AMARJEET SOHI from Political Prisoner to Parliamentarian
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AMARJEET SOHI From political prisoner to parliamentarian By OMAR MOUALLEM N A FRIDAY morning in spring 2016, Amarjeet Sohi sat barefoot in the den of his craftsman style home in south Edmonton. His first Ofew months as Canada’s federal minister of infrastructure had been frantic, sending him across the country to listen to the wants and needs of every big-city mayor and countless others. In the midst of it all, his father died at 101 years old, and Sohi flew to Punjab for the burial. Just a few weeks later, he was apparently more relaxed in a sun-drenched room decorated with snapshots of his life. There was a framed photo of his 2007 swearing-in as an Edmonton city councillor on one wall. On another, a painting of Sohi by a former public transit colleague, set against a background of Parliament, Edmonton City Hall, a city bus and a new public library he had advocated for. But one of Sohi’s proudest JASON FRANSON JASON moments is much humbler. 36 ALBERTA VIEWS JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017 “We take pride as Canadians in bridging our differences, not in feeding into them for political purposes to further divide us.” ALBERTA VIEWS JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017 37 FEATURE AMARJEET SOHI Top: Amarjeet Sohi in his Millwoods home. Bottom: With his wife, Sarbjeet, and daughter, Seerat. JASON FRANSON JASON 38 ALBERTA VIEWS JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017 In June 1994 he had joined a group and search through the tangle of microfiche herself. of immigrants, including his friend After sitting in the dark for several hours she found Narpinder Hans, raised his right hand it right there on the front page of her own paper. His and recited the oath of citizenship. name was spelled differently They sang “O Canada,” accepted their then, as “Amarjit,” but there certificate and celebrated day and was no mistaking the young “There was night at Sohi’s brother’s house. “In man’s dark, deep-set eyes. clearly a campaign this country, if you are given the right “An Edmonton man has opportunities and you work hard, you been in an Indian prison for to persecute can succeed,” Sohi told me, looking out more than a month, amid the Sikh people. the bright window to a tidy suburban allegations he was involved street. “That is why I’m so passionate with Sikh terrorists.”—Dec 19, I did everything about the work I do.” 1988, Edmonton Journal I could to It took Simons a great deal AMARJEET SOHI WAS approached of coaxing to convince Sohi get him out in January 2015 to run for the federal to give details, to recount the Liberals in Edmonton-Mill Woods, his beatings, the sleep deprivation, of prison.” home of 35 years. The 51-year-old was a the concrete floor he slept on, neighbourhood watch organizer, union the unsanitary trenches for toilets, the threats against activist and three-term city councillor. his family. Sohi would, at community events, allude As Sohi was filling out the candidate to having been a political prisoner—but until Simons application, he could have just left it asked he’d never taken a deep dive into his darkest at that—two decades of community memories. Not even with his wife, Sarbjeet, and and public service. But an incident daughter, Seerat. At home, his imprisonment was only in his past—a wrongful arrest and occasionally mentioned “in a passing sense,” Sohi told damaging accusations—was haunting me last year. “You feel belittled,” he explained. “You him. Knowing that nomination seekers feel that something was taken away from you and it’s a for all parties have been smeared by reflection on you—not guilt, but the sense that you’ve opponents or cut loose for much less, Sohi had to tell done something wrong.” the Liberals. Sohi called the Edmonton Journal, an office he’d HREE MONTHS AFTER dialled many times since entering politics. Once, nine Canada’s new infrastructure years before, when Sohi was a bus driver campaigning minister was sworn in at Rideau for council, a reporter had asked him for some Hall on November 4, 2015—to interesting personal trivia. Sohi didn’t mention ever which event Sohi wore a pink being a political prisoner, his 18 months in solitary tie and pocket square—a more confinement—though didn’t people already know? casually dressed Sohi sat in a law It had been, after all, national news. Sohi instead Toffice, the MP’s temporary Mill Woods digs, surrounded answered, “When I was new to Canada, I once by Indian restaurants, bakeries and fabric stores. He wore pink shoes to school without knowing that, in fiddled with a new digital recorder on the boardroom Canada, pink was a girl’s colour.” table until its light glowed red. The caution