The leftist media ecosystem has long been romanticising and glorifying Islamic terrorists, and now this propaganda machinery is romanticising Khalistani terrorists as well. Days after OpIndia reported about leftist propaganda outlet TheWire’s reportage reeking of its limerence for Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the US-based newspaper cum Islamo-leftist propaganda factory The New York Times (NYT) recently published an article titled “Sikh Activists See It as Freedom. India Calls It Terrorism, authored by a brown sepoy, given that NYT has no shortage of them.
The NYT article presents facts as per the convenience of its agenda of downplaying Khalistani terrorism and painting the Modi government as somewhat of a villain deliberately fanning the Khalistani extremism for political gains. The propaganda piece laments how the Indian government sternly deems the Khalistani secessionism and criminal activities as a terrorist threat to India’s national security.
Speaking to NYT, Gunisha Kaur, a medical director of the Weill Cornell Center for Human Rights said “The threat of terrorism is used to exploit fear and justify the suppression and silencing of minorities.”
Kaur, however, failed to elaborate on how the Modi government is ‘exploiting fear’ and silencing’ Sikh minorities. Is the concern that extremist and separatist elements in Punjab are gaining ground and poisoning the minds of Sikhs against their own country and ever-supportive Hindu community wrong?
Khalistani separatists like Amritpal Singh and Sarabjeet Singh Khalsa, used the processes of the same Indian democracy they oppose, rights granted by the same constitution they ‘reject’, to fight the Lok Sabha election and emerge victorious with massive margins, but India should not be concerned?
Going by the NYT and Gunisha Kaur’s logic, while Khalistani separatists are winning elections from the votes of their radicalised supporters in Punjab, Hindu temples are vandalised by extremists, they use Canadian soil to conduct ‘referendums’, conduct anti-India and anti-Hindu protests, the Indian government should believe that the secessionist idea of Khalistan is a chimera and is not an actual threat to India’s national security.
Kaur further claimed that Sikhs in India have been targeted with ‘impunity’ which in turn gave rise to some demanding a separate Sikh nation.
This, however, is far from reality and a rather conjecture, as despite the fact that Khalistani secessionists yearn to carve out a separate nation for Sikh community governed by the Sikh religious laws, peddle hatred against the Hindus even as Hindus are in minority in Punjab, the Indian people, particularly, the Hindus do not loathe the entire Sikh community but rather only the Khalistani terrorists who want to sever the historical ties between Hindus and Sikhs. The Indian people and the government do not condemn the entire Indian Sikh community as ‘anti-national’ or extremists, in fact, the Indian Sikh community actively contributes to India’s growth and enjoy all the freedom any other community has.
There is no ‘singular approach’, the approach is to call out and take measures to end any effort to challenge and harm the territorial integrity of India, those belonging to any religious grouping driven by religious, political motives or a blend of both, would not be tolerated. This, however, applies only to the anti-India elements, be it the Khalistani terrorists who want to break away Punjab from India to form a Sikh nation, Islamic terrorists who to separate Kashmir to either merge into a hub of Islamic terror Pakistan or those attempting to carve out a separate Christian nation in the Northeast, not those loyal to India.
Shooting its gun off the shoulders of ‘analysts’, The New York Times insinuated that somehow the Khalistani terrorism is not a national security matter and is only being projected as one by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “burnish his image as a strongman protecting his country — or, more precisely, a Hindu nationalist leader protecting the Hindu majority.”
This is absolutely delusional, Narendra Modi is not a newbie in politics or someone who required relaunches after relaunches to become Prime Minister or let’s say burnish his image as a strongman. PM Modi is a seasoned politician, he was picked as BJP’s prime ministerial candidate in 2014, because of his strongman image and was bestowed with a thumping victory in the 2014 General Elections, because the people of India were sick and tired of a weak government that does literally nothing to ramp up national security even after Mumbai 26/11 attacks, did nothing even as Pakistan continued to repeatedly carry out designs to “bleed India with a thousand cuts”. The people wanted a strong leader who would not dismiss threats to national security as non-existent just to appease any particular religious group.
Also, while the BJP has historically been the only political party in India that has been supportive of Hindus, the Hindu community understands very well that no politician alone can protect them or the nation against the Islamic or Khalistani threat rather it requires collective efforts of the government, the armed forces, the security agencies and the citizens, with first and foremost being acknowledging that even while it may not seem too big, the anti-India and anti-Hindu activities, be it those of Khalistanis or Islamists, are very much a real threat to national security. In addition, India should not wait for these elements to grow more and more stronger and then act against them, just because NYT cannot stop romanticising Khalistani terrorists.
