The Toronto Morcha: International Students Halt Deportations to India
In Toronto, international students from east Punjab (India) successfully halted deportations with a 24/7 sit-in, one that drew inspiration from Sikhi and histories of South Asian mobilization.
The Toronto Morcha. Photo: Amardeep Kaur
From May 28th to June 14th, international students, migrant workers and community supporters from east Punjab staged a morcha (sit-in) at the International Centre in Mississauga. Mississauga and the neighbouring Brampton region are part of the Greater Toronto Area, and are a landing spot for new migrants, especially from South Asia, as they offer work opportunities in trucking, warehousing, and factories. Located not far from the airport, the International Centre where the morcha took place is host to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) headquarters and an immigrant detention centre.
Organized under the umbrella, Stand for Students, the morcha supported students and workers facing deportation in the so-called “fake admission-letter scandal.” The scandal affected over 700 students. One of them, Lovepreet Singh, had a deportation order for June 13th. Others had deportation hearings on their cases.
Canadian authorities declared that these students were ineligible for permanent residency after evidence emerged that an immigration agent in India had issued fake college admission letters to them. The students nonetheless studied and worked in Canada over the last few years through valid student and work permits issued by the Canadian government. They did this by securing admission to other colleges after they arrived. Only after applying for permanent residency did this cohort of migrants discover that they were inadmissible and thus liable for deportation.
Photo: Amardeep Kaur
“Students organized the morcha with three demands: stop the deportation threats, revoke inadmissibility, and provide a path to permanent residency...”
The deportation hearings compartmentalized the issue to a case-by-case basis, as a tactic to avoid the issue becoming public. Instigated by the urgency to fight the deportation orders, a collective grassroots movement erupted. Students organized the morcha with three demands: stop the deportation threats, revoke inadmissibility, and provide a path to permanent residency for the affected cohort of international students and workers.
Resonances with Delhi’s Kisan Morcha
The morcha started on May 28th with just a dozen people camping under a small canopy. Supporters sat and slept on a blue tarp. As the morcha grew, a larger canopy was set up. Mattresses and blankets also arrived from the local community. Following rain downpours, volunteers arrived with wooden skids and helped construct a raised platform to safeguard attendees against the rain-filled ground.
The space of the morcha was modeled after the 2020 Kisan Morcha, a one-year long sit-in by farmers in Delhi which contested the neoliberalization of agriculture. The strong participation of Sikh farmers from Punjab and Haryana in the Kisan Morcha meant it engaged with Sikh practices like langar (communal food).
“Many of the students and workers have connected their struggles in Canada — be it over unpaid wages or deportations — to their previous lives in Punjab’s agrarian economy. ”
The Toronto morcha has received support from the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change (MWAC), a group for migrant worker justice in Canada, and, most crucially, the Naujawan Support Network (NSN). NSN was formed in June 2021 in the aftermath of solidarity protests in Toronto for farmers in India. Many of the protesters were young precarious labourers (truckers, student migrant workers etc.) from Punjabi Sikh communities. Employers often exploited them by under-paying or constantly withholding wages, taking advantage of the previous 20-hour work limit for student workers. Using direct action tactics, NSN recuperated much of the stolen wages of its members. Many of the students and workers have connected their struggles in Canada — be it over unpaid wages or deportations — to their previous lives in Punjab’s agrarian economy.
The Pasts and Poetics of Protest
Beyond the Delhi Morcha, the Toronto morcha drew connections to histories of South Asian agitation, from the Ghadar movement to the Komagata Maru incident. Speaking at the morcha on June 4th, NSN Member Bikramjit Singh Kullewal invoked Udham Singh and Bhagat Singh, revolutionaries associated with the Ghadar and other anti-colonial movements. He also reminded the attendees that they were assembled here as a sangat, that is, as a congregation devoted to Guru Nanak (the founder of Sikhi). “We are not ones to run away and hide,” Bikramjit Singh told the assembly. “We are people of Guru Nanak.”
