Opposition Avoids Water Debate

On 4 Oct, the Supreme Court reprimanded Panjab on the Satluj Yamuna Link Canal. The issue is over four decades old and started another round of political activities in the state. The Court ordered a survey of land that was once acquired for the canal, returned by the previous SAD government to farmers in 2016. All parties in Panjab responded saying ‘there is not a drop of water to share with Haryana.’ However, instead of standing united, their protests were brutally suppressed by the current AAP government. Amidst this, CM Mann called for an Open Discussion on the issue on 1 Nov. On 27 Oct, INC MLA Pargat Singh called for another discussion led by experts. Leaders from all parties except AAP listened to the issues and made their remarks. This first-ever, over five-hour open discussion, demonstrated that Panjab can dialogue and come to conclusions on how to handle its issues. Meanwhile, Mann kept changing the agenda for his event, the state police instructed farmer leaders to not attend, activists were detained, and the result was that not a single opposition leader showed up. Mann sat alone on the stage. Panjabis registered the deep irony: the opposition demonstrated how they could conduct a constructive dialogue but the government failed in taking them along. This was an opportunity for Mann to rise as a leader across party lines; sadly, he missed it.

On 29 Oct, tens of thousands of Sikhs turned out in Surrey, BC, Canada for the Khalistan Referendum. This was the second round after the first one on 10 Sep. The vote took place at Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara, where activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead in June. Emboldened by the large turnout, Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) offered $100,000 for the arrest of Indian High Commissioner to Canada Sanjay Kumar Verma under the Citizen Arrest clause in Canadian law. SFJ also released a new map extending the boundaries of their vision for a Sikh homeland to include India’s capital Delhi as part of Khalistan. In 2024, SFJ will be organizing referendums in Abbotsford, Edmonton, Calgary, and Montreal. On 5 Nov, Gurpatwant Pannu of SFJ warned that Air India travelers ‘lives would be in danger’ if traveling on 19 Nov, the day of the World Cup Cricket final hosted by India. The threat is designed to evoke memories of the 1985 Kanishka blast which has never been conclusively settled but is perceived to be engineered by Khalistanis with Indian and Canadian government’s knowledge. Pannu demanded that Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport be named after Gandhi's assassins – Beant Singh and Satwant Singh. Whether it is his hate speech in Canada against Hindus or such explicit threats, the Indian government's ‘non-bailable’ arrest warrant seems ineffective in stopping him. As his threats are becoming more and more brazen, it is a mystery why the US and Canada are granting him immunity from arrest.

On 31 Oct, the governments of Tamil Nadu and Panjab moved the Supreme Court alleging delay by the state governors in giving assent to bills passed by their state assemblies. Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi and his Panjab counterpart Banwarilal Purohit have a running feud with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and AAP governments led by M K Stalin and Bhagwant Mann, respectively. While the pleas from both states appear similar, the causes of tension between the respective Governors and governments are very different. In Tamil Nadu, issues of Tamil pride and so-called lower castes are supreme. Tensions escalated in Jan 2023 when in a speech the Governor omitted the names of caste-politics icons BR Ambedkar and EVR Periyar, and reference to the Dravidian model of governance, which stands in opposition to caste-based hierarchies. The Governor then walked out of the House before the national anthem was played. DMK leaders called out his insult to the nation. On 6 Jan, during an interaction with participants of the Kashi Tamil Sangamam, the Governor suggested the government use the term Tamizhagam (‘Home of Tamils’) instead of Tamil Nadu (‘Land of Tamils’) as the state name. Though the difference is minor, it refers to how Tamil people view their state vis à vis the Indian state. Similar sentiments are seen in Panjab. In Panjab, the issue is fiscal mismanagement and the fact that some of the Bills the Governor has stalled reduce his own powers. AAP is basically piggybacking DMK and now claims the Governor is ready to review the Bills. The Panjab Governor has not confirmed the reports.

