For more info check out NeverForget84.com

Video courtasy of Nihang Baba Amarinder Singh Khalsa Guelph Wale

BTW video may not be for those with a faint heart.

It’s amazing the things you come across while randomly passing time looking at different Sikh blogs from around the world.

Anyway’s I came across this video from Jagjit Singh’s of Malaysia’s blog, which reminds us to take a moment and reflect on the classics. Hopefully Singh won’t mind that I jacked the video.

Prof. Uday Singh, has over the years earned himself a reputation of being straight with it. Whether he agrees or disagree’s with you he very seldom leaves it to interpretation as to what he means and leaves no doubts about where he stands. Whether he’s writing in favour of certain kakaars over others or against gurdwara committee’s he doesn’t seem to care for who he offends or airs out, but says what he feels needs to be said; whatever it is that he believes to be the truth.  By all means this is a noble and even respectable trait in any person, even if what they say may be hard to swallow. since not everyone will always agree with what he’s saying, but the fact that he’s often the only one saying it the way it is needs to be said still needs to be respected.

It’s for that reason that Kim Bolan’s latest article where she interviews Prof. Uday Singh leaves me both smirking at the fact that he said things the way many conceptualize and feel, yet have me shaking my head thinking, “damn he so shouldn’t have said that”, knowing full well how easily it can be misinterpreted by the general public.

Then again, it is refreshing since I was getting tired of all the politically correct rhetoric that has started to appear all over the place. [You know, those interviews and quotes from Sikhs who continuously try to convince the media and the public that the Kirpan is nothing more then a symbol, that the Sikhs are far from being a martial race and try to compromise the faith at every turn.]

Chullo, Gurparsad, it’s all good, enjoy the article…

No room in his heart for Hindus

Uday Singh, retired professor, is uncompromising in backing the battle for an independent Sikh homeland. He celebrates as ‘our Nelson Mandela’ a man who pleaded guilty in the 1985 Air India bombing that killed more than 300 people

KIM BOLAN

CanWest News Service

Saturday, August 04, 2007

He may be the oldest Khalistan supporter in Canada and 84-year-old Uday Singh does not mince words when he talks about the struggle for a separate Sikh nation.

Though Singh says he is financially “stretched,” the retired Laurentian University math professor has for years sent a monthly cheque to the family of Inderjit Singh Reyat because he believes the convicted B.C. bomb-maker is “our Nelson Mandela.”

He also gave financial support to Air India bombing suspect Ajaib Singh Bagri during his trial.

Despite Reyat’s guilty plea in the 1985 Air India bombing, Singh believes Reyat was desperate to get out of jail and had nothing to do with Canada’s worst act of terrorism, which was commemorated in Vancouver July 20 with the unveiling of a memorial in Stanley Park.

Reyat’s admission, “it appears to me, is something that was born out of his crying need to get out of jail. His admission is not necessarily a statement of fact,” Singh said in a recent interview at his humble country home near Brampton, Ont. “He is our Nelson Mandela.”

Singh helped arrange the marriage of one of Reyat’s daughters in 2003 to the son of the former Ontario leader of the Sikh militant group Babbar Khalsa as a way of helping Reyat’s family.

“I have every sympathy with the whole family, especially with the mother who has suffered most,” Singh said. “To me, they are like a bunch of flowers, very fragrant and very well-behaved and high-quality people to me.”

Well before Singh immigrated to Canada in 1961, he already believed that Sikhs got a rough ride in India, and he is blunt about his feelings for the Hindu majority there.

“They are our traditional enemies,” he said, adding that Sikhs and Hindus cannot live on the same planet together. “Come on, no, not even as neighbours. Not even in separate countries.”

For 37 years, Singh has run a free school in Toronto, teaching Sikh children history, language and culture. His most famous student was Navdeep Bains, now a Liberal MP. He taught Bains and his wife until a few years ago.

“I have taught many sons of my old students and now even the grandsons of my old students. But it is a good thing. For me it gives me my long life and it gives me my health.”

It was his first book, The Waning and Waxing of the Khalistan Movement, that he believes cost him his Indian passport and the chance to return home.

“I have reason to believe it is this book (that) poisoned them against me and my passport was taken away,” he said.

In it, he outlines his relationship with all the original Canadian leaders of the movement, including those identified in connection with the Air India bombing.

