SAJAforum

A journalist’s 12-year crusade finally leads to arrest in woman’s honor killing

By: Jasmeet Sidhu (@JasmeetSidhu), a student at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

Nearly twelve years ago, an Indo-Canadian beautician Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu was found beaten and dead in a rural ditch outside of Ludhiana in Punjab, India, after secretly marrying a poor rickshaw driver.

When journalist Fabian Dawson, a previous recipient of SAJA’s Daniel Pearl Award, broke the story, he immediately suspected something amiss in Jaswinder’s death. Teaming up with Harbinder Singh Sewak, publisher of the South Asian Post, Asian Pacific Post and Filipino Post newspapers in Vancouver, Dawson’s suspicions led the duo to a decade long crusade around the world to find the truth about Jaswinder’s death.

After 10 trips to India, three documentaries, a made-for-TV movie, a website called justiceforjassi.com, and a book of the same name, the Supreme Court of British Columbia issued arrest warrants on January 6 against Jaswinder’s mother and maternal uncle, who are currently being held in custody pending an extradition hearing to India where they face charges of conspiracy to commit murder.

Jaswinder’s death brought to light the dark and harrowing world and culture of violence against women amongst some South Asians in North America. Dawson spoke to SAJA about the recent arrests, his own personal dedication to seeking out the truth, and what happens next in Jaswinder’s story.

In addition, click here to read the Vancouver Province column that Dawson wrote on the case.

How did you feel when you heard about the arrests of Jaswinder’s mother and uncle, and their pending extradition hearing to India?

I was relieved, but also surprised at the timing of the incident. It has been over 11 years. We had just released our book, “Justice for Jassi” three weeks earlier, and we were working with the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) when the police decided to execute the warrant. The big question is, why aren’t they charged in Canada? They have just been arrested at the request of Indian authorities to be extradited to face charges. So while there is some sense the wheels are justice are moving, it is moving very slowly.

After news broke of Jaswinder’s death in 2000, what was your first indication that there was more to her death than met the eye?

I went to her house to cover the murder story, another tragic story of a Canadian killed overseas. I had no idea what was behind this thing. But as I was talking to the Uncle at her house, he kept saying, “we are not involved, we didn’t do anything, we never killed her.” It was an unsolicited response. When I got back to my office, I started phoning India, and it wasn’t very long for the story to unravel, with the Indian police saying they suspected it was an honor killing orchestrated by the mother and uncle in Canada.

In reading about the investigative work you took on to find the truth about Jaswinder’s death, it sounded at times you became less of a journalist, and more of a personal crusader.

You don’t normally do this. In every journalist’s life, one or two stories tend to stick with you. Sometimes in journalism you can’t be a mirror for social change and reflect what is going on. You also have to be a vehicle for social change.

What was it about this story that led you to stick with it for more than a decade?

First was the innocence of the girl, but mostly it was because the story kept developing at every turn of the way. The story had a life of its own. After my original story, it kept being followed up around the world because others were fascinated by the sensational killing. It gave an insight into the culture clash in the South Asian community in North America. It’s a curious phenomenon, as in the people in India are far more modern and Westernized than some families that live here. Families live in cocoons and bubbles, and manifest the stuff against the children who have grown up in the Western world.

What did you learn about honor killings in the process of reporting this story?

I am a firm believer there is no honor in honor killings. Honor-based violence like the Jassi case are very extreme. I’m confident that more than 95% of honor-based violence goes undetected. It’s not honor, but it’s greed and money, wrapped around honor, especially in the South Asian community. It’s also an issue that happens in a variety of communities.

What’s next in the case?

We expect (the mother and Uncle) to apply for bail hearing and be released. If they face charges, that might take between 5-10 years. The story is not going to go away anytime soon.

