On National Indigenous Peoples Day (June 21), Sikh and Indigenous artists jointly unveiled a multimedia art piece at the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey. Jarnail Singh and Jennifer Sherif presented their piece honouring the gurdwara’s deceased former president, Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Nijjar’s son, Mehtab Singh, attended the event.
Jarnail Singh is a well-known painter in Surrey. Sherif is an Indigenous educator and beadwork artist. The portrait features Nijjar in an orange shirt, which is the symbol of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Just over a year ago, Nijjar was murdered outside the gurdwara. The Crown has charged four Indian nationals with the crime.
Last September, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that Canada’s security agencies were “pursuing credible allegations of a potential link” between Indian government agents and the killing of Nijjar, who was a Canadian citizen.
This came two months after the World Sikh Organization and others had raised the possibility of Indian government involvement. None of the allegations against the accused has been proven in court.
According to the organizers of the Surrey event, Sherif wanted to express gratitude to Nijjar for organizing a prayer event. This came in the wake of a newsworthy discovery on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in 2021. Ground-penetrating radar had detected 215 soil disturbances beneath the surface, which could indicate the existence of human remains in unmarked graves.
After this discovery Nijjar invited Sherif to speak at the prayer service about the cultural genocide of Indigenous people.
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