The Consulate General of India in Vancouver held the country’s 76th Independence Day celebrations in the city of Surrey for the first time. Surrey, a city in British Columbia, is the hotbed of Khalistani separatists. Guru Nanak Sikh Gudwara and Dashmesh Darbar Gurdwara in Surrey are anti India and pro Khalistan. The celebratory events in the British Columbia city were held amid growing concerns over the activities of Khalistan radicals following the assassination of Ripudaman Malik, the man acquitted in the 1985 Air India bombing.
“Amrit Mahotsav Concert" at Michael J. Fox Theatre, Burnaby.
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Surrey mayor Dough McCallum issued a proclamation declaring Aug 15, 2022 as “Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav Day” in the city. The proclamation highlighted the strong bilateral relationship between India and British Columbia, which is home to over 400,000 people of Indian descent.
“[Like] the history of India's freedom movement, the journey of 75 years after independence is a reflection of the hard work, innovation, enterprise of ordinary Indians whether in the country or abroad,” the proclamation read.
Separate but similar proclamations were issued by mayors of Nanaimo, Burnaby, Victoria, and New Westminster.
The “Amrit Mahotsav Concert" at Michael J. Fox Theatre, Burnaby, was organized by the Consulate General of India in Vancouver in collaboration with Naad Arts Centre, Surrey. Kathak, Laavni, Gidha performance, Bhratnatyam dance and Indian Classical Fusion were the highlights of the concert.
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The event was attended by over 600 people, including Raj Chouhan, Speaker, Legislative Assembly of BC, Randy Weakes, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan, Jinny Sims, Member of Legislative Assembly, Government of British Columbia, Councillor Sav Dhaliwal, City of Burnaby, along with a number of Member of Parliaments, Members of Legislative Assembly of British Columbia and City Councilors.
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The event was attended by over 600 people, including Raj Chouhan, Speaker, Legislative Assembly of BC, Randy Weakes, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan, Jinny Sims, Member of Legislative Assembly, Government of British Columbia, Councillor Sav Dhaliwal, City of Burnaby, along with a number of Member of Parliaments, Members of Legislative Assembly of British Columbia and City Councilors.
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Addressing the event, Consul General Manish said in his welcome remarks that the Amrit Mahotsav concert, organized under “Jan Bhagidari“ (peoples participation) mode, was a celebration of the rich and diverse cultural heritage of India.
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.
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Home/World News/In a first, I-Day celebrations held in Canada's hotbed of Khalistani radicals
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