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RATTAN’S RUMBLE
#1. REMEMBERING THE
‘REAL’ TRUTH ABOUT TARA SINGH HAYER – ONCE AGAIN!
So we were back to the usual farce about slain Punjabi
journalist Tara Singh Hayer on his death
anniversary – thanks to the DISHONEST and DISTORTED journalism in this case
of the Vancouver Sun that has gone out of the way to hide the fact that this
man encouraged the Khalistan movement and even
wrote a book glorifying none other than Sikh militant JARNAIL SINGH
BHINDRANWALA whose armed occupation of the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India,
led to the Indian Army attack on it in 1984.
This is in stark contrast to the HONEST and
STRAIGHTFORWARD journalism of the Province reporter Salim
Jiwa who exposed many shocking truths about a man
that the Vancouver Sun has been busy glorifying for many years now.
Bhindranwala's photograph adorned the main cover of Hayer’s
book with the title “Great Man Sant Jarnail Singh Khalsa Bhindran Wale" and a quote from Bhindranwala
at the bottom: "I make bombs – every baptized Sikh is a bomb.”
On the back cover was another
photograph of Bhindranwala with another quote: “Be
ready to fight! When nobody pays attention to injustice, it is justified to
pick up your weapons to fight against it." Inside, the title was
repeated and beneath it was Hayer's name:
"Editor: Tara Singh Hayer; Editor:
Indo-Canadian Times."
On the next page, Hayer wrote: "Dedicated to Sant
Jarnail Singh Khalsa Bhindranwale, who made the Sikhs proud and became a
martyr while protecting the sanctity of places of worship. 23 September
1984."
At the bottom of the page, Hayer wrote: "Request: The name of the book was
changed from "Eternal Martyr Sant Jarnail Singh Khalsa Bhindranwale" because some people still believe he
is alive."”
When I mentioned these facts at last year’s death
anniversary of Hayer, his daughter Rupinder Hayer Bains sent The VOICE a legal notice out of the blue three
months later, demanding an apology and retraction in the very next edition.
Her lawyer wrote:
“I am instructed that the article at issue contained the
following false allegations:
* Mr. Hayer incited violence
against the Indian Consulate General officials in Vancouver in the 1980's;
* Mr. Hayer was involved in
"the violent Khalistani movement" at that
time;
Mr. Hayer "wrote piles of
nonsense in his newspaper."
Last February, in a hard-hitting article in reply to this
attempt by the Hayer family to MUZZLE this
journalist – and here we have some mainstream media jokers wanting to hold a
seminar on FREEDOM OF THE PRESS in connection with Tara Singh Hayer! – I exposed Hayer yet
once again. Here are some excerpts from that article:
Well, readers, let’s go through those allegations again
for Rupinder’s benefit. She had sent me a legal
notice when I exposed her dad some years ago – and I replied back to her with
publishing facts about the book her dad wrote GLORIFYING JARNAL SINGH
BHINDRANWALE.
… ONE: Mr. Hayer
incited violence against the Indian Consulate General officials in Vancouver
in the 1980's.
Jiwa in his WELL RESEARCHED
expose on Hayer in the
Sunday, May 23, 1999 edition of The Province noted that on the day (June 6,
1984) that Indian troops attacked the Golden Temple in Amritsar, two Lower
Mainland Sikhs, Sodhi Singh Sodhi and Jasbir Sandhu, attacked the Indian consulate at 325 Howe Street
with swords, smashing furniture and portraits on the then prime minister Indira Gandhi and forced frightened consulate workers to
jump out the windows.
Then Jiwa wrote: “Three days
later, unknown to the mainstream media, Tara Singh Hayer
invited prominent Sikhs to his office at 45 Kingsway -- the building where
Sikh separatists had a few years earlier set up the ``consulate of Khalistan'' -- to honour the
two militants.
“Among those at the meeting was Sikh separatist Gen. Jaswand Singh Bhullar, who,
according to the writings of Hayer, had been sent
overseas by Bhindranwale before the army assault,
to propagate the separatist cause.
