Ujjal Dosanjh explores India, Canada, and the Road Beyond in his new memoir

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – He’s been MLA, an Attorney General, a Premier, an MP, and a Health Minister. Now Ujjal Dosanjh is laying out his life story in a new memoir entitled, “Journey After Midnight: India, Canada, and the Road Beyond.” He stopped by the NEWS 1130 studio this week for an in-depth in-person interview.

Let’s talk about the title of the book first. Why is yours a journey after midnight?

“Well, I was born 10 months, exactly 10 months before India was partitioned and made independent. I was born on October 14th ’46 and India became independent shortly thereafter. So, that made me a child of the midnight and in India the freedom is known as the Freedom at Midnight, and since I was born and raised in India and I, obviously, [have] attachment to that part of the world and I felt that was important, to start the journey there.”

You go into some detail talking about the Indian partition, the Punjab, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. What made you do that?

“Well, I wanted to present a context in which I was born and in which I grew up. I think the fact that I grew up in the aftermath of the independence and I was born during the independence struggle, I think, made me who I am. Of course, Canada formed me as I came to Canada, but I think the basics of who I am were molded in those 18 years that I spent in India after independence.”

You also say in the acknowledgements that book almost didn’t happen. Why not?

“You know, when I lost the election as Premier in 2001, there was interest in me writing a book or having it written and we had a journalist work with Penguin India and the discussions fell through and we had several tapes of conversations from them. Shortly thereafter, I went into federal politics and there was no thought of a book. Then, once I got out of there, Douglas and Macintyre, the old Douglas and Macintyre, expressed an interest in it and we were discussing ghost writers and other things and then the discussions fell through because they went into some financial difficulties and they were bought out. Subsequently, my wife simply said to me, ‘You can write English. Why don’t you write your own book? Why do you need somebody to write it for you?’ So did my friend Bob Rae, and I had already started writing a blog so my writer’s arteries had become unclogged and I felt up to it. It almost didn’t happen.”

It seems like politics in one form or another has always been a part of your life, be it your grandfather who fought for Indian independence or your dad who was a member of the Congress Party. What did they teach you about politics?

“They taught me that whatever are the circumstances that you find yourself in, that if you want to live a meaningful life, politics is a noble calling and you must do as much as you can to improve the circumstances of your surroundings. Politics isn’t for power, although without power you can’t do much politics, and power is not for glory. And for me, politics was always for social justice, for inclusion, for the underdog.”

One of the lessons it looks like they taught you was that… they didn’t always agree with each other. Did you learn inclusiveness from them in a way?

“I learned very early on that you can be related, you can be friends, but you can disagree with each other vehemently and still do so peacefully and remain friends and relatives. I think that was the best gift they could have given me in preparing me to come to England or Canada, which they didn’t know I was going to [do].”

So, you leave India as a young man, you come to England, and then story of how you come across Canada… it’s almost by chance. What sort of you tipped you off about Canada?

“My aunt, my mom’s younger sister, was here from the mid-50s. We would correspond with her and we were very close because my mom had passed away when I was very young. I was in England, I had been there for three and a half years and I was somewhat disenchanted. I couldn’t study because of many circumstances. I wanted to study and I wasn’t very happy.

One day, I was living in London at that time for the last six months of my life in Britain, and I happened to be walking by the Canadian High Commission office. I walked in to ask them if I could immigrate to Canada and the Immigration Section was sitting idle. They weren’t doing anything. They weren’t very busy at that time and they interviewed me right there and then, got me to fill the form with as much information as I had, and they told me to bring the rest of the information and gave me the requisitions for medical exams and then the next couple of weeks I brought all of that and my passport for them and I came to Canada. That’s how it happened. If I hadn’t seen the Canadian High Commission and it may not have occurred to me to think about coming to Canada.”

It was just one of those chance occurrences?

“Absolutely.”

You’ve always been against extremism and particularism. How do you come to the notion that it’s better to be part of a greater whole than to split off into a tinier collective?

“Europe is going into the opposite direction and if you in India start breaking India up, India would become 150 states because it has so many languages and cultures. We had already seen the devastation and death of the original partition. Millions of people died and millions and millions crossed boundaries and were uprooted. We also have seen what’s happened to Pakistan. Even religion can’t keep you together. It’s the culture which is much more important. Religion is a very small part of life. Culture is much larger than religion. What we in Punjab share with other Punjabis and other Indians is the 95 per cent of the composite Indian culture. I’m totally against dividing people based on religion or anything else. I mean, I think it’s important that countries remain the way they are and you do your battles within those boundaries and fight for fairness.”

One of the interesting observations you make is that, in this country, people from Punjab or Sikhs, there’s no real secular institutions for them. It’s all based on religion.

