The Hero Next Time: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 4)

Chapter Twenty-One: Sunny, Fall, 1985

It was not a good year to be a Sikh. 

On June 23, 1985, a bomb exploded on Air India Flight 182 en route from Toronto to London, England, killing all 329 people aboard, most of them Canadians. Canada mourned, but Canadians saw the names of the passengers on board the plane and declared it an "Indian problem." Canadian officials had many mistakes to answer for, like how a bomb planted in unattended luggage was allowed on board the plane, or how the suspects, who were already on the radar of CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, were allowed to make their move. 

The tragedy reverberated throughout the Sikh community, because everyone knew who was responsible, even though no one would say it out loud. It was dangerous to say it out loud.

Sunny had heard the talk over the years, while attending Gurdwara, while volunteering to distribute food during langar, the community meal offered to everyone who wanted to attend, whether or not they were Sikh. Langar was why he was a Sikh. One of the three pillars of Sikhism, as taught by Guru Nanak, was Vand Chhako, the sharing of wealth and consuming of it together, and langar was the purest expression of that pillar, because the event often drew the homeless, who could have a free vegetarian meal and sit with people of every economic status, all on an equal footing. Equality was an important tenet of Sikhism, as the religion resulted out of the struggle against the Hindu caste system by Indians in the Punjab region. Nobody was supposed to think themselves better than anyone else, and to ensure that, everybody ate the langar meal while sitting on the floor. Exceptions were made, for the elderly who couldn't easily rise again after sitting so long, and for pregnant women. Different factions in the Sikh community had different views on the subject, though; for example, why not have everyone sit on chairs at a table, and make it easy for everyone to sit? Sunny didn't see a problem with that, as long as nobody sat higher than anyone else. Traditionalists still held the majority, though, so the floor was still the setting of choice, at least in his gurdwara. Again, he didn't mind; what mattered was that everyone ate, and everyone was equal.

The talk Sunny heard was about the very Punjab from which his family had emigrated so long ago. He considered himself a Canadian, as he was born here, but he had sympathy for the community still living in the Punjab, who suffered discrimination from the majority Hindu population. Not that they fared much better in Canada; Lauren might have had Internment in her family's history, but Sikhs had their dark days in Canadian history too. One such incident was in 1914, when the SS Komagata Maru, a ship full of mainly Sikh men, was prevented from docking at the Port of Vancouver and eventually sent back to India, where the passengers met an armed encounter with British Indian police, who viewed them as dangerous revolutionaries against British Imperial rule. Twenty of the passengers were killed in the melee. 

A homeland. Every religion wanted one. Sikhs in the Punjab dreamed of Khalistan, a separate state from India for Sikhs, just as the Muslims had Pakistan. Every religion had extremists too, and governments often dealt with them in extreme ways. Operation Blue Star, launched by the Indian army, resulted in damage to the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the primary shrine of Sikhism, as well as the deaths of over five hundred Sikhs. Violence begat violence. Indira Gandhi, prime minister of India, was assassinated by her own Sikh bodyguards. In response, thousands of Sikhs were killed at the hands of Hindus in Delhi alone.

Somebody had the bright idea that blowing up an airplane would advance the cause of creating a Sikh homeland, and because the plot was hatched in Canada, it was heads down time for Sikhs living in Canada.

Sunny went through a crisis of identity after the events of June 23, unable to reconcile the wisdom of the Gurus and the ideals of equality and peaceful spirituality with the violence of a handful of men who used those same teachings as justification for their actions.