I'm a Canadian 9/11 widow. I testified at the Air India inquiry. I'm more than disappointed to say Canada still does not have bragging rights about deterrence for acts of terror and support for Victims of terrorism. How many recommendations have we made since the Air India inquiry?
Whether it's the Air India flight or flight 572 or antisemitic attacks or IRGC members living in Canada, we get Commissions and Inquiries rather than action.
Just drive around Calgary in the fall and behold all of the Khalistani independence vote billboards in the NE of the city. Why are those people even here?
Surely it is our parties harvesting votes from defined ethnic blocs that is responsible for the progressive fracturing of "so called Canada"? With 19 current members of Parliament, more than in India, at 5% of the total on a 2% population base, only if Sikhs were from a broadly assimilated group would this not be significant.
I have yet to see a domestic connection made between the Khalistani movement and the Ghadar revolutionaries attempts to foment mutiny and murder in the British Army prior to and during WW1, though this seems to be an important topic in the current Indian Civil Service exams.
That the 1914 assassination of Immigration Inspector William Hopkinson at the Vancouver Courthouse by Mewa Singh, as the Calcutta born inspector was about to testify in a Sikh involved murder, is celebrated still by local activists is bad enough, but the commandeering of the "Komagata Maru" incident, the attempted landing of recruits for the Ghadar struggle, to which the fluently tri-lingual Hopkinson was a particular threat, has had disastrous distortion of Canada's foreign policy.
Seeking influence through victim hood is now established practice with historic grievances of "racism" and "colonialism" (though only of the nominally white variety) being a sure fire go to, but that the Sikh settlement of Vancouver was sparked by the 1897 transit of the Imperial Sikh Lancers for Queen Victoria's Jubilee and their favourable impressions leading to British India army veterans retiring there on their pensions, seems ironic in the extreme.
To be fair, "Immigration Inspector William Hopkinson" was a British spy, a subversive provocateur and an all-round bad man. I would not have lamented his death.
I have only the bare bones of Hopkinson's background, knowing his Anglo father was a Sergeant Instructor of volunteers in Allahabad, his mother Hindi speaking, and he had successfully infiltrated the tri-national Ghadarite movement planning violent insurrection against Britain by the beginning of WW1.
With Britain then still having security responsibilities for Canada and India, it does not seem really fair to call him a "spy" especially as a similar "bad man" within the Khalistan planners would have been legitimate and possibly saved many Canadian lives.
A Canadian movie including Mewa Singh's cross border trip to Sumas for arms for those refused entry on Komagata Maru and the attempted weapons transfer with the German ship Maverick off Mexico leading to the Indo-German Plot trials, could be fascinating. Sadly, it will never be made.
As I recall Anita Rau Badami’s novel "Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?" suggests deep divisions were present in the Vancouver desi population and I can well imagine that ex-army pensioners would not have sympathized with attempts to overthrow their source of income. Hopkinson also is reported to have rejected attempts at bribery as incurring greater hostility from his subjects who did not hesitate to eliminate liabilities within their own ranks.
Would love to know more about this never discussed in Canada subject.
Thanks Terry for shining a light on this outrage. It was a tragic event in our history. I'm sure it was at no small cost to you personally. Please be careful and stay safe.
I'm a Canadian 9/11 widow. I testified at the Air India inquiry. I'm more than disappointed to say Canada still does not have bragging rights about deterrence for acts of terror and support for Victims of terrorism. How many recommendations have we made since the Air India inquiry?
Whether it's the Air India flight or flight 572 or antisemitic attacks or IRGC members living in Canada, we get Commissions and Inquiries rather than action.
Just drive around Calgary in the fall and behold all of the Khalistani independence vote billboards in the NE of the city. Why are those people even here?
Surely it is our parties harvesting votes from defined ethnic blocs that is responsible for the progressive fracturing of "so called Canada"? With 19 current members of Parliament, more than in India, at 5% of the total on a 2% population base, only if Sikhs were from a broadly assimilated group would this not be significant.
I have yet to see a domestic connection made between the Khalistani movement and the Ghadar revolutionaries attempts to foment mutiny and murder in the British Army prior to and during WW1, though this seems to be an important topic in the current Indian Civil Service exams.
https://byjus.com/free-ias-prep/ghadar-party/
That the 1914 assassination of Immigration Inspector William Hopkinson at the Vancouver Courthouse by Mewa Singh, as the Calcutta born inspector was about to testify in a Sikh involved murder, is celebrated still by local activists is bad enough, but the commandeering of the "Komagata Maru" incident, the attempted landing of recruits for the Ghadar struggle, to which the fluently tri-lingual Hopkinson was a particular threat, has had disastrous distortion of Canada's foreign policy.
Seeking influence through victim hood is now established practice with historic grievances of "racism" and "colonialism" (though only of the nominally white variety) being a sure fire go to, but that the Sikh settlement of Vancouver was sparked by the 1897 transit of the Imperial Sikh Lancers for Queen Victoria's Jubilee and their favourable impressions leading to British India army veterans retiring there on their pensions, seems ironic in the extreme.
To be fair, "Immigration Inspector William Hopkinson" was a British spy, a subversive provocateur and an all-round bad man. I would not have lamented his death.
I have only the bare bones of Hopkinson's background, knowing his Anglo father was a Sergeant Instructor of volunteers in Allahabad, his mother Hindi speaking, and he had successfully infiltrated the tri-national Ghadarite movement planning violent insurrection against Britain by the beginning of WW1.
With Britain then still having security responsibilities for Canada and India, it does not seem really fair to call him a "spy" especially as a similar "bad man" within the Khalistan planners would have been legitimate and possibly saved many Canadian lives.
A Canadian movie including Mewa Singh's cross border trip to Sumas for arms for those refused entry on Komagata Maru and the attempted weapons transfer with the German ship Maverick off Mexico leading to the Indo-German Plot trials, could be fascinating. Sadly, it will never be made.
As I recall Anita Rau Badami’s novel "Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?" suggests deep divisions were present in the Vancouver desi population and I can well imagine that ex-army pensioners would not have sympathized with attempts to overthrow their source of income. Hopkinson also is reported to have rejected attempts at bribery as incurring greater hostility from his subjects who did not hesitate to eliminate liabilities within their own ranks.
Would love to know more about this never discussed in Canada subject.
Whatever you do, don't believe anything the Liberal government says about the Komagata Maru.
Done already. For a decade it has seemed like a holographic image and constructed projected by PR professionals with no real "there" there.
Nothing is better than being proven right.
Well-done, Terry.
Well, seeing an acknowledgement, a policy shift and outcomes altered might rank up there?
Thanks Terry for shining a light on this outrage. It was a tragic event in our history. I'm sure it was at no small cost to you personally. Please be careful and stay safe.