Like kidnap of Sun Yat-sen in 1890s London, murder of a Sikh separatist and attempt to kill another in North America elevates their cause
- Hardeep Singh Nijjar was murdered in Canada, while an attempt to kill another Sikh separatist activist, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, on US soil has been foiled
- The attacks’ unintended effect has been to draw attention to the activists’ cause, just as his 1896 kidnap raised Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen’s profile
The Financial Times reported last week that the United States had foiled an attempt to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on US soil. On November 29 the Justice Department said an Indian national had been charged with plotting to assassinate Pannun, and alleged an Indian government official was also involved in the planning. The US government has raised concerns with New Delhi.
Pannun is a prominent Sikh activist who campaigns for a Sikh nation independent from India, as was Nijjar, who was found dead with gunshot wounds in Surrey, British Columbia in June this year. The Indian government denies any involvement in the attempt on Pannun’s life and Nijjar’s murder.
Indian officials expressed “surprise and concern” at the accusations, saying that extraterritorial assassinations were “not their policy”.
Sun, a Chinese revolutionary who was wanted in China for his campaign to overthrow the Qing dynasty (1644–1912), arrived in London in September 1896.
In early October, Sun visited his friends James Cantlie and Patrick Manson, both medical doctors who had taught him when he was a student at the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese. Cantlie’s and Manson’s homes were near the Chinese legation in London, which, during his visits, Sun walked past several times.
On October 11, Sun was walking in front of the legation again when he was set upon and dragged inside. For a few days, none of his friends and acquaintances in London knew where he was.
In the legation, the Chinese minister and his staff were planning to quietly ship Sun back to China, where it was certain that he would be decapitated for high treason.
On October 17, a sympathetic housekeeper working at the Chinese legation secretly sent word to Cantlie to inform him that Sun had been kidnapped and was being held prisoner. Cantlie and Manson took immediate actions to rescue their friend.
They tried legal and political means by reporting the incident to Scotland Yard, and appealing to Halliday Macartney, who was counsellor to the Chinese legation, and the Foreign Office to intervene. But they were met with lukewarm and evasive responses.
Sun Yat-sen, Yuan Shikai and China’s change to a republic
Then they approached the press. The public outrage following reports in The Times and other newspapers on Sun’s illegal abduction and detention on British soil forced the Foreign Office to act.
The British prime minister Lord Salisbury (who was also Foreign Secretary) finally delivered an ultimatum to the Chinese legation: release Sun or the entire Chinese legation would be expelled from the country.
Sun Yat-sen was freed on October 23, 12 days after he was kidnapped.
There are several theories about the identity of the mastermind or masterminds behind Sun’s kidnapping. The order might have come all the way from the imperial court in Beijing, or it might have been an initiative of the Chinese minister in London, with an eye towards his future career advancement.
Some pointed the finger at Macartney, who had a long official and personal connection with China, accusing him of wanting to please his Chinese employers.
The kidnapping of Sun Yat-sen became a cause célèbre. Besides the extensive press coverage, the popular book that he wrote shortly afterwards, Kidnapped in London, transformed him from a struggling revolutionary in exile to an international statesman-in-waiting. This was definitely not the outcome his kidnappers had hoped for.
Before the killing and attempted murder of Sikh activists in North America, most people in the world didn’t know that there was a Sikh separatist movement. Now we do.