“Sodhi, who said he was honoured for his bravery in attacking the consulate,
says: ``The first thing Tara asked was: `Why didn't you beat them up?' I
replied, `We smashed up a lot of things.'
“``Tara Singh handed a sword to Bhullar
and Bhullar presented it to me.''
“The meeting was an example of Hayer's
support for violence in support of Khalistan.
“Hayer later wrote a book praising
Bhindranwale.”
Not only that, but Jiwa also
mentioned another incident that took place a few months later in August,
1984, in which Sikh militants attacked the Indian consul’s home in West
Vancouver.
Jiwa wrote: “Militants fought
with police and some were bloodied by police batons.
“Hayer wrote that the Sikhs put
``Indian government dogs [consular officials] on the run'' and that ``even
police could not stop the Sikhs.''
“Two months later, in October 1984, two Sikhs assassinated
Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi.
Hayer published a front-page
picture of killer Beant Singh, captioned: ``Sikh
Faith's great martyr Beant Singh, who sent Mrs.
Gandhi, the cruel killer of Sikhs, to hell.''”
… TWO: Mr. Hayer was involved in "the violent Khalistani movement" at that time.
Well, all that I have written above proves this point,
doesn’t it?
But let me just mention facts about how Hayer treated UJJAL DOSANJH in his writings – something
that Dosanjh himself told me that Hayer stopped only after he dropped the writ on him!
This is what Jiwa wrote about this sordid
situation:
“For his anti-violence crusade, Dosanjh
was nearly killed by a terrorist who beat him with an iron bar.
In reporting the attack in his Indo-Canadian Times, Hayer launched a tirade against Dosanjh,
labeling him a ``lackey of Indian Prime Minister Mrs. Gandhi.'' He also
accused Dosanjh of being anti-Sikh.
“``When Dosanjh was beaten, Hayer cheered it,'' said Darshan
Gill, a longtime friend of Dosanjh and at the time
the editor of the newspaper Canada Darpan.
“Dosanjh sued Hayer over numerous derogatory articles but never pushed
the suit to completion. It was one of at least a dozen lawsuits filed against
Hayer.”
THREE: Mr. Hayer "wrote piles of nonsense in his
newspaper."
Of course, the above has already proved this. But Hayer’s list of victims is LONG as a large number of
Indo-Canadians will testify. But let’s take this one case of the HIGHLY
RESPECTED PUNJABI POET GURCHARAN RAMPURI, who is still alive and can testify
to all these facts.
This is what Jiwa wrote, in
part, about this:
“After a visit to India during the tumultuous early 1980s,
with Sikh militancy on the rise, Rampuri gave a
speech in which he accused the Indo-Canadian Times of supporting the demand
for Khalistan.
“Based on Hayer's history and
his articles, there is no doubt that this was a true statement.
“What was astonishing was Hayer's
published reaction.
“He wrote: ``Gurcharan Rampuri, a half-witted, foolish protester who is trying
to mouth some rhyming, has decreed that the newspaper, Indo-Canadian Times,
is a proponent of Khalistan.
“``But his silly eye and many hermaphrodites like him
cannot see that we publish news of all classes . . . I ask all
hermaphrodites, beggarly frivolous persons and the foolish, that they should
but give one example [of bias in favour of Khalistan].''
“Rampuri was so offended that he
filed a lawsuit, one of at least 18 relating to Hayer
on file at the B.C. Supreme Court. About a dozen concern what Hayer wrote about others. The rest were filed by Hayer against people who retaliated in rival newspapers
to what he had written about them.
“Rampuri, now 70, said he
dropped the lawsuit in 1988 after Hayer was shot by
a Sikh youth from whom Hayer had extracted tawdry
family secrets. The editor published the details because he believed the
youth's father, a devoted Sikh, was an Indian government agent.
“Rampuri says he was baffled
when the mainstream media called the shooting an attack by militants against
the voice of moderation. He blames a falling out among militants for the
shooting, which left Hayer paralysed
from the waist down.
“Moderate ``was a label of convenience you guys in the
media attached to him,'' Rampuri said.”
Jiwa gave many other examples,
too, but I will just mention one more here.