 

TV SPORTS: Kevin Negandhi, Adnan Virk anchor "SportsCenter" episode

Earlier tonight, after a day of work and teaching, I sat down with my dinner to watch the 10 p.m. ESPN "SportsCenter" (which was on ESPNews because of college football). It was a major sports day: playoff baseball featuring Yankees v. Twins and Giants vs. Braves; Randy Moss has his first day of work with the Vikings; among other stories.

But to me, the biggest story was the anchors. It was the first time, as far as I can tell, that two South Asians anchored the biggest sports news show in the land. What more proof do you need that America is changing than to see two non-caucasian, non-African-American anchors hosting a quintessential American TV show? Growing up in the U.S., I never saw South Asians on TV and could never have imagined the changes that have come to pass; I've documented some of those changes in a post on the eve of the "Slumdog Millionaire" Oscars victory.

Here's a photo of Kevin Negandhi, left, and Adnan Virk doing their anchor thing:

I wasn't the only one to notice. While I was taking the photo above, I got the following note from Amar Shah, a fellow SAJA member and senior segment producer at Mighty Oak Entertainment (and former ESPNer and "Page 2" contributor):

Just wanted to spotlight on ESPN tonight there was a South Asian tandem of Kevin Negandhi and Adnan Virk in the anchor chairs.

First time I've ever seen that.  An Indian-American and a Pakistani-Canadian. Pretty bad ass.

More on Negandhi here and more on Virk here. The other South Asian anchor on ESPN is Anish Shroff (who had been a top three contestant on the 2004 ESPN reality show, "Dream Job"). Post your comments below.

Earlier on SAJAforum - SAJA sports webcasts (these are also examples of the changes around us):

• 2010: Sunil Gulati, president of U.S. Soccer and the most influential South Asian in U.S. sports
• 2010: Raj Mathai, one of the first South Asian sportscasters in the U.S. and sports director of NBC Bay Area
• 2009: Brandon Chillar of the Green Bay Packers, the only South Asian to currently play in the NFL; his agent, Jim Ivler, his agent; and Kevin Negandhi, ESPN anchor - 2009 Super Bowl Sunday
• 2008: Rinku Singh and Dinesh Kumar Patel, two non-baseball players from India, signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates to a minor-league contract

 See other SAJAforum sports items here.

Post your comments below.

CANADA: "India Reborn" - a four-part series on CBC

"India Reborn" is a four-part series running in March 2009 on CBC. From http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/indiareborn/

India Reborn
4-part series premiering on: Saturday March 15, 2009 at 8 pm on CBC-TV
4 part series repeating: Friday March 20, 2009 at 10 pm ET/PT on CBC Newsworld

 

India Reborn charts the kaleidoscopic rise of one of the world's newest and most unlikely superpowers. Each of the four cinematic episodes unfolds with fascinating intimacy and insight, revealing characters who reflect India's dramatic renaissance. India Reborn is a mixture of dreams and despair, an entertaining and informative window into a land that could soon shape the future of the world.
 
Home to charismatic gurus, prowling tigers and shimmering temples, India also boasts 28 billionaires, 100,000 millionaires and a middle class that is bigger than the population of the United States. India houses a total of a billion people - half of them under 25 - who speak 850 languages, pray in at least a dozen different faiths, and abide by a stubborn caste system. She is a sprawling, chaotic democracy with an economy poised to become the third largest in the world.

HALLOWEEN: Irshad Manji's essay about why she marks Oct. 31

I am sometimes accused of stretching too far to find a South Asian angle on every story. But I didn't have to stretch too far to find a desi connection to Halloween, via an essay in Friday's New York Times op-ed section. A NYC friend, sharing the piece and a comment from another friend that "this brought me to tears", wrote: "I read the piece on my BB in the immigrant train (#7) and I, too, got tears in my eyes. Beautiful piece indeed!"

The essay is by Canadian writer Irshad Manji, who I just learned, is now in NYC (""Irshad Manji, the author of “The Trouble With Islam Today,” is the director of the Moral Courage Project at the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University.")