Singh said he helped Talwinder Singh Parmar - the man police identify as the suspected bombing mastermind - escape from India in 1982 after police there had accused him of murder.

He later lost faith in Parmar’s leadership, though he still believes the former Babbar Khalsa founder is innocent in the downing of Flight 182 and the murder of 331 people.

“He suddenly popped up here … he is now dead and he died for the nation … But I was struck with his being unlettered, uneducated - that was striking,” Singh said.

Singh said he offered financial help to the families of Bagri and Ripudaman Singh Malik while they were on trial in the Air India case. Malik’s family declined, but Bagri’s wife took a monthly payment, he said. Both men were acquitted in March 2005 in a verdict praised by Singh.

“No Sikh is guilty of doing that. The Hindu government got it done,” he said, claiming an inquiry in Ottawa will eventually reach that conclusion despite the fact that it has so far focused on a conspiracy by Sikh terrorists from B.C.

Singh believes that Sikhs are entitled to use arms when there is no other way to combat a problem, as the late separatist leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale did before the Indian army raided the Golden Temple at Amritsar in June 1984.

“Whatever the arms are at your disposal, my religion allows me to use them if it is the end of all other means,” he said, praising Bhindranwale as the only real leader the Khalistan movement ever had.

Singh said he doesn’t understand the recent controversy over portraits in temples and parades of Sikh assassins described as martyrs because they killed political opponents in India. The portraits have every right to be on display in Canada, he said. “They did it for us. They punished the evil-doer, which is heroic,” he said.

The Sikh separatist movement in Canada will rise up again, Singh said, referring to the title of his book.

“It is not dead at all,” he said. “It is waning now, only to wax. It is like you are in a swing - you go down and up again.”

The Air India incident has long been dubbed by many as an international “whose done it”. The finger pointing never stops at any level, from who was responsible for the bombings, to who was responsible for mucking up the investigation. Personally, I’ve always ascribed to the Soft Target view as published by Globe and Mail journalists in contrast to the CBC’s take on things, but had little in way of public record to support that angle. However a recent confession of sorts by the very officer directly involved in bringing down Parmar seems to have turned the tide of things.

The officer, DSP Harmail Singh Chandi, recently came forward and basically acknowledged the following as being fact:

1. Parmar was killed while in police custody after having been arrested held and interrogated for five days.

   All the official reports which have Parmar being killed in a old western style shoot ‘em up.
   

2. Evidence was gathered, audio tapes, written confessions, but were destroyed at the bequest of higher ups in the Government in an effort to protect those involved, particularly to remove any trace of Government involvement.

   Acknowledges the fact that the Indian Government had direct involvement in the Air India Bombings
   

3. In Parmar’s confessions, he singled out Lakhwinder Singh Brar (head of the ISYF) as being the brains behind the operation.

   This would pit Brar, who some had suspected and accused of being GOI, as having a direct role and thereby being responsible for the AI Bombings. Also due to the alleged government protection of Lakhwinder Singh, by association dub him to be a Governments official, acting on their behalf. Or as many others have come to say it, claiming him to be a ‘Go-erment Da Bunda’.

The fact that the following has been noticed and noted in the public record of the AI Inquiry is huge in part because it officially points the finger at the GOI for having been responsible in part for orchestrating these heinous acts. Secondly it points fingers at both Parmar and Brar for having masterminded and carrying out the bombings. Finally, and I guess for some the biggest shocker of all, calls out Lakhwinder Singh and the Federation for having been instruments of the Government.

Although it’s still too soon to know what the fall out from all this will be, I’m sure its going to turn a lot of heads and raise a whole load of new questions, from all sides. Particularly who is this DSP, why did he come out now, is his confession not an admission of guilt to having committed several crimes and if so does he not stand to be prosecuted for those crimes, who is the DSP’s daddy and what does he do, and a whole load else.

But more then anything else it introduces for the first time in a long while, an interesting new twist in what has already become one complex web of truths, mis-truths and lies.