Another NSN member, Deep Hazra, questioned how Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau could issue an apology for the Komagata Maru incident while the government was trying to deport these students. Back in 1914, a ship known as the SS Komagata Maru (or Guru Nanak Jahaz), which was traveling from Hong Kong to Vancouver carrying 376 mostly Punjabi passengers, was denied entry in Vancouver. Deep Hazra told me that he sees the same story repeating here. He migrated to Canada as a student in 2012 and talked about his own struggles in securing permanent status in the country.
Revolutionary poetry and songs were also performed at the morcha. Well-known Canadian Punjabi singers and poets like Rupi Kaur performed and offered words of solidarity. Migrant youth also recited poetry and performed to raise political consciousness.
Simran Kranti performing. Photo: Simran Kaur Dhunna
Simran Kranti, an international student now seeking a post-graduate work permit, read a ghazal Sach de Kaafle (Caravans of Truth) penned by her father Makhan Kranti. It spoke of how “the caravan of truth-seekers shall never fear death.” She also recited a poem by Baba Najmi, a Punjabi poet from Lahore. Her performances drew on her theatre arts background. “I employ theatre as a tool to alter society and bring about equality,” she told me. Kranti also performed to the song Mashaalan Baal Ke Chalna (Walking with Lit Flames) by Mahinder Sathi, which had been sung by farmers at the Kisan Morcha.
Sikhi Mobilized
One crucial element to the mobilization that was not recognized in media reports was Sikhi (the vernacular practice of Sikhism). The morcha drew its collective energy from Sikhi, understood as an ethos oriented toward the liberation from oppression. NSN members Simran Kaur Dhunna and Parmbir Gill have written about how their approach to direct action draws from the following insight in Guru Granth Sahib, the primary text of Sikhi:
ਆਪਣ ਹਥੀ ਆਪਣਾ ਆਪੇ ਹੀ ਕਾਜੁ ਸਵਾਰੀਐ
āpaṇa hathī āpaṇā āpē hī kāju savārī'ai
with our own hands, let us resolve our own affairs.
Since its formation, NSN has organized at nagar kirtans (political street assemblies led by Guru Granth Sahib involving devotional music and langar) to develop relationships with workers in the Brampton, Malton and Mississauga areas.
At the Toronto morcha, protestors incorporated key elements of Sikhi. I went to evenings full of seated sangat reflecting on the sacred poetry from Guru Granth Sahib. There was also an unfathomable faith in God or Waheguru for empowerment. I saw this, for instance, on the facial expressions of the sangat during Ardas, a Sikh petition that is made to Waheguru.
Reciting Sikh sacred poetry. Photo: Amardeep Kaur
Moreover, langar was organized for whoever came to the morcha. As a pluralistic space of communal food, langar entered the Sikh way of life via the Chishti Sufi order in Punjab back in the 16th century. Participants sit on the ground without shoes, regardless of one’s individual social and political status, and eat collectively. In Sikhi, langar became a standard pillar of all gurdwaras. Much of the langar for this morcha was made at the neighbourhood gurdwara, Sri Guru Singh Sabha Malton, and coordinated by Khalsa Aid Canada. Residents also contributed to the langar in their own ways. One family I spoke to, who lived close by, would warm up milk from home and distribute it to the youth on some nights.
Morcha attendees partake in langar. Photo: Amardeep Kaur
Another element of Sikhi that protestors deployed were jakaras, victorious slogans involving a call and response. At the morcha, sangat raised jakaras in rallies, speeches and meetings (where they were used as part of the decision-making process). A popular jakara was the Sat Sri Akal:
Jo Bole So Nihal,
Sat Sri Akal!Whoever Utters Shall Be Fulfilled,
True is the Timeless One!