Jiwa reported that Vancouver
lawyer Russ Chamberlain looked into Hayer's work
while defending a Quesnel Sikh who sued Hayer for libel and won almost $60,000 in 1996.
Jiwa reported: “Chamberlain
represented one of the victims of Hayer's poisonous
pen, Quesnel motel owner Gurnek
Singh Sull, who for two years beginning in 1991 was
president of the Quesnel Sikh temple.
“Sull's world was turned upside
down when a report in the Indo-Canadian Times suggested he had taken $7,000
from temple coffers for his personal use.
“The report was a lie.
“When Sull tried in 1996 to
collect the libel award, Hayer transferred his home
into his wife's name, saying he was repaying a debt.
“Sull eventually collected after
Hayer won a settlement with a Punjabi-language
newspaper run by rival Sikh separatists in Vancouver.”
(End of excerpts from my February article)
Well, here is my message to the Hayer
family that has sent me such legal notices twice to SCARE me into SILENCE:
SHAME ON YOU!
And here is my message to those dishonest and / or
ignorant mainstream journalists who still glorify such a character with sham
seminars and awards in the name of freedom of the press:
SHAME ON YOU!
Hayer’s son, Dave Hayer, the MLA who’s been milking dry the natural
sympathy that a victim draws in connection with his dad’s assassination (and
I sincerely hope that the RCMP finally get the cowardly scumbags who killed a
helpless, paralyzed man, whatever his character), made an utter fool of
himself at his dad’s memorial service last Sunday when he told the Vancouver
Sun: “Police know exactly who killed my father … still no charges have been
laid” and he blamed our Canadian justice system.
Will someone tell this ignorant joker that police can only
lay charges when they have sufficient evidence to prove someone guilty?
That’s the law – and he should know better than anyone else since he’s an
MLA.
But then again, maybe he’s right – after all, the same
system tolerated his father’s shameful behaviour
mentioned above – instead of deporting him back to India!
#2. VANCOUVER SUN
AND KIM BOLAN SPECIALIZE IN NEGATIVE NEWS ABOUT OUR COMMUNITY
Wow, look at the RUSH to write about a “SIKH
TERRORIST” by Vancouver Sun’s Kim Bolan – and the “terrific” display that
story got in Saturday’s Vancouver Sun!
The guy was actually a HINDU who lied to stay on
in Canada – and he should be sent back to India as soon as possible as such
cases are only whipping up WHITE RACISM against the Indo-Canadian community –
again, thanks to newspapers like the Vancouver Sun!
That story’s headline?
“Sikh terrorist still here despite order to
leave.”
But the follow-up story – “Man admits he lied
about link to Babbar Khalsa
group” – was VERY CONVENIENTLY BURIED inside the newspaper.
I am SICK of constantly exposing the Vancouver
Sun’s bias towards our community, so I will let our reader KANWALJIT SINGH
GILL of Surrey tell you all about it.
This is his letter to The VOICE:
I was very disappointed to see the recent
negative and misleading news stories made by the (mainstream) news media
about our community. It case of incompetence on the part of the Canada Border
Services Agency (CBSA), but the racist media presented it as a big Sikh
terrorist story. Even the accused Baljit Ram has
publicly declared that he is not a Sikh, doesn't know anything about Babbar Khalsa or terrorist
activities and just followed the advice of his travel agent to declare
himself as a terrorist and claim refugee status. His claim wasn't accepted
and he was ordered to be deported in 2000. But all these years the CBSA
didn't make any effort to find him and deport him. According to Baljit Ram, he wasn't even in hiding all these years. In
fact he was charged earlier for drunk driving but the police or CBSA didn't
take any action in his deportation case. Now he was recently stabbed and
hospitalized. Again he was released for $5000 security deposit.
But the Vancouver Sun and Kim Bolan made it as a
big Sikh terrorist front-page story. Kim Bolan has been following the Sikh
stories and news for a long time since 1980's and has enough knowledge about
Sikh religion to know that person with a middle name Ram is not a Sikh, but
she made it as a big Sikh terrorist story anyways. She has been writing
negative news about Sikhs all these years and didn't want to miss this
opportunity either. It is very unfortunate that Vancouver Sun and Kim Bolan
always like to write only the negative news stories about the Sikh and
Indo-Canadian community.
