Grateful his signature was not required to recognize 1984 Sikh Genocide’: Indian-origin Jasmeet Bains slams Newsom for vetoing ‘anti-India’ SB509

While the Hindu American-Indian community thanked California Governor Gavin Newsom for stopping the controversial Senate Bill 509, the Sikh community is enraged as Assemblywoman Jasmeet Kaur Bains, a sponsor of the bill, took a swipe at Newsom and said she is grateful that Newsom’s signature was not required to recognize the 1984 Sikh Genocide.
“One bill cannot make or break my community. We stand against hate, racism and fearmongering,” Bains wrote.

What is the controversy over SB-509?

The bill had proposed that California’s law enforcement would take special training to respond to any kind of attack coming from any foreign element. While the Hindus opposed the bill, claiming that it would target them, the Sikh community supported the bill as they saw it as a protection against political violence against them. Hindus argued that California Hindus opposing the vandalisation of their neighbourhood mandir with anti-India graffiti could be labelled as proxies of the Indian government. “Additionally, the bill seeks to protect, specifically, ‘dissidents’ who are ostensibly protesting the policies of foreign governments. What this means for Hindu-Californians is that, at a time when anti-Hindu hate crimes are on rise, extremists who consider our mandirs and other sacred spaces as legitimate targets for their anti-India protests will now have legal cover and be further emboldened,” the Coalition of Hindus of North America said earlier.
The Sikh Coalition said it was a widely supported bipartisan bill to combat transnational repression against all communities in California.