From "Home for Halloween":

For me and my family, Oct. 31 has always been significant. Not because it’s Halloween, but because that’s the day we arrived as refugees to a free part of the world.

Beginning in August 1972, thousands of Asian entrepreneurs fled the East African country of Uganda after its dictator, Idi Amin, declared us to be bloodsuckers, seized our property and gave us three months to leave or die.

My family and I had only Ugandan passports, so we couldn’t escape to Britain or India like many of our neighbors. We’d been in Africa for two generations; my father and his brothers owned a car dealership in Uganda’s capital, Kampala. We didn’t know where to go, but we knew we couldn’t stay: Amin viciously enforced his 90-day deadline.

By the final week of October, the nations that would otherwise accept Ugandan exiles had exceeded their quotas. My family heard that Sweden and Canada might make room for a few more, and so out of desperation my mother, my sisters and I flew to Montreal, with Dad to follow. We had no guarantee that Canada would admit us.

We also had no guarantee that we’d meet an extraordinary immigration agent. But on Halloween 1972, we did.

Read the rest of the essay here and please post your comments.

For many folks in India, Oct. 31 is a landmark date for something else altogether. On that day in 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated, setting off a wave of riots that killed thousands of Sikhs.

CONTROVERSY: Sri Lankans in Canada accused of funding terrorism

Big news out of Canada last week as an investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police revealed thousands of Sri Lankans based in Canada have allegedly been funding terrorist activities by the Tamil Tigers.

From the Toronto Globe and Mail's coverage:

The Tigers' operation in Canada, responsible for providing 15 per cent of global funds for the secession movement, identified potential donors by postal code and used a "sales team" of locals to extract the cash, alleges the 400-page police affidavit unsealed in the Federal Court of Canada this week.

The affidavit suggests the Toronto offices of the World Tamil Movement - a non-profit organization - may have been generating funds for the Tigers. The RCMP says it has also obtained a significant letter sent to Toronto from the head of the Tamil Tigers. Velupillai Prabhakaran, one of the world's most sought-after fugitives, is said to have urged that Canadian Tamils commit about 15 per cent of the global contribution to his cause.

The money was moved using an elaborate system with the leaders of the World Tamil Movement acting as “straw men and figureheads who got their direction from Sri Lanka.”

Participation in the scheme was not exactly voluntary:

Payment is said to have been made easy - and almost impossible to avoid. Tamils were allegedly encouraged to enter into pre-authorized payment schemes, so transfers to the World Tamil Movement would be no harder than paying a credit card. Lists of who paid - and who didn't - were so meticulously kept, the Mounties say, that Canadian Tamils who returned to Sri Lanka for visits risked being questioned by local Tamil Tiger henchmen who knew whether visitors had made contributions in Canada.

Sitha Sittampalam, the president of the World Tamil Movement, denied the charges and said the Tigers should not be classified as a terrorist group, the Star reported on Saturday.

"We do not have any fundraising activities for terrorism," or any connection with the Tigers, Sittampalam told the Star yesterday during an interview in the Tamil movement's Scarborough office.

However, he said: "We consider LTTE as a movement to fight and liberate our people. We don't consider the LTTE as a terrorist organization.

"We feel that the (Canadian) government is really misplaced in doing this, in listing it as a terrorist organization.

"It has the support of the people. It has a cause. It has an objective. It's not violence for the sake of it without any cause.

What do you think? Post your comments and any updates below.

BOOKS: Toronto Sun profiles David Davidar of Penguin Canada

David Davidar, the former head of Penguin India for 17 years, has been the head of Penguin Canada for four years now, making him, along with Sonny Mehta, head of Alfred A. Knopf, one of the most influential South Asians in international publishing today. Learn more about him in a Toronto Sun profile by Ajit Jain. From "A Page Turning Career":

He was barely 26, but David Davidar was fortunate enough to be at the right place at the right time.

It was 1985 and Davidar was completing his diploma in publishing at Harvard University when he encountered the chairman of the Penguin Group.

