Immigrant from India to be premier of Canadian province British Columbia

Immigrant from India to be premier of Canadian province British Columbia
CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA

WASHINGTON, FEBRUARY 19: An Indian immigrant from Punjab who could not speakEnglish till he was a teenager and arrived in Canada only in the late 1960sis poised to become the premier of British Columbia in what is being calleda historic milestone in the country's multi-cultural experiment.

Ujjal Dosanjh, who was born in India in 1947 and came to Canada only in1968, is strongly tipped to win a party election on Sunday that will makehim leader of the British Columbia's New Democrats and therefore premier ofthe province. He will then lead the party into a full-fledged generalelection next year with the group badly trailing the opposition Liberals inopinion polls. Dosanjh, a self-made success, is currently the AttorneyGeneral of British Columbia, a province that has nearly quarter million ofthe 400,000 Sikhs in Canada.

The Dosanjh saga, chronicled widely this week in the Canadian media, is oneof the most compelling stories in the country's politics. Born a Sikh in aPunjab village in 1947, Dosanjh left India in 1965 and lived in London forthree years before arriving in Canada in 1968. He worked as a janitor, andfor a while in a sawmill. He then went to school, earned a law degree, andwas called to the bar in 1977, after which he steadily got involved in theregion's political activities. He was first elected to the British Columbialegislature in 1991.

The feisty lawyer is not the first Indian in Canadian politics. The Canadianfederal cabinet has an Indian minister, Herb Dhaliwal. Down south in theUnited States, a Californian Sikh, Dalip Singh Saund, was elected to the USCongress in the 1930s (the only Indian to have made it to the US House ofRepresentatives). British Columbia itself has two other local ministers ofIndian origin Moe Sihota and Harry Lali while Ontario province has twomore Punjabi lawmakers, the Liberal Gurbux Mahli and the Tory RaminderGill.

In BC, both Sihota and Lali oppose Dosanjh and have thrown their supportbehind his opponent Gordon Wilson. The cleave is typical of the community'sturbulent politics in the region since Sikhs first began migrating here inlarge numbers in the 1960s. Like everywhere else, Operation Blue Star badlyhurt and angered the community, but those who recovered from the scars,Dosanjh among them, opposed the separatists agitating violently for aKhalistan, leading to a deep divide in the community that has festered tothis day.

Canadian political commentators are however surprised that BritishColumbia's Sikh community will supply the first visibly non-Scottish premierahead of the much larger Chinese community. But the Sikhs have a simpleexplanation: Politics is in their blood. To which the Canadians mightjustifiably reply: Blood is in their politics too.

Dosanjh himself was beaten and seriously injured with an iron rod in 1985 bya militant who opposed his moderate views in the politics relating toPunjab. The same year, terrorists are suspected to have blown up an AirIndia flight over Ireland killing all 329 people abroad. Since then, thecommunity has been plagued by violence and internecine warfare, leadingamong other incidents, to the attack and lifelong injury to the editor ofthe Indo-Canadian Times newspaper and his subsequent assassination when hewas wheelchair-bound. The editor, Tara Singh Hayer, was a close friend ofDosanjh. Many believe he paid with his life for his fierce editorial lineattacking the separatists in the community.

Although Dosanjh has the reputation of being a clean and fair-mindedmoderate, his current bid for premiership has a whiff of scandal. TheCanadian media has reported widely that Dosanjh has (as also his mainopponent Gordon Wilson) have exploited loose party membership rules to signup vast numbers of Indo-Canadians. Many of them were then transformed intodelegates for this weekend's convention where a new party leader, andtherefore premier, will be chosen.

A party investigation has shown that at least 1300 of the 11,000 new membersrecruited had no idea they had become card carrying New Democrats. Dosanjhis said to have recruited 6000 of them. At a news conference this week,Dosanjh said he was ``deeply disturbed'' by the reports and promised that``If anyone involved in my campaign is responsible for questionablememberships, I accept responsibility for correcting their behaviour.''

Although Dosanjh is still the frontrunner, the local media says the brewingscandal gives a chance to the third candidate in the race, agricultureminister Corky Evans. Some commentators though say he still commands therespect of voters for focusing on traditional NDP policies such as poverty,the environment and equality. ``When you look at the opinion polls, peoplesee him as honest, as a man of integrity. I think he has the greatestpotential to bring people back to the party who have drifted away,'' SvedRobinson, a veteran partyman from the region was quoted as saying in theToronto Globe and Mail. But even if he wins the leadership race, fewanalysts give Dosanjh a chance to lead the New Democrats to victory in thegeneral elections. Their provincial government is said to be the most ineptamong Canada's regional outfits and it is in a hole for $ 1.5-billiondebt.

This is the whirlwind that Dosanjh hopes to reap this weekend. If he doesnot call an election immediately and give voters a chance to exercise theirflabby franchise, Canada's first Indo-Canadian premier will face a dailyclamour till he does. And when he does, he will seal his fate. An historicmoment? ``Perhaps, but don't blink, or you'll miss it,'' wrote one localpolitical commentator.