There are lots of good positive things being done
by our community but we don't see Vancouver Sun or Kim Bolan write about the
good things being done by our community. Just recently the Sikh community
remembered the victims of the 1984 massacre, organized blood donation camps
all over B.C. and donated lots of blood to the Red Cross society, but the
Vancouver Sun or Kim Bolan failed to write about this contribution by our
community. And there have many cases where our community raise funds for
hospitals or charities, organized food donations for the homeless and poor
people, but unfortunately, the Vancouver Sun and Kim Bolan ignore all these
good things being done by our community and don't write these good news
stories but jump and make big headlines only when there is something negative
against our community.
Another thing that bothers me a lot is to see our
so-called moderate leaders play into the (mainstream) media's hands and
contribute to some of these negative news stories. They think that it is only
against the fundamentalists. But the one thing they don't understand is that
the ordinary Canadian who reads these negative news stories about our
community doesn't know the difference between moderate or fundamentalists and
whenever they see these negative news headlines they look at all the
Indo-Canadians in a negative way. That is why in a survey printed by
Vancouver Sun last year the general public felt that 66% of the crimes here
are committed by Indo-Canadians because they see so many negative stories by
the news media.
Therefore I'll request to our so-called moderate
leaders to talk to their friendly media reporters and ask them why they don't
write the good positive news stories about our community. We need fair news
reporting in the western news media and only then the common general public
will have a better and fair perception about our community.
#3. SURREY
COUNCILLOR BOB BOSE: CHARAN GILL WAS WRONG ABOUT KOMAGATA MARU MURAL
Surrey Councillor Bob Bose this week responded to
charges made against him by PICS’ Charan Gill.
Here is Bose’s letter:
Charan Gill, who has
known me for 25 years, describes me as a progressive man, an avid
environmentalist, and a supporter of the South Asian community.
I still am.
So it comes as a shock and a huge disappointment
that Charan Gill would make a personal attack on me
only days before the civic election.
But what bothers me the most is that Charan Gill did not tell the truth about my support for
PICS’ Komagata Maru
mural.
I voted in favour of that project. So did
everyone else on council and the motion passed unanimously. That is a matter
of public record. Charan could have checked this
out.
And as a newspaper, you didn’t show due
diligence, and printed a personal attack with harmful inaccuracies.
Charan Gill should
apologize to this newspaper and its readers for sending in a letter with
false allegations. And this newspaper should apologize for printing the
letter without checking the facts.
I wonder who talked Charan
into this one.
#4. TAXI DRIVERS,
KEEP YOUR COOL WHILE DEALING WITH DISHONEST PASSENGERS
Surrey RCMP say that last Saturday (November 8)
at 10:20 p.m. they responded to a complaint of a pedestrian trapped
underneath a vehicle bear 24th Avenue and 128th Street
and “while still being reviewed by police, the initial investigation
indicates that four youths had obtained the services of a taxi and departed
without paying their fare. As the event unfolded, the taxi struck a
15-year-old youth, the teen becoming trapped under the cab.”
The youth was transported to hospital and was
later released. He received minor injuries.
RCMP said a 61-year-old Surrey man is facing a
charge of assault with a weapon and his next scheduled court date has been
set for November 21. The event remains under investigation.
One of the clips of the incident on TV showed the
taxi in the wrong lane and I was baffled about the whole incident.
So did the youths jump out of the taxi while it
was still moving and one of them got hit?
If that was the case, why was the taxi driver
being charged with assault with a weapon?
When I asked Sgt. Roger Morrow about this, he
replied: “We have to have a reasonable, probable ground to believe for us to
lay an assault with a weapon charge. If a pedestrian runs out in front of
your car, it’s no offence. If I am walking down the street and I jump out in
front of a car and I get hit, it’s the pedestrian’s fault. Now you take the
converse of that where someone’s been charged with assault with a weapon.”
