The politics behind Canada and India’s diplomatic tiff

Relations between Canada and India are trapped in a downward spiral following an explosive statement by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that alleged “potential” Indian involvement in the June killing near Vancouver of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Sikh leader in British Columbia.

Trudeau, who made the comment before the Canadian Parliament, should have let the police complete investigations, charge alleged killers, give evidence of official complicity and then request Indian assistance.

Instead, in effect, he told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, we think you are guilty; help us prove it. The depth of Indian anger at the absurd charge is evident in Foreign Ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi's describing of Canada as a “safe haven” for “terrorists, extremists and organized crime,” language normally reserved for Pakistan.

Trudeau said Indian involvement was brought to his attention by Canada's security services. Of course countries conduct intelligence gathering operations. Friendly countries inform one another of agents posted in their missions. As India's power and global interests grow, so will its intelligence capabilities. But at present the focus of its external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, is India's own neighborhood and the tools of its trade craft are bribery and blackmail more than guns.

There is also historical baggage weighing down India-Canada relations. There has been long-simmering resentment in Ottawa at the perceived "betrayal" by India when it used Canadian-supplied reactors to conduct a nuclear test in 1974, adding insult to injury by calling it a “peaceful nuclear explosion.” Then-Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (1968-79 and 1980-84), the current Canadian leader’s father, was also irritated by Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s propensity to moralize.

Today it is Indians who are put off by what many see as the younger Trudeau’s virtue signaling, self-righteousness that has glamorized race and gender-obsessed identity politics. He is the one who has been blind to the sensitivity of the Sikh factor in distorting bilateral relations, as I warned in 2016.

The agitation for Khalistan as a separate homeland for Sikhs had died out in India by the end of the 1980s but left a bitter legacy of terrorism, the assassination of Gandhi and an anti-Sikh pogrom in which 3,000 Sikhs were butchered.

Canadian-based Sikh extremists blew up an Air India passenger jet in 1985 killing 329 people, mostly Canadian citizens and residents. It was the biggest mass murder in Canadian history.

In 1982, India’s request to extradite Talwinder Singh Parmar was reportedly rebuffed by Canada. He was one of the architects of the Air India bombing.

Numbering 770,00, Sikhs account for nearly 2% of Canada’s population and under half of Indo-Canadians. They are one of the most politically organized and engaged ethnic communities. Their geographical concentration in Ontario and British Columbia suburbs gives them an outsize role in determining the outcome of close elections.

Omer Aziz, a former foreign policy adviser to Trudeau, wrote in the Globe and Mail on Sep. 22 that in government he witnessed how, as politicians played up ethnic grievances to win votes, “Canada’s ethnic domestic battles were distorting our long-term foreign policy priorities.” An editorial in The Indian Express concluded, “Trudeau appears to be engaging in toxic domestic politics by playing to the extremist fringe of the Sikh diaspora.”

Amarinder Singh was the Sikh chief minister of Punjab 2002-07 and 2017-21. He wrote on Sep. 23 that during Trudeau’s 2018 trip to the state of Punjab, he gave the Canadian leader the names of “nine category-A terrorists” on India’s most wanted list, including Nijjar. Nothing happened. He dismisses Trudeau’s allegations of Indian involvement in the killing and noncooperation in the investigation as a classic case of "the pot calling the kettle black.” He adds: “It is common knowledge that Nijjar was killed because of rivalry over local gurdwara (Sikh temple) politics.”

Trudeau’s minority government is reliant on New Democratic Party support to stay in power. Its Sikh leader, Jagmeet Singh, is viewed in India, with some justification, as a known Khalistan promoter and supporter.

Modi has cultivated a strongman persona as a muscular nationalist. Should it be confirmed that India executed a successful hit on a wanted alleged terrorist in Canada, international reputational costs notwithstanding, it would give a massive boost to his popularity.

In the context of how Western-based diaspora communities can encourage covert operations and military interventions, as in Iraq in 2003, it could also cement India’s reputation in the Global South as a country able to stand up for its interests.

If the allegations are not substantiated, Trudeau will damage his standing in Canada and internationally and worsen already strained relations with India. Attention will focus on the foreign policy risks of diaspora communities and Canada’s lukewarm efforts to rein in their excesses. Another example from South Asia is the presence of significant numbers of Sri Lankans and their role in financing the Tamil Tigers in that country's civil war. Many Canadians feel growing unease at migrant communities importing the troubles of their homelands into Canada.

Allies will not be happy at being put in the middle of a bilateral spat to which Trudeau has contributed by failing to recognize the complexities and magnitude of India’s internal security challenges and not taking its concerns seriously. David Cohen, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, confirmed that “shared intelligence among Five Eyes partners” had informed Trudeau of possible Indian involvement. Yet, allies have issued only boilerplate statements in support.

Canada is a dependable but also a dependent ally and not a first tier global power. Its soft-power credentials are a liability when the world has pivoted into a hard-power moment. India is the anchor of the West's Indo-Pacific strategy. Canada is outside both "the Quad" and Aukus as the main bulwarks of resistance to China. More than putting India in the dock, Christopher Sands, director of the Canada Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, told the BBC, Trudeau’s allegations have exposed Canada’s “moment of weakness.”

Trudeau’s star power has faded over the course of the year. He has been buffeted by allegations of Chinese interference in Canadian elections to help him stay in power and criticized for the tardiness and softness of his response. Payment on the COVID-19-era economic shutdowns and subsidies has come due in the form of inflationary pressures. The opposition Conservative Party has even pulled ahead in the polls with the election by rank-and-file members of a new leader who has overtaken Trudeau in popularity, even among young Canadians.

Carson Jerema, a National Post editor, writes that causing a scene by creating an international incident with allegations India’s government “is behind the murder of a Canadian citizen could be exactly the point.” At a time of sinking popularity, almost “everything this government does is calculated for political gain.”