To most of the world, the Indian government’s response to Canada’s charge that it may have sponsored the murder of a Sikh activist in British Columbia must be befuddling. India has strenuously denied the charges, for which Canada provided no evidence publicly as yet.
But the Indian government has also gone further and blasted Canada for supposedly hosting a "nexus of terrorism,” serving as a "safe haven” for extremism and organized crime, and much else. Indian investigators have even released a list of what they call "terror-gangster networks” based in Canada. This is all absurdly detached from Canada’s popular image as a polite and welcoming multicultural utopia.
India’s rage is misplaced and hardly serves to endear the country to those appalled by the idea that it may have had a Canadian citizen killed. Still, it does reflect widespread sentiment — in India and beyond — that many countries in the West have long paid insufficient attention to the overseas activism of the immigrant communities they host.