#sikh diaspora

[kp777]

India Expels Top Canadian Diplomat Following Trudeau's Claims About Sikh Activist's Killing

[secular-jew]

if you get to talk about how islam ruined the levant, i get to talk about how islam ruined south asia. im indian and seeing so much of my culture as well as the cultures of indigenous pakistanis/kashmiris/afghans get erased by muslim invaders is ridiculous. they pretend that they're oppressed everywhere but in reality, they've been doing so much of it. i feel solidarity towards jews because we understand how much islamic colonialism hurts us. even in kashmir, the indigenous hindus were murdered and forced to leave in the 80s and 90s, and now, the story's been twisted so that the kashmiri hindus are the bad guys and we're the ones who want to kill all the muslims when it's the opposite. it's so frustrating.

Islam absolutely ruined Southeast and South Asia. I FEEL FOR YOU MY FRIEND. I feel TOTAL solidarity with Buddhists and Hindus and Sikhs and Zoroastrians -- with all Indians and Malaysians and Indonesians and Africans as well. Islam is now ruining Europe and trying to destroy North America.

[propicsmedia]

Part 5 Khalistan Explained  - Watch For More Episodes #Khalistan #Khalistani #Sikh #Diaspora #Sikhism #History #Punjab #indian #Budhism #Ghandi #Peace #War #Violence #Understanding #Delhi #indian #India #pakistan #OperationBlueStar #Hindu #humanrights #endviolence #Suba #manipur #BlueStar #Gurdwara #temples #stateofpunjab #pakistanipunjab #history #worldhistory #peace #Unitedsikhs @khalistanupdates4011 @RealSikhsAgainstKhalistan @khalistanzindabad9695 @SikhismTv @discoversikhism @sikhismchannell @khalistanarchive6824 @IndiaTV @SETIndia @TimelineChannel @HistoryofWorld

[tweedsmuir-library]

April is Sikh Heritage Month

Come down to the School Library to find out more about Sikhs, Sikhism, and the history and ongoing contributions of Sikhs in Canada.

[meherya]

find it really hard to give a fuck about ndp motions and the petitions to get the canadian government to recognize 1984 as a genocide when these fuckers can't even denounce the current ongoing genocide in Palestine

[laifless]

ਮਾਰਿਆਂ ਲਏ ਫੁੱਲ ਤਾਂ ਪਹ ਸਕਦੀਆਂ ਕਿ ਨਾਈ?

ਇਹਨਾ ਨੇ ਵੀ ਤਾਂ ਮਰਨਾ

ਮੁਲਾਕਾਤ ਹੋ ਜਾਵੇਗੀ

[schoolhater]

About her heritage:

Harris’s family illustrates how caste, class, and global mobility are linked through access to state jobs, upper-class education, social networks, and opportunities for immigration. Harris’s grandfather, P.V. Gopalan, one of her “favorite people in the world,” was an imperial officer—a position which made possible his daughter’s immigration to the US. [...] Kamala Harris is the product of a “triply selected” Indian diaspora, as described by Chakravorty, Kapur, and Singh in The Other One Percent. This group of migrants is first selected through the caste hierarchy in India that determines access to land ownership and higher education. Next, they are selected by an examination and education-financing system that limits the number of people eligible for immigration to the States. Lastly, they are selected by a capitalist immigration system selectively admitting those who match the country’s needs.

About her policies:

As District Attorney (DA) of San Francisco, Harris increased DA drug arrests by 25% within just three weeks of her appointment. She went on to introduce California’s inhumane “three strikes” law, in which a second felony resulted in a harsher sentence and a third felony led to an automatic 25 years to life imprisonment. She also created the egregious anti-truancy program to threaten parents with legal prosecution and appealed a judge’s decision to make the death penalty unconstitutional in California. [...] While serving as California’s “top cop,” Harris allowed law enforcement agencies to use secret surveillance technology to monitor protests and BIPOC activists. [...] For years, Sikh activists have been pushing Harris to apologize for dismissing a lawsuit filed by a Sikh man who had been denied a job as a state corrections officer for refusing to shave his facial hair, a pillar of his faith. [...] Harris seeks to return to a liberal internationalist world order when American hegemony ran unchecked, “security” was the utmost priority, and “repressive and corrupt dictators” were not allowed to stay in office. She has joined a Presidential campaign that employs an Islamaphobic Hindutva sympathizer. Unsurprisingly, Harris has stayed largely silent on the rise of Hindutva forces both in India and the US.

