Janmeet Singh Khalra (Jaswant Singh Khalra’s Son)

Some Lesser Known Facts About Janmeet Singh Khalra

• Janmeet Singh Khalra is a Calgary-based human rights activist who is known for being the son of prominent Sikh human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra.

• His ancestral village is Khalra, Punjab. In 1985, his parents moved to Amritsar, where his mother started working at the Bhai Gurdas Library at Guru Nanak University, while his father worked as the director of a bank.
  

  

  

• Activism and the zeal to fight against social injustice have existed in the Khalra family for generations. Janmeet’s ancestor Sura Singh fought alongside Banda Singh Bahadur, a Sikh warrior and commander of the Khalsa army. Janmeet’s great-great-grandfather, Aroor Singh, was a member of the Singh Sabha movement. Janmeet’s great-grandfather, Harnam Singh, was a passenger on the ship Komagata Maru (also called Guru Nanak Jahaz) along with Baba Gurdit Singh, who challenged the British and Canadian exclusion laws that were preventing Punjabis from immigrating to Canada.
  

  

  Out of the 376 passengers on the ship, only 24 were admitted to Canada. The rest were not allowed to disembark in Canada, and the ship was forced to return to India. Upon the ship’s arrival in India, Harnam Singh was arrested and jailed in the Lahore conspiracy case. After completing his sentence Harnam Singh went to Shanghai, China, where he was involved in the revolutionary activities of the Ghadar Party.

• In the aftermath of Operation Blue Star, the assassination of Indira Gandhi, and the 1984 Anti-Sikh Riots, Janmeet ‘s father, Jaswant Singh, turned into a human rights activist. His investigation into the Punjab police’s involvement in 25,000 unlawful killings and cremations gained worldwide recognition following which he was abducted and killed by the Punjab Police in 1995. At that time, Janmeet was just eight years old. Watching his father fighting for human rights embedded activism in Janmeet as well. Therefore, after his father’s death, he joined hands with her mother and sister to keep Jaswant Singh’s legacy alive by advocating for human rights through the Khalra Mission Organization.
  

  
• Janmeet actively advocates for the Sikh cause to the Sikh diaspora and other communities. He passionately shares his father’s story and speaks about him at various religious and cultural gatherings in India and abroad.

  

• In 2022, it was announced that Punjabi singer and actor Diljit Dosanjh would be portraying the role of Jaswant Singh Khalra in his biopic. Diljit while shooting in Amristar for the biopic faced a lot of criticism and protest on the sets saying that “he was not pious according to them.” They also called him “Videshi” and said that he was too “westernised” to play the role. Thereafter, Paramjit made an announcement on her social media platforms, stating that the Khalra Family had officially granted permission to director Honey Trehan for the production of the biopic. Diljit Dosanjh later shared a screenshot of Paramjit Kaur’s post on his Instagram account.