The Indian Panorama

Tag: Khalistan

  • Indian–Origin Canadian Sikh Minister Navdeep Bains quits Justin Trudeau govt.

    Indian–Origin Canadian Sikh Minister Navdeep Bains quits Justin Trudeau govt.

    TORONTO (TIP): Canadian PM Justin Trudeau has made a former astronaut his new foreign minister in a Cabinet reshuffle sparked by the sudden resignation of high-profile Indian-origin Canadian Sikh minister Navdeep Bains.

    He is unlikely to run in the next election.

    According to reports, Navdeep Bains, who is considered to be a strong supporter of the Khalistan movement, stepped down as Minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry claiming that he wanted to ‘spend more time with his family’. However, in reality, Navdeep Bains, who played a key role in Justin Trudeau’s first term since 2013, was forced to resign from the cabinet after he was exposed to a massive corruption scandal in Canada. The resignation of Bains is being seen as an attempt by the ruling Liberal Party to save itself from frequent embarrassments on corruption charges.

    In November 2018, a Canada-based media outlet had exposed the news of corruption involving Navdeep Bains. According to the report, an irregularity had occurred land deal concerning a piece of land measuring 20-acre between Navdeep Bains and another liberal MP Raj Grewal. The expose had shocked Canada after a brazen corruption scandal involving lawmakers surfaced. Subsequently, the local authorities had ordered a third-party investigation into the matter and sent its details to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

    The case of corruption in the land deal is itself an interesting one highlighting how two liberal MPs had indulged in act of corruption without any fingers pointing at them. The pro-Khalistan Navdeep Bains and another Liberal MP had purchased that specific piece of land from the Ontario Province and then sold it to the Brampton City at a much higher price than what the City was planning to offer initially.

    The land the city was planning to purchase for an amount of $3.3 million, eventually was sold to them by Bains $4.4 million – an extra $1.1 Million on accounts of the public exchequer. Interestingly, the company involved in the land deal was Goreway Heaven and one of its directors, Bhagwan Grewal, accompanied Prime Minister Trudeau to his infamous trip to India in 2018. Besides, about half of its directors have been making handsome donations to the Liberal Party. Reportedly Grewal is a former MP, was a history-sheeter in corruption and has been practicing it on a blanket basis at various levels.

    Navdeep Bains, a pro-Khalistan sympathizer and member of World Sikh Organization

    Reportedly, Navdeep Bains is considered to be one of the aggressive Khalistani sympathizers within the Canadian government. Bains has been groomed by the pro-Khalistani radical outfit World Sikh Organization (WSO), which is accused of radicalizing the Sikh community and making efforts to divide it.

    Canada-based World Sikh Organization (WSO), a body of Sikhs formed in July 1984 post-Operation Bluestar, has been openly raising the demand for Khalistan. In fact, the Sikh diaspora in Canada has themselves labeled WSO an extremist organization.

    Not just in Canada alone, but across North America and Europe, radical Sikh elements belonging to WSO have used the political climate in their respective countries to build up a political support base for their ideology. Along with another pro-Khalistan terror group Sikh for Justice (SFJ) the World Sikh Organization and Sikhs for Justice has been funding the Khalistan movement and also does social media propaganda to revive the Khalistan cause.

    Incidentally, Navdeep Bains’s father is also a prominent leader of the WSO and is also associated with the Dixie gurdwara — an epicenter of anti-India activities. Bains also has direct connections with Khalistan terrorists as his father-in-law Darshan Singh Saini was listed by the Canadian authorities as a witness for investigating the 1985 Air India bombing case. In fact, during a debate on anti-terrorism legislation in the House of Commons in February 2007, the then Canadian PM Stephen Harper highlighted the connection of Bains’ father-in-law with the Air India bombing in which 329 people were killed including Canadian, British, and Indian citizens.

    The then PM Harper had said that the opposition of the anti-terrorism legislation by Bains was a tactic to protect his father-in-law from appearing in before the RCMP as the Conservatives argued about using the law to use it for investigating the Air India 1985 bombing case. Earlier, the Vancouver Sun had reported that Bains’ father-in-law was on the list of potential witnesses in the bombing case.

    Bains was also targeted by Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh for what he termed as their “well known for their leanings towards the Khalistani movement”. Apart from Canadian defense minister Harjit Singh Sajjan and Former Sikh MP Raj Grewal, the Punjab CM had also referred to Navdeep Bains as a Khalistani sympathizer in 2018.

