Dr Manmohan Singh please accept my apology

manmohan singh

Mr. Singh,

I wish you were still alive so that I could come and say sorry to you in person.

Your passing away has left me saddened for a few reasons. The very first one is that you were a gentleman and a highly qualified Prime Minister of the country of my birth. You were unlike Narendra Modi, the current leader of India.

Modi is a known bigot with doubtful educational credentials and deserves no respect. The news of your demise therefore left every reasonable person within my friend circle in grief.

I know it’s too late, but I feel burdened for using abusive language against you.

It was the time when corruption had grown under your tenure. Although we all knew that you weren’t taking any money or favours personally, we were upset because of your silence over how the people in your government were becoming rich through bribery with impunity.

For that reason, I called you an “impotent” on air while working as a broadcaster. A listener who supported you and was offended with my un- parliamentary language reported this to the Indian consulate. And yet, I was given an opportunity to cover an annual Indian Diaspora event in New Delhi in 2010, and did not have any issues to get Indian visa.

I had failed to foresee which way your successor was going to take India. Partly due to my faith in secular India, I believed someone like Modi would never become the next Prime Minister, considering his poor human rights record. Our hopes were dashed when he replaced you with a brute majority and turned India into an intolerant Hindu state, because of which I have decided to take self exile in Canada.

In contrast, you were the first Sikh Prime Minister, who represented the politics of inclusion.

Former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper told me in a one-on-one interview that he was impressed to see the giant Hindu nation of India being led by a Sikh Prime Minister, whose party leader Sonia Gandhi is a Christian.

That was one reason why my Sikh father supported you and your Congress party, in spite of it being involved in the Sikh Genocide of 1984.

Perhaps Sonia Gandhi was trying to assuage the wounds of the aggrieved Sikh community, when she appointed you for the post of Prime Minister, although being the party leader, she deserved to be there.

After all, Modi’s Hindu supremacist Bhartiya Janata Party opposed her candidacy for Prime Minister due to her Italian origin.

Being a Canadian, I had blasted them for their narrow mindedness when Canada has already accepted so many Indo-Canadians in significant political positions.

So I am deeply sorry for my bad choice of words, but I am not apologetic for your criticism. Being a journalist, I shouldn’t actually be. I cannot pretend like those politicians, including Modi, who ridiculed you all the time, cracking offensive jokes about your Sikh identity while you were alive, and now shedding crocodile tears on your death. 

You must have stood up against corruption under your watch.

Also, your appointment as the first Sikh Prime Minister wasn’t sufficient. Your Congress Party, which claims to be secular, shouldn’t have actually been complicit in the Sikh Genocide.

Your apology for that was also half hearted. You kept on saying that the Congress wasn’t found to be involved, so why were you making that apology?

Also, your government failed to suppress Hindu nationalist terrorism with a strong will, in the way it was used in Punjab to end Sikh militancy. They successfully appropriated you globally to weaken the case of Khalistan, an independent Sikh homeland, while shamelessly letting the Hindu Right grow. making the Modi regime a possibility.  

Lastly, your economic liberalisation policy not only widened the gulf between the rich and the poor, but gave corporate greed growing room to exploit the indigenous population of Adivasis and their natural resources in the name of development. Instead of taking the threat of Hindu supremacy more seriously, you rather described so-called left wing extremism as the single largest threat to internal security, due to their resistance against the ongoing repression of Adivasis whose lands were being taken away by the extraction industry. 


I will never forget how your government put Delhi University Professor GN Saibaba behind bars under draconian laws in May 2014, for merely standing up for the poor and marginalized. This was despite his being physically challenged and grappling with numerous ailments. His death after his acquittal this year was the result of your policies, as someone who once headed the ruthless Indian state.

I rest my case, and apologize once again for my unacceptable language.

Regards

Gurpreet Singh  

Citizen of the Turtle Island

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