[writingwithcolor]

Would it be problematic for me to have a black girl convert to sikhi over the course of the story with the assistance of her Sikh friend & the friend’s family and then get married to said friend in the future? I don’t want it to seem like she did it simply to be with her friend so I thought that maybe if I showed how she enjoys hearing things about the religion (for example how sikhi emphasizes treating everyone equally and also the protection of those facing injustice) from her friend that it could seem more natural but could that be seen as fetishizing? The black girl has been friends with the family for 10+ years (aka since she was 8) and also wasn’t raised following any religion (but not as an atheist either) so I feel the conversion would be somewhat easy for her but if any of what I’ve wrote is problematic I’ll change it! I’m still doing research so if I messed anything up I’m extremely sorry. Thank you in advance!

Black woman converts to become Sikh - Is this problematic?

If SK thinks these circumstances are okay from the Sikhism standpoint, then absolutely it is fine. Black people are all individual and different people throughout the diaspora. We are not some collective monolith with a build-in set of interests, beliefs and rules on what we can and cannot do! The real question to me is if someone can convert to Sikhism and if so, how being Black factors into the lifestyle.

On that note, I will hand the mic to SK and also welcome Black Sikh followers to chime in.

-Colette

Sikhi accept converts

Short answer: No, it is not problematic. Sikhi accepts converts. There’s nothing wrong with being drawn to a faith because of certain aspects and then looking deeper and choosing to convert.

Longer answer: Conversion into a completely new faith is rarely easy. I would say Sikhi is a harder faith to convert to because there are few resources in other languages and many Sikhs are unaccustomed to converts. As in most, if not all, religions, there is a gap between what is said and how it’s practiced.

Despite the messages about fighting injustice and treating others equally, many Sikh converts, especially Black Sikhs, deal with prejudice. This is not even unique to converts - Afghan & Kashmiri Sikhs have also faced ignorant comments from Punjabi Sikhs who aren’t aware of Sikh communities outside Punjab. The 1980’s-1990’s Sikh genocide disconnected many Sikhs in Punjab from the revolutionary messages of justice and equality laid out in Sikh holy texts.

A challenge unique to Black Sikhs is that the way kesdhari Sikhs take care of their hair and tie it in turbans can be a challenge for someone with Black hair. I would recommend Gurpreet Kaur’s writing.

Resources

Being Black & Sikh

Articles by Gurpreet Kaur

I would also suggest checking out The Black Sikh Collective on Tumblr, Instagram & Facebook for more perspectives of Black Sikhs.

-SK If this answer was helpful, SK accepts tips here: https://ko-fi.com/skaur | Venmo & Cashapp: skaur1699

[eretzyisrael]

by Phyllis Chesler

How could so much rabid and vulgar Jew-hatred suddenly erupt everywhere? Did someone flick a switch that unleashed millions of haters programmed to disrupt public meetings, graduation ceremonies, legislative sessions, and singing and athletic contests? To block streets, schools and bridges? To smash windows, deface synagogues and kosher or Israeli restaurants, and publish false narratives about Israel and the Palestinians all over the world?

I’ve been asking myself this question ever since Oct. 7. Today, I may have something of an answer.

This worldwide non-stop attack on the world’s Jews did not happen when the U.N. passed its infamous resolution equating Zionism with racism in the 1970s. It did not occur after Palestinian terrorists bombed synagogues, hijacked planes and murdered Israeli athletes at the Olympics. Nor when Arab countries launched attack after attack on Israel, subjecting it to countless wars.

It did not even happen when Palestinian terrorists blew up Israeli civilians on buses and stabbed, car-rammed and shot Israeli civilians to death on Israeli streets. Nor did it happen after Iranian proxies launched rockets at the Jewish state, sent flotillas of armed assassins in the name of “peace” and declared their intention to exterminate the Jews once and for all.