    Bains involved in illegal immigration from India

    Apart from sponsoring the Khalistani terror network, Bains is involved in several other alleged corrupt deals. Navdeep Bains’s name emerged in the infamous Fort Erie gurdwara scam last year as well. The gurdwara has sponsored three religious preachers from India and got them special visas from the Ottawa administration.

    Later, it was revealed that the gurdwara was not operational at all and was used as a cover by Bains and his associates to sneak in immigrants illegally from India to Canada. Since then, the Canadian authorities have not able to find the traces of three Indian priests sponsored by Navdeep Bains as they have now disappeared after landing in Canada. According to locals, Bains had forged details of a gurdwara on papers to bring in immigrants illegally under the cover of religious activities, which in turn, make huge financial profits. The gurdwara is controlled by Bains through his father Balwinder Bains and is seemingly a money-making machine for the family. An investigative report had suggested that Fort Erie gurdwara was nothing but a long-abandoned motel surrounded by scrubland overgrown with weeds.

    The Liberal leader has also been using other institutional structures of the Sikh community to his advantage. Father of Bains, who enjoys a stronghold over the administration of gurdwaras, had appointed men close to him as the directors of Fort Erie gurdwara, a prominent Mississauga gurdwara that is in the constituency represented by Bains. Most importantly, the Bains family has been allegedly making massive amounts of money through corruption in Sikh institutions in Canada for ages now. It is alleged that Bains is making a lot of money by not sparing even the Gurdwaras. Locals highlight that Bains and his father run an immigration nexus consisting of IELTS coaching centers in India and colleges and gurdwaras in Canada.

    he father-son duo used to facilitate illegal immigration by offering seats to students in these institutions, most of which only exist on paper.

    Telecom lobbying and favored Chinese companies in Canada

    Bains is also accused by Canadian civil society groups of favoring certain telecom groups while serving as a minister. He is facing allegations of favoring the telecom companies to hike internet prices. Bains is also accused of siding with the big telecom companies on their appeal to the lowered wholesale rates.

    During his tenure as a minister in Trudeau’s government, Navdeep Bains had given the green signal to multiple Chinese companies with a dark track record and connections to the CCP, without proper national security review. Bains is also believed to be providing back support before allowing Chinese telecom giant Hytera to enter Canada without a proper national security review as well.

    Furthermore, the Canadian leader has also been allegedly involved in corruption in the procurement of public goods. Bains is accused in a public procurement irregularity worth $200 million. Bains is facing charges of providing the tender to a company that did not have a manufacturing facility at all.

    Shockingly, the pro-Khalistani Canada leader Navdeep Bains had also expressed his solidarity with the protestors in India, who have now camped on the streets of Delhi to oppose farm reforms initiated by the Modi government. It is a known fact today that the so-called ‘farmer’ protestors have been hijacked by the Khalistani elements, who are trying to incite the protestors to fight against the Indian government.

    For Jatin

    Categories: Front Page, Breaking News, Indo Canadian , Indian Abroad, Indian Origin, India, Politics

    Tags: Justin Trudeau, Canada, Liberal Party, Sikh Minister, Khalistan, Corruption

  • “Operation Blue Star – Counterbalancing Terror – results in boomeranging horrible pain” By Ravi Batra

    “Operation Blue Star – Counterbalancing Terror – results in boomeranging horrible pain” By Ravi Batra

    “Operation Blue Star – Counterbalancing  Terror –  results in boomeranging horrible pain”

                                     By Ravi Batra

    The 1984 Operation Blue Star was the biggest internal security mission ever undertaken by the Indian Army. Operation Blue Star was Indira Gandhi’s solution to the haywire going law and order situation in Punjab.

    Operation Blue Star was carried out between June 1 and June 8, 1984, in Amritsar.-EDITOR

                                                                                                                                                     

                                                                                       

                                                                         

        “Leadership requires making choices – picking   between not “good” and “bad,” but “bad” and “worse.” This Op-Ed is aimed at policymakers – to abandon counterbalance as a pillar of statecraft, and it’s noisy and genie-out-of-the-bottle progeny: state-sponsored Terrorism. It doesn’t work, and is very painful at the bitter end. Being “right,” and winning by “right means” permits an end – as a civil “trial by jury” does daily in our courts even for losers. Nations, however, continue to exercise “might is right,” when it really never was – given its lingering “tail”.”

     

    “My takeaway: don’t use counterbalance; it’s sexy upfront, and painful as a nightmare divorce in the end. Recently, Kurds in Syria bear witness – as some of them became Terrorists against Turkey.”

