World Sikh News recently featured an open letter to Jasbeer Singh of the World Sikh Organization (Canada). The letter warns against using lan Mulgrew to do a documentary on Sikhs. Many of your readers who have not read the book, may wonder what Mulgrew has written. Frankly, this book is insulting to the Sikh Gurus the Sikh community and in particular to Sikh Jats.
In assigning this project to Mulgrew, the danger is not that he won’t do a good job, but rather that he will inevi tably become, what is known in political circles as a specialist in Sikh affairs. Recently we have seen the damage John Spellman is capable of doing to the Sikh community. Spellman was a friend, who turned against Sikhs, Mulgrew, has never shown any respect for Sikhism, and is openly scoopful of Jats and Khalsa Sikhs. As an authority on Sikhs, one can only speculate what damage he may do in the future.
UNHOLY TERROR is a book writ- ten by lan Mulgrew in 1988 and published by Key Porter Books. It is 250 pages long and is said to be an investigation into Sikhs and international terrorism.
The book jacket starts with a flat declaration that Sikhs blew up the Air India flight 182. In the preface.. Mulgrew lays out his plan for the book, and thanks W.H. McLeod, Salim Jiwa and others for their help. He then devotes an entire chapter to describe a charming, frail old lady, who was India herself, being gunned down savagely by Sikh fanatics, one of whom is “Satwant Singh, a $50 a month New Delhi policeman caught selling opium only two months before.” (page 6).
He gives a brief history of Sikhism largely based on McLeod. He makes no attempt to be respectful or sensitive to Sikhs religious beliefs. He is condescending and insolent when he starts with “Nanak abandoned the traditions of Hinduism and founded a commune whose most significant features were that its members shared their food and sang hymns.” (page 24) He goes on to describe the people who were attracted to these “hypnotic chanting sessions” as farmers whose “most important cash crop was the opium poppy. In this respect, not much has changed over the last five centuries.” (page 25)
On à page 27 he stated “The Sikhs adopted a belief that blood lines conferred virtue; guruship was consequently inherited, not earned. Leadership was passed from father to son and a priestly class emerged among those who advised the spiritual leader of the faithful.” The many child gurus were easily manipulated by this new priestly class. Gobind Singh is the root of the modern day crisis. (page 31) In creating the Khalsa he divided the community by establishing two classes in Sikhism. Them that had beards, and them that did not. Gobind Singh created further trouble when be- cause he had no heirs, declared himself to be the last Guru with no one to follow him. He left the community floundering without a leader. (page 32) He left decision making with the bearded ones, because they were his people. This chapter must be read to appreciate the full scorn and ridicule that he finds necessary to heap on our Gurus and their followers.
Mulgrew takes great pains to ex- plain how the Jats have taken over the running of the “temples” with their revenues running in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually. (page 39) He describes Bhindrawala “surrounded by heavily armed young Sikhs dressed in 17th century skirts and bandoliers, moved about the countryside preaching and uttering bloody aphorisms.” (page 63) This description of Khalsa Sikhs seems to be a running theme throughout the book, repeated again and again for emphasis. “Zapata lookalike with cartridge laden bandoliers slung across their chests.” (page 12)
On page 98, we are told of the Ghadr movement that “marked the introduction of the Sikhs to global revolution and the use of political terror as it has come to be understood”. By 1978 sinister things were happening in the community. All problems could be traced to Khalsa Jats who were determined to gain control of all temples. “for the cash flow generated” and the “prestige and power temple positions conferred.”(page 105) Murders in B.C. and shootings in Osgoode Hall were all related to power struggles for control of temples. Mulgrew goes to great length to describe the violence within the Sikh community. He also states that seeking refugee status be- came a profitable scain, which is much abused by the Sikh community. Mulgrew figures that at least 70% of Sikh refugee claimants are bogus. It is also in this chapter on page 115 that he talks of the “World Sikh Organization, which represents a majority of Khalsa Sikhs convened a meeting in the Fraser Valley town of Abbotsford. Amid the border-straddling farms through which Sikhs were smuggling illegal immigrants and guns, temple leaders from around the globe met.” “Lieutenant-General Jaswant Singh Bhullar urged armed revolution”. “Po- lice said the supporters of Khalistan were engaged on widespread arms and drug smuggling…. who operated an underground rail road network across the continent for illegal immigrants and heroin.” The chapter goes on describing the violence within the community, and the assaults and beatings administered to “moderate Sikhs” by the Jat fanatics that came as new immigrants. There is also mention of rampant family violence and the maltreatment of Sikh women in Canada. (page 118) The pages are adorned with charming statements like this one on page 117 “They are people from the middle ages” “They are all male chauvinist pigs who are coarse men. And on page 119 “Jats are crazy people you know.”
In Chapter 5, Talwinder Parmar is described as a man “born out of his time.” (page 123) Parmar apparently I was a charismatic blowhard who wore “a fluorescent saffron colored turban coiled nearly a meter high atop his head. He also liked to wear slippers with upturned toes and the electric blue battledress of a Nihang.” (page 124) He was obviously connected with the Air India flight 182 tragedy.
On page 147 he writes: “The secretly recorded videotapes showed Birk talking about establishing a guerrilla training camp, detonating bombs, and causing an industrial accident such r as the chemical leak that killed at least – 1,700 people in Bhopal, India. “I want to cause injuries,” he said at one point; that is the price of our revolution.””It is also interesting to note that though he started on page one, with the clear statement that Sikhs blew up the Air India flight 182, with a bomb, on page 154 he writes: “Four months of the largest, most expensive Canadian – police investigation ever undertaken produced scant evidence. They still couldn’t prove that a bomb knocked the Air India plane out of the sky” “there was no evidence of any explosion found on any of the bodies… no burning, no evidence of noxious fumes per explosive substances,” said Cuimin Doyle, the pathologist who led the team of doctors who performed the post mortems.” On page 165 of the book Mulgrew writes “India didn’t need to discredit the Sikhs… they were doing a good enough job on their own.”
Chapter 7 TERRORISM AND CRIME. He writes again of a “rise in drug trafficking, illegal immigration, insurance frauds and other crimes involving Sikhs. In the view of many police and intelligence officers, much of the money in donations guns, munitions, family support, and legal fees and services came from crime.” In Britain, the United States and Canada, Sikh separatists had offered to provide high grade heroin to under- cover policemen as payment for weapons or illegal services.” (page 201) To finish off the chapter he writes on page 206: “the attack on the temple was the desperate act of a government struggling, no matter how heavy- handedly, to contain an actual threat to its legitimacy and survival; the bombing of a passenger plane was – simply unprovoked murder of innocent people.”
On pages 212-213 I found: “Most of the people who were involved in Sikh militant groups… considered them- 1 selves the bravest and best of the faithful and anything but psychiatric cases.
He sums up his own findings with: S “The fundamentalist Sikhs had shown they were capable of striking at the Indian government anywhere in the world. The separatists had proven themselves capable of orchestrating global operations requiring phony documents, careful timing, and lots of money. The fanatics who supported them have destroyed an airliner, sabo- 2 taged railways, bombed buildings, and killed thousands of Hindus as well as their fellow Sikhs. They are prepared to create their heaven on earth by unleashing the forces of hell. They are committed, well organized, and without scruples: the end will justify the means; the creation of Khalistan L will wash the blood from their hands.” These are the ravings of the man who is presently engaged by WSO in preparing a documentary on the 10th anniversary of the attack on the Golden Temple. The cost? $150 thousand dollars!
Article extracted from this publication >> April 15, 1994