Despite incredible losses, Israel rose triumphantly each time.

Here’s what’s different now:

First, back then, the well-funded and well-organized media and university assault on Israel had not yet indoctrinated three or four generations of Westerners.

Second, on Oct. 7, perhaps for the first time, Israel looked genuinely vulnerable. This rendered both Israelis and Jews everywhere fair game.

It’s as simple as that.

Once the terrible sight of Israeli blood, of charred and/or raped Israeli corpses, was broadcast the world over, the haters knew it was possible to chase the Jews down, to try to destroy us yet again. Who would protect us? The IDF was under the most profound siege on Israel’s northern and southern borders and in its historical heartland in Judea and Samaria.

Diaspora Jewry was seen as safe because Israel was militarily, economically, culturally, scientifically and technologically strong. Israel led the world in counterterrorism and was the only country in the Middle East that protects all religions, not just Judaism.

Israel’s strength meant that left-wing Diaspora Jews who loudly criticized Israel’s every imperfection and failure, and right-wing Diaspora Jews who kept supporting Israel no matter what, were safe because Israel existed. Israelis who excel at dissenting politics and are geniuses at criticizing their government were also kept relatively safe because Israel was and was seen as strong. Without this, we would all be subject to the historically endless pogroms and persecutions that have characterized Jewish existence in both the Muslim and the Christian world.

Things have changed. Israel looks vulnerable and the Jew-haters have been emboldened as a result.

So, if Diaspora Jews and our Christian, Hindu, Sikh and Muslim friends the world over want to help both the Jews and the West to defeat barbarism, they must strengthen the IDF in every way. These precious young men and women are on the front line fighting for civilization. However imperfect Israeli and American leaders and political systems may be, they are far better than those of Iran, China, Russia, Turkey, Afghanistan and North Korea.

Now is the time to act. I am urging you, imploring you, to do so.

Send money to the IDF and Israel’s ambulance and medical services. Volunteer as physicians and physical therapists, nurses, harvesters, fruit pickers and compassionate caregivers. Stand with pro-Israel demonstrators. Attend your local city council meetings, write articles for and letters to newspapers. Sue schools for harassing and chasing Jewish students away. Work to end the poisoned curriculum that has turned students into Jew-hating zombies.

This work may take decades to complete. Begin it today. And whatever you choose to do, never stop.

The fate of the world is in your hands

[andmaybegayer]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/29/india-assassination-raw-sikhs-modi/

cool cool cool

(full text below the cut)

An assassination plot on American soil reveals a darker side of Modi’s India

Greg Miller, Gerry Shih, Ellen Nakashima

The White House went to extraordinary lengths last year to welcome Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a state visit meant to bolster ties with an ascendant power and potential partner against China.

Tables on the South Lawn were decorated with lotus blooms, the symbol of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. A chef was flown in from California to preside over a vegetarian menu. President Biden extolled the shared values of a relationship “built on mutual trust, candor and respect.”

But even as the Indian leader was basking in U.S. adulation on June 22, an officer in India’s intelligence service was relaying final instructions to a hired hit team to kill one of Modi’s most vocal critics in the United States.

The assassination is a “priority now,” wrote Vikram Yadav, an officer in India’s spy agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, or RAW, according to current and former U.S. and Indian security officials.

Yadav forwarded details about the target, Sikh activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, including his New York address, according to the officials and a U.S. indictment. As soon as the would-be assassins could confirm that Pannun, a U.S. citizen, was home, “it will be a go ahead from us.”

Yadav’s identity and affiliation, which have not previously been reported, provide the most explicit evidence to date that the assassination plan — ultimately thwarted by U.S. authorities — was directed from within the Indian spy service. Higher-ranking RAW officials have also been implicated, according to current and former Western security officials, as part of a sprawling investigation by the CIA, FBI and other agencies that has mapped potential links to Modi’s inner circle.

