The echoes have still not died down from the extraordinary allegation made by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He said in parliament on September 18, “Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar.”
It seems that Trudeau’s official statement was triggered by his discovery that Canadian officials were leaking the story to the media and he wanted to pre-empt the Globe and Mail. This seems preposterous—a media story would never have done a fraction of the damage that a statement in parliament by the prime minister of Canada could—but it ties in to Trudeau’s anxiety to appease the pro-Khalistan elements in his country, especially given his minority government’s dependence on political support from the New Democratic Party led by the pro-Khalistani Jagmeet Singh. It seems Trudeau wanted to ingratiate himself with them by being the one to make the announcement, rather than let the media take the credit.
The government of India has predictably reacted as the offended party and “rejected” the allegations as “absurd”. Since the initial statement and New Delhi’s reaction, both countries have taken several retaliatory steps, and tensions have escalated with each. Both have evicted intelligence officers attached to their embassies in Ottawa and New Delhi. Then India halted visa services in Canada, saying its diplomats there were not safe, and ordered Canada to reduce staffing at its embassies and consulates in India by 41, to match the size of the much smaller Indian diplomatic presence in Canada.
Meanwhile, Canada has yet to produce a shred of evidence to substantiate Trudeau’s statement. But they let it be known that they have “credible evidence” and had been in close touch with their partners in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing partnership—the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. These countries, however, have been less than fully enthusiastic about endorsing Trudeau’s allegations, mostly confining themselves to urging India to cooperate with Canada’s investigation. Since this “co-operation” boils down to “please give us the evidence we need to convict you”, it has understandably not gone very far with Delhi.
The bizarre thing is that if Canada had evidence relevant to a murder investigation, it should have taken it to court and got the killers charged and convicted; and if it had nothing that would stand up in court, which seems to be the case, but was convinced of India’s complicity, it should have conveyed its concerns to India behind closed doors, even demanded the withdrawal of a diplomat, but done so in a manner that preserved an important relationship with a friendly country. Going public was the worst possible option, and that Trudeau chose it says more about his politics than about the merits of the case.
In the build-up to this incident, the government of India released a statement after Trudeau met Narendra Modi at the G20 in New Delhi, expressing its concerns about “anti-India activities of extremist elements in Canada”. New Delhi has been seething with frustration for years at Canada’s feckless handling of the activities of Khalistanis in the Sikh diaspora. For Trudeau to self-righteously declare that Canada was a “rule of law country” sits ill with its failure to prosecute the criminals who blew up the Air India jet in 1985, killing 329 people, mostly Canadian citizens of Indian descent, and its turning a blind eye to some of its citizens inciting murder and mayhem in India.
No one knows whether Trudeau’s allegation is true, but the assumption is that it must have been based on some substantial intelligence, and this has led many international commentators to opine that India may indeed be responsible. In India, there is some scepticism as to whether India would do this, and some cynicism about whether it could even have developed the capacity to execute a target abroad. Nijjar’s death could, after all, have been a gangland killing of the type that took down another Khalistani, Ripudaman Singh Malik, last year. Internecine warfare between Khalistani groups is hardly unknown.
“India’s denials could reflect the government’s innocence,” writes Christopher Clary, an American professor who has closely studied the issue, “but clandestine violence often remains unacknowledged officially because of the legal implications of doing so. Just as people say hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, it is similarly the case that refusing to officially acknowledge extrajudicial killing is the tribute the intelligence community pays to international law.” India has traditionally been proud of its adherence to international norms, and would want to continue to be regarded around the world as a law-abiding state.
Whatever other countries may believe actually happened, Trudeau has been largely isolated in his efforts to drum up support globally for his allegations. No government seems particularly keen to damage its relations with India by aligning itself on Canada’s side. Just as there were compelling reasons for many nations to choose not to make an issue of credible allegations that Saudi Arabian agents killed journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, most governments find their relationship with India far more important than scoring moral points over an issue that most feel Trudeau has mismanaged.
In the process, Prime Minister Modi has gained domestically, both from the perception by some that he is a tough leader who will not hesitate to order a killing abroad to protect India from foreign threats, and by others that he has handled the problem diplomatically better than Trudeau has. Either way, Trudeau has not hurt Modi in the slightest and may have helped him with some voters in the lead-up to Lok Sabha elections next year.
Nonetheless, the Indo-Canadian relationship is important. We have significant trade relations; Canada hosts 1.4 million citizens of Indian descent and its largest group of overseas students is Indian. In 2022, India had a staggering 226,450 students holding Canadian study permits. Canada does matter, and it would be a shame if, once tempers have cooled, we did not take steps to bring the relationship back to an even keel.
Shashi Tharoor
Third-term Lok Sabha MP from Thiruvananthapuram and the Sahitya-Akademi winning author of 24 books, most recently Ambedkar: A Life
(office@tharoor.in)