Addressing an election rally in Indore on 30 Oct, Panjab INC president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring said, ‘A few people in the state are posing as Sikhs and spreading misinformation. They say Kamal Nath committed atrocities on Sikhs, but I have not heard or seen him do so till date. I think that even Guru Nanak will also not forgive such people.’ The Madhya Pradesh elections are scheduled for 17 Nov. Kamal Nath is the Chief Minister aspirant. When asked why he made the statement, Warring said, ‘There is no FIR against Kamal Nath.’ This is how conveniently politicians escape scrutiny. In the Kamal Nath case, the Nanavati Commission recorded evidence, journalist Sanjay Suri mentioned Nath’s role in the violence at Gurdwara Rakab Ganj in his book 1984: The Anti-Sikh Violence and After and in this interview. Just as Captain Amarinder Singh had once orally exonerated Jagdish Tytler against whom a case is now in progress, now Raja Warring is doing the same for Kamal Nath. Meanwhile, the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, V.K. Saxena, granted approval for the prosecution to file an appeal in the Supreme Court against the Delhi High Court's judgment acquitting 12 accused of murder in a 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom-related case. In this case, eight people were killed and one person was injured in West Delhi. Earlier, the High Court cited an inordinate delay of 27 years in filing the appeal and found the grounds presented by the state unjustifiable.

On 29 Oct, Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh stated the ‘Sikh community has done a lot to protect the Sanatan Dharma and that the Ram Janambhoomi Andolan was first started by the Sikhs.’ He was addressing a gathering at Lucknow's Alambagh Gurdwara on Parkash Purab (illumination day) of Guru Granth Sahib. Singh was referencing a little-known and ambiguous story of Nihangs entering the Babri Masjid in 1858 and performing a havan – ritualistic fire ceremony – and inscribing ‘Ram, Ram’ on the inner walls with charcoal. Similarly, even the Supreme Court verdict that allowed the building of the Ram temple in Ayodhya cited unauthenticated Janamsakhis to establish Guru Nanak had visited the site in his lifetime. This is an attempt to appropriate the Sikh religion in the Hindutva fold. However, underlying this is also an othering of the Sikhs that is not always vocalized. In a recent election rally in Rajasthan, in the presence of Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath, BJP leader Sandeep Dayma said, ‘Masjid and Gurdwara are on a rise. Upon forming the BJP government, it is our religious responsibility to uproot them.’ Following outrage against the ‘uproot Gurdwara’ comment, BJP leader Sandeep Dayma apologized, stating he ‘wanted to say Masjid-Madrasa, but somehow said Gurdwara.’ The SGPC rejected the apology. Panjab BJP called for him to be expelled, which the BJP did. Yet, no action has been taken against Dayma over the hate speech. The deeper concern is that in the last few years – during farmers' protests, Sidhu Moosewala’s death, Amritpal Singh’s manhunt – such vilification, hate speech, or threats against Sikhs have repeatedly surfaced on social media.

During the nagar kirtan (processional singing) on the Parkash Purab (birth-Illumination day) of Guru Ramdas on 30 Oct, Kuljit Singh from Himachal Pradesh, organized a flower petal shower on the Darbar Sahib (“Golden Temple”) in Amritsar. His action faced censure from some in the Sikh community, especially by Neena Singh from Sikh Legal Aid (SLA). Singh made a request to the SGPC and the Akal Takht Jathedar to disallow flights over the Golden Temple. Once again, the community picks one issue but ignores the larger one. On certain Sikh festivals, the SGPC permits the Darbar Sahib to be bedecked in flowers costing millions of rupees. The next day flowers wilt and are thrown away. Sikhi is against idolatry and meaningless rituals as articulated in Sikh Rehat Maryada (code of conduct), the SGPC ought to abide by it. Meanwhile, the Sikhs of Jharkhand and Bihar sought participation in the SGPC. During the visit of SGPC General Secretary Gurcharan Singh Grewal to Ranchi, Kulwinder Singh from Sikh Advocates argued that representation from Sikhs across the nation was not only fair but also logical. The advocate pressed for the removal of the requirement that individuals be members of SAD to participate in SGPC. He emphasized that dedication to Sikhi should be the determining factor. Given the crises in SGPC – Delhi already separated, Haryana is breaking away, now Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand are raising their voices – it would be prudent for the body to heed this request.

Lawrence Bishnoi is an incarcerated Indian gangster who claimed to have plotted from jail the popular Panjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala’s assassination in May 2022. In March 2023, he gave two interviews to a popular Hindi television channel from a Bathinda jail, confirming that Goldy Brar – a gangster in Canada – was behind Moosewala’s murder. The interviews sparked a wave of concern around the use of mobile phones by prisoners and the rights of news channels to interview prisoners. At that time, the Director General of Police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav made a statement regarding the Bathinda jail’s security measures. He claimed that a high-security dead zone had been established in the prison, and thus no mobile phones were recovered from the inmates. This dead zone was said to be comprehensively covered by jammers, rendering mobile phone usage impossible. Recent information obtained through the Right to Information (RTI) Act says 48 phones were seized from prisoners at the jail from March 2022 to March 2023. The information contradicts the claims made by DGP Yadav to refute the location of the Bishnoi interview. These discrepancies have raised concerns not only about the security of correctional facilities but also about the effectiveness of measures in place to prevent unauthorized communication. The ability of inmates to access and use mobile phones, despite security protocols and dead zones, underscores the need for a comprehensive and robust strategy to address the issue of unauthorized communication within jails.

