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Canada’s Hijab-ed, Bearded, and Turbaned: Their Latest Anti-Hindu, Anti-India Caper

Canada’s Hijab-ed, Bearded, and Turbaned: Their Latest Anti-Hindu, Anti-India Caper
Image Courtesy: blogs.tribune.com.pk

Canada’s population is about forty million, and of those forty million about five percent are Muslim. Wikipedia informs us that the first mosque in Canada was built in 1938, and that there are quite a few madrasas operating in maple-syrup country. In the Greater Toronto area ten percent of the population is Muslim, and in Greater Montreal about nine percent. The first madrasa/seminary established in Canada was at the initiative of a Muslim from India, Mazhar Alam. About one-third of Canada’s Muslims are from the “South Asia” region – mostly from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Sikhs are powerful in Canada. They have eighteen MPs in the Canadian Parliament. The Sikh population, like the Muslim population, has risen exponentially over the past two decades. To say that Sikhs have political clout in Canada is an understatement. In 2018 when a Canadian intelligence report listed Khalistanis as one of the top five terrorist threats in the country, Prime Minister Trudeau was forced to water down the report. That Sikhs are willing to forget that they have fought throughout history with Muslims over land and faith, and who have been driven out of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and are now willing to collaborate with their sworn enemies goes to show both the willfulness of many in the Sikh community, and their new-found desire to distance themselves from both their Hindu foundation and their Hindu neighbors.

This background will offer an explanation, somewhat, to the email received by a variety of Hindu groups in the US and Canada by the National Council of Canadian Muslims, which claims to be a “nonprofit, non-partisan, grassroots human rights, civil liberties and advocacy organization…”. The emails, strategically sent on a Friday, giving a 48-hours-notice, begins this way:

“Hi there,

 We are a Muslim advocacy and human rights organization here in Canada. We are reaching out to inform you that we are about to launch (March 1st) a report about the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its influence in Canada. (The report is jointly written with the World Sikh Organization)

In the report, we make mention (fill in the name of the Hindu organization) extensively, as a part of the Sangh Parivar network that helps push the RSS worldview internationally.

We want to share this section of the report with you before our launch date. You will have 48hrs to read this section and to propose any changes. Every point we make is sourced, as represented by the numbers. If you like, we can show you the sources as well.

The point is to give you time to perhaps disagree and propose changes. After the 48hr window, we will launch the report.”

Knowing that such a ploy would get people concerned and spoil their weekends, we can surmise that these are aspects of the jihadist “ambush-and-maim/kill” tactics deployed both on the battlefield and in a variety of civil society contexts to deadly effect. We could very well ignore these weekend shots across the bow because these tactics are par for the course among anti-Hindu groups – Muslim, Christian, Left/Marxist, Sikh, and Dalit. We have seen such “reports” released recently by the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) and by the Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations (FIACONA), and we have seen “conferences” and “summits” seeking to “dismantle Hindutva” — all meant to provoke anti-Hindu and anti-Hinduism sentiments in the countries in which these reports are released, conferences and meetings held. The NCCM “report” will therefore be just another copycat version of the IAMC and FIACONA mischief and meant to put Hindus on their backfoot.

The NCCM claims to be non-partisan. What does that even mean when most of their focus is on demonizing Jews and Hindus, Israel and India? That they think they can get away with these false claims goes to show how easy it is to brand and market oneself as a “human rights organization,” as “non-partisan,” as advocates of “civil liberties”. The NCCM, has from the beginning, been loosely tied to radical Islamist activism. They were initially known as the “Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations” (CAIR-CAN), meaning that they were joined at the hip with CAIR – Council on American-Islamic Relations, which has been historically linked to terrorism and terrorists. Rabbi Yaakov Menken accuses CAIR of disinformation, bigotry, and promoting a hateful agenda. That the United Arab Emirates labeled CAIR a terrorist organization should come as no surprise. The FBI, which worked with CAIR, had to cut its ties with them, should also come as no surprise. In 2103, Prime Minister Steven Harper accused NCCM (CAIR-CAN) of having ties to terrorism.

NCCM’s parent organization, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), was an unindicted co-conspirator in one of the largest terror financing trials in US history — USA v. Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. After this case, NCCM changed its name from the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR.CAN) to one less reminiscent of its American counterpart and its Islamist roots in the Muslim Brotherhood. However, “We remain the same organization our constituents and partners have come to rely on,” read a press release from NCCM announcing the name change. In a 2003 legal battle, a spokesperson for CAIR.CAN admitted that CAIR “has direct control over CAIR-CAN’s activities in Canada”. Up until its name change in 2013, Jamal Badawi served as a director for CAIR.CAN. Two different Muslim Brotherhood documents (both evidenced in the Holy Land trial) name Badawi. Point de Bascule reports that one of the documents, a memorandum, “encourages Muslim Brotherhood supporters to destroy the Western civilization from within” and names Badawi as “a leader of the North American Muslim Brotherhood infrastructure”. Around the time that CAIR.CAN changed its name to NCCM, Badawi’s name disappeared from the organization’s list of administrators.

