gurus to prove that the terrorists did not even understand Sikhism,” the report said.
Among the other Left leaders to have been killed by the extremists were CPI MLA Arjun Singh Mastana and party leader Parswarath Nath, an associate of freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose.
Basu told ThePrint that the Communists had a mass base in Punjab due to their engagement with the peasantry and presence in the strands of the freedom movement, such as the Ghadar Movement.
“The Communists were on one hand fighting the authoritarian tendencies of the Indira government while trying to keep the Akalis away from forces that were inciting ethno-religious sentiments. As soon as the Khalistan movement broke out, we became the principal targets of the militants,” Basu said.
He said that the Indira Gandhi government dealt with the matter as a law-and-order problem, leading to many unresolved political and ideological issues “resurfacing now”, pointing to the Lok Sabha poll victories of Sikh radicals Amritpal Singh and Sarabjit Singh Khalsa.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
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