United States-based cybersecurity firm Resecurity has claimed in a report that personal data of around 815M Indians has been leaked on the dark web. India’s population is estimated at 1300M which means more than half the citizens now stand exposed. The leaked information includes names, phone numbers, addresses, Aadhaar, and passport details of Aadhaar registered users, which are available for sale online. On 9 Oct, a threat actor known as 'pwn0001' offered access to Aadhaar and Indian passport records on Breach Forums. Resecurity's investigators found that this threat actor was willing to sell the entire Aadhaar and Indian passport database for $80,000. There are suspicions that the compromised data may have originated from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) database. ICMR collected this data during the COVID-19 vaccine drive. In June 2023, another hacker disclosed the leak of personal data of over 80 crore Indians, which included COVID-19-related information. India's Information Technology minister said, ‘The government's Computer Emergency Response Team, or CERT, is investigating the matter.’ The minister did not confirm or comment on the size of the alleged leak, but said the government is working to ensure private data – whether collected by the center or state for administrative purposes, or by businesses for commercial reasons – is maintained in a ‘bullet proof ecosystem.’ But in 2018, when the Supreme Court had asked the government how it secures data, the answer was ‘behind thick walls.’ The government seems to have a shallow understanding of data security and is already shifting the blame for the leak on business entities.

The FATF (Financial Action Task Force FATF) is an intergovernmental organization established in 1989 by the Group of Seven (G-7) countries, that leads a global action to tackle money laundering and terrorist and proliferation financing. FATF’s Mutual Evaluation Review (MER) was scheduled for 3 Nov. Beforehand, a 46-page shadow report compiled by anonymous civil society actors was forwarded to the FATF by the Global NPO Coalition. The report shows India has weaponized its laws – the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Prevention of Money Laundering Act, and Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act – to target and stifle its non-profit organizations (NPOs). In India, NPO is referred to as NGO – Non Government Organization. The shadow report, based on interviewing representatives of over 700 NGOs and field experts, finds that the Indian government – without involving or informing NGOs about the ways of the FATF – has been indiscriminately targeting them on ‘unproven’ and ‘frivolous claims.’ The MER would be followed by a FATF plenary discussion in June 2024. In 2010, the MER specifically noted that India had no comprehensive assessment of its financial institutions. It also recommended India undertake a detailed risk assessment of the NPO sector for terrorist financing. 13 years later, India has not made public whether or not it has carried out any work to identify such risks in the NPO sector. Three rights organizations – Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Security Network – in a joint statement said that India's actions have flouted both FATF’s standards and international human rights law.

According to the latest US Customs and Border Protection (UCBP) data, a record 96,917 Indians were apprehended while crossing illegally into the US between October 2022 and September 2023. The Indians apprehended for unlawfully crossing the US border have reportedly increased fivefold in the past few years. 63,927, 30,662, and 19,883 were apprehended in 2022-21, 2021-20, and 2020-19, respectively. Of the 96,917, mostly from Panjab and Gujarat, apprehended between October 2022 and September this year, 30,010 were caught on the Canadian border and 41,770 at the frontier with Mexico. Those apprehended are classified under four categories — Accompanied Minors (AM), Individuals in a Family Unit (FMUA), Single Adults, and Unaccompanied Children (UC). Single adults make up the largest category. In fiscal year 2023, 84,000 Indian adults crossed into the US illegally. As many as 730 UCs were among the apprehended. On 2 Nov, Senator James Lankford said that such people take about four flights including through countries like France to be able to get to Mexico, which is the closest airport, and then take a bus that is rented by the cartels up to the border to be dropped off for their final delivery. He reiterated that the criminal cartels in Mexico were training migrants across the world on how to trick officials and sneak into the country while awaiting an asylum hearing. The breakdown of how many migrants came from Gujarat, Panjab, and other Indian states is not yet available.