The ugly harvest of Vaisakhi 2010

Peace, tolerance and understanding are supposed to be the central themes when Sikhs come together during Vaisakhi.
Parades and festivities associated with this auspicious event are supposed to be a community pedestal for Sikhs to showcase their faith to their fellow Canadians.
Not in Surrey. Not this year.
Instead of celebrating the birth of Khalsa – the Sikh code of conduct – we witnessed the destruction of a community event by opportunistic politicians, loudmouth organizers, not so innocent victims and the shallow rantings by self-styled voices of the community in the media.
Everyone had something to say.
Unfortunately their actions and overreactions dripped with hypocrisy, falsehoods and hidden agendas.
Let’s go behind the scenes to examine some of the players who destroyed this year’s celebration of Sikhism.
The organizers
First of all the dolt Inderjit Singh Bains, one of many parade organizers, should step aside from community leadership or at least be forced to take a public relations course. His comments on radio that Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh and Liberal MLA Dave Hayer should be responsible for their own security if they showed up at the parade was uncalled for and ignited this year’s Vaisakhi debacle. If he was trying to gain support from the separatist Khalistani faction within the community by his statements, it surely backfired. Dosanjh and Hayer, came away with more support after being callously targeted. As for the event’s leadership, their half hearted apology only made matters worse. If they wanted to stand by their man, they should have done it unequivocally. At least they would have the respect of those who supported them. Right now they look spineless and wimpy with their half-hearted apology.
We don’t condone what Bains implied. But the muted apology definitely added fuel to the fire.
The ‘victims’
Come on Ujjal. You never were going to the Surrey Vaisakhi festivities and you never have because you are at odds with some of the event organizers.  So rushing off to make police reports and wailing about Sikh extremism is a little over the top. We support your stand against violence but sometimes you lack the statesmanship to unite the community. It would have done the community and this event a world of good to dismiss the comments by Bains on radio as nothing more than one man’s uninformed view, which it was. Your continued talk of Sikh extremism growing in Canada must be substantiated. Otherwise this rhetoric, fuelled by alarming statements by the Indian government of late, only deepens the intolerance against Sikhs. You are a leader in the community and in Canada. Show it by bringing the opposing forces together instead of highlighting the differences by placing yourself in the centre of the controversy.
As for Hayer, everyone, except for one mainstream newspaper and in particular one mainstream reporter, refuses to acknowledge his father’s one time support for Khalistan. It’s getting a little tiresome to see Hayer being referred to in the context of freedom of speech, especially since his family’s newspaper accorded little of it when dad was running it.
The politcians
Our politicians need to understand that community events like Vaisakhi are not just about color, food and photo opportunities. Virtually every large visible minority community from the Chinese to the Filipinos and the Sikhs has factions that support separatism in the homelands. They need to start understanding that and extend the same respect to them as accorded to Quebec separatists. We don’t call Quebeckers agitating for separatism terrorists. Why would we label those wanting a Khalistan, terrorists?
Gordon Campbell’s refusal to attend the event after the implied threat against Dosanjh and Hayer, may have been the politically expedient thing to do.
But what he does now to reach out to the Sikh community is more important.
As for Dianne Watts, the mayor of Surrey, she claimed that she was assured that no pro-Khalistani float would be at the parade.
Nobody among the organizers knows who gave her the assurances.
We can only wonder if she would boycott the parade if it had included a float from the Bloc-Quebecois.
Maybe if she had taken the trouble to identify some of the so called controversial heroes and martyrs that were depicted on a float, she would have realized that none of them were convicted of violence or terrorism, but were killed for their beliefs that Sikhs should have a separate homeland.
By the way Dianne, PETA activists consider the Cloverdale Rodeo an act of animal terrorism and the upcoming Independence Day celebrations by the Filipino community will have elements that support an on-going armed struggle in their homeland.
You plan to attend?
The media
The controversy was a legitimate story but some in the South Asian media continue their unintelligible rants against their mainstream counterparts, especially the Vancouver Sun and The Province.
A few in particular continued their weekly tirade against so called “white journalists” for being racists because they reported on the story.
These guys live to write about hate and sell their rags and radio shows by denigrating the local mainstream media, every opportunity they get.
If anybody needs to be looked at for promoting hate, it’s these self-styled voices of the community.
Not one mentioned the terrific four-page coverage of the Khalsa Day festivities in The Province which for the first time gave a deeper understanding of the event and what it means to be a Sikh.
Instead they used the opportunity to further spread their hateful literature and reap an ugly harvest.