When Balbir Singh Sr. took his last breath on Monday (May 25), Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi went on Twitter to offer his condolences to the family of the deceased and his well-wishers.

After all, Singh was a towering field hockey icon. A triple Olympic gold medallist, he was awarded the Padma Shree, the fourth-highest civilian award of the Indian republic, for his contribution to the field of sports.

Singh died at the age of 95 in a hospital in Mohali, Punjab.

https://twitter.com/narendramodi/status/1264807813949173760

Some of his close relatives live in B.C. and he had a huge following in Canada. Singh also had a home in Burnaby.

Delta North NDP MLA and a former national-team field hockey player Ravi Kahlon is one of those in Sikh diaspora who were influenced by him.

https://twitter.com/KahlonRav/status/1264757130311041024

What was ironic about Modi’s message was that Singh had faced discrimination for being a member of a minority community in Hindu-dominated India. This was despite the fact that he brought many laurels to the country.

Singh's supporters have always believed that he deserved the highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna, in recognition of his accomplishments. But he was neglected because of his religious background in a country where polarization has grown since Modi came to power in 2014.

Modi is the leader of currently ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is known for its antiminority prejudices.

A book on Singh, written by Canadian journalist Patrick Blennerhassett, deeply examines this question.

Entitled A Forgotten Legend: Balbir Singh Sr, Triple Olympic Gold and Modi’s New India, the biography delves into the history of India and links it with the present where attacks on religious minorities have increased under the BJP government.

Published in 2016, the book reveals how Singh also felt the pain of being constantly ignored.

Although Modi cannot be singled out for what happened to Singh, as the country has long been ruled by Congress party that claims to be secular, Modi had enough time to at least get him the highest civilian honour during the past six years.

But he didn't do that. And that can be partly blamed on Shiromani Akali Dal, the mainstream Sikh regional party of Punjab, which is an alliance partner of the BJP.

Instead, the Modi establishment conferred the Bharat Ratna last year on a highly controversial political figure, Nanaji Deshmukh. He was the leader of a Hindu supremacist organization, Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh of which the BJP is a political wing. Deshmukh justified the Sikh Genocide of 1984 in one of his writings. 

Thousands of Sikhs were murdered all over India in the first week of November 1984 following the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. They were seeking revenge for a military invasion on the Golden Temple Complex in Amritsar in June that year.

The ill-conceived army operation left many pilgrims dead and historical buildings destroyed. The government boasted that this was aimed to deal with armed militants, who had stockpiled arms inside the shrine that was used as a hideout for an insurgency. 

The attack enraged Sikhs across the globe. Many in the community felt it was designed to attract majority Hindu votes in the impending general election when other reasonable measures could have been adopted to prevent the conflict. 

The mobs, led by the slain leader’s Congress party, targeted Sikhs with the help of police in different parts of India. BJP supporters also participated in the killings to avenge the murders of Hindus in Punjab that were blamed on Sikh extremists.

This explains why the BJP lost so heavily in the election that followed and Congress got a huge mandate. It was a clear indication of the shift of BJP's hardcore Hindu vote bank to Congress in the aftermath of Sikh massacre.

Singh himself survived the 1984 violence, as he was in Delhi at that time. Blennerhassett mentions in detail about this whole episode in his book and its impact on the sensitive mind of Singh, who felt like an alien in his own country.

While we celebrate Singh’s legacy, we must also recognize the challenges faced by our heroes from minority groups and marginalized sections in a society that is unevenly divided. Some more equal than others.