Indian government caught spying on Sikhs in Germany

The Consulate General of India in Hamburg, Germany has been discovered to be asking people to provide the names and addresses of Sikh diaspora in Germany.

The revelation comes after two high-profile cases in which Indian nationals were found to be spying on the Sikh community in Germany.

The news was shared by Dr Ritumbra Manuvie, lecturer at the University of Groningen, who posted evidence on Twitter of an email from the Indian Ministry of External Affairs in Hamburg.

Dr Manuvie also added that as a resident of Europe, she initially assumed the email was fake, and so she wrote a message to the official Twitter account of the Consulate General of India in Hamburg to confirm its authenticity. The account confirmed that the email is indeed from the Consulate and that it has shared the official email.

The official twitter account of the Consulate General of India, however, chose not respond to public questioning and scrutiny of the email.

The email has drawn even more attention to the underhanded ways in which the Indian government has been operating towards Sikhs in India as well as Sikh diaspora. Observers likened the government’s oppressive conduct to the behaviour of the Nazi Germany, and questioned whether the request to collect information on German residents is in direct violation of Europe’s data protection laws.

Meanwhile, others pointed out that such oppression of Sikhs is nothing new to the Indian government, which seeks to criminalise Sikhs in Punjab and abroad. There were two recent high profile instances in Germany alone, and there are suspicions that the Indian government is monitoring Sikh diaspora in other countries as well. Prominent Sikh activist social media accounts have been suspended as tech companies have bent to the will of the oppressive regime in India.

Robin Singh, a Hamburg Sikh community figure involved in seva (selfless service) within various circles through Germany, said of the discovery of the email: “We are speaking to lawyers and to the data protection officer of Hamburg, to review this act by the Indian Consulate.

“We are aware of various pushes for Sikh community data, including a recent petition being circled in regards to the kisaan (farmers) protests in India. Misuse of such information will breach European GDPR rules, making it illegal. As such, even though this is a complicated case and will take time, we are prepared to stay the course for the rights of Sikhs in Germany.”

Robin Singh added, “The sangat (Sikh congregation) is confused as to why India is keen on keeping tabs on the community. When we reached out to the Indian consulate for support on dastaar (turban) rights in Europe and we were ignored. We are willing to openly discuss our grievances regarding India, where Sikhs as a minority community have less rights than we do in Germany.

“There is fear that we will be profiled using the information gathered on us. After all the spying incidents, this is is further scarring. We have reason to believe this spying on the community isn’t just taking place in Germany but all over the world. We are just lucky these emails were leaked so we have concrete proof of how the Government of India is spying on Sikhs.”

There is currently an ongoing trial of an Indian citizen charged with spying on Sikh and Kashmiri communities in Frankfurt.  54-year-old Balvir S. is suspected of having had ties to India’s Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) since January 2015. He allegedly collected information about the the Sikh and Kashmiri separatist movements in Germany for RAW senior officers at the Indian Consulate General in Frankfurt. His trial is expected to conclude at the end of October.

At the end of last year, a German court also convicted an Indian married couple of spying on Kashmiri and Sikh groups in Germany on behalf of India’s foreign intelligence service. The court in Frankfurt found Manmohan Singh, 50, and his wife, Kanwal Jit Kaur, 51, guilty of handing information on such groups to India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).