Moving the NYT lamented that the Indian government allegedly launched a campaign to ‘harass’ and kill “Sikh separatists” in Canada. It further discussed how the Trudeau government told The Washington Post that Indian Home Minister Amit Shah has ordered the campaign against Khalistani terrorists in Canada, even though they did not provide any evidence for the same. It must be noted here that days after Trudeau accused Indian diplomats of involvement in ‘criminal activities’ in Canada, he himself admitted to having not a shred of evidentiary proof confirming the same. Also, the seriousness of Canada’s claims can be deciphered from the fact that it chose a US-based leftist propaganda outlet to train its gun against the Indian government which the foreign media generally projects as a Hindu nationalist, fascist, anti-minority and whatnot regime.
The NYT further attempts to villainise the Indian government by suggesting that the Indian government is comparatively quieter on an Indian national’s arrest in the US over his role in an alleged foiled assassination attempt against Khalistani extremist and Sikhs for Justice founder Gurpatwant Singh Pannun. The same Pannun who regularly threatens to attack India and even threatens to blow up Air India flights. While the US government and leftist propaganda outlets are targeting the Indian government over an alleged attempt to eliminate Pannun, no one had a problem when the same US carried out arbitrary bombings in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Middle East, including the operation authorised by the then PM Barack Obama-led administration, to take down Al Qaeda terrorist Osama Bin Laden, who was hiding in a safe house in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The US operations destroyed nations like Iraq but no one opposed the US, the same Canada granting a safe haven to Khalistani terrorists had backed the US when Laden was hunted down in Pakistan. When the US eliminates terrorists, it is ensuring its national security, but when India allegedly does the same, all hell breaks loose.
The NYT, however, would not understand the threat India faces from Khalistani terrorists, whom it calls Khalistan ‘supporters’, ‘extremists’ and ‘separatists’ but not what they actually are—terrorists. While in a recent incident in Brampton, Khalistani terrorists attacked Hindus outside a temple, and have regularly been vandalising Hindu temples in Canada but India should wait for a Kanishka Bombing redux and killing of 329 or more Hindu and Sikh people to see the Khalistan problem a threat to national security.
Speaking to NYT, Canada’s ambassador to India, Cameron MacKay said that Canada was “not in a position to arrest people simply because they support a separatist movement in a foreign country,” citing its expansive protections for freedom of speech.” It is amusing, how conveniently, the Canadian ambassador and the Trudeau government invoke freedom of speech and the right to protest to let Khalistani carry out anti-India and anti-Hindu activities including violence with absolute impunity given Khalistani are a significant votebank for the Liberal Party. MacKay, however, should jog his memory and recall how Canadian truckers were denied their freedom of speech and right to protest back in 2022 with their protests violently crushed, hundreds of truckers arrested with many threatened with arrests upon failing to leave protest sites. Where was freedom of speech then?
The NYT report itself mentions that the Indian government has designated several Khalistanis including Lakhbir Singh Sandhu as “terrorists” and also has uncovered a terrorist-gangster-drug smuggler nexus, however, it wants the Indian government to not even see the Khalistani secessionism and linked crimes as a threat to national security let alone countering it. Interestingly, NYT has a knack for romanticising terrorists and those accused of masterminding anti-Hindu riots.
Towards the end of it, the NYT article says that ‘Sikh separatism’ is a sensitive issue given Pakistan’s backing to the Khalistanis. After downplaying the Khalistani threat, NYT tries to balance it out saying that there are concerns about the radicalisation of Punjabi youths. Instead of questioning the Canadian government as to why it has been sheltering those designated as terrorists by the Indian government, why the Trudeau administration allows Khalistani elements to challenge India’s sovereignty on a regular basis, why it allows Khalistanis terrorists to attack Hindus and their temples, why does it call slain Khalistani Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a designated terrorist a Canadian citizen even as there is no clarity on whether he was even a legal citizen of Canada and destroys ties with India when elections are only a few months away, NYT wants Indian government to turn oblivious to the Khalistani threat.
While vulnerability arising from lack of jobs and drugs abuse among the Punjabi youth is a cause of concern, the spread of Khalistani secessionism and terrorism cannot be curbed by providing jobs and preventing drugs abuse, rather, complete deradicalization of those influenced by Khalistani ideology as well as total destruction of Khalistani terror nexus will save Sikh youths and preserve India’s territorial integrity.
