Yall best educate yourselves
Apologies for interrupting this subs normal feed of useless gossip, influencer bashing, those of us single wondering if we will die alone or those of us partnered talking about who is cheating on who (before you come at me, I engage in it too; its fun but ultimately useless).
However since this is one of the biggest communities on reddit for those in the Punjabi diaspora, I wanted to drop in and say one thing: go watch Satluj aka Punjab 95 starring Diljit Dosanjh. Amazing film about the life and death of Jaswant Singh Khalra. If you do not know who he is, you should. Look him up or ask elder family members.
Only reason why I mention this is this man is criminally unknown among second generation Punjabis. Most of my friends do not know who he is. He was a human rights activist who uncovered the forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings of +25k people in Punjab from 1985 to 1995. He is known as the inheritor of unclaimed bodies because he took on the cause of finding all those killed with impunity by the Punjab Police and cremated without their families knowledge. I guarantee you if your family lived in Punjab at that time, they were affected by it.
For the Canadians in the crowd, he presented his evidence in the house of commons when he could not present it in his home country. A glimmer of pride for me as a Canadian Punjabi. Canada offered him asylum, he chose to go back to continue his work knowing full well he would suffer the same fate. He was abducted from outside his house when washing his car, tortured for 2 months, killed then his body was disposed of behind his family's back.
Diljit made the film 3 years ago, it has been censored in India ever since, just released internationally (google it you will find a link easily).
If you would like a deeper dive into the crimes against humanity committed in Punjab at that time, check out this website which features testimonials videos and data from the victims and cops who participated in that bloodbath: https://www.ensaaf.org/ (look up who was murdered around your pind on the map, you actually might be shocked)
For those of you further inclined and can still manage to read non brain rot content, here is a comprehensive report compiled by Human Rights Watch on Police Impunity and Murder in Punjab: https://www.hrw.org/report/2007/10/17/protecting-killers/policy-impunity-punjab-india
I have no reason to convince you to do any of these things, thank god most of us live in free countries so no one can force you to. I will tell you though that this is part of our people's story and no one else is responsible for carrying this story except us, if you choose not to do carry this story no one else will.
Also check out this video by AkAmazing translating a portion of his speech, gives me chills every time I hear it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG_vpLRDT-Q
Back to regularly scheduled programming.