Gurpreet Singh: My letter to Santa

Dear Santa,

I am really ashamed to be born in a country which has shut its doors on you. It really saddens me when I see the imagery on the Internet of your effigies being assaulted by goons belonging to the ruling right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in New Delhi.

All this happened during Christmas, a festival we always enjoyed while growing up in a secular environment. My most earliest memories of Christmas are from my pre-teen years when our Christian neighbours used to invite us to their homes.

Someone dressed like you would go around giving presents and everyone sang carols. We learned a little bit about Jesus. Our parents who practised the Sikh religion never stopped us from going to the Christmas events. Rather, they joined us to celebrate the occasion.

My mother told me about the Christmas tree and how parents told their kids a story about Santa, who came in the middle of the night to leave his presents in the home on Christmas. She said that they did it to bring smiles on their children’s faces.

Although me and my brother always studied in government schools or briefly at a school named after Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, church-run convent schools were very popular among the urban elite. In fact , a few BJP leaders studied at Christian schools and yet they accuse Christians of indulging in inducements to convert people to their faith group.

Interactions with the Christian minority began taking an ugly turn with the mercurial rise of the BJP during the mid-1980s, eventually bringing them close to power. Members and supporters of the party that has frequently tried to polarize Hindu majority against every other minority were involved in number of violent incidents against Christians.

The most horrific was the act of burning an Australian Christian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons to death in Odisha in 1999. Then came the well-orchestrated attacks on churches in Gujarat and the 2008 anti-Christian pogroms. With Narendra Modi coming to power with a brute majority in 2014, the rhetoric against Christians has intensified.

Ironically, the BJP has found many allies within the Sikh community whom they consider part of the Hindu mainstream. In fact, I was really shocked when I noticed similar prejudices against Christians among Sikhs who live in Canada, a host country that gives them freedom to follow their religion and hold huge celebrations. I just couldn’t comprehend this after moving to Canada in 2001. But then I was naive to assume that people shed their biases and become cosmopolitan in their outlook when they immigrate to more open and liberal societies.

During my open-line radio shows I noticed how many of them repeatedly accused Christians of forcing conversions, attacking their belief system unapologetically.

So my dear Santa, I’m grateful to you for bringing happiness and hope to the younger generation every year and to your people for allowing us to live and on flourish in this part of the world. But my humble request is never go to a country where people do not respect you at all.

Rather tell Canadian politicians to wake up and instead of having trade relations with such bigots, make them accountable. While I am sorry for what they did to you and the followers of Jesus, I promise you that as a Canadian citizen of Indian origin, I will keep calling Modi out.

Sincerely,

Gurpreet Singh

Gurpreet Singh is a B.C. author and co-founder of Radical Desi. In addition, he hosts a daily news and current affairs show on YouTube called Navin Taazi. Follow Gurpreet Singh on Bluesky @gurpreetradical.bsky.social. Follow Pancouver on X @PancouverMedia and Bluesky @pancouver.bsky.social. The publication is also on Instagram @PancouverMedia.