Sikh diasporic negotiations: Indian and Canadian history in Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?

ABSTRACT

The perceived interconnection of Sikh religion and extremism, and the mistaken association of Sikhism with Islam impacted Sikh consciousness and historically, these have presented challenges to Sikh identity, representation, and intercultural negotiations in Canada. With reference to Anita Rau Badami’s Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? (2010), this article investigates Canadian Sikh diaspora’s collective memories, specifically: (i) the return of the Komagata Maru ship from Vancouver (1914) (ii) partition of India (iii) the death of passengers in Air India 182 (23 June 1985) from Toronto to India; (iv) Operation Blue Star (1984) and (v) the 1984 Sikh carnage.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Representation of history in a fictional format is not new. Amitav Ghosh (2008, 2011, 2015) in his Ibis Trilogy, powerfully dileanates the history of the Indentured labor system: how Indians were made to take the contract labor system by the British; how they traversed the oceans, their experiences in intercultural interactions and colonial interventions in their lives. William Dalrymple (2004, 2007, 2014) has produced fascinating narratives of Indian colonial history in such works as The Return of a King, The White Mughals and The Last Mughal.

2 The partition history in India has been mentioned in several texts in Asian narratives – a few names of writers are Bapsi Sidhwa (1989), Bhisham Sahni (2008), Saʻādat Ḥasan Manto (2011), Urvashi Butalia (2000), Khushwant Singh (2005) and many others. Partition becomes an unavoidable reference in Indian history for the terrible carnage and mayhem, the incident resulted in. In the context of Sikhs, the voice for a separate land ‘Khalistan’, grew even louder after the 1984 bloodshed as mentioned in this article already; and we find Nimmo’s son echoing this desire for an ideal land for the Sikhs. Sikh nationalism was a natural outcome to the bloodshed and deaths of Sikhs.

3 The process of diaspora and migration in terms of study, is multidisciplinary in nature. Literature, Anthropology, Sociology, Politics and History – all interpret diaspora with reference to the indentured labor system that the Empire reinvented to replace the institution of slavery. Slavery/slave trading particularly in the African continent had earned terrible reputation for the British. The indentured or the girmit system offered a new system for the perpetuation of imperial interest in the colonies and further ensured the maintenance of the Empire in the wake of rising protests and dissent against the colonists. The laborers were called ‘coolies’. Brij V. Lal, Vijay Mishra (2007), William Safran (1991), Paul Gilroy, Robin Cohen and several others contributed indepth research studies on the subject and agreed that the Indian indentured labor system resulted in impelled mass migration to various colonies and caused further international migrations. V. S. Naipaul, Brij V. Lal and others wrote the experiences of the indentured laborers. For instance, the Indians who migrated to the colonies of British for railway construction, plantation work etc got twice displaced in course of time since many ‘coolies’ did not come back to India. Many of the Sikhs who migrated to Canada happened to go there because the British needed their help during World Wars. So from India, the Sikhs happened to reach Canada and consequently did not come back to India and continued to live there. Further, many Sikhs in India who discovered that there were possible economic opportunities in Canada through regular communication with their kith and kin the hostland, decided to explore the country. Hence eventually, chain migration and social capital were some of the reasons for the creation of the Sikh diaspora in Canada.

4 One of the most recent movies with the backdrop of partition history in India is Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, where Milkha Singh is shown to have experienced a traumatic childhood.

5 It is essential to note that the term coolies can be understood as an insinuation to the indentured labor system where Indians were made to work on the plantation farms of the British, in their colonies.

6 Prof. Milton Israel’s book In the Further Soil: A Social History of Indo-Canadians in Ontario gives a detailed historical account of the journey of Indian Punjabi men to Canada; their taking up of jobs and eventual settlement.

7 http://www.cic.gc.ca/EnGLish/resources/statistics/facts2009/permanent/index.asp.