Canada Terror: Memories of Another Day

Canada was recently described by a wag as "Hamid Ansari of countries: always needing to remind everyone of its presence". It has always been content living under the shadows of its big brother neighbour United States. However the recent adventurism by a gunman inside the parliament house in Ottawa, has invited the blinding flash bulbs and view finders of 24/7 global media, which the reclusive country may be finding quite unwelcome.

However for Canada it is not its first brush with terrorism, as many would like us to believe. Many have called it Canada's 'loss of innocence', but the country had its ample share of terror incidents in the past. Probably the earliest terror attack that originated from Canadian soil was on June 23, 1985 and in pre-9/11 days it was considered the biggest one in terms of casualties.

An Air-India Boeing 747-237B originating from Toronto and bound for Mumbai was destroyed mid-air near Ireland killing 329 people. The bomb was allegedly planted in a suitcase by Sikh militant outfit Babbar Khalsa to avenge the raid on Golden Temple in Amritsar in 1984. Another bomb laden baggage was sent on a Canadian Pacific flight, later meant to be transhipped to Air-India flight from Tokyo to Bangkok. The bomb, however, went off prematurely killing two baggage handlers at Narita airport near Tokyo.

Among those killed in Mumbai bound flight 268 were Canadian citizens, 27 Britons and 24 Indians. Quite predictably among the dead Canadians most happened to be of Indian origin. Hence the Canadian establishment was more eager to perceive it as an Indian tragedy than admit it as their national tragedy.

While after the current Parliament attack the Canadian government made a brave proclamation that they will not be intimidated by terror strikes, back in 1985 Canada's conduct while dealing with the tragedy left a lot to be desired, as was later revealed in a docudrama Air India 182 produced in 2008 by filmmaker Sturla Gunnarsson. After that tragedy the then prime minister, Brian Murloney, got busy sending condolence to the Indian Government rather than get in touch with the Canadian families who lost their loved ones. The Canadian Parliament also did not observe any mourning or issue condolence, thereby hinting that the lives of Canadians of Indian origin did not matter.

Those were pre-9/11 days and terrorism like tuberculosis was perceived as a third world disease, which countries such as Lebanon, Sri Lanka and India had to contend with. The western world they thought was immune to it, with sole exception of United Kingdom, but even they had to contend with gora terrorists - the IRA.

So Canada just could not come to terms with the fact that a terror attack originated from its soil and did its level best to live in denial. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) which was entrusted with the probe filed its chargesheet 15 years after the tragedy. The retired Canadian Supreme Court judge, John Major, who carried out a long drawn investigation made it amply clear that Canada's intelligence and police services had enough hints to suspect that Khalistan groups were planning a major operation targeting Air India, but they did not do enough to prevent it.  

The explosives that blew up Air India were allegedly planted by extremists in luggage that was loaded in Vancouver, but only one person has ever been convicted in relation to the tragedy.

Inderjit Singh Reyat, who assembled the explosives, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 2003 and received a five-year sentence. The suspected ringleader, Talwinder Singh Parmar, died in India in 1992 allegedly after a police encounter and the RCMP's two main surviving suspects were both acquitted in March 2005 after a 19-month trial.

Thus for the next of kin of those who died in that tragedy all this provides little consolation.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Nobel Prize: Surprises Galore

Obscurity is the flavour of this Nobel prize season. Everyone waited with bated breath as to who will win Nobel prize for literature. In the run up to be prize announcement Japanese writer Haruki Murakami emerged as hot favourite, followed by Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Murukami's name has  been doing rounds for the past few Nobels and it was expected that the widely translated bestselling author will finally pocket the coveted prize this year.

However when the results came on October 9 we had people tut-tutting in shock and disbelief. Patrick Modiano a French author hardly known outside his country's shores, emerged as the proverbial dark horse. This Jewish author has Nazi occupation, Jewishness and loss of identity as recurrent themes in his novels. He is, however, well known in France and is often clubbed with Marcel Proust. For Modiano it was 'weird' to have won the prize, though he was elated.

But for the next day the Nobel authorities had even bigger surprise up their sleeves. For peace prize it announced an Indian and a Pakistani as winners, thus quite literally dropping a peace bomb among two countries which are currently having a confrontation along the border.

While the Pakistani winner Malala Yousafzai is quite well known, for braving Taliban bullets to promote education among girl children in Swat valley, the Indian winner, Kailash Satyarthi, was as anonymous as children working in hazardous factories and restaurants, on whose behalf he has been fighting for the last three decades.

Now the question arises as to how Nobel prize committee spotted and nominated him. It is quite well known that the list of Nobel nominees is often a long one and the selection process is rigorous and not immune to lobbying pressures. However, a Wikipedia search reveals that Satyarthi is not exactly an unknown identity and had won a slew of human rights awards abroad, regrettably none within our shores. In fact in his own country he had to battle stiff opposition from strong industrial and business lobbies in his crusade against child labour.  

After the Nobel announcement it has become quite clear that his was a classic case of blackout by the Indian media. Some guilt-ridden journalists have now come out with confessions of how they chose to ignore his press conferences and instead chose to pursue far more 'happening' upmarket and cool topics than rescue of children from bonded labour. One journalist admitted he had some 30-odd emails sent by Satyarthi's organisation Bachpan Bachao Andolan over past three years, which he did not even bother to open, let alone read.

Another journalist also lamented that newspapers these days can't do without party pictures and Page 3 personalities and often nudge other news to inside pages. But he later puts the onus on readers for not demanding 'meaningful' news and wallowing in trivia and non-serious stuff!

Also Read: Bangalore Beat