necessary in Now, the would-be MP asked for Paula Simons, a a high-ranking position had obviously clicked in—but veteran reporter and columnist. They respected each the minister also knows the importance of being open. other. Simons had watched Sohi’s political career from His brother Jagdev, an engineer, and sister-in-law the gallery and always found him to be an articulate Rajinder sponsored his move to Canada in 1981, and effective communicator—a consensus-builder on a when Amarjeet was a 17-year-old Punjabi village boy. sometimes fractured council. He sounded different this Back in India, the Sohi clan lived self-reliantly on a time. “He was looking for articles about ‘this incident,’ multigenerational farm, growing wheat, sugar cane, but he didn’t describe it in great detail,” she recalled. barley and corn. They were from a Sikh branch of the Sohi didn’t want press; he wanted old clippings to Jat people, an agricultural caste that in some Indian defend himself when the inevitable happened. When states are government classified as “Other Backward she called back to say the online archives came up Class,” those that are socially disadvantaged. But in empty, Sohi was astonished. That’s impossible, he told Canada they were equals under the law, and young her. It was a front-page story! Amarjeet quickly took to English and western life. Since the newspaper archivists had long ago been Fourteen years Amarjeet’s senior, Jagdev always JASON FRANSON JASON laid off, Simons would have to go into the basement thought of his brother like a son, and he recalls him as ALBERTA VIEWS JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017 39 FEATURE AMARJEET SOHI focused, observant and studious since early childhood. eschewed wearing a turban and maintained a clean- “He was always the quiet type,” he told me. Just as in shaven face. He calls himself a “secular individual.” their Punjab village, if there were too much chatter He also believes that inequality, not religion, was at in their Edmonton home, Amarjeet would corner the root of the violence. Understanding the causes of himself off to read in silence. Social justice fascinated that inequality is what motivated him to return to his him, especially the works of Avtar Pash, a Punjabi poet homeland in summer 1988. who would eventually be killed by Sikh separatists for “He was just excited to travel India, to get to know his anti-fundamentalist views, and Gursharan Singh, more people,” remembered Narpinder Hans, an a progressive playwright known for staging street Edmonton physician and family friend, who met theatre and touring the poorest parts of India. “Being then-24-year-old Sohi in Punjab shortly after he the thinking type, Amarjeet saw things that need to be arrived. “’Jeet was full of ideas, so youthful—almost done to make society better,” Jagdev said. teenage-like—full of enthusiasm and wanting to do so While working as a taxi driver in Edmonton, Sohi much to improve the lives of poor people.” The next got involved in Punjabi groups and artist associations. time she would see him, in 1990, he was a completely He acted in a play about the different person. 1914 Komagata Maru incident, when a ship carrying 376 AJINDER SOHI got the phone mostly Sikh asylum seekers call in Edmonton in November arrived on the BC coast only 1988. A relative had read in an to be sent back to India, where Indian newspaper that police dozens of passengers were had detained Amarjeet in the arrested or shot on arrival. northeast province of Bihar. On Decades later Sohi would join the eve of a protest rally that he Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Rhad co-organized, Amarjeet was arrested at a fellow to formally apologize, but back artist’s home and thrown into a cell, where he was in 1988 he was not pursuing interrogated and tortured for a week. Authorities politics but theatre. He travelled believed he had come from Canada, on invitation of He was allegedly to India to study Singh’s Maoists, to train Sikh fundamentalists for war. works, following his plays Using the Air India bombings to inflame paranoia, found with a from village to village to learn the inspector general, via press release, claimed the revolver and his street theatre techniques. young man had been trained as a Khalistani terrorist in Having barely explored India Canada. They allegedly found him with a revolver and ammunition. Sohi beyond his home province, ammunition. Sohi says his only suspicious possession says his only Sohi yearned to understand his was a book on separatism. His family believes that the homeland better through the inspector general—seeking a promotion—was making suspicious performing arts. a show of a big fish he’d caught. possession The Khalistani movement Such incidents were not unheard of.