This jakara centralizes Sikh cosmology, invoking the indivisible character of the Infinite One. The phrase relates to Sikh ideas on humanity: that we are all humans, regardless of religion, caste, and race, and that, ultimately, only the Timeless One holds the absolute Truth. In essence, this jakara challenges vertical hierarchies in human society as well as the boundaries that maintain these hierarchies. Indeed, Guru Nanak conceptualized Earth as a dharamsala, a borderless sanctuary for everyone to practice ethics. By raising Sat Sri Akal in the morcha, participants implicitly challenged the border-regime that generated and legitimated the deportations.
“the morcha built momentum by combining political and spiritual duty, a combination expressed through the Sikhi concept of miri-piri (political-spiritual).”
Ultimately, the morcha built momentum by combining political and spiritual duty, a combination expressed through the Sikhi concept of miri-piri (political-spiritual). As I witnessed it, the morcha became a horizontal relational space that sought to prefigure the making of begampura, an idea that translates as “city beyond sorrow.”
Deportations Halted
Lovepreet Singh, whose pending deportation was stayed. Photo: Amardeep Kaur
On Friday, 9 June 2023, the morcha was able to achieve a stay on Lovepreet Singh’s deportation, four days before the scheduled deportation. Speaking to the assembly, Lovepreet praised the unity of those who had supported the morcha:
Governments are shaken if sangats come together. We found courage because you assembled with us. We wouldn’t have been able to mobilize the morcha beyond even one day without you.
Lovepreet also invoked Guru Granth Sahib and the sacred poetry for showing him the way to resolve hardships.
The morcha continued as 17 others seated in the tent had upcoming case hearings on their deportation. Their post-graduate work permits expired and the government gave no clear path to permanent residency. When the stay on Lovepreet’s deportation was announced, NSN member Bikramjit Singh said in a speech that this is a collective struggle, not an individual one. The morcha would continue, he said, until there is a complete collective resolution:
There are 17 more that sit in this tent…We are not going to fight on an individual basis…We are Punjabis. If there is injustice, we know how to fight for justice.
After an 18-night long permanent protest, the morcha claimed a temporary victory on June 14th as all the deportations were halted.
In his public announcement that day, the Immigration Minister Sean Fraser granted the affected cohort of international students certain concessions. This included an 8-week case-by-case taskforce investigation, a temporary resident permit issued to the cohort that had pending deportation orders, the possibility for permanent residency for those deemed “genuine applicants,” and an appeal process for those already deported to have the potential to return.
Photo: Amardeep Kaur
Despite these concessions, groups like MWAC and NSN have raised concerns. This includes the fact that the government is individualizing cases, placing responsibility on the students to prove their innocence from fraud.
“Educational institutions profit from the international students by charging exorbitant tuition fees in an increasingly neoliberalized education system.”
Further, little has been done to hold institutions —governments, businesses, colleges, universities, and the network of immigration agents and consultants — accountable. The Canadian state and governments are complicit in this exploitative scheme through the structure of migration, economy, and borders built on stolen Indigenous land. Educational institutions profit from the international students by charging exorbitant tuition fees in an increasingly neoliberalized education system. Businesses exploit their precarious status to pay them below-minimum wages. Indeed, many of the international students from east Punjab support the Canadian economy in precarious, gig or other blue-collar jobs and face labour exploitation. The socioeconomic alienation of Sikhs in east Punjab that is driving much of this migration is another key factor in this global issue.
Morcha participants have vowed to reassemble for a 24/7 sit-in once again if government concessions prove inadequate.
Amardeep Kaur is an interdisciplinary scholar who has taught courses on Sikhism and migration at the University of Toronto and on environmental thought at York University. She has published in Sikh Formations and Political Geography. Her popular works include the poem Red Dye in the Sikh Cast. She is currently working on a book on Guru Nanak Jahaz, focusing on Sikhi and linking the historical struggle of the ship with present-day struggles in Hong Kong, Vancouver, and Toronto.