Let us look at NCCM’s concerns for the well-being of people and for supporting civil liberties in Canada. What do they want their supporters to be concerned about? Their “Action Alerts” reveal it all. Here are their concerns about India and Hindus:

  • “BJP Leadership and Ethnic Cleansing Measures in India”
  • “Send a Letter to Minister Mary Ng on Trade Agreement with Indian Government”

And these people claim to be non-partisan? There is not a peep from them about the persecution of Hindus in Pakistan, in Bangladesh, in Malaysia, in other Muslim-majority nations. There is not a peep about the violence and acts of terrorism perpetrated by Sikhs wedded to the Khalistan-separatist movement in Canada, in the US, and recently in Australia – see here, here, and here.

That NCCM is working hand-in-glove with extremist Canadian Sikhs should also come as no surprise. The so-called “World Sikh Organization” (WSO), in the guise of a nonprofit, human rights organization pushes its extremist agendas, including seeking the secession of the State of Punjab from India and targeting the present Indian Government consistently and falsely. That it promotes the Khalistan Movement is no secret, and its frustration about reports that make the connection between extremist Canada-based Sikh organizations and Pakistan-based or funded Muslim organizations and activists is also no secret. The title of the press release gives away the World Sikh Organization’s anti-India, pro-Khalistan stance: it says the “MLI Khalistan Report Parrots Indian Narratives: WSO”. That the NCCM would therefore seek the WSO as its bedfellow goes to show the promiscuous nature of both the Khalistan/Sikh and anti-India/Muslim activism in Canada. There is more here about WSO’s anti-India, anti-Hindu activism, and its active intervention in subverting the enquiry into the Air India bombing. According to Wikipedia, “During Justice John Major’s Inquiry into the Air India bombing, the WSO applied for and was granted intervener status, and applied for leave to call witnesses who would testify about the role of Indian intelligence agents in the Sikh community in Canada and information the Government of India may have had about the bombing. In its final submissions to the Inquiry, the WSO expressed its disappointment with the proceedings, including suggestions that there was “inadequate protection of witnesses “from intimidation”.

Image courtesy: Sanskritimagazine.com

The WSO was said to be connected to Khalistan separatist/extremist movement, and WSO sued the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) for defamation, libel, and slander. The case did not go to trial, meaning that the WSO could not offer enough evidence to show that they were libeled, slandered, or defamed. The recent “referendum” in Canada, organized by the Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) seeking the “carving out a separate country from Punjab” was accompanied by the defacing of a Hindu temple and anti-India graffiti. The provocation was such that the Indian High Commission asked the Canadian authorities to investigate the incident. The Canadian Government should be launching a serious investigation of the major Sikh organizations in Canada and find out who are involved in the Khalistan separatist movement and how they are collecting and using funds to provoke Canadian Hindus and/or threaten them. Alas, the present Canadian Government is known to be consorting with extremist Sikhs — all in an attempt to stay in power. That Trudeau cannot run his government with extremist Sikh support is clear because he cannot pick and choose among “terrorist groups” and still have good relationship with the Indian Government. That Trudeau wants to run with the liberal hare and hunt with extremist Sikh hounds has been rightly condemned by Canada watchers.

Wherever there is a substantial number of Muslim immigrants in the West and there is an identifiable Hindu immigrant community Hindus have become a covenient target. That some of the Muslim organizations are now joining hands with other extremist movements like the Khalistan movement should also not come as a surprise. This is not just a sweeping generalization and one need not simply assert this because we are ideologues, or because we suffer from “Islamophobia”. There is enough literature to make the case about the “Muslim problem” in the West – and we can point out to the seminal work by Harvard professor Samuel Huntington, the book by Christopher Caldwell titled, “Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West,” and the works by Princeton professor Bernard Lewis, who, in an interview with the Pew Research Center had correctly surmised that the “relationship between Islam and the West will be a defining feature of the 21st century…”. There is much, much more here, here, and here for those who wish to go by the numbers. But then, for every scholar or reporter who dares report or write about these matters there are a thousand others seeking to rationalize the religion-inspired “difference,” “violence,” “supremacist beliefs,” and monopolist claims of Muslims around the world. That these Muslim organizations have cleverly donned the garb of “liberalism,” “secularism,” “progressivism,” “human rights,” and “civil liberties,” have found companionship with and support from “liberal,” “secular,” and “progressive” groups makes for the troubled frisson felt across the globe, but especially in democratic countries. That billions are being poured by oil-rich Muslim countries into building mosques, training Muslims to be lawyers, academics in the social sciences and humanities, reporters and writers, and buying influence in the powerful capitals of the world is also no secret. As we have pointed out elsewhere, Mitchell Bard of the American-Israeli Collective Enterprise lists the rich donors and the Western recipients of the “largesse” of the oil-rich Middle Eastern countries.

So, come March 1, 2023, there will be a joint-report by the NCCM and WSO to some media fanfare, and for some “show and shout” processions organized by the bearded brethren. We know what that “report” will contain. And you know what you can and must do with it. If you are in the US, please contact your local state and Congressional representatives. Call your US Senators. Tell them of this new threat from the combination of Sikh and Muslim extremists masquerading as civil libertarians. If you are in Canada, call Prime Minister Trudeau’s office. Call the leaders of Canada’s Opposition parties. Let them know about the anti-Hindu activities of NCCM and WSO. They are a clear and present danger not only to Hindus, Hinduism, and India but to world order and sanity.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. IndiaFacts does not assume any responsibility or liability for the accuracy of any information in this article.

Dr. Ramesh Rao

The author is Professor of Communication Studies, Department of Communication,  Columbus State University, Columbus, GA. He serves as the Chief Editor of India Facts at present. Views expressed are personal.