"He said to me, 'Would you like to go back to India and set up Penguin India?' " Davidar, now president and publisher of Penguin Books Canada, told me. "It was kind of a gift from God. You can either make something of it or throw it away."

Hard to believe, he concedes, that Penguin India was launched in 1985 with only $10,000.

"Not exactly the amount for starting a publishing company," he says now. "Today we are a multi-million dollar company in India."

In 1987 Penguin India published a mere seven titles. Today it has 200 titles. Davidar is the brain behind all this. He's the one who brought on board authors like Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Arundhati Roy, Vikram Chandra, Rohinton Mistry and Anita Rau Badami among others.
<snip>

By 2003, senior Penguin management decided that if he could build their company from scratch in India, he might be able to transform Penguin's operations in Canada, which had been languishing for years.

'That's how Davidar landed in Toronto on Jan. 1, 2004, as president and publisher of Penguin Canada.

"Last year we crossed $100 million here," he said about Penguin Canada. "We are profitable now."

As in India, Davidar has built an impressive list of authors -- Margaret Macmillan, Zadie Smith, John Ralston Saul, Michael Ignatieff, Roy MacGregor, Stuart Maclean, and the list goes on.

More on Davidar, who's also a successful author, in his Wikipedia entry. Post your comments.

DESI SPOTTING: Missing Chicago Woman Found Safe - But Lots of Questions Remain

[UPDATE, Jan 1, 2008: Solanki NOT to face criminal charges; civil charges may come.]

This is a photo of Anu Solanki, a Chicago woman who was reported missing by her husband on Christmas eve (here's the first SAJAforum post about her case). After a week-long search that cost the police $250,000, she was found safe. From Chicago Tribune's coverage:

Seven months into her marriage, Anu Solanki wanted out, she told officials upon returning to Chicago after she went missing last week.

She left with a friend to start a new life. She told no one—a decision she now regrets, officials said.

"She was unhappy in the marriage," Bill Cunningham, a spokesman for the Cook County sheriff's office, said Saturday. "She said she wanted to make a clean break and end things immediately."

The 24-year-old gift shop clerk, who moved to the Chicago area after her marriage in May, was reported missing Monday by her family after her car was found running with the door open near a dam on the Des Plaines River.

Her reappearance Friday came after days of tedious searches of the river in the cold. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart estimated the search cost taxpayers $250,000.

Solanki met with investigators on Friday night for several hours to explain why she left and where she had been. She told them she and the friend, Karan C. Jani, 23, began the 30-hour drive Monday to California, where Solanki planned to find an apartment and a roommate in Los Angeles and start over.

Her husband was not abusive or cruel, but she was unhappy and regretted getting married, Cunningham said. She told officials she never meant to deceive anyone or to make people believe she had fallen into the river.

"She was adamant in insisting this was not some sort of hoax," Cunningham said.

The rest of the story, and video, here. According to Google News, more than 1,000 stories were written about Solanki.

Post your comments and additional links below.

FOOD SAFETY: Canada Bans Brand of Neem Toothpaste

Canadian health authorities have issued a second warning on the use of a toothpaste made in India. From  Health Canada's Aug. 24 advisory (reproduced in full below, along with the original July 26 warning about an ingredient also found in antifreeze):

Further to the Health Canada warning issued July 26, 2007, further testing on Neem Active Toothpaste with Calcium, manufactured by Calcutta Chemical Co. Ltd in India, has revealed that in addition to unacceptable levels of diethylene glycol (DEG), the product also contains high levels of harmful bacteria. This poses additional significant health risks, especially to children and individuals with compromised immune systems.