—

For those interested in whats being said about the latest in the papers check out:

• http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.2…
• http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNew…
• http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/National/2007/07/…
• http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.h..
• More…

Or you could read below from the actual source - Tehelka.com

OPERATION SILENCE

The police encounter of Kanishka bombing’s alleged mastermind, Talwinder Parmar, may have been staged to save the real players. Vikram Jit Singh reports

Fifteen years after Babbar Khalsa International leader Talwinder Singh Parmar, one of the two alleged masterminds of the mid-air bombing of Air India’s Kanishka airplane, was shown as having being killed in an encounter in Punjab, retired Punjab Police DSP Harmail Singh Chandi, who nabbed Parmar from Jammu in September 1992 and interrogated him for five days before he was killed along with five others, has come forward with the claim that Parmar was killed in police custody on the orders of senior police officers, who also asked his confession record to be destroyed. In his confession, Parmar had named Lakhbir Singh Brar “Rode”, nephew of the late Bhindranwale and head of the banned International Sikh Youth Federation, as the mastermind of the bombing. Rode, who is now said to be holed up in Lahore, has never figured in the investigations of either the CBI or the Canadian authorities.

Chandi has brought forward the entire record of Parmar’s confession, including audio tapes and statements, before the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the John Major Commission of Inquiry that is reinvestigating the June 23, 1985 blast that claimed 331 lives off the Irish coast. Chandi had been ordered by senior officers to destroy the records but he retained them secretly. The record was brought before the Major Commission due to seven-year-long investigations by the Punjab Human Rights Organisation (PHRO), a Chandigarh-based ngo that conducted interviews of Parmar’s associates in India and Canada and pieced together a comprehensive report. The PHRO’s Principal Investigator Sarbjit Singh and lawyer Rajvinder Singh Bains flew to Canada along with Harmail in June and produced their findings before the Commission’s counsels.

A Canadian citizen, Parmar was shown as having been killed in an exchange of fire between police and six militants in the wee hours of October 15, 1992, near village Kang Arian in Phillar sub-division. However, evidence brought forward by Harmail (who was then DSP, Phillaur) shows that Parmar was interrogated between October 9 and 14 by senior police officers, where he revealed that the blasts were instigated by Lakhbir Singh Brar Rode.

Parmar’s confession reads: “Around May 1985, a functionary of the International Sikh Youth Federation came to me and introduced himself as Lakhbir Singh and asked me for help in conducting some violent activities to express the resentment of the Sikhs. I told him to come after a few days so that I could arrange for dynamite and battery etc. He told me that he would first like to see a trial of the blast…After about four days, Lakhbir Singh and another youth, Inderjit Singh Reyat, both came to me. We went into the jungle (of British Columbia). There we joined a dynamite stick with a battery and triggered off a blast. Lakhbir and Inderjit, even at that time, had in their minds a plan to blast an aeroplane. I was not too keen on this plan but agreed to arrange for the dynamite sticks. Inderjit wanted to use for this purpose a transistor fitted with a battery…That very day, they took dynamite sticks from me and left.

“Then Lakhbir Singh, Inderjit Singh and their accomplice, Manjit Singh, made a plan to plant bombs in an Air India (AI) plane leaving from Toronto via London for Delhi and another flight that was to leave Tokyo for Bangkok. Lakhbir Singh got the seat booking done from Vancouver to Tokyo and then onwards to Bangkok, while Manjit Singh got it done from Vancouver to Toronto and then from Toronto to Delhi. Inderjit prepared the bags for the flights, which were loaded with dynamite bombs fitted with a battery and transistor. They decided that the suitcases will be booked but they themselves will not travel by the same flights although they will take the boarding passes. After preparing these bombs, the plan was ready for execution by June 21 or 22, 1985. However, the bomb to be kept in the flight from Tokyo to Delhi via Bangkok exploded at the Narita airport on the conveyor belt. The second suitcase that was loaded on the Toronto-Delhi ai flight exploded in the air.”

Sarabjit said the PHRO’s probe has shown that Parmar was killed to hide the name of Lakhbir, who was an Indian agent. “After the Khalistan movement gained in sympathy in the West, especially in Canada, after the 1984 Blue Star operation and the killing of Sikhs in Delhi, a plot was hatched to discredit the Sikh movement. Parmar was roped in by Lakhbir at the behest of his masters. The Punjab Police got orders to finish off Parmar as he knew too much about the main perpetrators. On the day of the Kanishka blast, an explosion took place at Japan’s Narita airport, where two Japanese baggage handlers were killed. The plot was to trigger blasts when the two aircraft had de-embarked their passengers but the 1 hour 40 minute delay in Kanishka’s takeoff led to the bomb exploding mid-air,” Sarbjit said.

