Bhupinder S Liddar
OTTAWA: While countless statements were recently read in the House of Commons to commentate the 50th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre nothing was said about the 10th anniversary of the Indian Army’s attack on the Sikh holy shrine at Amritsar in which countless worshippers were killed.
Members of the House of Commons are allowed to make a one minute statement each for a total period of 15 minutes prior to the Start of the daily Question Period. In previous Parliamentary sessions MPs have made statements commemorating the anniversary of the attack on the Golden Temple. The fact there are two Sikh MPS Gurbax Singh Malhi and Herb Dhaliwal did not help the situation. Jag Bhaduria the third Canadian MP of Indian origin did make a statement in the House of Commons on June 7 not on the Amritsar incident but to pay tribute to a dedicated and courageous group Of Veterans who participated in the D-Day remembrance events
Not that Sikhs should rely solely on MPs of Indian origin but none other made any reference to this significant day in the history of the Sikhs Some in the Sikh community were counting on Liberal MP Derek Lee and New Democrat Svend Robinson who have previously spoken on the issue of Sikhs and are familiar with the events in the Punjab to make a statement on the observance of the 10th anniversary of this event.
Liberal MP Gurbax Singh Malhi did speak at the demonstration on Parliament Hill on June 4 to commemorate the Amritsar attack and was also a speaker along with the other Sikh Liberal MP Herb Dhaliwal at the World Sikh Organization dinner on Parliament Hill
At least this year the observance of this anniversary went unrecorded in the record of the Canadian Parliament.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 17, 1994
