At a public event organized on Saturday, November 30, Burnaby-based Punjabi author Nadeem Parmar was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award for keeping alive the idea of secular India, and standing up against bigotry through art and literature under these difficult times.
Parmar had recently written “2025”, a novel depicting the growing threat of Hindu extremism in India.
The story reveals the agenda of the currently ruling BJP government in New Delhi.
Ever since Narendra Modi came to power as Prime Minister in 2014, attacks on religious minorities and political dissidents have spiked.
Parmar was honoured by members and supporters of Indians Abroad for Pluralist India and Radical Desi, an online magazine that covers alternative politics, at an event held at Strawberry Hill Library in Surrey.
Parmar later took questions from the audience, and shed light on the challenges he faced to get his novel published, due to fear of censorship and imprisonment in India.
Among those who handed him the award were prominent Sikh scholar Puran Singh, his wife Harjeet Kaur, and two social justice activists, Parshotam Dosanjh and Harbir Rathi.
Those who spoke at the occasion included Pakistani Canadian activist Saif Pannu, human rights defender Sunil Kumar, Sikh activists Kulwinder Singh and Kanwaljit Singh Gill, and Radical Desi cofounder Gurpreet Singh.
The event started with the screening of a movie on the late Hemant Karkare, a brave and honest Indian police officer who had exposed the network of Hindu nationalists involved in terrorist activities. Produced by Dalit activist Texas Gaikwad, “Salute to Hemant Karkare” is available on Youtube, but banned in India. A criminal complaint was also slapped against Gaikwad for making this film, produced on a low budget because of lack of financial support. The movie received a huge round of applause at the end of the screening, which coincided with the death anniversary of Karkare on November 26. He died during a terror attack on Mumbai in 2008. Many believe his killing was a part of the design to silence him permanently, to protect those patronized by Modi’s government.
