U$A

Yuba City’s Sikh parade is more than a cultural celebration as concerns of repression rise

Joe Rubin
Mon, November 13, 2023

Once a year, miles of streets in Yuba City are closed. Thousands of people of Sikh descent and a smattering of fans of the annual Nagar Kirtan Sikh parade walk from the outskirts of town to the Sikh place of worship, the Yuba City Gurdwara.

Sikhs make up 2% of the overall population in India, but they represent about 40% of Californians who have emigrated from India, or an estimated 250,000. The majority live in the Central Valley and Bay Area.

A remarkable number — at least 100,000 — attend the Yuba City Sikh parade, the largest Sikh gathering in the United States.

This year, as in years past, Punjabi music, dress, language and food — abundant and always free — was on full display.

Members of the California Gatka Dal perform martial arts of Punjab during the Yuba City Nagar Kirtan Sikh parade on Nov. 5.

The five men, known as the Panj Pyare, stand in front of the float with the Holy Scripture at the Yuba City Nagar Kirtan Sikh parade on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023.

Volunteers at organized tables offered savory snacks such as saag and mucki di roti (spicy ginger and garlic flavored spinach, paired with corn flatbread) along with sweet treats such as sticky jalebi. Steaming pots of tea float through the crowd.

“We are here to spread the word of love and community,” said Raj Bajwa, one of the leaders of a group of motorcycle riders called the Sikh Riders of America, a band of leather-jacketed Sikhs who escort the parade. “Everyone is welcome.”

But amid the festivities of this largely spiritual and cultural event there is also an underlying political tension.

That, too, is on full display.

Many of the celebrants waved the yellow flag of Khalistan — a proud the symbol of the independent state to which many of the 35 million Sikhs around the world aspire.

Bakersfield resident Nirmal Singh stands in front of a Khalistan flag at the Yuba City Nagar Kirtan Sikh parade. The flag is a symbol of the separatist movement that calls for the creation of Sikh country in the Punjab region of India.

Some in the crowd shouted in Punjabi “Long live Khalistan.” Others promoted a non-binding referendum among Sikhs living abroad that calls for Sikh independence. Voting in California on the referendum will be held in January in San Francisco.

Such displays that signify a political movement or national identity might seem benign in America. But the largely non-violent Sikh independence movement has been outlawed in India by the increasingly Hindu nationalist government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Activists in the movement are often considered by the Modi government as terrorists.

“Freedoms we take for granted in America are non-existent in India at the moment,” said Dr. Pritpal Singh, founder of the American Sikh Caucus Committee. “Just the act of displaying a Sikh flag could land a person in hot water.”

Dr. Singh, who spoke to The Bee while attending this year’s parade on Nov. 5, was a physician and Sikh rights activist in Punjab in the 1980s, a risky endeavor following attacks on Sikhs by the Indian military and mobs that killed at least 3,000 in 1984.

Pritpal Singh, director of the American Sikh Caucus Committee, attends the Yuba City Nagar Kirtan Sikh parade on Nov. 5.

In 1988, he was imprisoned for a year by Indian authorities on what he says were trumped-up charges. Ultimately, he was acquitted. He and his family fled to California.

Tensions between Sikhs and the majority Hindus have simmered for years, but they crossed a critical threshold in June when one of the leaders of the Sikh referendum, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, was assassinated by masked gunmen in Canada.

In September, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, speaking in Parliament, leveled the shocking allegation that Canadian intelligence had found “credible evidence” that “agents of the government of India” had carried out the assassination.

If true, it raises the troubling question as to whether India is carrying out transnational repression operations in California where the majority of Sikhs in the United States live. On its website, the FBI describes transnational repression as “when foreign governments stalk, intimidate, or assault people in the United States…”

Two days following the assassination of Nijjar in June, security footage captured a suspicious-looking SUV outside of Dr. Singh’s home with a passenger taking cell phone photos. The Bee also reported on alleged threats made to a priest at a Stockton Gurdwara and death threats made to activists and political leaders.

Three days after Nijar’s death — and just a day after he received a call from the FBI concerned for his safety — Bobby Singh, a Sacramento Sikh activist, received an ominous text: “Just a head up for you. You’re next in the USA. We have all the tools ready to fix the problems.”

The press office of the Indian embassy in Washington D.C. did not respond to a request for comment about allegations of Indian harassment of Sikhs in California or the assassination of Nijjar.

Dr. Singh said the killing of Nijjar will be remembered as “one of India’s great blunders. What Modi doesn’t understand about Sikhs, is the more they oppress us, the more we will rise up.”

Sikh activists in California say that following The Bee’s story, FBI agents appear to have stepped up their efforts around perceived transnational repression in California, meeting with several Sikh Americans quoted in the story, including Dr. Singh, Bakersfield Assemblywoman Jasmeet Bains, and Bobby Singh, who maintained close contact with Nijjar in the days before he was killed.

Bains, who authored a resolution in the California assembly earlier this year declaring the violence against Sikhs in 1984 a genocide, described her meeting with the FBI as “productive” and that she “definitely got a sense that the FBI is concerned with transnational repression and foreign interference. They’re investigating, figuring out what is real.”

An FBI spokesperson told The Bee that “we cannot confirm or deny any particular contact or the potential existence of an investigation. As a general matter, though, allegations of criminal conduct are reviewed by the FBI for their merit, with consideration of any applicable federal laws.”

A spokesperson for Gov. Gavin Newsom said that the governor is concerned about any instance of hate-motivated violence or transnational repression. He pointed to a recent $20 million one-time grant to provide security assistance to nonprofit organizations at risk of hate-motivated violence and the doubling of funding to bolster safety and security at places of worship.

In an email, spokesperson Alex Stack said, “It’s been a priority for the Governor — he’s conducted a series of meetings with folks of all backgrounds who are facing discrimination or hate, and he’s allocated unprecedented resources to protect communities.”

Sikh women march next to the float carrying the holy scripture at the Yuba City Nagar Kirtan parade on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023.

Members of the Sikh Motorcycle Club stop along the route at the Yuba City Nagar Kirtan parade on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023.

Jagdeep Mann, left, of Seattle, ties a turban on Gurpreet Singh, of New York, at the Yuba City Nagar Kirtan parade on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023. The event draws Sikhs from all over the United States.