On May 18 Prime Minister Trudeau is going to apologise in the House of Commons to the "Sikh community" for what the government of Canada did to the Indian passengers -- Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus of the Komagata Maru in 1914. He made this promise at the recent Vaisakhi religious celebration on Parliament Hill. The former PM Stephen Harper had tendered that apology outside of Parliament and that was not acceptable to some as apologies for other wrongs such as the Chinese Head tax and the Residential schools for the indigenous Canadians have been offered in Parliament.
Several years ago, upon review of my own record of support for apologies for the historic wrongs, I had publically stated that I was wrong in previously supporting such apologies and that the late Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau was absolutely right in rejecting them. They do not help the apologisees get better education, better jobs or even more equality. In the meantime the apologiser feels good for having done 'something' that makes absolutely no difference in the material conditions of people's lives.
With the exception of the apologies for the Residential Schools and Canada's treatment of the Japanese Canadians --in both cases the injustices were done to Canadian citizens -- I categorically disagree with the apologies for historic wrongs. Pierre Trudeau knew that once the floodgates of apologies opened there will be no end. That is now the case. The apology industry is booming; one after the other communities and groups line up for apologies. Once the apology is tendered the empty noise goes away without demanding anything concrete. Much of the apology industry remains just a bunch of hot air, producing not an iota of change for the better or funding for fighting the existing discrimination or inequality.
And someone should remind PM Justin Trudeau that the passengers of the Komagata Maru were Indians of all faiths--Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims. It wasn't their religion that brought them to Canada and it wasn't the religion but their Indian nationality that prevented them from landing in Canada. And once spurned by Canada they returned. En route to India they became politically radicalised and were ready and eager to fight for the liberation of their motherland from the British. That is why they were 'welcomed' ashore in Calcutta by British bullets; not because they were Sikhs, Hindus or Muslims but because they were rebellious Indians who challenged the colonial rule.
And on another note remember Mr. Trudeau's announcement of the government's upcoming Komagata Maru apology was made at the Vaisakhi religious celebration on Parliament Hill. Canada is on a dangerous slippery slope when religious functions start taking place in Parliament-- our secular sanctum sanctorum -- and the prime ministers start foreshadowing important and what they clearly perceive to be religious news at them. One could argue Vaisakhi is not just a Sikh religious holiday; it has been a day observed and celebrated all over North India long before the birth of Sikhism. However the point is today one religion celebrates its days there. Tomorrow others will demand the same privileges. I remember one of my predecessors Premier Bill Vander Zalm of British Columbia in the eighties offering a group of Christians a room to pray in the Legislature in Vitoria. There was a public furor and the Premier rightly recanted.
Trudeau is not the first Canadian politician to see Indians only as in religious silos. He is just the latest in the long line to pander. It says something about the condition of our Canadian state and the separation of religion and state that our politicians rarely see it as their duty to advance a secular perspective in the way they view and interact with 'other' Canadians. Such conduct clearly undermines one of the cardinal principles of Canadian society --one of separation between church and state. It is unwise and may in the long run prove to be dangerous.
