A blood donation drive by members of the Sikh community that is currently being held in B.C. has come under fire for mixing politics with the campaign.
The campaign organizers had spent thousands of dollars to take out full page ads in the Vancouver Sun, The Province and the Globe and Mail announcing the drive while being highly critical of the Indian government.
The organizers, Sikh Nation, said they had the support of an array of Sikh groups for the blood drive which was being held to “commemorate the memory of the victims of the November 1984 Sikh Massacre”
But at least one of the BC groups mentioned in the ads has said it has nothing to do with the blood drive.
In a letter to the three mainstream newspapers, Kashmir Dhaliwal, president of the Khalsa Diwan Society which runs the Ross Street Sikh temple in Vancouver is demanding to know why his society’s name is being mention in the ads.
“We very strongly feel that parts of this ad are a misrepresentation; they are an insult to our country of
origin. And as such we demand to know as to why our name was used,” the letter obtained by the South Asian Post reads.
Sundeep Singh, a spokesperson for the blood donation drive by Sikh Nation told the South Asian Post : “we informed all our Sikh temples in the Lower Mainland about our blood drive. We have been working with all Sikh temples over the past number of years. We are not certain of the motivations why a letter was sent from them, perhaps they were under some political pressure to do so.”
He said the blood drive is a call for community to remember the massacre of 1984 because there seems to be a conscious effort by some groups to forget about that incident.
“We feel this incident should never be forgotten.
“Our campaign calls on people to remember and discuss not only what happened with Sikhs in 1984 and other marginalised people like those in Gujarat, Orissa and other states of India. It was a concerted effort to initiate a genocide against Sikhs.”
“We have run this Blood Drive for the past 11 years. Each time one person gives blood, it saves three people’s lives. It doesnt matter what the colour, creed or religion is of the person being saved, it only matters that a human being is being helped,” said Singh adding this is the ideal of Sikhism’s spiritual practice of ‘Sarbat di Pallaa’ (helping all).
“In 1984 Sikh blood was spilled out of hatred, we give blood today to commemorate the fallen in our community.”
Dhaliwal did not return phone calls by press time.
The campaign and its ads have irked several high profile members of the South Asian community who question the linking of a violent past with the act of giving blood today.
“What’s the point of doing something good if all you want to do is use that to raise a sore point,” said Vancouverite Rameshinder Singh.
Others however felt that the blood donation camps were driving home the point of an injustice that has never been corrected.
“It’s one way of remembering what happened to prevent it from happening again… you have blood donation camps on Remembrance Day don’t you,” expressed a South Asian radio commentator.
The Sikh Nation month-long blood drive remembers four terrible days 25 years ago as rampaging mobs reacted to the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31.
Over 3,000 members of the Sikh community were killed in the national capital as an inactive police force and administration looked on. Another 4,000 are estimated to have been killed in towns across India.
In his deposition to the Nanavati Commission in 2001, writer Khushwant Singh called it a pogrom. ‘I felt like a refugee in my country. In fact, I felt like a Jew in Nazi Germany,’ Singh told the commission.
There have been nine commissions of enquiry into the events of 1984. In the 25 years since, just over 20 people have been convicted for the murders.
For most of this period, India has been governed by a Congress party government which has been accused of a cover-up, of protecting its leaders and sympathizers in the anti-Sikh riots.
Witnesses have been largely deemed unreliable by Indian courts hearing cases years after the events.
‘It is widely accepted that it was an organized massacre,’ says Harvinder Singh Phoolka, Delhi-based lawyer who has been fighting a long and frustrating battle for justice for the riot victims.
Some form of that symbolic justice came in 2005, when India’s first Sikh prime minister and Congress party leader, Manmohan Singh, apologised in Parliament for the events of 1984.
But for hundreds of families the shadow of the riots can never fade. Many migrated to Canada, Germany, Britain and the United States.
Some of them are behind the on-going controversial blood drive that is also being held in Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario, the US and Australia.
The Canadian Blood Services has presented the Sikh Nation a “Top Donor” award.
On its website, Sikh Nation said it started the campaign of blood donation in North America in November 1999.
“25 years ago, in November 1984, more than 10 thousand Sikhs were hunted down all over India. They were burnt alive, the girls were gang raped then killed and the Sikh’s properties worth billions of dollars was looted and destroyed.
Since 1984, the successive Indian Governments have been fooling the people by setting up various commissions. The failure to punish the guilty indicates the complicity of the Government and its agencies in the “Sikh Massacre”.
“To commemorate the memory of the victims of the November 1984 Sikh Massacre, the Sikh Nation started the campaign of blood donation in North America in November 1999. Along with our fellow Canadians, we invite you to join this campaign to save lives by donating blood.”
In a letter to the South Asian Post, Kanwaljit Singh Gill of Surrey said the Sikh community has started donating blood to save innocent lives here in Canada and other western countries.
“It was very impressive to see Sikh men and women line ups to donate blood and also to make a point to draw attention of media and politicians to thousands of innocent people killed in India and so far in 25 years no guilty person has been punished by the Indian justice system.
I am very thankful to the Sikh Nation for organising these blood donation camps and more similar camps to be organised in other cities in Canada within this month,” he wrote.
Gill hoped the Western media and politicians will see the irregularities in Indian justice system and start raising their voices to get justice for the thousands of innocent people killed in the 1984 incidents.