     

     

    The enemy of my enemy is my friend; or so goes the saying, lovingly followed by policymakers seeking a shortcut to victory for several millennia. Indeed, counterbalancing continues as a steady pillar of statecraft the world over. It matters not that ultimately it doesn’t work, and backfires with a painful boomerang.

    Recall President Ronald Reagan’s “Freedom Fighters” in Afghanistan who we trained and equipped to fight the then-USSR’s excursion in Afghanistan to an unhappy exit. Then, after 9/11, when we were in hot pursuit of its mastermind OBL and ended up in Afghanistan – our Freedom Fighters became the Taliban we were fighting against. 40 years and lots of blood and treasure we have spent, only to make a recent Jello gelatin flexible peace-deal with the Taliban, and then cause the local government’s twin executives to sign on after the fact to make it operational, all so we may extricate ourselves from a war we cannot lose, nor win by civilized standards in a place where our values are alien to the local ecosystem. My takeaway: don’t use counterbalance; it’s sexy upfront, and painful as a nightmare divorce in the end. Recently, Kurds in Syria bear witness – as some of them became Terrorists against Turkey.

    Well, let’s go back to 1971 – when the Blood Telegram sent from Dhaka was ignored in China-loving Richard Nixon’s Washington DC – and Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India, moved to save the remaining Hindus in now-Bangladesh from genocidal demise. India secured a striking victory in short order that exceeded expectations and was decisive to boot. Pakistan was unhappy, to state the obvious. Nations have found that sponsoring Terror is attractive – because it is what I call – war on the cheap. Pakistan enjoyed such sponsorship as a rejoinder. India’s Punjab and Kashmir border Pakistan, and cross-border Terror-support in Sikh-rich Punjab was easier, as Sikhism’s founder, Guru Nanak’s immortal roots remain in Pakistan – a matter of great importance even now while celebrating His 550th Birthday in Nankana Sahib, Lahore Pakistan via opening the visa-free Kartarpur Corridor – thanks to P. M. Imran Khan and P. M  Narendra Modi – which nations and people of goodwill celebrate.

    So after 1971, Pakistan’s cross-border sponsorship was for Khalistan to be born – perhaps, as a nation for a nation – with three Sikh leaders Shabeg Singh, Balbir Singh, and Amrik Singh turned separatists, who were allegedly taught tactics more familiar to Terror in Pakistan. As a result, India suffered a porous border and a porous state in Punjab and Kashmir, such that India’s sovereignty would be an afterthought if not stopped.  Mrs. Gandhi decided to fight fire with fire, and allegedly “sponsored” a genuine Sikh leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. Ultimately, he and his armed supporters came under threat of arrest, being un-controllable by Delhi, and took refuge in the Golden Temple – the holiest Harmandir Sahib – and Operation Blue Star was born in June 1984 to turn back the hands of time and Statecraft’s expediently sexy counterbalance pillar. When first trying to peacefully end the stalemate and get the innocent pilgrims released failed over two days, as the separatists were armed with even Chinese-made grenade-launchers, on June 5th military force was initiated to forcibly evict Terrorists from the house of worship. That goal would be tough enough without religion being implicated; but attacking the holiest Sikh Gurdwara – a sanctuary – with 10,000 booted soldiers was successful in a military sense, but a failure by all other metrics. Harmandir Sahib was severely damaged, ancient scripts and artifacts forever lost in the “firefighting fire.” Thereafter, while the Indian Government rebuilt it, the Sikh community tore it down and rebuilt it afresh – perhaps, as we recently tore down our newly built embassy in Moscow and rebuilt it anew.

     

    The historic Ramgarhia Bunga damaged in the Operation Bluestar

    The price of counterbalancing Pakistan’s punishment – trying to create Khalistan for loss of her East Pakistan – was that Mrs. Gandhi was assassinated on October 31, 1984 by her favorite bodyguard, Beant Singh, and Satwant, both Sikhs – whom she insisted upon keeping. What followed was nothing short of a bloodbath – known as the Anti-Sikh Riots or worse – where even innocent Sikhs were hurt, injured and even killed and some members of the Indian Congress party were allegedly directing the Sikh-killings in an opportunistic manner – a stain that India has dealt with (and still has to remedy) as we did for interning loyal Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor some 40 years later.

    Recall in 1988, President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act to compensate more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans who were incarcerated in internment camps during World War II. The Law offered a formal apology and paid $20,000 in compensation to each surviving victim.