What gives credence to Sarabjit’s charge is the Source Report (in Tehelka’s posession) prepared by the Jalandhar Police soon after Parmar was killed. Based on information provided by Parmar — though not attributing it to his interrogation — the report makes no reference to Lakhbir. Interestingly, Lakhbir, accused in many acts of terrorist violence, is wanted by the Indian Government in only a minor case registered in Moga, Punjab. The Red Corner Interpol notice, A-23/1-1997, put out by the CBI against Lakhbir states: “OFFENCES: House breaking, theft, damage by fire.”

The PHRO told Canadian authorties that conclusive evidence existed of Parmar being killed in police custody and not in the “encounter” shown in FIR No 105 registered at Phillaur police station on October 15, 1992. The PHRO report, AI Flight 182 Case, states “On October 14, 1992, a high-level decision was conveyed to the police that Parmar had to be killed…The contradiction in the FIR and post-mortem report (PMR) is too obvious. As per the FIR, Parmar was killed by AK-47 fire by SSP Satish K Sharma from a rooftop. The PMR shows the line of fire of the three bullets is different. It cannot be if one person is firing from a fixed position. The PMR is very sketchy and no chemical analysis was done. Moreover, the time of death is between 12am and 2am according to the PMR, whereas the FIR records the time of death at 5.30am.”

Then Jalandhar SSP and now IGP, Satish K Sharma, denied the charge. “It was a clean encounter. The RCMP is bringing this up because they botched their investigations and failed to get convictions,” he said.

Firstly let me apologize to those of you who I left hanging for the last little without any updates. Fortnuatlly I was busy for the better part of the month and then lazy for the other half. None the less when I saw this story I thought that maybe its time to take a break from taking a break and get back into the mix of things.

Most of you have probably heard about the ban on Singh and Kaur that has been going on by the Canadian Immigration offices in Delhi. All though the practice has been going on for 10 years now, most of us had been oblivious to it until it made headlines recently. Anyway’s the government has since issued an apology and something along the lines of stating a change in policy.

Without getting to much into that though, I was kind of surprised to be reading the following from the CBC today:

Sikh name-change letter challenged on Facebook

Last Updated: Monday, July 30, 2007 | 7:20 AM ET

CBC News

Sikh groups angry about a controversial government letter requesting name changes for Sikh immigrants have taken their fight to the popular social networking website Facebook.

At least five online groups dedicated to discussing the government letter, which asked people with the common Sikh surnames Singh and Kaur to change their last names before coming to Canada, have been created.

Kupreet Singh, an administrator for one of the groups protesting the letter, said his forum has already attracted more than 400 members.

He said the online members are proof that Canadians are dissatisfied with Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Diane Finley’s response last week. A spokesman from her department told CBC News a letter from the Canadian High Commission stating “the names Kaur and Singh do not qualify for the purpose of immigration to Canada” was not government policy and was “poorly worded.”

Finley added that the letter did not demand that people named Singh or Kaur change their names, but was actually a request for them to add a surname in order to help the department be more efficient.

Singh said the members of his Facebook group are demanding more clarification on the issue.

“We would like [Minister Finley] to instruct her New Delhi office that not only should they not require people to change their names,” he said, “but not even request [a name change].”

Immigrants fear delays in applications

Immigrants are in a vulnerable position, Singh said. They fear that if they do not comply with a government request, their immigration applications may be delayed or even ignored.

Asking people to change their names simply to ease up some bureaucratic filing is unreasonable, he said.

The name-change controversy erupted after Tarvinder Kaur, waiting for her husband Jaspal Singh to arrive in Canada, learned his application to become a permanent resident had been delayed for more than a month because of his last name.

When CBC News first asked about the letter, immigration officials said the policy to ask for a third name was put in place 10 years ago.

More then anything, I was surprised by the fact that the CBC actually noticed the Facebook group and used it as the base of the Sikh voice. Not that this is a bad thing, just an interesting trend that I’ve seen emerging amongst the media, where they’ve now started to scour Facebook and other social networking sites to gauge the reaction of the public. The Toronto Star has written a few stories based souly from accounts taken from Facebook including the more recent Turban ban @ Marlowe story. Whether this trend will continue or not is still to be seen, however it does offer an interesting alternative to all those petitions that are often prepared that rarely get anyone’s attention.

