Justin Trudeau and Narendra Modi need to take a breath. They need to remind themselves that India and Canada, are friends.
For the Canadian Prime Minister to publicly accuse the Indian government of having a role in the killing of a Canadian citizen, was huge. For a friendly country. As big as the charge itself. India has never been accused of carrying out a targeted killing of a citizen of a friendly nation, on that country’s soil.
At the moment, shrillness prevails. After the tit-for-tat expulsion of diplomats, India suspended visa services for Canadian nationals wanting to travel to India and also issued a travel advisory to Indian nationals in Canada calling for ‘utmost caution’ in the light of ‘politically condoned’ hate crimes there.
BJP National Vice President Jay Panda has accused Canada of “patronising and supporting terrorists” on its own soil, adding, “These terrorists are not just targeting India, they have killed hundreds of Canadian citizens too.” Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has blamed Trudeau for “jeopardising.. a very good relationship”.
Can Trudeau prove that India had a role in the killing of Harjeet Nijjar?
He hasn’t made any evidence public yet. Has he shared any evidence behind closed doors with India, or with key allies, the US and UK? There’s no clear indication of that either.
Quite frankly, from here on, any ‘evidence’ and ‘counter-evidence’ that Canada or India share about the Nijjar killing in the public space, may have no relevance, because it is now a bit like a ‘contaminated’ crime scene, with ‘narratives’ competing for their respective audiences in Canada and India.
The Khalistan Question in Canada
Let’s look at what may be driving Trudeau’s ‘narrative’.
The standout fact is that his Liberal Party minority government relies on Jagmeet ‘Jimmy’ Dhaliwal’s New Democratic Party to stay in power and that Dhaliwal is a Khalistan sympathizer.
Trudeau lost his majority in Canada’s 2021 election. Dropping to 157 seats in a House of Commons with 338 seats, Trudeau needs the 24 seats that NDP holds in the house.
This gives Dhaliwal massive leverage over Trudeau’s political future. So, was Trudeau pressured to make the statement? Was there credible evidence? Or was he arm-twisted into making an exaggerated claim that has thrown India and Canada into their worst-ever diplomatic face-off? Could be. Don’t know. Seems so.
India has called the accusation ‘absurd and motivated’, and is within its rights to say so. But India must also press pause. Yes, Canada has struggled to control pro-Khalistan extremists – it has ignored death threats to Indian diplomats and threats to Canadian Hindus by radicals like Gurpatwant Pannu.
Even the gun-toting Nijjar had a free rein in Canada, and Canada-based gangsters have owned up to killings in India - like Goldy Brar, who claimed to have master-minded rapper singer Sidhu Moosewala’s assassination in Punjab in May 2022.
India Must Choose Diplomacy Over Everything Else
And yet, despite this very substantial grudge list, India must continue to pick diplomacy over the option of targeted killings in Canada. Because we are still extremely friendly nations. And, that is significant.
Both countries have deep cultural, historical, economic, and political ties. There’s a shared colonial history. Indians and Canadians have fought side by side in two world wars. A century later, Canada and India are again key allies of the USA against China, with shared strategic interests in the Asia-Pacific region.
Most important of all, is the emotional bond that has grown in leaps over the decades. Today, millions of Indians live, work, and study in Canada. Millions have become Canadian citizens, and feel fully embraced there. Millions of Indians have relatives, friends, and colleagues in every part of Canada.
This author’s daughter is studying there, his ‘taya’ and ‘chacha’ have lived in Toronto for almost 60 years, and there are also 5 first cousins, some of whom have also had kids! Yes, the links, the connections, the empathies, are too great, too old, too precious.
While India has a thin line to walk, Canada is skating on even thinner ice, despite having paid a heavy price for being lax about Khalistan sympathizers in the past. In June 1985, the bombing of Air India Flight 182 from Montreal to Mumbai via London and Delhi, claimed 329 lives. 268 of them were Canadian citizens, mostly of Indian origin. Just one man was convicted.