In reports that have been closely held within the American government, U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that the operation targeting Pannun was approved by the RAW chief at the time, Samant Goel. That finding is consistent with accounts provided to The Washington Post by former senior Indian security officials who had knowledge of the operation and said Goel was under extreme pressure to eliminate the alleged threat of Sikh extremists overseas. U.S. spy agencies have more tentatively assessed that Modi’s national security adviser, Ajit Doval, was probably aware of RAW’s plans to kill Sikh activists, but officials emphasized that no smoking gun proof has emerged.

Neither Doval nor Goel responded to calls and text messages seeking comment.

This examination of Indian assassination plots in North America, and RAW’s increasingly aggressive global posture, is based on interviews with more than three dozen current and former senior officials in the United States, India, Canada, Britain, Germany and Australia. Citing security concerns and the sensitivity of the subject, most spoke on the condition of anonymity.

That India would pursue lethal operations in North America has stunned Western security officials. In some ways, however, it reflects a profound shift in geopolitics. After years of being treated as a second-tier player, India sees itself as a rising force in a new era of global competition, one that even the United States cannot afford to alienate.

Asked why India would risk attempting an assassination on U.S. soil, a Western security official said: “Because they knew they could get away with it.”

The foiled assassination was part of an escalating campaign of aggression by RAW against the Indian diaspora in Asia, Europe and North America, officials said. The plot in the United States coincided with the June 18 shooting death of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C., near Vancouver — an operation also linked to Yadav, according to Western officials. Both plots took place amid a wave of violence in Pakistan, where at least 11 Sikh or Kashmiri separatists living in exile and labeled terrorists by the Modi government have been killed over the past two years.

The Indian intelligence service has ramped up its surveillance and harassment of Sikhs and other groups overseas perceived as disloyal to the Modi government, officials said. RAW officers and agents have faced arrest, expulsion and reprimand in countries including Australia, Germany and Britain, according to officials who provided details to The Post that have not previously been made public.

The revelations have added to Western concerns about Modi, whose tenure has been marked by economic growth and rising global stature for India, but also deepening authoritarianism. A recent report by Freedom House, a human rights organization, listed India among the world’s practitioners of “transnational repression,” a term for governments’ use of intimidation or violence against their own citizens — dissidents, activists, journalists — in others’ sovereign territory.

India is part of an expanding roster of countries employing tactics previously associated with China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and other repressive regimes. It is a trend fueled by factors ranging from surging strains of nationalism and authoritarianism to the spread of social media and spyware that both empower and endanger dissident groups.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs declined to respond to detailed questions submitted by The Post or provide comment for this article. Responding to questions raised by a Post reporter at a news briefing last week, spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said that India was still investigating the allegations and that the Pannun case “equally impacts our national security.”

Jaiswal referred reporters to previous ministry statements that targeted killings are “not our policy.”

For the Biden administration, which has spent three years cultivating closer ties with India, the assassination plots have pitted professed values against strategic interests.

Last July, White House officials began holding high-level meetings to discuss ways to respond without risking a wider rupture with India, officials said. CIA Director William J. Burns and others have been deployed to confront officials in the Modi government and demand accountability. But the United States has so far imposed no expulsions, sanctions or other penalties.

Even the U.S. criminal case reflects this restraint. Senior officials at the Justice Department and FBI had pushed to prosecute Yadav, officials said, a step that would have implicated RAW in a murder-for-hire conspiracy. But while a U.S. indictment unsealed in November contained the bombshell allegation that the plot was directed by an Indian official, it referred to Yadav as only an unnamed co-conspirator, “CC-1,” and made no mention of the Indian spy agency.

Justice Department officials who took part in the White House deliberations sided against those urging criminal charges against Yadav. Administration officials denied any undue influence. “Charging decisions are the prerogative of law enforcement alone,” said National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson, “and the Biden NSC has rigorously respected that independence.”

The only U.S. charges made public to date are against an alleged middleman, Nikhil Gupta, who is described in the indictment as an Indian drug and weapons trafficker enlisted to hire a contract killer. Gupta, an Indian national who has denied the charges, was arrested in Prague on June 30 and remains in prison. He is awaiting a Czech court ruling on a U.S. request for his extradition.