It didn’t take Rex Murphy and his crew of merry men at the CBC to once again jump on the whole Nagar Kirtan thing, even if it is only a few months later. Nonetheless as with most other things, the latest CBC special helped highlight the real problem and there real motives.

Firstly I’ll give Rex some credit, at least this time around he made an effort to properly identify the various groups. i.e not labeling theKhalsa School Gatka Akhara as being members of the ISYF, but apart from that he seemed to really just be out shit it up.

Ignoring the obvious angle that is being displayed, Sikh Separatism = Air India, it was more interesting to watch the shots that the CBC directed at the prodigal son, M.P from Brampton, Mr.Navdeep Singh Bains himself.

Its weird that on one hand you have the Toronto Star, who only months ago was all about lamenting Navdeep’s success in politics, especially after his pivotal role in the leadership race, on the other you have the CBC going after the WSO and painting a dotted line that points right to Nav, highlighting the fear that they have of him gaining any power and influence on both the federal and provincial scene.

What was really notable to watch was how the CBC attempted to perform the Kansas City shuffle, making us look one way while they went the other. For the most part I think they did skillfully accomplish this thanks in large part to none other then Mr.Ujal Dosanjh . A perfect selection because he seems to be the one person who may actually have a vested interest against the so called separatist agenda and nothing more, and lets not forget that he himself after all is a “moderate Sikh”, (moderates the new buzz word that equates to good). But while the media tries to play us with a Kansas City shuffle one needs not get distracted by everything else that’s going on and recognize what this really is, an internal political struggle. Back in November,Dosanjh backed Bob Rae, while Nav has been noted for securing the victory for Dion, which has many speculating a Ministerial role for Mr Bains , if the Liberals get back in power. Of course at this point that remains a big IF, but all the same a liberal government would mean that former Health MinisterDosanjh is thrown back to the backbenches, replaced instead by the great brown hope. So it’s obvious that there is a vested interest to seeBain’s clout and creditability get tarnished. After all you’re going to need someone as minister and if you can get the public and media againstBains then selecting him would definitely get a lot of unwanted attention on Dion and the party, don’t forget the earlier attempts made by the Vancouver media and the Federal Conservatives as trying to paintBains as having ‘terrorist’ links. (It works for the Conservatives since they want to try and damage Bains to try and loosen his grip on his riding, so they can sneak in some desi to make a strong run at him). Yet, with all these subtle jabs at Bains (the bus load of delegates coming to the convention, the delegates not freely voting, etc.), the CBC still chose not to interview the man himself. One would think that after the CBC chose to go afterBains the way they did they would at the very least have given him the courtesy to say his peice, but then again that wouldn’t have served their modus operandi.

Furthermore its always disheartening when the publicly funded news station chooses to rock a one sided approach in their media coverage, such as the fact that the CBC grabsmonay to represent the “moderate” voice of Sikhi, at the very least grab a sardar, some missionary scholar or something, but stop trying to use those who haven’t made the forward steps toward Sikhi as the voices of the Sikh nation, there go painting a picture that anyone who is a Singh is by virtue an extremist. Something about Doasnjh or Hayer being my Sikh voice in parliament and to the rest of Canada is just wrong.

As for everything else, the portrayal of Sikhs as being evil militants, etc. doesn’t and shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. It is however ironic and somewhat hypocritical to demonize Sikhs for all the weaponry depictions when it’s a mace (a weapon) that is used to open up Parliament and is found on most government insignia. Furthermore about the Air India link, it’s only fair to note that the RCMP’s primary suspects were acquitted with no case made against them. As for Parmar, seems like a matter of convenience more then anything else considering Parmar was never tried nor allowed a defense, but hey I guess if they can get the shoe to fit then why not go with it.

Anyways, it should be interesting to see the follow up that I’m sure the CBC will prepare. Hopefully WSO won’t let this go without a fight and seeing as how they are the only real established organization we have as Sikhs in Canada, will get the Sangat’s support in this matter.

Lastly shout out to Manjot Singh aka Dark Fusion, for getting some national air time for his Gatka performance aired all over Canada on National TV. Also for those wanting a more in depth analysis on whats happened in regards to the media bias make sure you check out the BC Sikh Youth website who prepared a list of the lies and mis-truth’s being spurred by the CBC’s coverage on their website [BCSikhYouth.com].