I have been told that youths and even adults
attempt to run away without paying the taxi fare quite often – and that can
be really frustrating for hard-working taxi drivers. But taxi drivers (and I
am not saying that this taxi driver is guilty – that has yet to be decided in
court) should keep their cool – because getting charged with assault and
going through all the court hassles and expenses, besides the possibility of
being jailed, is just not worth it.
On the other hand, this incident should prove to
be a good lesson for the dishonest passenger who got injured. He’s lucky he
didn’t get seriously injured or even killed. I have no sympathy for such
scumbags.
#5. SIKHS FOUGHT
FOR CANADA IN FIRST WORLD WAR
This week a reader sent me an email about Sikhs
who had fought for Canada in the First World War and requested me to share it
with our readers.
There was a report in a Kitchener, Ontario
newspaper The Record about Pte. Bukkan Singh, one
of the nine Sikhs that served with the Canadian forces in the First World
War, who lies buried in Kitchener’s Mount Hope Cemetery.
The newspaper said that Sandeep
Singh Brar bought a medal from a dealer in England
a year ago, assuming it was for a soldier from India. But when he read the
inscription along the bottom, he found that Bukkan
Singh was part of the 20th Canadian Infantry.
The newspaper said: “He discovered Singh served
alongside other Canadians in Flanders Fields in 1916 and was injured twice:
once by shrapnel in the head, and again by a gunshot in the leg.
“He was treated in the hospital run by Guelph's
Lt. Col. John McCrae.
“While recovering, Singh contracted tuberculosis
and was sent to Freeport Hospital in Kitchener -- then run by the Canadian
army. He died a year later, at the age of 25, in 1919.”
According to the report, Singh came to B.C. at
the age of 14 and later moved to Ontario. His family in Punjab received a
notice when he died.
Brar has created a
website, sikhmuseum.com, to inform others about his research.
The Toronto Star newspaper carried a story titled
“Early Sikhs fought for Canada” last month. It reported that filmmaker David
Gray of Ottawa is chronicling the lives of nine Sikhs who fought for Canada
in the First World War in a documentary called “SIKH-CANADIAN HEROES OF THE
FIRST WORLD WAR.” It will be released later this year.
According to this report, Gray stumbled on the
story last year while making a documentary on labourers from China and India
who worked in quarries near Victoria from 1904 to 1920. When he checked the
military records of the period, he came across the names of nine Sikhs – each
with the ‘Singh’ surname. Two enlisted from Toronto, two from Smiths Falls,
Ontario, three from Vancouver and one each from Winnipeg and Montreal.
Eight served overseas. Two were killed in action,
one died later of his battle wounds, and four others were wounded, one at Vimy Ridge.
Gray said he would love to talk to the descendants
of these Sikh veterans. If you can help him out, please do.
#6. IN BRIEF
*PARMINDER SINGH of
Toronto and HARNARAYAN SINGH of Calgary are in Vancouver to cover the
Canucks-Leaf hockey game on Saturday in Punjabi for CBC's
Punjabi Hockey Night in Canada.
*Vancouver doctor
PUSHPA CHANDRA, 50, who came from Fiji, plans to participate in a non-stop
100-km run across Antarctica and thus become the first Canadian to compete in
this ultra-marathon. Earlier this year she participated in the Everest Marathon
where she finished second in her age category.
*JESSIE PAUL
SANGHERA, 30, of Surrey has pleaded guilty to charges related to the
hit-and-run death of pedestrian Lemar Faqirzada, 18, of Surrey and will be sentenced on January
9 in Surrey Provincial Court. Faqirzada’s
friend, Rochelle D'Emilio, 19, was injured. Sanghera’s dad, Major Iqbal Sanghera, 48, is scheduled to go on trial in October 2009
on charges of public mischief and fraud under $5,000 in connection with the
same accident.
*Former Matsqui prison guard BALKAR SINGH BASRA, 30, was
sentenced to two years less a day for a date rape by a B.C. Supreme Court
judge. He was convicted of having non-consensual sex with a woman he met
through an MSN online chat group. He’s been prohibited from accessing
Internet social networking sites for three years after his release from jail.
-Rattan Mall
editor@voiceonline.com
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