Even in recent days, the Biden administration has taken steps to contain the fallout from the assassination plot. White House officials warned the Modi government this month that The Post was close to publishing an investigation that would reveal new details about the case. It did so without notifying The Post.

Laying a trap

For decades, RAW was regarded as a regional player, preoccupied by proxy wars with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency. Under Modi, however, RAW has been wielded as a weapon against dissidents in India’s vast global diaspora, according to current and former U.S. and Indian officials.

The U.S. operation shows how RAW tried to export tactics it has used for years in countries neighboring India, officials said, including the use of criminal syndicates for operations it doesn’t want traced to New Delhi. It also exposed what former Indian security officials described as disturbing lapses in judgment and tradecraft.

After the plot against Pannun failed, the decision to entrust Yadav with the high-risk mission sparked recriminations within the agency, former officials said. Rather than joining RAW as a junior officer, Yadav had been brought in midcareer from India’s less prestigious Central Reserve Police Force, said one former official. As a result, the official said, Yadav lacked training and skills needed for an operation that meant going up against sophisticated U.S. counterintelligence capabilities.

Attempts by The Post to locate or contact Yadav were unsuccessful. A former Indian security official said he was transferred back to the Central Reserve Police Force after the Pannun plot unraveled.

The U.S. affidavit describes Yadav as an “associate” of Gupta who procured the alleged drug trafficker’s help by arranging for the dismissal of criminal charges he faced in India. Gupta had a history of collaborating with India’s security services on operations in Afghanistan and other countries, according to a person with knowledge of his background, but he had never been used for jobs in the West.

Petr Slepicka, a lawyer in Prague who represents Gupta, declined to comment on the case except to say that his client denies the charges against him. In court filings in India, Gupta’s family members described him as an innocent “middle-class businessman” whose arrest was a case of mistaken identity. They said he traveled to Prague “for tourism” and to explore new markets for a “handicraft” business, according to the court filings.

Yadav and Gupta spent weeks trading encrypted texts about the plot to kill Pannun, according to a U.S. affidavit filed in support of the request for Gupta’s extradition. To find a willing assassin, Gupta reached out to someone he had been in touch with for at least eight years and understood to be a drug and weapons dealer. In reality, according to the affidavit, the supposed dealer was an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

The two were discussing “another potential firearms and narcotics transaction,” according to the affidavit when, on May 30, Gupta abruptly asked “about the possibility of hiring someone to murder a lawyer living in New York.”

From that moment, U.S. agents had an inside but incomplete view of the unfolding conspiracy. They orchestrated Gupta’s introduction to a supposed assassin who was actually an undercover agent, according to court filings. They captured images of cash changing hands in a car in New York City — a $15,000 down payment on a job that was to cost $100,000 when completed.

At one point, the indictment said, U.S. agents even got footage of Gupta turning his camera toward three men “dressed in business attire, sitting around a conference room,” an apparent reference to Indian operatives overseeing the mission. “We are all counting on you,” Gupta told the purported assassin on the video call, according to the indictment.

Yadav indicated that there would be more jobs after Pannun, including one “big target” in Canada. But a separate hit team got to that assignment first, according to the U.S. indictment, suggesting that RAW was working with multiple criminal elements.

Hours after Nijjar was gunned down in his car on June 18 outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara temple in Surrey, Yadav sent a video clip to Gupta “showing Nijjar’s bloody body slumped in his vehicle,” according to the indictment.

The message arrived as U.S. authorities were laying a trap for Gupta. Seeking to draw him out of India and into a friendly jurisdiction, U.S. agents used their DEA informant to persuade Gupta to travel to the Czech Republic for what he was led to believe would be a clandestine meeting with his American contact, according to officials familiar with the operation.

Gupta arrived in Prague on June 30 — 11 days after Czech authorities, acting at the behest of U.S. officials, had secretly issued an arrest warrant for him.

As he exited Vaclav Havel Airport, Gupta was intercepted by Czech police, who ushered him into a vehicle in which two U.S. federal agents were waiting, according to court filings submitted by Gupta’s family in India. He was questioned for hours while the car meandered around the city. His laptop was seized and his phone held to his face to unlock it, according to the family petition.

