Punjabis da Canada

Sarbjit Dhaliwal in Chandigarh

CHALLENGES and opportunities define Indians living in faraway countries. One of the less-understood lessons of history for them is seeking friends in foes, even when circumstances were extremely adverse. That’s the reason India tops the list of origin countries of naturalized citizens across the world. A clear hint is that the diaspora is not apprehensive of acquiring foreign citizenship.

In 2015, 1.30 lakh people of Indian origin, consisting largely of expatriates on work visas, acquired citizenship of Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries. These are the findings of a report of the International Migration Outlook (2017) released by OECD in Paris on Thursday. 

Look at Indians in Canadians, note the history’s burden: Canada was the country where Indians were not allowed to disembark from the Komagata Maru ship in 1914 and were sent back. Today, Indo-Canadians are all over the place. And it’s not the USA but Canada which remains the most sought-after country as far as Punjabis are concerned. Indians’ perseverance and resilience have paid them rich dividends.

Indians are into sports, performing arts, judiciary, farming, transport and trade & industry. In politics, they have already made a big name in that country. Last year when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his cabinet has more Sikhs than in PM Modi’s cabinet, it was not an empty boast. He meant that in multi-cultural Canada, there are opportunities galore for everyone.

Sikhs to the fore

Four Sikhs — Harjit Singh Sajjan, Navdeep Bains, Bardish Chagger and Amarjit Singh Sohip — hold important portfolios in Justin’s cabinet. In the last federal elections about 18 Indo-Canadians were elected as members of the Canadian Parliament.

That’s not all. In recent election of the legislative assembly of British Columbia (BC), seven Punjabis, including two women — Rachna Singh and Jinny Sims — have been elected. Earlier, Ujjal Dosanj, from Dosanj village near Phagwara, had become the first Punjabi to hold the office of premier of British Columbia. Moe Sihota was the first Punjabi to be elected MLA of BC assembly in the 80s. 

Punjabis started immigrating to Canada in the beginning of the last century. Most of them went there as labourers and worked mostly in saw mills and timber stores. The influx started in 1960s and the 70s: Punjabis arrived in Canada virtually in droves, mainly from the Doaba region and Moga belt. As of now, in cities like Surrey and Brampton, the Indo-Canadian population is close to one lakh. 

The third and fourth generation of Punjabis has moved to the elite streams of social mobility. So much so, the Punjabi language has become the third most spoken language in Canada. It is taught in schools, colleges and universities there. It is also the third language, after English and French, in Canadian Parliament. 

A few weeks after her election to the BC, Palbinder Kaur Shergill has been appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court of that state. She is the first baptized turbaned Sikh from Rurka Kalan village in Jalandhar to hold such an eminent position in the judiciary. Inderpaul Singh Chandok was the first baptized Sikh judge to be appointed in Ontario in the late 1970s. Last year, Amrik Singh Ahluwalia became the first Sikh chairman of the Peel Police Service Board. The Peel Regional Police force is Canada’s third largest municipal police force. 

Earlier, Indo-Canadian MP Bardish Chagger was named as new leader of the government in Canada’s House of Commons. She is the first woman in the history of Canada to hold such a post. Chagger, who is MP from Waterloo, is also minister of small business and tourism in Trudeau’s cabinet.

In sports

Tiger Jeet Singh, a free style professional wrestler dominated the wrestling arena for several years in Canada. He also made a big name in Japan. His son Tiger Ali Singh, named after the American legendry boxed Ali, is also equally popular in Canada, where family immigrated from India decades ago.

The family of Bindi Kular, who represented Canada in hockey in the last Olympics, comes from Sansarpur, a village known for producing several eminent Olympian hockey players for India. Hargurnek Singh Sandhu has represented Canada in hockey team twice in 1984 and 1988 Los Angeles and Seoul Olympics respectively. His daughter Poonam Sandhu is, perhaps, first Sikh girl to represent Canadian hockey team at the international level. Besides them several other Indo-Canadians like Hari Kant, Ravi Kahlon, Rajiv Deol and Paul Chohan have represented Canada at the international level in hockey competitions.

Who can forget Canadian Punjabi Sim Bhullar, who is one of the tallest basket players, plays in the NBA in the US? His family belongs to Kapurthala region of Punjab. Indo-Canadian Arjun Bhullar, who won gold medal in wrestling in Commonwealth games in Delhi, is a big name in wrestling world of Canada. Arjun spearheaded the campaign against the International Olympic Committee’s move to do away with wrestling from the Olympic calendar of events. Following the campaign, the IOC dropped the proposal to remove wrestling from its chart.