“And that’s true of the larger Indian community. We have no community centres. We have Hindu temples or Sikh temples or mosques and even Christian churches of Indians. But we don’t have any secular things. I think what happens to people when you immigrate to a place like this is that you go to the most familiar thing that you have and you want to sort of, you know, hold on to what makes you exclusive or special and the larger society doesn’t any better. So they would look at me and they’d want to know whether I’m a Sikh or whatever. For me, my Indianness comes first as a cultural value. You know, I’m a Canadian, I’m an Indian by heritage, a Punjabi by mother tongue and culture, and if at all anyone wants to know or is interested, I was born and raised in a Sikh family.”

Do you find the lack of those secular institutions in Canada has led to division in the community or extremism?

“I think a lack of those values, a lack of those kinds of institutions does two things. One, it doesn’t allow you to claim your larger identity, pre-Canada larger identity, and so it isolates you into religious silos, and then you try and claim to be part of the Canadian society as a religious group. I think that creates a problem. And also the ignorance of larger society politicians who don’t know any better and use words like Sikh community. We never use a word like Christian community for the vast majority of Canadians. There is no such thing as a Sikh community. There’s something called Sikh religion and you have temples. But as a community, if you want to talk about the Indian community or the Punjabi community, we live with each other as we live with the larger society, and that’s who we are.”

What did you make of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s apology in Parliament for the 1914 Komagata Maru incident?

“I used to be asking for those apologies and I’ve reviewed my record and I’ve reviewed the history of all this and I felt that Pierre Trudeau was absolutely right in the beginning when this whole debate began. He said, [there should be] no apology to Japanese-Canadians, no apology to anyone, but we should do the right thing now. And Mulroney made a political commitment in the heat of an election and said, ‘I’ll do it.’ He did it. And then you had Mr. Martin do the Chinese Head Tax apology at a hall in Vancouver. And Mr. Harper said ‘I’ll do it in the House.’ And Mr. Harper did the Komagatu Maru apology in a park. And Mr. Trudeau said ‘I’ll do it in the House.’ So, it becomes a politically pandering situation. And I think in that sense, really, it loses most of its value.

The other thing I found, there was research done in the aftermath of the head tax apology, the study found that most Chinese-Canadians didn’t even know there had been an apology. Those that had known about it, [it] had no impact on them in terms of feeling more integrated, feeling more at home. And the other thing is, I don’t begrudge the apology or the apologizers, they’ve done their duty. [But] what happens? The next day, everybody came home and life is the same. So, if you really want to do justice in terms of the apology then I would suggest what you should do is search for the descendants of the [Komagata Maru] passengers that we sent back and ask those descendants if they want to come to Canada and bring them to Canada unconditionally. That would be something concrete. So, apologies don’t mean anything unless you do something concrete.

The other thing about apologies is that we keep apologizing, but we don’t really learn. Let me just set aside the two apologies, which are the residential schools apology and the Japanese-Canadian apology. They’re slightly, qualitatively different because the injustices happened to Canadian citizens. But, in terms of the other apologies, we’ve been apologizing for a long time now. If you remember, the Sri Lankans coming up in a boat on the west coast, right here. And they were treated absolutely shabbily. Right in the midst of those apologies they were rendering to everyone and all the injustices that we’ve done. And then the other thing is, where does it stop? We turned a ship full of Jews off the Atlantic coast of this country for them to go back and be murdered and butchered in Europe. Do we apologize for that? I mean, if you want to start apologizing, where does it end? And I think in that sense, it’s become a bit of a political football. I would much rather we work hard to improve our society and make it more inclusive and make sure that none of those things happen.”

What do you say to those who feel there is still symbolism in these apologies?

“That’s all there is.”

One of the stories you tell in the book is how you were supposed to be on that Air India flight. What happened?

“It was the summer of `85 and my children were at school and we had taken them to India at Christmas in `83 and we thought we should take them for a longer period. My brother and my wife weren’t happy with that because it was summer. But she reluctantly reserved the seats. In those days you could reserve the seats with a phone call and then pick up the tickets and pay. And then, as the time came closer, everybody in the family simply said, ‘You know what? You shouldn’t be doing this to your children, in the heat of India, in the summer of India. You know, when they grow up, they can do that themselves.’ And I relented a couple of weeks before the Air India tragedy took place and we decided to go across Canada instead. It was just sheer chance. I don’t think the Air India bombing was aimed at me. I’m a small fry. They had targeted two planes in different parts of the world.”

What was your thought after that happened? Like, oh wow, what a close call?

“Oh, absolutely. Your whole life kind of goes in front of your eyes. But, at that time, my thoughts were for the families that had perished and people who were left behind to ponder their lives. That’s why I never shared this with anybody other than very close friends. In fact, some close friends said, ‘You shouldn’t mention it in the book.’ I said, ‘Well, it’s part of the story.’ I mean, I’m here by chance.”

You spent a lot of time in the book even before you get to your career as an NDP MLA, then Attorney General, and then Premier. I also notice that this month marks 15 years since that 2001 election. Any impressions on provincial politics these days? We’re a year out from another election.

