Fewer than 50 people showed up at the Air India memorial service held Sunday (June 23) at Vancouver's Stanley Park. After deducting family members of the victims of the Air India bombings, hardly two dozen people gathered to remember 331 people who died in the tragedy on June 23, 1985.

The service was held near the monument built in memory of those who lost their lives in the terrorist attack, which has been blamed on Sikh separatists seeking revenge for ugly political events of 1984.

In that year, the Indian army stormed the Golden Temple complex, the Sikhs' holiest shrine in Amritsar, to flush out armed militants. Extremists holed up inside the temple were held responsible by the Indian government for violence against Hindus and political adversaries. Following the army attack, then–Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards. This resulted in large-scale massacres of Sikhs engineered by senior members of Gandhi's Congress party.  

Among those in attendance at the June 23 memorial was Vancouver Ross Street Sikh Temple vice president Major Singh Sidhu, who lost his sister, a nephew, and a niece in the bombing aboard Air India Flight 182. Perviz Madon, who lost her husband, and Renee Saklikar, who lost her aunt and uncle, were also present. B.C. has far fewer Air India victims' families than Ontario. 

Although Vancouver has a large population of Indo Canadians, a negligible number showed up. Even the South Asian media and prominent moderate and secular leaders of the community were absent. The elected representatives from the Indo Canadian community were nowhere in the picture, even though there are three Indo Canadian MPs and three Indo Canadian MLAs from Greater Vancouver. 

The memorial service included prayer by Ross Street Sikh temple priest Harminderpal Singh. Those who spoke in solidarity with the victims' families included two MLAs, Adrian Dix and Richard Lee. (Dix is married to Saklikar.) Former MLA Dave Hayer also paid tributes. His father, Tara Singh Hayer, was murdered after he agreed to testify against the Air India suspects.

Ross Street Sikh Temple president Sohan Singh Deo and deputy consul general of India D.K. Sharma also spoke at the event. They and others demanded full justice for the victims' families and called for a result from the ongoing criminal investigation. 

I, too, spoke in solidarity with the victims families. There were a few calls on this topic on my live open-line radio program that morning on the Air India anniversary.

The service remained short and brief as attendance was very thin. However, there was nothing unusual about that. There have never been many people at the annual memorial service for the Air India victims in Vancouver.

This is despite the fact that it was the Canadian tragedy and the worst case of aviation terrorism in world history before 9/11.

Families of victims have not only been left in cold by the mainstream, but also by those who share their heritage. If the Canadian establishment was responsible for delaying and mishandling the investigation either on account of racism or any other reason, Air India families have also been forgotten within the South Asian community.

There has been only one conviction for 331 murders, due in part to a lack of witnesses.

Inderjit Singh Reyat, the bomb maker, is serving time for lying under oath and for not revealing the identity of a potential suspect. He earlier served a lengthy sentence for manslaughter.

The prime suspect, Talwinder Singh Parmar, died at the hands of Indian police in 1992, while two former suspects, Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, were acquitted in B.C. Supreme Court.

There is a complete silence about Reyat in the South Asian community. Sikh clergy have never excommunicated people like Reyat for shielding suspects and participating in a mass murder, while they have often been quick ostracize moderate voices in the Punjabi community.

There were celebrations when Malik and Bagri were released. Nobody questioned Bagri for his hate speech, even after he openly said, "We won't rest in peace until we kill 50,000 Hindus." This silence has resulted in only one conviction, as nobody dares to testify. 

Whereas South Asians have shown up in big numbers to attend annual Vaisakhi parades, community fairs, or even the recently held Times of India Film Awards honouring Bollywood stars, there seems to be a general lack of passion for the Air India victims' families. So much so that rallies in support of Sikh militants seeking a theocratic homeland have always proved to be a crowd puller in Greater Vancouver—be it Devinderpal Singh Bhullar or Balwant Singh Rajoana, who are on death row for bombings in India during early 1990s. Both are die-hard pro-Khalistan militants. 

The local secular and progressive South Asian groups were also busy attending a Ghadar Party centenary event held in Delta on Sunday afternoon. Local Indian immigrants formed the Ghadar Party in 1913, wanting to carry the fight against British occupation back home. That group was secular in character and many of its members later protected Muslims from Hindu and Sikh fanatics during sectarian violence following the partition of India and Pakistan on religious lines in 1947.

Secularists who are too busy honoring these heroes of history did not find it necessary to come out and show their solidarity with victims of a Vancouver-originated crime that was an outcome of religious fanaticism. Instead of paying symbolic tributes to the Ghadar heroes, secularists should actually stand up against sectarianism that refuses to die. 

Meanwhile, a parallel vigil for Air India victims was held at the Surrey Hindu temple on Tuesday evening. Keep in mind that the Air India bombings were not an attack specifically on Hindus. They were an assault on the diversity of India. Among the dead were Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, and Parsis.

Then there are a few families that suffered double tragedies. Saklikar's aunt and uncle were Muslims. Their only son later suffered for being a Muslim during the anti-Muslim attacks in the Indian state of Gujarat in 2002.

Australia-based Anil Singh Hanse, whose father Narendra Singh Hanse was the pilot of the ill-fated Air India Flight 182, is born into a Hindu family and is married to a Sikh woman. As a Facebook friend of mine, he shared a picture of a private memorial he has at his house. It shows his dad alongside images of Hindu and Sikh gods.

Instead of organizing parallel vigils in religious places, such memorials should rather be held at a more secular setting like Stanley Park.

Polarization of different religious communities within the South Asian community is not good, and shows we have not learned anything from history.

The complete disregard of secular values have actually strengthened the forces inimical to peace and people's unity. It has always left victims of religious violence and bigotry in the cold.

The Canadian mainstream, too, should take a moment to remember those who died in the worst terrorist crime in Canadian history. It was not just a South Asian tragedy, it was a tragedy for all Canadians.

The absence of the people from the wider community at the Sunday memorial is equally unpardonable. Just because the majority of victims were brown people or the suspects were from the same community does not exonerate the Canadian establishment for its failure and complete disregard for the concerns of the people of colour.

The mainstream needs to recognize that it's not just a South Asian story, but also a Canadian story that will continue to haunt the next generation. Had the 82 children not been killed in the bombing of Air India Flight 182, they would have contributed to the development and progress of Canada.