    Leadership requires making choices – picking between not “good” and “bad,” but “bad” and “worse.” This Op-Ed is aimed at policymakers – to abandon counterbalance as a pillar of statecraft, and it’s noisy and genie-out-of-the-bottle progeny: state-sponsored Terrorism. It doesn’t work, and is very painful at the bitter end. Being “right,” and winning by “right means” permits an end – as a civil “trial by jury” does daily in our courts even for losers. Nations, however, continue to exercise “might is right,” when it really never was – given its lingering “tail.” A lesson China will learn from its current collective and sequential miscalculations: Tibet, Uighurs, OBOR with AIIB, exporting Wuhan Virus (lab-engineered as it has the Spike Glycoprotein (S) spliced off the 2003 SARS Bat viruses and transplanted onto the surface of the AIDS virus in 2019 – see, my April 14, 2020 “Open Letter to POTUS et al” in public domain – recently re-confirmed by former head of MI6) as a global Pearl Harbor, with it’s cover-up, followed not by an apology and compensation, but added belligerence in South China Sea and Hong King, and inter alia, converting diplomacy, a channel most useful during disputes and war, and instead burning it by making diplomats act as a “Wolf Warrior” commando doing battle. That our Hollywood celebrates Chinese-Americans and China is starkly in contrast to the steady anti-American diet fed by Chinese Communist Party leadership to her people. That is both strategic, as it is tactical – something President Trump, Secretary Esper, Speaker Pelosi and Leader McConnell ought digest, as we too have our nation to defend in present time from folks we saw as friends, since Nixon, but who played us.

    Disclosure: I legally represented Indian National Congress and Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, merely a loving wife, mother and daughter-in-law in 1984, when they were sued by a so-called entity, Sikhs for Justice, under the Alien Tort Claims Act in United States Federal Courts in New York – SDNY and EDNY. I successfully argued that India, where all events occurred and all actors reside, was ineligible for US courts to exercise extra-territoriality and it was for India to remedy this stain. The lofty U. S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued two orders in 2014 and 2015, respectively, agreeing to dismiss the cases pursuant to US law. Thereafter, Rahul Gandhi, adopting my legal filings, gave an interview to Arnab Goswami confirming for the first time that “some” Congressmen were complicit in misconduct. SFJ’s subsequent cases against then-PM Manmohan Singh and PM Narendra Modi were dismissed, based upon the precedents I secured, along with application of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, as Prime Ministers, as head of government, are so entitled – which neither INC or INC President Sonia Gandhi was so entitled.  Now, SFJ is out of the media-rich harassing litigation, but, allegedly, based upon reports, may be subject to Foreign Agent Registration Act given its foreign supporters.”

    (The author is a senior attorney and Chair, National Advisory Council South Asian Affairs. He can be reached at ravi@ravibatralaw.com)

     

     

     

  • Demarche to UK over ‘anti-India’ meet

    Demarche to UK over ‘anti-India’ meet

    NEW DELHI(TIP): India has issued a demarche to the UK protesting a meeting convened on August 12 in London by separatist organization Sikhs For Justice (SFJ).

    The SFJ that claims to be an international advocacy group has offered to sponsor youth and political activists from Punjab to travel to London for the August meeting.

    The meeting at Trafalgar Square is aimed at shaping up the “London Declaration on Referendum 2020” campaign seeking a separate Khalistan.

    India has lodged its protest through diplomatic channels against the proposed “anti-India activity”. “We have taken it up with UK and have issued a demarche. We expect UK will not allow such anti-India activities to be carried out in UK,” said MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar.

    India’s official response comes a day after the British High Commission spokesperson in Delhi defended the right of people in the UK “to gather together and to demonstrate their views, provided that they do so within the law”.

    “However, will not tolerate any groups who spread hate or deliberately raise community fears and tensions by bringing disorder and violence to our towns and cities and the police have comprehensive powers to deal with such activities,” the British High Commission spokesperson told The Tribune in a cautious statement.

     Khalistan remains a sensitive issue in bilateral ties between the two countries. In April, India had lodged a protest with the UK after the Tricolour was burnt by Khalistani elements at Parliament Square, while PM Narendra Modi was addressing a diaspora event in Westminster.

    “Majority of the Sikh community have good relations with India and with the country where they stay. The rest are fringe elements,” underlined Raveesh Kumar on Thursday.

     According to its legal adviser based in New York, the SFJ plans to provide sponsorship letters to participants from Punjab and also arrange free stay for them from August 10 to 14. It plans to unveil a declaration advocating for “Sikhs’ right to self-determination for the independence of Punjab” at the Trafalgar meeting.

    Separatist group Sikhs For Justice plans to sponsor Punjab youth and political activists to travel to London for August 12 meet aimed at shaping up the “London Declaration on Referendum 2020” campaign seeking Khalistan