Gupta was eventually deposited in Prague’s Pankrac Prison, where he remains awaiting possible extradition. Seeking help, Gupta’s family tried to reach Yadav last year but could find no trace of him, according to a person familiar with the matter. After months of near-constant contact with Gupta, the person said, CC-1 had “disappeared.”

Engaging with the underworld

Though Yadav served as RAW’s point man, current and former officials said the operation involved higher-ranking officials with ties to Modi’s inner circle. Among those suspected of involvement or awareness are Goel and Doval, though U.S. officials said there is no direct evidence so far of their complicity.

As RAW chief at the time, Goel was “under pressure” to neutralize the alleged threat posed by Sikh extremists overseas, said a former Indian security official. Goel reported to Doval, and had ties to the hard-line national security adviser going back decades.

Both had built their reputations in the 1980s, when the country’s security services battled Sikh separatists and Muslim militants. They were part of a generation of security professionals shaped by those conflicts much the way their U.S. counterparts came to be defined by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Doval, 79, has claimed roles in undercover missions from the jungles of Myanmar to the back alleys of Lahore, Pakistan — tales that contributed to his frequent depiction in the press as the “James Bond of India.”

He also exhibited a willingness to engage with the criminal underworld. In 2005, after retiring as head of India’s domestic intelligence service, he was inadvertently detained by Mumbai police while meeting with a reputed gangster. Doval was seeking to enlist one crime boss to assassinate another, according to media reports later confirmed by senior Indian officials.

Before being tapped as national security adviser by Modi in 2014, Doval publicly called for India’s security apparatus to shift from “defense” to “defensive offense” against groups threatening India from other countries, especially Pakistan.

Goel, who was then rising into the senior ranks at RAW, shared Doval’s instincts. Police forces under Goel’s command in the early 1990s were tied to more than 120 cases of alleged extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances or torture, according to a database maintained by Ensaaf, an Indian human rights group based in the United States. Goel was so closely associated with the brutal crackdown that he became an assassination target, according to associates who said he took to traveling in a bulletproof vehicle.

Former Indian officials who know both men said Goel would not have proceeded with assassination plots in North America without the approval of his superior and protector.

“We always had to go to the NSA for clearance for any operations,” said A.S. Dulat, who served as RAW chief in the early 2000s, referring to the national security adviser. Dulat emphasized in an interview with The Post that he did not have inside knowledge of the alleged operations, and that assassinations were not part of RAW’s repertoire during his tenure.

U.S. intelligence agencies have reached a similar conclusion. Given Doval’s reputation and the hierarchical nature of the Indian system, CIA analysts have assessed that Doval probably knew of or approved RAW’s plans to kill Sikhs his government considered terrorists, U.S. officials said.

A fierce crackdown

India’s shift to “defensive offense” was followed by a series of clashes between RAW and Western domestic security services.

In Australia, two RAW officers were expelled in 2020 after authorities broke up what Mike Burgess, head of the Australian intelligence service, described as a “nest of spies.”

Foreign officers were caught monitoring “their country’s diaspora community,” trying to penetrate local police departments and stealing information about sensitive security systems at Australian airports, Burgess said in a 2021 speech. He didn’t name the service, but Australian officials confirmed to The Post that it was RAW.

In Germany, federal police have made arrests in recent years to root out agents RAW had recruited within Sikh communities. Among them, German officials said, were a husband and wife who operated a website purportedly covering local Sikh events but who were secretly on RAW’s payroll.

In Britain, RAW’s surveillance and harassment of the Sikh population — especially a large concentration near Birmingham — became so egregious in 2014 and 2015 that MI5, Britain’s domestic security service, delivered warnings to Goel, who was then serving as RAW’s station chief in London.

When confronted, Goel scoffed at his counterparts and accused them of coddling Sikh activists he said should be considered terrorists, according to current and former British officials. After further run-ins, British authorities threatened to expel him, officials said. Instead, Goel returned to New Delhi and continued to climb RAW’s ranks until, in 2019, he was given the agency’s top job.

