Canadian Prime Minister had barely finished a successful meeting with Panjab Chief Minister when another controversy erupted: a past offender Jaspal Atwal showed up at Trudeau’s dinner previous, his pictures with Sophie Trudeau and Amarjit Sohi splashed in newspapers. He had a dinner invite to the Canadian High Commission. Canada rescinded the invite.
This is why it is so hard to arrive any simplistic, black and white understanding of Panjab, Sikhs, Khalistan. As I said in the earlier interview – Panjab remains a landmine. By themselves the pictures are not conclusive, but the questions are:
a) How did Atwal land a dinner invite with Trudeau?
b) How did the Indian government allow Atwal entry?
Could this controversy have been avoided? YES. YES. YES. Especially at such a sensitive time, by all parties: Atwal himself by not coming, not going around getting photographed, MP Sarai by not recommending Atwal, Canadian High Commission by doing due diligence, Canadian PMO by not inviting Atwal. Now, of course, they have rescinded the invitation. Again, too little, too late. I do believe that after conviction, imprisonment, and release people should be allowed to merge with society with dignity. After all, we must not be prisoners of our past. But that is the razor’s edge of liberal politics: has Atwal adequately distanced himself from Khalistan? Has Atwal committed himself to peace? I do not know.
However, through all this I noticed one man, former Liberal and Premier of British Columbia Ujjal Dosanjh, play a role on social media: he was blaming Khalistan, Trudeau and over-liberal politics. I have a few questions for him.
Tags: Jaspal Atwal, Khalistan, Trudeau, Ujjal Dosanjh