‘Idiot’: Former Canadian Sikh minister slams Justin Trudeau over Khalistan issue

PTI, Nov 5, 2024, 10:17 AM IST

Ottawa: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is “sociologically and politically” an “idiot” who has never truly understood that the vast majority of Sikhs are quite secular in their outlook and want nothing to do with Khalistan, according to a former Canadian minister.

Ujjal Dosanjh, a Sikh himself and former federal cabinet minister under Prime Minister Paul Martin, in a column for Canadian newspaper National Post on Sunday argued that Trudeau’s approach has empowered Khalistani extremists and created fear among moderate Sikhs.

The 78-year-old former NDP premier of British Columbia blamed Trudeau of being responsible for what the column describes as the Canadian Sikh population, the largest Sikh diaspora in the world, being “co-opted by the Khalistanis to the point where this obscure separatist movement has become a Canadian problem”.

“A silent majority of the Sikhs do not want to have anything to do with Khalistan. They just don’t speak out because they’re afraid of violence and violent repercussions,” he asserted.

Dosanjh said Trudeau “never really understood the vast majority of Sikhs are quite secular in their outlook, despite the fact that they go to the temple”.

“Khalistanis are not a majority, and the fact nobody speaks against them is out of fear,” he said.

Khalistani supporters control many of the temples in Canada. And it’s Trudeau’s fault, Dosanjh said, “that Canadians now equate Khalistanis with Sikhs, as if we are all Khalistanis if we’re Sikhs”.

Recalling a debate with Trudeau, when both of them were parliamentarians, Dosanjh said, “We were MPs from 2008 to 2011 together, and I had a long chat with him about identity and religion and all that, with all of these Khalistanis sitting around the table. And he agreed with them, rather than me.” Against this background, he said, “Trudeau, sociologically and politically, is an idiot.” The former minister asserted that the overwhelming majority of the nearly 800,000 Sikhs in Canada do not support the Khalistani movement.

“I’d say less than five per cent, less than five per cent,” Dosanjh said.

The relations between India and Canada came under severe strain following Prime Minister Trudeau’s allegations in September last year of a “potential” involvement of Indian agents in Khalistan extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s killing.

New Delhi rejected Trudeau’s charges as “absurd”.

India has been maintaining that the main issue between the two countries is that of Canada giving space to pro-Khalistan elements operating from Canadian soil with impunity.

Dosanjh said there are ways Trudeau could deescalate this tense relationship with India.

“It’s just a matter of eating a bit of humble pie and saying, ‘Look, let’s start over again. India is a good friend.’ That’s all you do…That’s how diplomacy works,” he said.