An inquiry set up by Canadian authorities, concluded almost 25 years after the attack, that “catastrophic failures of intelligence, policing and air security led to the bombing”, and that “prosecutorial lapses” allowed the main accused to get away, with mass murder, literally.
What Trudeau Needs to Understand About the Diaspora
In 2023, why is Trudeau going down that road again?
Here is an indicator - an Angus Reid Institute study conducted in 2023 has shown that 90% of Canadians have almost no knowledge of the Air India bomb attack. And of the 10% who were aware, just a third were aware that the key culprits were never convicted. Since AI #182 isn’t seared on the Canadian psyche like a 9/11 or a 26/11, Trudeau hopes he can play down this ‘K’ problem and prioritise political survival.
But this is not the Canada of the ‘80s. The Indian, Punjabi, and Sikh diaspora have grown substantially since then. Their numbers, their financial clout, and their presence in politics too, have grown. Even some of the most notorious crime cartels are of Punjabi and Sikh origin.
The worry for Trudeau is not just Khalistani separatists using Canada to plot violence in India, it should also be about them harming the social fabric of Canada itself. Sectarian violence is growing in Canada, and Hindu temples have been vandalized. The ‘rule of law’ has been sluggish in addressing these incidents.
A politically ‘aware’ Trudeau should also note that if he bows to the extremist Sikh sentiment, he may alienate the rest of the Indo-Canadian population, of which Hindus are 27%, Muslims 17%, and Christians 16%. The Sikhs are 34% of the Indo-Canadian population, many of whom have no truck with the extremists.
Also, it may sound speculative, but an alignment of Punjabi crime cartels - becoming a source of funding, arms, and logistics - with extremist elements within Canada, could hurt a tranquil peace-loving society.
In fact, Canada could learn from India’s own experience with extremist elements being backed for narrow, short-term political gains. These elements can go rogue and become a liability and a menace. The Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale saga is a case in point.
And that’s not all.
India has also had the experience of the ‘underworld’ coming together with extremist elements to spread terror. Mumbai’s 1993 serial blasts that killed 257 people is at least one deadly example. It’s likely that other terror strikes in India - such as Mumbai’s 7/11 serial local train blasts in 2006, which killed 209 people – were similarly executed.
The Way Ahead for India
While there are several warning bells for Canada, that it must heed for its own sake, and for India, pushing for this diplomatically remains the best approach. And here too, tarring Canada black will not work. Shrillness will not work for both countries. Stepping away from the media glare, their respective top diplomats need to put their heads together and ramp down the tension and blame game.
If needed, take the help of common friends like the US and UK. For instance, get the US and UK to tell Dhaliwal that they would not deal with his NDP unless he toned down his pro-extremist rhetoric. That would reduce his leverage over Trudeau, who could then get tougher on Khalistanis in Canada.
It would also serve India to keep in mind, that even now, despite its rapid rise in significance globally, Canada does sit a couple of notches above India when it comes to military, geo-strategic, and political ties, for the US, UK, and Australia.
Trudeau has even hinted at that advantage while referring to the ‘Five Eyes’ alliance, a grouping of the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada for intelligence sharing. Canadian authorities have reportedly indicated that it was intelligence provided by a key ‘Five Eye’ ally that has led them to explore the role of the Indian government in Harjeet Nijjar’s killing.
So India should be resolute, and EAM S Jaishankar can be depended upon to talk tough, but we may not want a situation where the US or the UK have to pick a side. That could happen if India asserted its ‘right’ to target anti-India actors on foreign soil, especially a nation friendly to the US and UK, such as Canada.
Instead, India must leverage the fact that these countries have a stake in a stable India and a stable Canada, which can be dented by Sikh extremism. And so, we could call on them to ‘nudge’ Justin Trudeau to step back from his chumminess with pro-Khalistan elements.
It would be a sad day for millions of Indian fans if Sunny Leone had to heed a travel advisory and head back home to Canada.
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