Walk For Pluralist India Held In Vancouver

pluralism

A Walk for Pluralist India against growing attacks on religious minorities under Modi government was held here on Sunday evening.

Organized by the Indians Abroad for Pluralist India (IAPI), the walk started from the Simon Fraser University Harbour Center and went up to the Komagata Maru Memorial. The participants stopped by at the Indian consulate for sloganeering and dropped some flyers at its doorstep. They chanted slogans against Hindutuva terrorism and saffronisation.

Later, the march culminated at the Komagata Maru ,memorial where speakers unanimously expressed their concern over attempts to transform India into Hindu theocracy. They also condemned the Khalsa Diwan Society the oldest Sikh body that helped the Komagata Maru passengers and fought against racism and stood for a secular and egalitarian India after the British left for denying an opportunity to visiting Indian journalist Rana Ayyub to address the congregation.

More than 300 South Asian passengers aboard Komagata Maru ship were denied entry into Canada under the discriminatory immigration laws in 1914. The passengers who belonged to different faith groups came to Canada as potential immigrants from India that was under British occupation. Some of them later joined a radical freedom movement that was aimed at establishing a secular and egalitarian republic.

Khalsa Diwan Society had recently denied an opportunity to Ayyub to speak to the congregation citing her “controversial background.” Ayyub has authored a book based on her investigation of complicity of the government in anti Muslim violence in Gujarat when Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister of the state. Modi was hosted by the Khalsa Diwan Society in 2015 when he came here as the Prime Minister of India.

The speakers made a connection between the history of Komagata Maru and growing racism and bigotry both in North America and India.

Among those who participated were Radical Desi Director Gurpreet Singh, South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy leader Chinmoy Banerjee, Sikh Nation activist Sunil Kumar, Muslim activist Imtiaz Popat, Naujawan Bharat Sabha leader , Kulwinder Singh and Sikh activist Kesar Singh Kooner.

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