RAW’s record of aggressive activity in Britain has fanned suspicion that the agency was involved in the death of Sikh activist Avtar Singh Khanda, who died in Birmingham last year, three days before Nijjar was killed in Canada. British officials have said Khanda suffered from leukemia and died of natural causes, though his family and supporters have continued to press for further investigation.

A U.S. State Department human rights report released this month catalogued India’s alleged engagement in transnational repression. It cited credible accounts of “extraterritorial killing, kidnapping, forced returns or other violence,” as well as “threats, harassment, arbitrary surveillance and coercion” of overseas dissidents and journalists.

RAW’s operations in Western countries during Modi’s tenure have been overwhelmingly aimed at followers of the Sikh religion, especially a minority faction seeking to revive the largely dormant cause of creating a separate state called “Khalistan.”

That movement had peaked in the 1980s, when thousands were killed in violent skirmishes between the Indian government and Sikh insurgents. One brutal sequence beginning in 1984 included an Indian assault on the Sikh religion’s holiest site, the Golden Temple; the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by Sikhs in her security detail; and the bombing of an Air India flight widely attributed to Sikh extremists. A fierce crackdown quashed the insurgency, prompting an exodus of Sikhs to diaspora communities in Canada, the United States and Britain.

As Sikhs settled into their new lives abroad, the Khalistani cause went quiet until a new generation of activists — whose leaders included Pannun and Nijjar — sought to rekindle the movement with unofficial referendums on Sikh statehood and with protests that at times have seemed to glorify violence. A parade in Canada last year included a float depicting Indira Gandhi’s assassination, and Khalistan supporters have stormed and defaced Indian diplomatic facilities in Western cities.

The effort has seemed to gain little traction beyond a minority within the diaspora communit

[allthecanadianpolitics]