“My sense is that if the NDP can get it together, they might win. There’s a good chance that Christy Clark would win again if the NDP doesn’t smarten up. That’s my sense. But one of the things that the Liberals need to do if they want to win or have a good chance of winning, is they need to deal with the political donations reporting and they need to do deal with the money that Christy Clark receives on the side. There may not be legally wrong with it, but it looks bad. You know, [if] the narrative sets in, then you can be the greatest campaigner on Earth, nobody will listen to you. I think, in the country, there is that kind of mood, whether it’s nationally, or in Ontario, governments are changing the laws on donations and the like. I think, the government, no matter which government it is, they should bring it in.”

Has a lot changed since you were in provincial politics? Or is more of a case of, the more things change, the more they stay the same?

“Look, British Columbia politics is the same. It’s a great province, it has great politics, great politicians, but after having been to the federal scene for seven years… it seems parochial, relatively parochial. That’s not to say it’s bad, but that’s the perspective one gets.”

Well, unpack that. What do you mean by that?

“Well, that’s not being negative about the province. It is about the issues at the federal level are much larger, much larger, whether it’s the pipelines, whether it’s the foreign policy, whether it’s extremism, whether it’s Iraq. It’s just… the canvas is much larger and the sky is the limit in terms of the issues and the ideas you can discuss. In that sense, the provincial scene is rather limited.”

It’s also been five years since you left public life after that 2011 election. What are your thoughts on federal politics since then? When you left, Mr. Ignatieff was the leader. Things weren’t looking good for the Liberal Party, certainly nationally. Now it’s apparently “sunny ways,” at least until last week. What do you make of that change?

“I think people were looking for change. Mr. Harper had been there for over eight years and, you know, government over the years makes a number of enemies and loses friends and that’s why the parties don’t win, the governments lose, and I think that’s exactly what happened. In this case, Mr. Trudeau out-campaigned Mr. Mulcair, strategically to the left of Mr. Mulcair, which was a good thing and a great victory, great victory.”

Do you miss the scene at all?

“No. Not at all, not at all. Occasionally, I miss the cut-and-thrust of debate because it gives you a stage to say something when you’re there but, other than that, I don’t miss anything.”

One line in the book that really stuck with me was, “Great leaders with great ideas are now sadly absent from the world stage.” Do you despair for the future?

“I despair for the present, I’m hopeful for the future. Presently, you have two leaders, Republican and Democrat, going to battle it out and one is not necessarily more attractive than the other, although Hillary, ideologically, is great and she’s done great work over the years, but she isn’t really exciting. Mr. Trump, as you know, is not someone who is my cup of tea because he is xenophobic, he’s brash, he’s insulting, he belittles people all the time and so, what kind of leader is he going to make? You know, Obama had great potential but the Tea Party prevented him from realizing his potential and making America greater than before. America is great already, I don’t think Mr. Trump can make it greater, he’ll make it worse.”

Are you feeling the Bern at all?

“No, not at all. Because I think his campaign, although it has touched a nerve on the left of the political spectrum, comes at it from a very unrealistic place. He’s never been part of a caucus. He’s only become a Democrat recently. Both he and Mr. Trump, in different ways, are representing sort of the sense of alienation that people have, both on the left and the right, from their traditional representatives. When I was 20, I would have agreed with him: free education for everybody, free healthcare for everybody, lower taxes for everybody. Well, you can’t have all that. Somebody’s got to pay for it, right? I think there should be free healthcare for everybody but then we all have to pay.

I think in that sense he’s very inspiring for people who are hurting, but I think he’s unrealistic. I think if he’s the Democratic nominee, people would be very disappointed because he wouldn’t be able to do the things he’s promising. Same with Trump. He wouldn’t be able to have China bow in submission to the United States of America. No country, small or big, ever bows nowadays. Those old times are gone. So, I think Mr. Trump is raising unrealistic expectations on the right and Mr. Sanders is raising them on the left. I think if either of them ever gets to be president, people will be very disappointed because they wouldn’t be able to do the things they say they want to do.”

What are you passionate about these days? Towards the end of the book, you talk about turning back to India.

“I haven’t written a local blog for the last two or three weeks. I blog regularly otherwise on Canadian issues, on international issues, at ujjaldosanjh.org I’m passionate about that. I’ve been busy doing some other stuff right now. I’m also passionate about writing about India because one of the major newspapers, the Indian Express, has asked me to write a web column for them every week and I’ve been doing it for the last six or seven months. I’m also writing something additional for the Indian edition of the book, which is going to be published in India.”

And that gives you passion these days?

“You know, if I’m writing about issues here, I’m writing about issues that matter, whether it’s electoral reform or whatever else. I mean, India has so many issues: a humongous country with huge issue, great poverty, endemic corruption, great potential, but little of that is being realized. So, the sky is the limit as to what you can write and do and I intend to go there more often. I usually go there once a year. I might start going twice a year. But Canada is home. You know, I have children, grandchildren born and raised in Canada and I’m a Canadian citizen, here I am. But I can aspire to do some work for other places that nurtured me as well.”

So that keeps you busy?

“Absolutely.”

“Journey After Midnight: India, Canada, and the Road Beyond” is in stores now.