BHARSINGHPURA, India
\nA bitter row between India and Canada over the murder of a Sikh separatist is being felt in Punjab, where some Sikhs fear both a backlash from India\u2019s Hindu-nationalist government and a threat to their prospects for a better life in North America.
\nHardeep Singh Nijjar, a plumber who left the north Indian state a quarter-century ago and became a Canadian citizen, was shot dead in June outside a temple in a Vancouver suburb where he was a separatist leader among the many Sikhs living there.
\nCanadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last week Ottawa had \u201ccredible allegations\u201d that Indian government agents may be linked to the killing.
\nIndia, which labelled Nijjar a \u201cterrorist\u201d in 2020, angrily rejected the allegation as \u201cabsurd,\u201d expelled the chief of Canadian intelligence in India, issued travel warnings, stopped visa issuance to Canadians and downsized Canada\u2019s diplomatic presence in India.
\nSikhs make up just 2 percent of India\u2019s 1.4 billion people but they are a majority in Punjab, a state of 30 million where their religion was born 500 years ago. Outside of Punjab, the greatest number of Sikhs live in Canada, the site of many protests that have irked India.
\nDREAM OF CANADA
\nAn insurgency seeking a Sikh homeland of Khalistan, which killed tens of thousands in the 1980s and \u201890s, was crushed by India, but embers from the flame of the independence drive still glow.
\nIn the village of Bharsinghpura, there are few memories of Nijjar, but his uncle, Himmat Singh Nijjar, 79, said locals \u201cthink it was very brave of Trudeau\u201d to accuse Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s government of potential involvement in the killing.
\n\u201cFor the sake of one ordinary person, he did not need to take such a huge risk on his government,\u201d the uncle told Reuters, sitting on a wooden bench by a tractor in his farmhouse, surrounded by lush paddy fields and banana trees.
\nStill, though, the elder Nijjar said he is worried about deteriorating diplomatic relations with Canada and declining economic prospects in Punjab.
\nThe once-prosperous breadbasket of India, Punjab has been overtaken by states that focussed on manufacturing, services and technology in the last two decades.
\n\u201cNow every family wants to send its sons and daughters to Canada as farming here is not lucrative, said the elder Nijjar.
\nIndia is the largest source for international students in Canada, their numbers jumping 47 percent last year to 320,000.
\n\u2018ATMOSPHERE OF FEAR\u2019
\n\u201cWe now fear whether Canada will give student visas or if the Indian government will create some hurdles,\u201d said undergraduate Gursimran Singh, 19, who wants to go to Canada.
\nHe was speaking at the holiest of Sikh shrines, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, where many students go to pray for, or give thanks for, for student visas.
\nThe temple became a flashpoint for Hindu-Sikh tension when then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi allowed it to be stormed in 1984 to flush out Sikh separatists, angering Sikhs around the world. Her Sikh bodyguards assassinated her soon afterward.
\nTies between Sikh groups in Punjab and Prime Minister Modi\u2019s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government have been strained since Sikh farmers led year-long protests against farm deregulation in 2020 and blocked the capital, forcing Modi to withdraw the measure in a rare political defeat for the strongman.
\nModi\u2019s government has created \u201can atmosphere of fear,\u201d especially for young people, said Sandeep Singh, 31, from Nijjar\u2019s village.
\n\u201cIf we are doing a protest, parents wouldn\u2019t like their child to participate because they are afraid their children can meet the same fate\u201d as Nijjar in Canada, he said.
\nKanwar Pal, political affairs secretary for the radical separatist Dal Khalsa group, said, \u201cWhosoever fights for Khalistan fights for right to self-determination, rights for plebiscite in Punjab. India perceived those Sikhs as their enemies and they target them.\u201d
\nA BJP spokesperson declined to comment on the accusations.
\nSenior BJP leaders have said there was no wave of support in Punjab for independence and that any such demands were a threat to India. At the same time, the party says no one has done as much for the Sikhs as Modi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BHARSINGHPURA, India A bitter row between India and Canada over the murder of a Sikh separatist is being felt in Punjab, where some Sikhs fear both a backlash from India\u2019s Hindu-nationalist government and a threat to their prospects for a better life in North America. Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a plumber who left the north Indian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358298,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-358275","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n