As a Sikh I highly doubt white people will use this situation with India to start hate criming brown ppl more than usual, because the whole situation started with the killing of a brown person like they really do not care and probably think this shit is hilarious... like this perspective actually retracts from the issue at hand and I hate how the view is skewing from the Sikh diaspora being targeted by India into this "oh im scared to be indian" like it's really frustrating to see actually

~~~~

[nohkalikai]

https://www.telegraphindia.com/world/us-congressional-report-alleges-increase-in-scale-of-human-rights-abuses-in-india/cid/2015795

excerpt:

According to CRS, the 2023 Human Rights Report for the first time includes a section on India's "transnational repression against individuals in another country," noting reports the government engaged in transnational repression against journalists, members of diaspora populations, civil society activists, and human rights defenders.

Two resolutions have been introduced on India's human rights. House Resolution 542 condemns alleged human rights violations and violations of international religious freedom in India, including those targeting Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Dalits, Adivasis, and other religious and cultural minorities. It was introduced in the House in June 2023.

Senate resolution number 424 expresses the sense of the Senate that the US government engage New Delhi “to seek a swift end to the persecution of, and violence against, religious minorities and human rights defenders in India and a reversal of government policies that discriminate against Muslims and Christians based on their respective faiths". It was introduced in the Senate in October 2023.

[propicsmedia]

Khalistan Explained PART 2 of Series  - Watch For More Episodes #Khalistan #Khalistani #Sikh #Diaspora #Sikhism #History #Punjab #indian #Budhism #Ghandi #Peace #War #Violence #Understanding #Delhi #indian #India #pakistan #OperationBlueStar #Hindu #humanrights #endviolence #Suba #manipur #BlueStar #Gurdwara #temples #stateofpunjab #pakistanipunjab #history #worldhistory #peace #Unitedsikhs @khalistanupdates4011 @RealSikhsAgainstKhalistan @khalistanzindabad9695 @SikhismTv @discoversikhism @sikhismchannell @khalistanarchive6824 @IndiaTV @SETIndia @TimelineChannel @HistoryofWorld

[beardedmrbean]

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill Saturday that would have made California the first U.S. state to outlaw caste-based discrimination.

Caste is a division of people related to birth or descent. Those at the lowest strata of the caste system, known as Dalits, have been pushing for legal protections in California and beyond. They say it is necessary to protect them from bias in housing, education and in the tech sector — where they hold key roles.

Earlier this year, Seattle became the first U.S. city to add caste to its anti-discrimination laws. On Sept. 28, Fresno became the second U.S. city and the first in California to prohibit discrimination based on caste by adding caste and indigeneity to its municipal code.

In his message Newsom called the bill “unnecessary,” explaining that California “already prohibits discrimination based on sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, and other characteristics, and state law specifies that these civil rights protections shall be liberally construed.”

“Because discrimination based on caste is already prohibited under these existing categories, this bill is unnecessary,” he said in the statement.

A United Nations report in 2016 said at least 250 million people worldwide still face caste discrimination in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Pacific regions, as well as in various diaspora communities. Caste systems are found among Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Muslims and Sikhs.

Proponents of the bill launched a hunger strike in early September pushing for the law’s passage. During their campaign, many Californians have come forward with stories of discrimination in the workplace, housing and education. Opponents, including some Hindu groups, called the proposed legislation “unconstitutional” and have said it would unfairly target Hindus and people of Indian descent. The issue caused deep divisions in the Indian American community. Hundreds on both sides came to Sacramento to testify at committee hearings in the state senate and assembly.

Thenmozhi Soundararajan, executive director of Equality Labs, the Oakland-based Dalit rights group that has been leading the movement to end caste discrimination nationwide, said she still views this moment as a victory for caste-oppressed people who have “organized and built amazing power and awareness on this issue.”

“We made history conducting the first advocacy days, caravans, and hunger strike for caste equity,” she said. “We made the world aware that caste exists in the U.S. and our people need a remedy from this violence. A testament to our organizing is in Newsom’s veto where he acknowledges that caste is currently covered. So while we wipe our tears and grieve, know that we are not defeated.”

The Hindu American Foundation and Coalition of Hindus of North America claimed Newsom's veto as a victory for their advocacy efforts.

“With the stroke of his pen, Governor Newsom has averted a civil rights and constitutional disaster that would have put a target on hundreds of thousands of Californians simply because of their ethnicity or their religious identity, as well as create a slippery slope of facially discriminatory laws,” said Samir Kalra, the Hindu American Foundation's managing director.

In March, state Sen. Aisha Wahab, the first Muslim and Afghan American elected to the California Legislature, introduced the bill. The California law would have included caste as a sub-category under ethnicity — a protected category under the state’s anti-discrimination laws.

Nirmal Singh, a Bakersfield resident and member of Californians for Caste Equity, said the introduction of this bill “represents a shifting tide in California to understand caste-based discrimination.” Singh also represents Ravidassia community, many of whom are Dalits with roots in Punjab, India.

“The fact that caste-oppressed people were given a platform to stand up for our basic human rights is a huge win in and of itself,” he said.

Earlier this week, Republican state Sens. Brian Jones and Shannon Grove called on Newsom to veto the bill, which they said will “not only target and racially profile South Asian Californians, but will put other California residents and businesses at risk and jeopardize our state’s innovate edge.”

Jones said he has received numerous calls from Californians in opposition.

“We don’t have a caste system in America or California, so why would we reference it in law, especially if caste and ancestry are already illegal,” he said in a statement.

Grove said the law could potentially open up businesses to unnecessary or frivolous lawsuits.

A 2016 Equality Labs survey of 1,500 South Asians in the U.S. showed 67% of Dalits who responded reported being treated unfairly because of their caste.

A 2020 survey of Indian Americans by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace found caste discrimination was reported by 5% of survey respondents. While 53% of foreign-born Hindu Indian Americans said they affiliate with a caste group, only 34% of U.S.-born Hindu Indian Americans said they do the same.

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A woman is consoled as people mourn Sikh community leader and temple president Hardeep Singh Nijjar during Antim Darshan, the first part of day-long funeral services for him, in Surrey, British Columbia, Sunday, June 25, 2023. Nijjar was gunned down in his vehicle while leaving the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara Sahib parking lot. The September 2023 accusation by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that India may have been behind the assassination of Nijjar, a Sikh separatist leader, has raised several complex questions about the nature of Sikh activism in the North American diaspora. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP, File)