The Pedogodgy of Sikh Diasporic Oppression on Turtle Island.

We repeat it like a mantra:
We were displaced.
Refugees of empire.
Survivors of genocide.
We carry the wounds of Partition,
of pogroms,
of state violence,
of colonial theft.

We carry that trauma in our bodies,
in our families,
in our prayers.

As Sikhs,
we are called to walk the path of dismantling domination.
Miri and Piri are not permission to colonize
they are the sacred fusion of justice and spirit.

We are not new.
We are not an anomaly.
We are part of a legacy
that refuses silence,
that walks with the oppressed,
that speaks when others turn away.

We came to survive
and ended up participating in the very systems
that continue to displace and perpetuate genocide
against First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples.
Systems that enact violence upon Black communities.
Systems that use us
and our broken relationship with India
as political pawns.

We had no choice.
We had to leave.
We had to rebuild.

We bought homes on stolen Indigenous land.
We built Gurdwaras on territories never surrendered.
We started trucking businesses,
farms,
gas stations,
banquet halls
and never once asked:
Whose land are we standing on?

As if ownership means belonging.

We’ve extracted.
We’ve ignored Indigenous resistance,
while repeating our own stories of survival.

That’s the colonizer in us.
The part we haven’t yet healed.

“It sucks, cause I learned my people are really out here proud of colonizer shit,
I really don’t know why we out here riding colonizer dick,
Taking our oppression on and off like some kind of colonial trick,
Acting like the privileged ass pricks that make us sick,
Forgetting that we’re Sikh!
Stop playing their game, and pushing the gas on capitalism’s fame,
Cause we’re losing the climate change game,
And this land is worse than before we came,
We’re just in love with the Raj & out here imitating that bitch’s reign,
Participating in the exploitation of mama earth on stolen land, no shame!”

This excerpt from my poem “Cultural Debris of Punjabi Patriarchy”
is not just about land,
it’s about our relationship to life.

As Freire reminds us:
oppression is not erased by role reversal.
As we flee one empire,
we risk becoming the face of another.
Being displaced does not excuse settler responsibility.
We must move beyond the "banking model" of identity—
where we deposit pain and expect liberation as interest.

No.

Liberation is co-created.
It begins with dialogue.
It deepens with consciousness.
It flourishes through action.

This is what Guru Nanak did:
Walking from village to village,
listening to the people,
disrupting caste,
disobeying empire,
speaking truth to kings.

So I ask you, Sikh brethren:
Whose land are we on?
Whose knowledge have we erased?
Whose liberation are we ignoring while chasing our own comfort?

If you're in BC,
you're likely on unceded Coast Salish,
Squamish,
Tsleil-Waututh,
or Musqueam territory.

In Ontario,
perhaps Haudenosaunee,
Anishinaabe,
or Mississaugas of the Credit territory.

In the prairies
Treaty 6, 7, or 8:
Home to Cree,
Nakota Sioux,
Métis,
Dene,
or Blackfoot peoples.

It is our responsibility to know these lands,
to know these territories,
and to understand:
They have been stewarded since time immemorial.

Not owned.
Not sold.
Cared for.

And what have we done?

We’ve joined the capitalist machine.
We’ve chased success through business,
through property,
through hustle.
Sometimes,
we’ve treated this land like a new Punjab to conquer.

Neutrality is a luxury.
Complicity is a choice.
And accountability is a form of love.

Our histories of rupture,
of migration,
of borderlines and forced displacement,
do not absolve us from the histories we now walk into.

Sikhi teaches me another way.
It invites me back to relationship:
with land,
with body,
with spirit.

Sikhi is about rupture
and remaking.
It’s about building and shaping for the future.
It’s about making sure our healing
doesn’t come at someone else’s expense.
It’s about dreaming new ways to exist
outside domination.
And that is deeply, deeply aligned
with decolonization.

Not just as a political act,
but a spiritual one.

And as Freire teaches:
Liberation is not gifted, it’s built.
It’s not about reversing roles,
but about reshaping relationships:
with each other,
with the land,
within ourselves.

So decolonization can’t only be about land back.
It must also be about self back.
It must be about unbecoming the colonizer within us
the one who craves control,
who confuses comfort with righteousness,
who replicates harm in the name of healing.

True Sikh living demands more.
It calls us to chardi kala in the face of empire,
to nimrata in the face of ego,
to seva that doesn’t just feed—but frees.

To unlearn power.
To re-root in Guru’s hukam.
To walk in right relation
with the land,
with people,
with the Divine.

This is not about guilt.
It’s about responsibility.

No one is disposable. But everyone must be accountable.

Decolonizing our Sikh diasporic realities
isn’t separate from the Earth.
It’s right here:
in the rhythm of the river,
in the soil that shifts and refuses to be owned,
in the wind that carries no passport,
in the tenderness of chosen family,
in the sacred act of sitting in sangat
and speaking what is true.

As Sikhs, we are called to walk in Nanak’s way
to see divinity in all,
to refuse power that demands erasure,
to walk humbly,
to speak boldly,
and to serve without seeking ownership.

As I watch
from Turtle Island
what is unfolding in Panjab,
in Kashmir
in Pakistan
in India
today,
I am reminded of what that means for us here.

Stay rooted.
Stay soft.
Stay in good relation.

nanak naam chardi kala tere bhane sarbat da bhala!