Health Canada continues to advise Canadians to discontinue use of this product. Potential adverse effects of ingesting products that contain unacceptable levels of harmful bacteria include fever, urinary tract infection, and gastrointestinal symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain. Infants, children and vulnerable populations such as patients hospitalized for severe underlying diseases or with compromised immune systems are more sensitive to these effects. Severe vomiting and diarrhea could lead to potentially life-threatening dehydration. While toothpaste is not intended to be swallowed, it is often swallowed by young children.
(full warnings below)

In a sign of how much more part of Canada South Asians are than in the U.S., you can see below that Health Canada also issues the same releases in Hindi and Punjabi.

Anyone know if this is available for sale in the U.S.? I see it's still being sold online at places like Neem Genie in the UK:

In our opinion this toothpaste epitomises the many qualities of Neem in one product.

    * Neem kills the bacteria that cause tooth decay.
    * Neem kills the bacteria that cause Pyorrhea and Gingivitis. (Gum disease)
    * Neem prevents cell adhesion and helps to control plaque
    * Neem is very effective in areas of pain control

All the staff at Neem Genie use N/A we know of no other toothpaste with these qualities.
Neem Active contains bark extract which has unique properties and is not as bitter as other products from the tree. Neem Active toothpaste is competitively priced, flavoured with spearmint and is pleasant to use.
Ingredients:- Neem extract, calcium carbonate, Spearmint, one part per 1000 flouride.
A percentage of the proceeds from Neem Active Toothpaste goes towards the planting of more trees.

Has the manufacturer, the Calcutta Chemical Company, responded to any of this? Please help us update this story. Post your comments below.

RELIGION: Toronto Journalist Mixes Reporting, Priestly Duties

Here's an unusual journalists-in-the-news item.

From Metro Canada:

Becoming the “first North American-born Zoroastrian priest ever” also didn’t pan out for Panthaky (someone else beat him to the punch) but he did become ordained as a priest at 12. And today, while Panthaky isn’t being interviewed by hordes of journalists, he is often in their company.

In addition to presiding over the occasional Navjote (a Zoroastrian initiation ceremony), the 38-year-old Mississaugan is a reporter, writer and former sports anchor for OMNI News, South Asian edition. His television aspirations also trace back to early childhood, when he used to watch shows like 20/20 while babysitting. Aside from work and priesthood, however, today Panthaky is just a typical 38-year-old, enjoying music or attending a friend’s stag. “In our day-to-day lives, we’re regular people,” he insists. “(My priesthood) is just one of the many aspects that makes up the person that is Khush Panthaky.”

Read the full story here and post your comments below.

 

CRIME: Sikhs anguish over Montreal killings

The rampage of Kimveer Gill, the Montreal gunman who killed one woman and injured 20 others, has shocked Canada. It's also led to intense, nationwide introspection about the rage that fueled his act - right now, video games and guns are getting a lot of the blame. This is being billed as Canada's Columbine.

For Sikhs worldwide, the shootings have been particularly tough to swallow. Gill was not an observant Sikh but the very fact that he was Sikh has caused some to wonder how this will reflect on the community (the same goes for many Indians).

One online message board at SikhSangat.com has a member fretting about a Times of India article, where Gill is referred to as a Sikh...

man i hate it when the stupid media does this. i mean if a christan person commits a crime they wont say that the person is christian but any one else they'll mention their faith.

Further down the same page, another person is relieved that CNN didn't mention the killer's Sikh connection.

While the Indian press has predictably made much of the connection, the Canadian mainstream press hasn't. The National Post has a long profile of Gill, in which it quotes one Sikh who creates distance between the Gill family and the Sikh community:

"It appears that the father, Gurinder Gill, is not very popular among the Sikh community and rarely visited Gurdwara, Sikh Temple," Devinder Singh Chahal of the Laval-based Institute for Understanding Sikhism, said.

At SikhNet, a message thread has listed similar messages about how this will affect the Sikh community, but the concensus here is that the mainstream media has been responsible, and that race isn't being made an issue here:

In all honesty, I hardly think that people will begin to blame the Sikh community for this man's actions. He was like any of the other shooters. Since the school shootings began as a more common trend in the mid-90s, shooters have been white, black, mexican, and everything in between.